Employee Engagement

In an ideal world, every company would have a thriving workforce with every employee firing on all cylinders at all times. But that simply isn't the reality. People are human, they have ups and downs, they have periods where they feel more engaged and perform better and others where they show signs of disengagement and lack motivation.

Trying to improve their engagement without a strategy in place is like trying to drive somewhere new without a map. You need a starting point, a destination you'd like to reach, and the guidance to help you navigate your way there.

As a manager, conducting employee engagement surveys can be a great way to start collecting insights and track metrics so you can reach your engagement goals. The right survey questions can help managers understand their team, boost employee engagement, motivate the team toward higher productivity, and even help ensure a healthy work-life balance.

In this article, we’ve broken down our employee engagement survey questions (and reasoning) into 10 clear categories. We also explain why to use employee survey questions, how to create them, and tips for administering them. By running these kinds of employee surveys weekly, management will be better able to stay up to speed with their employee morale and performance, and ultimately amplify team engagement.

Why use employee survey questions?

There are a number of great reasons to use employee survey questions. They provide you with valuable insights that you can then act on to help elevate and motivate the whole team. So let's dive right into the why.

The benefits of employee surveys

Better insights and progress tracking:

• Employee surveys provide valuable insights into employee opinions and feelings that you can consider moving forward.
• They allow you to identify the strengths and weaknesses within the organization so you can better leverage the strengths and find solutions to the weaknesses.
• They help measure employee engagement to better track progress and growth over time. By gathering feedback, taking action, then following up with subsequent surveys, you can really see the impact your changes are having.

Improved employee engagement and satisfaction:

• Surveys can help you identify areas where employees are not satisfied. When you know why they are unhappy about something you're able to find ways to make positive shifts.
• They provide opportunities to address concerns and improve employee morale. Knowing each person's specific challenges and aspirations can open the doors to constructive conversations.
• They increase employee motivation and loyalty by letting them know that you are in tune with them, hearing them, and supporting them.

Increased productivity:

• They help identify factors that may be hindering productivity so that managers can then address what's causing them to lose focus and help get them back on track.
• They help you tap into ways to increase productivity for each employee on your team.
• They encourage collaboration between team members and support more open communication.

Better decision making:

• They provide you with valuable insights that support a more informed decision-making process.
• They provide plenty of useful data to support management decisions.
• With the data in hand, and the ability to make more informed decisions, it also increases the likelihood of successful outcomes.

Reduced employee turnover:

• Employee engagement surveys help identify the causes of employee turnover. Knowing the underlying issues allows you to understand what’s impacting your employee turnover rate.
• Having this information helps you develop solid solutions to reduce employee turnover.
• These insights can also help increase employee retention and loyalty. Win win!

Employee surveys are a great tool to help you perform as a great leader within your company. Here are another 10 benefits of employee engagement surveys.

How to create effective employee survey questions

Now that you understand why employee survey questions are an important and valuable part of your employee engagement strategy, let's take a look at how to craft them in a way that's most optimal.

Key considerations for better survey questions

• Ensure questions are clear and easy to understand. If you want to gain clarity from the answers, be sure to provide clarity in the questions!
• Avoid questions that are too personal or intrusive. Not only does it lean toward being inappropriate, it can easily cause people to feel uncomfortable and shut down.
• Keep questions relevant to the purpose of the survey. Going off on a tangent won't garner you the information you hope to get. Keep questions focused to the point at hand.

Identifying areas to focus on

• Identify specific areas of the organization to assess. You can then tap into each one and get as in-depth as you need.
• Determine which aspects of the organization are most important to employees. This can then help you put your focus where it matters most.
• Prioritize areas that require immediate attention. Having a clearer picture of what's going on increases your efficiency in addressing what's most pressing.

Asking the right types of questions

• Open-ended questions allow for more detailed responses and provide valuable insights. Avoid asking questions that can simply be answered with a yes or no.
• Closed-ended questions are easier to analyze and provide measurable data. When you need concrete data, these are the way to go.
• Rating scale questions provide a range of responses to choose from, such as "Strongly agree" to "Strongly disagree". Use these to gauge sentiments across your teams.

Avoiding bias and leading questions

• Avoid questions that are worded in a way that leads respondents to a certain answer. Influencing their answer steers them away from what they would have naturally shared.
• Ensure questions are neutral and do not express any assumptions. Nobody wants to feel like they're under the spotlight or being interrogated.
• Avoid questions that may unintentionally offend or exclude certain groups. Be mindful of your wording and put yourself in other people's shoes to assess how a question may come off from their perspective.

Writing effective questions

• Keep questions brief and to the point. Long-winded questions can cause people to forget what's actually being asked, and have them go off-track with their answers.
• Use simple and concise language. Don't overcomplicate your questions, as you survey can become confusing and unclear.
• Avoid technical jargon or industry-specific terms. Ask questions that speak to everyone in a way they can understand.
• Test questions with a small group of employees before conducting the survey to ensure clarity and relevance. They can provide you with handy feedback that can help you better craft your questions.

Need a little guidance on how to conduct your employee engagement surveys? We've got you!

Survey questions to assess employee engagement

Being clear on how engaged your employees are feeling isn’t always easy. These employee engagement survey questions help clarify employee engagement levels, providing leaders with insightful data they can use to ensure their teams are productive, motivated, and feeling supported.

1. How would you describe the level of challenge you have at work?

Employee engagement and employee performance are complex to measure. It’s important for your team to strike a balance between being challenged to learn and building their strengths.

Let them know that the management team supports them throughout their work. Creating a safe space for them to fail forward encourages employees to feel engaged and build a growth mindset.

2. Do you know what you need to do to meet your goals and objectives?

Team productivity and engagement skyrocket when your people know how to set and meet expectations. As a manager, it’s vital that you’re clear on your expectations by defining what work-in-progress means and coming to a team-wide definition of “done.”

3. Do you believe your organization is able to reach its objectives?

Communicate important information to your team. This will help them establish a strong connection to their work, a larger sense of engagement, and a broader understanding of how they’re positively impacting the rest of the organization. 

Knowing how to achieve collective goals amplifies an overall sense of accomplishment, productivity, and employee engagement; it’s a win-win-win situation!

4. Do you have access to the material resources you need to do your work properly (equipment, supplies, etc.)?

Whether you’re in an office or working remotely, having the right resources and tools in place has a tremendous impact on employee engagement. The right resources can amplify employee performance and enable an ergonomic experience. Reach out to your team and make sure they have the right tools at their disposal.

5. Do you have access to non-material resources you need to do your work properly (information, training, support, data, knowledge, etc.)?

Without the right tools or support, employee engagement can dwindle, which can have serious repercussions on the rest of the team. To set your team up for success, you should:

• Forecast your employees’ needs when assigning projects
• Ensure your employees have access to the right information
• Connect them to other colleagues who can share insight/resources 

6. Do you feel you have enough freedom to decide how you do your work?

Everyone works differently. Acknowledge a way of working that promotes the right amount of balance for autonomy and collaboration. Giving leeway to your team will result in a strong sense of trust rather than feelings of micromanagement. This way you’ll foster higher employee engagement within your team rather than dependency.

Explore our guide on the 10 key factors of employee engagement that can help boost engagement in your organization.

Survey questions to garner employee feedback

Understanding the value your team places on constructive feedback helps their progress, encourages support, and amplifies areas in need of improvement. An engagement survey can help you achieve that by gathering effective, honest feedback.

7. Are you satisfied with the frequency of feedback from your direct manager?

This survey question helps measure the efficacy of employee feedback loops and what each team member needs when it comes to feedback frequency.

8. Is the feedback you get specific?

Knowing the level of detail that is required from your team will help shape the way you provide employee feedback. This is especially important for remote employees. Learn when it’s appropriate to generalize and when more details are required.

9. Does the feedback you receive help you grow and develop?

Survey data from this question is helpful when it comes to keeping employee feedback actionable and relevant. Your team’s engagement level will increase if they’re given the right tools to hone their skills.

Did you know that Officevibe's employee feedback tool enables you to automate and organize how you collect anonymous feedback from your employees?

Survey questions to improve employee satisfaction

Job satisfaction plays an important role in overall employee engagement. Learn what makes your employees excited to be part of your team by getting honest responses to the following questions.

10. On a scale of 0-10, how reasonable is your workload?

Learn about the role each team member plays within the team, as well as how they’re responding to fulfilling their mandate. Delegate work in a way that plays to their strengths and challenges them appropriately without burning them out. 

11. Do you enjoy the work you do?

The idea that work needs to be a struggle is outdated. The employee experience can (and should!) be exciting, challenging, and fun. Be open to understanding what drives your team to feel a sense of fulfillment and joy. Employees find greater satisfaction in their work when they truly enjoy what they do.

12. Does your direct manager care about your well-being?

It’s crucial for a management team to understand how respect is measured and how to establish a mutual sense of respect within your team. Checking in at the beginning of team meetings and ensuring that employees are not feeling stressed show that you respect them and care about their well-being.

13. Are your responsibilities clear?

When assigning tasks and projects, be transparent about expectations. In addition, provide clear guidelines regarding roles and responsibilities and what they need to succeed.

When work distribution gets complicated, this often results in disengaged employees, siloed teams, and feelings of frustration. Avoid this by keeping communication open, brief, and actionable.

Tap into 11 ways to improve employee satisfaction so you can increase engagement, boost productivity, reduce costly turnover, and build a healthy company culture.

Survey questions to understand and improve company culture

Employee engagement survey questions on your organization’s culture can guide leadership in helping employees feel aligned with the company’s mission, values, and culture. Clear company goals can help keep the team moving in the same direction.

14. Generally speaking, how would you rate your level of happiness at work?

It’s important that employees have a sense of connection to the work that they do and enjoy their work environment. Being curious and excited about projects fuels employee engagement and creates electric energy in the workplace.

15. Are you inspired by the purpose and mission of the organization?

Teams who feel aligned with the purpose, goals, and mission of their organization are more committed to their work. They’re also more invested in their roles. This survey question helps amplify employee happiness and workplace engagement by understanding how well people connect to their company culture.

16. Do the leaders of the organization communicate a vision that motivates you?

If your teams aren’t aware of the main purpose and vision of your organization it can lead to feelings of detachment in their day-to-day work. Make objectives clear and draw correlations between how they impact the bigger picture and contribute to organizational changes. Weekly pulse surveys help ensure your team feels aligned with the bigger picture and boost employee engagement.

17. On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend your organization as a good place to work?

Employees determine how they feel about the company culture as it relates to the people they work with, the managers who support them, and their work environment. The best way to gauge loyalty and pride for your organization is with the employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS). It measures employees’ willingness to recommend your organization as a good place to work, reveals whether they’re engaged and enthusiastic about their work, and gives a sense of the overall state of your company culture.

Learn about 11 ways to improve workplace culture so you can meet and exceed employee expectations.

Survey questions for distributed teams

When not physically in the office, an employee engagement survey can help management learn more about the impact of remote work environments on engagement in their team.

18. Does your work environment allow you to work distraction-free when you need to?

Make sure your team has distraction-free zones available to them. This will avoid your employees from feeling disengaged and will have a significant impact on their performance and well-being.

19. Are you satisfied with the level of comfort in your physical workplace?

Well-being at work plays an important role when it comes to productivity and motivation. Making sure teams have an ergonomic space can improve wellness and happiness in the workplace, which ultimately makes them better and more productive employees.

20. Do you feel supported by your organization if you need to make use of flexible working arrangements?

Be clear on when your team should be available during the week and build a stable framework for remote meetings to establish a sense of routine. Learn your team’s behaviors and encourage them to take breaks. Maintaining a work-life balance is key.

21.  Do you think someone would say or do something if you felt distressed at work?

Empathize with employees who feel overworked and overwhelmed. Often, they may not be the first to come forward and admit to this. Make sure each team member feels a level of approachability with you as their manager and with each other. Encouraging support within a team is essential, especially during tough times.

Need more inspiration? Here's a list of 30 remote work survey questions to help you measure engagement levels in your remote team.

Survey questions for employee recognition and morale

Your team members are invaluable to your organization and each other. Recognize them for their strengths and their progress. Encourage them to celebrate and highlight each other’s workplace wins, no matter how big or small.

22. How would you rate the frequency at which you receive recognition?

Acknowledge that employees have different needs when it comes to being recognized for their work. So be creative! Establish consistent recognition with your team outside of your regular one-on-one meetings or performance reviews. This is a great way to help employees feel seen and valued.

23. Is recognition given in a timely fashion?

It’s normal to have a tendency to provide recognition during designated review periods or feedback sessions. However, providing real-time feedback and recognition is highly impactful and inspires employees to feel more engaged and motivated. 

24. Is recognition meaningful when you receive it?

When you recognize your team, make sure you’re acknowledging their experiences so they feel appreciated. Take the time to learn about what will resonate with them by being specific when describing their positive impact through employee recognition messages.

25. Does your organization encourage employees to recognize each other?

Let employees know the importance of paying it forward by encouraging them to support one another. Peer recognition facilitates teamwork, builds trust, and allows your people to know that they add value in their own ways to other team members.

Consult our guide on creating a culture of recognition in the workplace so you can help your teams feel valued and bring engagement to new heights.

Survey questions for career growth and personal growth

An employee engagement strategy is most effective when employees feel their career path gives them an opportunity for growth and learning. The right employee survey questions can help you zero in on whether their work is putting them on the right path for their professional development.

26. Do you have a development plan aimed at improving your employees’ skills?

Individual professional growth is unique to each team member. Support your team by curating thoughtful career development plans that take into consideration each team member's skills, strengths, and areas for improvement.

27. Is there someone at work who helps you grow and develop?

Often employees are most engaged when they feel they are being guided by someone they trust and, on some level, admire. Get to know your employees and help them find appropriate professional mentors whom they can learn from.

28. How would you rate the way your organization makes use of your strengths?

Thriving employees feel a sense of fulfillment toward their team. They want to feel as though they’re adding value. Give them opportunities to share their areas of expertise with the wider organization; doing so will challenge their perspective, take them out of their comfort zones, expand upon their leadership skills, and help their professional growth.

Providing them with professional development opportunities can also help them develop new skills.

29. Are you appropriately involved in decisions that affect your work?

When employees understand the context in which they work, it becomes much easier for them to feel motivated toward larger objectives. Make sure that you’re being transparent with your team and show them that you believe in their skills by involving them in meetings where they can provide more input and different perspectives, and explore their strengths.

Use this template to guide one-on-one career development discussions with your employees.

Survey questions about relationships with managers

Having a healthy relationship with your team matters both professionally and personally as employees need to feel supported to succeed. These questions help refine relationships to ensure they’re built on trust, communication, and mutual respect. Great managers are ones that are in tune with their employees’ needs.

30. Is your direct manager someone you can trust?

Having trust in the workplace is essential to leading a team successfully. Trust can be established in different ways for different employees. It starts with learning more about your team and demonstrating a genuine interest in who they are. Be transparent and clear with employees when it comes to their work, growth, and any feedback you provide.

31. On a scale of 0-10, how satisfied are you with how frequently you communicate with your direct manager?

Whether you’re working remotely or in person, it’s important to establish frequent one-on-one conversations and feedback loops. Be mindful of your employees’ preferred methods of communication; make an effort to use these as you get to know one another and build your relationship. Many employees need frequent communication, while others prefer their check-ins to be more spaced out.

32. How would you rate your direct manager’s management skills?

As your team grows and they continue to nail their objectives, managers must also learn how to take care of their own development. Keeping an open ear to your team’s feedback will help you learn what your own strengths are and how you can equally improve upon your existing skills.

We put together trust-building questions to help guide your conversations on where trust stands in the relationships with your employees.

Survey questions to understand how employees perceive their workplace relationships

A helpful way to see how well your team works together is to prompt employees to reflect on how they feel about collaborating with their colleagues. Strong team dynamics facilitate productivity and engagement, improve employee satisfaction, and contribute to a positive workplace culture.

33. Do you feel like you are part of a team?

Do employees sense that they carry the weight of projects on their shoulders? Or do they feel they can rely on their team for support? Discover their perspective to learn how to help build your team’s dynamic and encourage employee engagement.

34. Do you and your peers collaborate well together?

A sense of collaboration allows teammates to understand that they can trust each other. As a result, employees feel more inclined to reach out to one another for help, celebrate wins together, and learn about their collective growth.

35. Do you feel your peers are committed to doing quality work?

A strong baseline of expectations motivates teammates to collaborate effectively and achieve their goals. Be clear about how you expect employees to work with each other and be open about their individual strengths. By shedding light on their potential, they’ll play to each other’s strengths and keep each other motivated. 

Tips for administering employee surveys

Once you have your questions prepped and ready to go, the final part of your strategy is to determine how and when to conduct your surveys. Here are some factors to consider:

Timing and frequency of surveys

• Determine the appropriate timing and frequency for surveys. It's not optimal to send them too often or not often enough. Find the sweet spot to keep the momentum going! We found bi-weekly surveys work well for most teams.
• Consider organizational changes or events that may impact employee responses. Factor this in when asking your questions and getting your feedback.
• Communicate survey schedules to employees in advance. Give them time to think and prepare and avoid springing it on them out of the blue.

Anonymity and confidentiality

• Ensure employee anonymity and confidentiality to encourage honest responses. Be sure to clearly communicate this to employees ahead of time.
• Use third-party survey tools if necessary to maintain anonymity. This way employees will know that their answers aren't going directly to your inbox without any layer of privacy.
• Communicate the measures taken to ensure confidentiality. Be transparent in the process to help build trust with employees and make them feel more comfortable being open with their responses.

Communication and transparency

• Communicate the purpose and importance of the survey to employees. Knowing the why behind the process can help them get onboard.
• Provide clear instructions on how to complete the survey. This can prevent you from missing out on valuable insights simply because the survey wasn't carried out properly.
• Update employees on survey progress and communicate the results. They'll appreciate knowing the positive impact their participation has on the broader team.

Encouraging participation

• Encourage employee participation through incentives or rewards. When there's something in it for them, there's something in it for you.
• Communicate the potential benefits of participating in the survey. This will give employees a greater sense of purpose in their participation.
• Provide reminders to employees to complete the survey. If it's not top of mind, it's at the bottom of the to-do list. Gentle reminders can do the trick.

Analyzing survey data

• Use appropriate software to analyze survey data. Once you have all the data, it would be a shame not to make the most of it. Great employee survey software can help you with this!
• Look for patterns and trends in the data. This is what's going to help you create meaningful change moving forward.
• Use employee survey results to make informed decisions and implement changes where necessary. This data is one of your greatest tools in creating positive change!

Create engaged employees

Uncovering helpful survey data starts with being inquisitive and open about the results you get from employee surveys. Officevibe's employee engagement software empowers managers to ask important engagement questions, review data, and take strategic actions to achieve their goals.

The data you collect from your employee engagement surveys is a treasure trove of insights into how you can improve the overall employee experience. Let Officevibe help you tap into your team’s full potential.

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Everything you need to know about making one-on-one meetings more efficient and productive.

Having regular one-on-one meetings with employees is a key way managers can keep their team members aligned on common goals, and support each person’s professional development. These conversations are a moment to connect on a human level and build foundations of trust and understanding.

Employees who are satisfied with how frequently they communicate with their manager also…

• Feel that their manager cares about their opinion.
• Are satisfied with their level of autonomy at work.
• Report really feeling that they are a part of a team.According to data from Officevibe’s employee surveys

Here, we cover everything you need to know about making these important conversations as impactful and productive as you can.

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First, what are one-on-one meetings?

Before we get deeper into the topic, what is a one-on-one meeting? By definition, a one-on-one is a meeting between two individuals working for the same company.

Usually, one-on-one conversations happen between an employee and their manager. These discussions are a great way for managers to check in with each team member and create meaningful connections.

On the employee’s side, these meetings are a chance to discuss their career path with their manager and raise any challenges they’re facing. They’re a moment to address any uncertainties and ask for support wherever they need it.

Often, a manager will book a recurring calendar event with each direct report, to make sure they’re checking in regularly. These meetings should always start with talking points or a structured agenda, and end with clear action items for each person to focus on until the next meeting.

What is the purpose of a one-on-one meeting?

There are several reasons why managers and direct reports should meet regularly. The purpose of one-on-one meetings might be different depending on the employee’s goals, the team’s context, or the manager’s management style.

Some one-on-one meeting purposes include…

• Building and maintaining manager-employee relationships
• Making space for individual or personal conversations
• Setting employee goals and tracking their progress
• Exchanging feedback and coaching performance
• Spotting and addressing employee challenges

Ultimately, it’s up to the manager and employee to define what the purpose of their meetings will be. Setting one-on-one meeting goals helps two people align on what they want to accomplish from their dedicated time together. These can be short-term goals that they set and tackle from one week to the next. Or, they can be long-term goals that they chip away at over time.

Why are one-on-ones so important?

One-on-one meetings are an essential part of the healthy functioning of any team. Maintaining ongoing communication between managers and their direct reports helps build trusting, authentic relationships. And this is very important because the relationships people have with their bosses can make or break their job satisfaction.

Only 60% of employees are completely satisfied with the communication they have with their manager.Officevibe’s employee Pulse Survey data

For managers, one-on-one meetings give them a high-level view of what everyone on their team is working on. They also help them spot any employee challenges, performance issues, or interpersonal conflicts that need to be addressed. And of course, they’re a great way to maintain employee engagement and alignment on the team’s shared goals.

One-on-one meetings help managers get the information they need from each employee on their team, so they can put the puzzle pieces together to form that bigger picture.

On the flip side, one-on-ones are a time for employees to raise any questions or issues they have and seek out their manager’s support. They’re a moment to track their progress toward their performance and development goals and discuss their personal career ambitions. Most of all, they’re the dedicated time they know they’ll always have to connect with their manager individually.

Having regular, recurring moments for direct communication between managers and their direct reports employees benefits everyone.

Benefits of one-on-one meetings

There are plenty of benefits of one-on-one meetings, for managers, employees, and the business as a whole. Some of the benefits that come from regular one-on-ones are…

• Team alignment. Getting employee updates helps managers keep track of all the moving parts of their team. This way, they can ensure everyone is focusing on what matters most week to week.
• Employee engagement. Connecting employees’ individual work with greater team objectives and recognizing their wins one-on-one drives their sense of purpose and motivation.
• Employee productivity. When employees have concrete action items at the end of their meeting, they’re equipped to stay on track and focus on the right priorities.
• Clear roles and responsibilities. One-on-ones help create ongoing clarity of responsibilities and expectations, removing ambiguity and promoting employee accountability.
• Constructive feedback exchanges. Frequent communication opens up space for managers and employees to give each other feedback in real-time, and apply it just as quickly.
• Ongoing professional development. Discussing performance on an ongoing basis makes it easier to break employee goals into smaller action items, so growth happens naturally.

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What if you could lead game-changing 1-on-1s?

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Making your first one-on-one meeting a success

Whether there’s a new manager, a new team member, or both, the first one-on-one meeting two people have can be intimidating. This is your opportunity to get to know each other and share your background. It’s a moment to set the tone for the regular meetings you’ll have in the future, and establish open communication.

A strong manager-employee relationship can make the difference in any person’s experience on a team and at a company. That’s why starting out on the right foot is so important.

Tips for a great first one-on-one

• Break the ice by sharing something about yourself. Ask questions to get to know the other person, like their favorite TV show or what their hobbies are.
• Make it a two-way conversation with the goal of developing a rapport. Discuss each of your professional goals and how you see them in the team’s context.
• Keep the conversation high-level and remember you’ll have lots of time to go deeper in your future meetings together.
• Discuss how you want to make use of this recurring meeting time you’ll have together. What will you chat about in your future one-on-ones?
• Decide on when you’ll meet next, and whether you’re ready to set a regular weekly meeting in your calendars, or something bi-weekly or monthly.

Agendas & Templates: Planning and preparing for your one-on-ones

Like every meeting, the most effective one-on-ones happen when both people arrive prepared. But, it’s not always easy to carve out time in our busy work schedules to plan each conversation in advance.

When managers hold regular meetings with each of their direct reports, they need a system to support more productive conversations. This is where a go-to meeting agenda and questions to ask can really come in handy.

Set a one-one-one meeting agenda template

Having a tried and true structure helps you cover all the key agenda items, every time. Setting yourself up with a one-on-one agenda template can save you a lot of time in the long run.

An easy one-on-one meeting template:

• A quick check-in to set the tone
• Status update on the employee’s current workload
• Discuss challenges and workshop solutions
• Chat about what’s coming up for the team
• A few minutes to wrap up and set action items

Pro tip: A one-on-one software can help you plan these important meetings more easily. Select from dozens of Officevibe’s one-on-one agenda templates in the app, or build your own with talking points that carry over from one weekly meeting to the next.

Keep a bank of one-on-one meeting questions

One of the best ways to have a meaningful conversation with anyone is by asking questions. A list of one-on-one meeting questions to refer to makes it easier to keep the conversation going. Plus, it opens up space for the other person to share.

Insightful one-on-one questions for managers

• Is your workload reasonable? If it isn’t, can you suggest solutions that we could implement together to address the problem?
• Are you able to ask colleagues with more experience than yourself for help, support or input when it comes to achieving your goals?
• As things stand, do you think the team will be able to achieve [name a collective team goal]? Why?

Pro tip: You can find all the questions listed above and many more in Officevibe’s one-on-one meeting software. Create a shared agenda where managers and employees can both add their talking points.

Leading effective one-on-one meetings

Showing up prepared is one thing, running your one-on-ones effectively is the next step. To make these meetings feel comfortable and productive, you want them to flow naturally and end with clear next steps.

How to run a great one-on-one meeting

1. Stick to your agenda, but keep it flexible for impromptu discussions.
2. Take meeting notes and keep track of them in a dedicated place.
3. Share feedback, both from managers to employees and vice versa.
4. Send a recap of takeaways and next steps after your meeting.
5. Set talking points for your next meeting so you’re sure to follow up.

Who owns the one-on-one?

It can be debated whether it’s a manager’s or their direct report’s responsibility to book a one-on-one meeting. But the truth is, both people benefit from these important meetings. So ownership might look a little different on different teams and at different organizations.

This is something that managers and employees should discuss together. If the employee set the agenda the past week, the manager may lead the next meeting. However, there are certain types of one-on-ones where it makes sense for the manager to lead, and others where it makes sense for the employee to take charge.

For example: If the meeting is about an employee’s career development, they can lead it by sharing some of their ambitions with their manager. For goal setting, most managers will take the lead by going over team objectives and connecting them with the employee’s role and responsibilities.

The importance of a meeting check-in

Check-ins are an important way to build rapport between a manager and their direct report. Starting off your one-on-ones with a meeting check-in shows that you care about the other person beyond what they’re working on that day. Especially when you’re connecting remotely, it’s good to get a sense of how people are coming into a meeting and what’s on their minds.

And it’s important that these check-ins go both ways. According to a recent study on employee expectations, one of the best ways managers can build trust with employees is by sharing with them first. Managers can set the tone for two-way communication by chatting a bit about what they’re working, excited about, or struggling with. This shows employees that their manager is their equal, and a part of the team as much as they are.

5 One-on-one meeting tips for better conversations

If you take nothing else from this extensive guide, be sure to keep in mind these essential one-on-one meeting tips.

1. Make them a priority. These conversations are crucial for team members and managers alike, so don’t let them slip through the cracks. Avoid rescheduling or cancelling last minute.
2. Let the employee talk. Employees rely on this time to work through their challenges and ask for help. Managers should take on more of a listening role in a one-on-one meeting.
3. Don’t spend too long on status reports. You can find out how projects are progressing in daily or weekly team meetings. Focus on the individual employee experience in one-on-ones.
4. Give honest feedback. Whether you’re a manager or employee, this is the time for sharing your thoughts and giving suggestions. The more you practice giving feedback, the better you’ll get at it.
5. Take meeting notes. Note taking is worthwhile, even if it’s just for your own records. So much can come up in a one-on-one, and you don’t want to forget what you discussed or lose track of your commitments.

How often should you have one-on-one meetings?

The right frequency for having one-on-one meetings depends on a few factors. Many managers will schedule more casual check-in meetings with their team members on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis. Every 3-6 months, they might meet for more formal performance reviews with the employees on their team.

One thing to consider is the employee’s current development goals and performance objectives. If a direct report is striving toward an ambitious target or taking on a stretch assignment, they might want to meet more often with their manager for coaching and feedback sessions.

Likewise, the team and company context can influence the frequency of recurring one-on-one meetings. When a team is going through the stages of team development, a manager might want to meet more often with each person to make sure they have a clear sense of their role and responsibilities, and to address any conflict or tensions that come up.

What if you could lead game-changing 1-on-1s?

Download the pdf

The difference between in-person and virtual one-on-one meetings

When you’re face-to-face with someone, it’s easier to feel comfortable and at ease, helping you build a strong relationship. Being able to read someone’s body language and easily bounce ideas back and forth without the barrier of technology can make conversations feel more natural and productive.

It can be challenging to keep that casual vibe when you’re dialing in to a virtual one-on-one meeting. Bad wifi connections and awkward pauses can throw things off, and even make it feel forced. And zoom fatigue can lead people to take less time, or meet less often.

But the last thing you want is for one-on-one meetings to become less of a priority when you’re working remotely. Remote employees can start to feel disconnected from their work and the greater purpose they’re contributing to. And one-on-ones are a key moment to bring it back to the forefront.

Techniques to highlight employee impact during one-on-ones:

• Discuss company values, and find examples of how your team member has embodied them in their recent work or team interactions. You can share examples, or ask them to reflect and share their own.
• Ask your direct report where they feel they’ve made the greatest impact on the business in the last month, and discuss how their work has contributed to team and company objectives.
• Share positive feedback and recognition with your employee. Offer your own observations and opinions, and relay the appreciation you’ve heard from colleagues, clients, or other outside sources.
• Discuss what excites your team member most about their upcoming work, and dig a little deeper into why. What’s motivating them? What’s giving them confidence?

Is a one-on-one the time for a performance review?

Performance reviews have long been dreaded by team members and managers alike. But we think everyone could benefit from a fresh perspective on this. Having a performance review meeting can be nerve-wracking, but it’s ultimately a great way to align on an employee’s role and celebrate their contributions to the team and company.

A performance review can be done during a scheduled one-on-one time or held as a separate meeting. The important thing is having them often and breaking down the fear around discussing performance. At the end of the day, employees want to develop their skills and advance in their careers. And this translates into high performing organizations.

If an annual review is a part of your company’s performance development or compensation model, you can follow the process accordingly. But holding more frequent performance reviews every 3-6 months helps managers and employees stay on the same page.

How to make a performance review a success

1. Give advance notice. Both people should be aware in advance of this important meeting.
2. Plan and prepare. Outline a meeting agenda and talking points, so both people can arrive prepared.
3. Discuss accomplishments. Focus on what the employee has achieved since your last performance conversation.
4. Address performance issues. If there are issues with performance, bring them up in a compassionate and supportive way.
5. Avoid setting goals. You can have another meeting to outline next steps, this is a time to focus on the current moment and what got an employee to this point.

What if you have a difficult employee?

Facing a one-on-one meeting with a difficult employee is stressful and uncomfortable, but it can be necessary to move forward in a productive way. The conversation could be about addressing underperformance, sharing negative feedback, or managing team conflict. Whatever the case, having a one-on-one is an important part of dealing with difficult employees.

In your conversation, you want to create psychological safety for both people. The goal of the meeting should be hearing each other out and walking away having cleared the air. You might not reach a solution, but how you approach a difficult conversation can make a big difference in what comes out of it.

How to have a difficult one-on-one

1. Set the talking point: Add whatever needs to be discussed in your meeting agenda so your team member has visibility on it ahead of the discussion.
2. Prepare with facts: Show up with notes, documentation, resources, or anything else that can help you ground the conversation in facts rather than gut feelings.
3. Aim for understanding: Approach the discussion with empathy and give your employee the space to share their own perspective.
4. Find a solution together: You may both come to the meeting with action items in mind, but take the time to discuss them, build on them, and decide on a path forward together.

Make the most of every one-on-one meeting

A regular one-on-one is the most important meeting a manager and direct report can have. Maintaining ongoing communication between each employee and their manager is what drives high performing organizations. Especially in a distributed workforce, team members need to stay aligned with the bigger goals, and feel a sense of direction for their personal development.

Apply the tips, tricks, and best practices outlined in this complete guide to make the most out of your one-on-one meetings. No matter your role, there is always room to develop, and success comes from the support we get from one another. One-on-ones are a key part of bringing that to life.

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Many of you reading this are familiar with the fact that employees don’t quit their jobs, they quit their boss but have you ever thought of the effects that coworkers have on your job satisfaction?

Having friends at work is incredibly important for your mental well-being. It is especially true for new employees joining a company that just want to fit in.

Managers have the responsibility to help create an environment where those friendships can foster, by organizing team building events, and encouraging informal chit chat.

Not too long ago, Officevibe created an infographic about the importance of having friends at work, where we dove into some of the relevant statistics about why those friendships matter:

One of Gallup’s questions on their famous Q12 survey is “I have a best friend at work” because they know of the link between having a close friend that you can count on and employee engagement.

When you have a close friend at work, you feel a stronger connection to the company, and you’re more excited about coming into work every day. You attach yourself to the company’s purpose and collaborate better to create success for the business.

But did you know that the stress caused by an adverse relationship with a coworker can have a serious toll on your life?

Are your colleagues stressing you out?

In an incredible study done by researchers at Tel Aviv University, they found that coworkers had the biggest impact on your health. The researchers tracked 820 adults for 20 years, starting with a health exam in 1988 to establish a baseline.

The participants were from many various industries and were continuously being asked about various conditions of their job.

They were asked questions about the behavior of their boss, their relationship with their colleagues, and work environment, all while being monitored for their health.

The most interesting discoveries for the researchers is that what they assumed would be damaging to employees health had very little impact at all. The number of hours a person spent at the office didn't affect their health, neither did how mean their boss was.

What they found instead, was that the factor most closely linked to health was the support of coworkers.

The meaner a colleague was, the higher their risk of dying.

According to the study, middle-aged workers with little or no "peer social support" in the workplace were 2.4 times more likely to die during the study.

There was a similar sentiment discovered in a survey done by WorkWorries.com, where they found that coworkers were a bigger source of stress than bosses.

62% of participants reported that coworkers cause them more stress than bosses, while the other 38% said that their bosses cause them more stress than coworkers.

Bad colleague relationships = Bad personal relationships

A study published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior found that employees who experience frustration over a rude colleague have their negative emotions spill over into their relationships at home.

This is incredibly troubling because of the damage that it can do to your children and spouse. Think about the ripple effect that a bad relationship with a single coworker can have.

The unnecessary stress doesn’t belong in the home, and the spouse can end up carrying that stress from home back to their workplace, creating an even bigger ripple effect.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, managers have the responsibility to help foster those relationships at work.

But it’s not fair for me or any employee to put all of the responsibility on managers, employees have a responsibility as well.

Don't hesitate on making friends at your job

There are plenty of reasons why it’s important to have friends at work. Humans need to feel a sense of belonging, and considering how much time we spend at work; coworkers can help you achieve that.

1. A better support system

It’s natural to want to complain about the new boss, assignment, or something happening in your personal life. Having coworkers you can count on to help you through those problems is important.

Work brings us a lot of stress, so to be able to vent to someone that fully understands what you’re going through is nice.

2. Loneliness decreases motivation

To be fully engaged at work, you have to be motivated. When you don’t have any friends at work, it can get pretty lonely in your cubicle.

That loneliness will cause you to lose that motivation that could have been otherwise put towards something productive, like helping the company (and yourself) grow.

3. Improved communication skills

Improving those skills is a nice side benefit of being able to chat with friends at work. Communication skills are important for work, so practicing with coworkers will make you a better communicator in front of your boss or team members.

4. More productive at work

If you have a good relationship with your colleagues, you'll be able to receive constant feedback from them to help you be more productive at work.

Build better relationships at work

Like any relationship, the key to building better friendships at work is through trust.

Being open and honest will show your coworkers that you’re making a serious effort, and the chances of them reciprocating are much higher.

According to researchers from the University of Washington, the way for two people to deeply connect is by sharing secrets.

In their research, they found that this was just as true for work relationships as it was for romantic relationships.

When the researchers interviewed coworkers to determine how they became friends, they discovered a pattern of self-disclosure that included sharing both personal and work problems.

It needs to be an organic process, don’t run to your coworkers and spill all your secrets, but progressively opening up about your life helps build those strong, long lasting relationships.

Try and find something in common with a coworker that you could share, like music, food, or tv shows that you both enjoy.

Many companies use communication apps to help employees collaborate, and many of those apps have fun/generic chat rooms or private messaging. That’s a good start for initiating those conversations, but you need to continue it offline.

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Something as simple as inviting a coworker to eat lunch with you, or surprising them at their desk with a cup of coffee from the break room can go a long way.

Are Your coworkers affecting your mood at work?

There's a reason why one of the ten key metrics that we measure in our employee engagement platform is “relationships with coworkers.” Companies can monitor how coworkers affect job satisfaction, by viewing the frequency and quality of communication between teammates, without nitpicking or being too intrusive.

Is your office doing enough to make sure that you and your team are getting along?

A good manager wonders how their employees feel and whether they’re happy, engaged, and satisfied at work. A great manager knows how to measure these feelings and act on them to improve their team’s overall experience. So, how can you get there?

While one-on-one meetings and status updates help you stay connected with each team member and their work, employee engagement surveys are a great way to get a high-level view of your team’s engagement level over time.

Questionnaires, polls, or surveys give employees a voice within their organization. And this feedback gives you plenty of actionable insights because a great employee survey tool will measure employee engagement metrics like peer relationships, job satisfaction, wellness and stress, company alignment, and more.

So, what’s the best type of survey for your team? How can you implement it so that people participate? How do you interpret your survey results? And what do you do with the insights you get from your team? Find answers to all your questions on employee engagement surveys in this complete guide!

Get your survey on and build your employee engagement strategy with your team’s feedback.

Get the guide and action plan

The importance of measuring employee engagement

If you want to show employees that you care, start at square one by measuring employee engagement within your team. When employees feel their opinion matters, they’re more likely to speak up when it’s important. And when managers take their input to heart, it builds a trusting manager-employee relationship. This relationship can help re-engage disengaged employees or help engaged employees thrive.

As Gallup reports in their 2022 State of the Global Workplace Report, global progress on employee engagement levels has stalled since the pandemic.

21% of employees are engaged at work, globally. While engagement increased by 1 percent this year, it is still below the peak in 2019.

Gallup estimates that low engagement costs the global economy US$7.8 trillion, accounting for 11% of global GDP, and states that current levels of employee disengagement are causing average corporations to fight daily to improve team productivity. But they also believe it doesn’t have to be like this.

When you invest in your people, you’ll quickly see the importance of employee engagement and how it is vital to a company’s success. But you can’t build an effective employee engagement strategy without actionable data to back up your efforts. That’s why giving people the opportunity to share how they feel with an engagement survey is key to improving the employee experience.

Statistics from an employee engagement survey platform

Over 50,000 managers use Officevibe’s employee engagement solution to understand how their team feels.

Officevibe’s employee engagement data tells us that:

• 1 in 4 employees say they would leave their current company if offered a similar job at another organization.
• Nearly a third of employees do not feel they are appropriately involved in decisions affecting their work.
• 1 in 5 survey respondents don’t feel like they have the opportunity to do what they do best in their role.

On the bright side, the data also shows that:

• Generally speaking, 72% of survey respondents would rate their level of happiness at work as positive.
• 84% of survey respondents enjoy the work that they do.
• 84% of survey respondents feel like their organization trusts them to contribute to the company mission.

Types of employee engagement survey questions

The first step when building your own poll is to understand the types of employee engagement survey questions you can ask and the purposes they serve. There are two broad question types to measure employee engagement: quantitative and qualitative questions.

Quantitative survey questions

A quantitative survey question has a predetermined set of responses. These could be:

• Multiple choice questions
• True or False questions (or Yes/No)
• Opinion scales (ex: 1-10)

The main appeal of quantitative questions is that you can easily group responses, making for a quick analysis. These types of survey questions are also useful to track data trends over time, so you can compare employee engagement metrics across any given period at the click of a button. As a bonus, the structured nature of quantitative questions makes them quick and straightforward for employees to reply to.

Qualitative survey questions

A qualitative survey question, on the other hand, is open-ended and can get more detailed information on a particular topic. While these questions take longer to answer, they give employees a great platform to provide direct feedback to their managers. Response rates may be lower, but the answers you do get will likely be very valuable.

A great employee engagement survey will use a mix of both types of questions. To simplify the process for employees, qualitative questions can serve as optional follow-ups to quantitative questions. This offers a safe space for those who have additional feedback while giving others the option to skip if they don’t have anything to add to their previous response.

Officevibe’s Pulse Surveys use quantitative questions to assess employee engagement levels on an ongoing basis. Many questions have qualitative follow-ups, where employees can provide more context or information. When managers want to dig deeper into specific topics, they can select from the bank of customizable survey templates or build their own from scratch.

Employee engagement survey questions to avoid

When building an employee engagement survey, what are some questions to look out for? You want to be careful not to have leading, vague, or combined questions.

Leading questions

Leading questions are phrased to encourage employees to answer in a certain way. Avoid using leading questions so you don’t sway your team’s survey responses in a certain direction or end up with a confirmation bias.

Leading survey question examples:

• Wouldn’t it be nice if we had more fruit in the kitchen?
• Are you satisfied with your great benefits package?

If you can, have a colleague proofread your questions before you send out your survey. Ask them to look out for any wording that could influence people’s responses.

Vague questions

Vague questions run the risk of confusing the reader, which can cause them to give an irrelevant or misleading response. What’s more, they could frustrate employees and even cause them to skip the survey altogether.

Vague survey question examples:

• What do you think about feedback?
• How do you feel about your coworkers?

Be as specific with your questions as possible. If you want to know about feedback frequency, ask how often people get feedback. If you want to know about collaboration, ask if people are working well together.

Combined questions

Combined questions include more than one question. This can easily happen when you’re trying to keep your survey short while trying to get a lot of information. But it’s important to look out for these questions because they can make your survey responses much less accurate.

Combined survey question examples

• Does your manager give you specific feedback, and give feedback often?
• Can you rely on your peers for support, and do they go above and beyond?

Even if two or more questions are related, it’s always best to split them up. People might have different answers for each part of the question, so make sure each question truly stands alone.

Types of employee engagement surveys and when to use them

You can use a few types of employee engagement surveys to keep a pulse on employee sentiment. Depending on your industry and the size and context of your team, you can pick the survey type that’s best for your needs. You might even (and should) opt to implement a combination of surveys to measure different things.

One of the main differences in employee engagement surveys is the frequency. Your company might already have an annual or quarterly employee satisfaction survey to collect high-level feedback. But as a manager, it’s important to collect regular actionable insights from your team, so you might decide to supplement this with more frequent surveys, whether monthly, bi-weekly, or every week.

1. Annual employee engagement surveys

Traditionally, annual employee engagement surveys have been the way to get employee feedback on several metrics. Usually done at an organizational level, an annual survey is a long-form questionnaire that gives leadership teams high-level information on employee experience, company culture, and employee turnover. These insights can help guide everything from business strategy to HR initiatives and company policy.

There’s nothing wrong with keeping these surveys in your plan if your leadership team wants a broad summary of the year. But as a manager, the results from these surveys likely won’t uncover detailed drivers of engagement, and they’ll often be skewed or even biased.

Employees tend to respond to surveys based on how they currently feel, which is unlikely to represent an entire year’s worth of work life. In some cases, annual employee bonuses may also come around the time of the yearly survey, which can affect survey results and response rates.

What’s more, yearly company-wide surveys are long-winded and can take upwards of 30 minutes to complete. This significantly increases the risk of low survey participation. It’s crucial, then, to complement annual surveys with more frequent polls that lead to real-time action.

In fast-paced modern workplaces, annual surveys are unlikely to offer all the right insights to make meaningful change — especially at the team level. And for managers, these surveys are less likely to help you make incremental changes month-to-month and week-to-week that will have a big impact on your team.

2. Quarterly employee engagement surveys

Quarterly employee engagement surveys have their place at the organizational and team level. For senior leaders and human resources professionals, these offer a better way to keep up with how employees are doing and navigate any changes throughout the year.

And for managers, these surveys are a good way to get an overview of how things like your team strategy and work methods are going. A quarterly survey can help you plan the next 3 months for your team. These are some of the questions that quarterly survey insights could help you answer:

• What will your team work on?
• What are the priorities to drive engagement within your team?
• Does your team clearly understand the company’s global objectives?
• How will team members collaborate efficiently?

🤝 Need a helping hand? You can use a tool like Officevibe’s custom surveys to create your quarterly surveys and measure and track engagement scores as they fluctuate throughout the year.

3. Pulse surveys

Pulse surveys are the best and most accurate way to measure employee engagement and job satisfaction. These short employee engagement questionnaires are sent weekly or bi-weekly and only take a few minutes to complete.

Because of the frequency, managers and leadership teams get ongoing, real-time data on how employees feel at work, helping them track trends and fluctuations over time. Pulse survey reports make it easier to see the impact of changes and spot issues before they become bigger problems. The benefit of all this? It makes it so much easier for managers to act on survey results.

An employee engagement survey software built for managers

Officevibe’s Pulse Survey tool measures 10 key metrics of engagement, which break down into 26 sub-metrics. These include employee engagement factors like recognition frequency, relationships with managers, feedback quality, trust between peers, sense of purpose, work-life balance, and more.

The algorithm pulls from a bank of 122 questions — curated, verified, and tested by a team of employee experience experts — while ensuring employees are surveyed on all metrics so your data report stays accurate.

Employee engagement survey participation tips

Creating an employee engagement survey or finding the right survey tool for your needs is one thing. But getting employees to participate, so you get the most accurate survey responses is another.

The levels of trust in your organization and team, how you communicate the survey, and the survey length will all play into your participation rates. These are the best areas to focus on as you launch an employee engagement survey to boost participation and get the most honest results.

Building trust

Building trust in your team is the most important part. This means having a culture where employees are not afraid to speak up and give honest feedback. The good news?

Officevibe Pulse Survey data shows that 90% of employees already trust their managers.

VIBE: Human-generated culture

It takes time and effort to build trust, and if you’re not there yet, anonymous surveys are a great place to start.

When employees have the security to answer anonymously, psychological safety increases, and they’ll be far more likely to provide truthful and insightful answers. You can deepen the cycle of trust by actively showing employees that their candid responses are taken into account and acted on swiftly.

Survey anonymity concerns and benefits

While allowing anonymous employee feedback could be nerve-wracking for some managers, it’s an important part of surveying employees and soliciting feedback. People might not always be comfortable answering specific questions, even in the most open, honest, and psychologically safe teams.

But offering anonymity can build up that sense of safety. When employees see that their feedback is taken to heart and turned into meaningful action, it empowers them to speak up more often. This increases team trust and leads to stronger manager-employee relationships.

Communication

Whether you send a survey via email, a Slack message, or during a team meeting, the way you present it can impact how employees respond. When letting your team know you’re launching a new survey, try mentioning:

• the reason you are sending it (or the objective you’re aiming for)
• when they can expect to receive it
• how many questions it includes or how long it should take to complete
• whether their responses are anonymous
• how you plan to use the results

If regular polls, like Pulse Surveys, are introduced to your organization, be sure to fully communicate these points before sending out the first survey. It isn’t necessary to repeat everything with each Pulse Survey. Still, you should let your team know that you are always available to answer any questions or concerns they may have about the questionnaire.

Survey length

The time an employee engagement survey takes to complete will impact your response rate. This is another reason why shorter, more frequent Pulse Surveys see higher participation rates. Beyond your participation rate, survey length affects the quality of your data.

The more questions you ask, the less time your respondents spend, on average, answering each question.Survey Monkey

Research from Survey Monkey found that when people speed through questions, their answers become less reliable. And people tend to take their time with each question when the survey is shorter. So, a well-thought-out, short survey is the best way to get more people to engage with it and give higher-quality responses.

📈 Get actionable data that sparks positive change in your organization by increasing employee survey participation.

Interpreting employee engagement survey results

Every part of the employee engagement survey journey is important. But this step ties it all together. Your employee engagement metric is more than a score; survey reports have so much information to offer, so it’s crucial to learn how to interpret and understand your results.

Considering these influencing factors when analyzing employee survey results will paint a better picture of your team’s standings:

• Timing: Is it a particularly busy quarter? Is a large portion of the team on vacation? The answers you receive, as well as your response rate, can be impacted depending on the time of year. Keeping tabs on timing can also help track seasonal trends in employee morale.
• Context: Has there been a big company change, like a restructuring, acquisition, or major product launch, that may influence employee engagement? It’s important to identify how each change affects engagement.
• Industry: What are the engagement benchmarks in your industry? Not all industries are made alike, and it may be harder to maintain high levels of engaged employees in certain sectors than others.

Best practices to follow after conducting surveys

Your team’s responses can tell you a lot as a manager, and you want to let them know that their input is valued. Here are the steps you should take once your survey results come in.

Thank employees for participating

Once the survey is completed (or occasionally if you use Pulse Surveys), you should thank employees for taking the time to participate. Let them know that you’ve received the results and are in the process of analyzing them. Reminding employees that their opinions matter to you and the company makes them feel their time invested in the survey was worthwhile.

Share and explain employee engagement survey results

Regardless of the type of survey you opt for (annual, quarterly, or weekly surveys), it’s important to communicate the results to your team. You can do this after each survey or every month or two if your surveys are more frequent. Explain what fluctuations or trends you’re spotting, and let your team know how you plan to act on these insights. Employee engagement survey tools can simplify this process with clear, digestible reports.

Always act promptly

The best way to increase engagement is to act on your findings as soon as possible. This makes sure problems aren’t swept under the rug and are addressed at the same time as employees are experiencing them. Acting promptly also shows employees that you are reliable and always prioritize their well-being.

🏆 Following a gold standard will help you make the most of your employee engagement survey questions. Set yourself up for success with these 15 engagement survey best practices.

Creating an action plan based on your findings

Don’t stop at collecting responses or even sharing them with your team. The most important thing any manager can do with their employee engagement survey results is act on them. Here’s how.

Discuss with your team

Once you’ve shared the results with your team, get their input on what focus areas they feel would have the greatest impact. Maybe feedback quality within your team is excellent, but it isn’t given frequently enough to make the most of this strength. Or perhaps your team is struggling with collaboration and might feel that focusing on peer communication would greatly benefit. Involving your team in the process helps you decide where to focus together.

Brainstorm ideas

You can start thinking of solutions, with one or two focus areas in mind. Brainstorm with your team and come up with ideas to address your pain points. Once everyone has shared their suggestions, you can vote together on the ones you’d like to pursue first. Again, this gives people agency in their engagement. Employees will be more committed to the action plan because they took part in defining it.

Communicate and follow up

Set a timeline for your goals or action items and follow up with your team. You can check in during team meetings or in one-on-ones to see how people adjust to the changes. If your team is having trouble getting an initiative off the ground, you can regroup with them to see how you can make it work.

🚀 Want to boost employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention? Download the full PDF and find a free employee engagement action plan template at the end.

Start surveying employees and never look back

If you’re looking to build a stellar employee experience, look no further and start sending frequent engagement surveys. Getting started is a breeze with the right tools. In no time, you’ll reap the benefits of employee engagement by seamlessly measuring it and solving issues before they become bigger problems.

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DATA REPORT

What the trends of the last two years can tell us about the current state of employee experience and the future of how leaders and companies can shape it.

But first, what is employee experience (EX)?

Employee experience is any interaction with the company that shapes your experience, from how you interact with your manager and team, to your health and well-being, to working via digital technology.

EX is not a process or a project but a cross-functional strategy that needs to be embraced by the C-suite and recognized on the employee level. It encompasses employee experience strategies, practices, processes, systems, services, and technologies.

It’s broader than employee engagement and includes retention, health, productivity, leadership, and trust.

I want the full report

Executive summary

(This is a shortened version of The State of Employee Experience. Download the complete report for all the data and insights.)

Officevibe’s employee experience platform captures employee feedback from over 440 000 employees every week. With this data, we have the privilege of knowing what employees from 72 countries worldwide feel, need from, and think of their day-to-day experience at work — and this gives unique insights into how both EX is doing today and how employee expectations are shifting for our future.

It is an honor to have this inside view, and with that comes the important responsibility to respect user anonymity which we to in the highest standards. We also feel it is our responsibility to use these insights wisely by guiding leaders of today and tomorrow to adapt to this ever-changing work reality.

With this in mind, our in-house team of expert researchers pored over findings of the last two years to trace what employee experience looks like today and lessons for the future.

Three central themes emerged:

• Concerns around retention and turnover
• Navigating the evolving world of distributed work
• Workplace well-being and balance

The State of Employee Experience, From Here on Out explores how people, teams, leaders, and entire organizations can reset for resilience, lead with empathy, and prepare for the new realities of business.

Context from an employee experience expert

One thing’s for sure, times have changed.

If this reads to you like an overstatement, I think you’re right. I chose to open with this line; it’s to remind us – yet again – of the enormous impact the pandemic has had on all aspects of our lives and our world altogether. Since March 2020 propelled us to our home offices, we’ve had to continuously adapt our ways of communicating, collaborating, and, well, just being.

If you’re like me, the last two years have felt like one huge roller-coaster ride. And we’re not alone: a considerable body of research has been published over this time covering anything and everything about the impacts of the shift to remote work and our new ways of working. Engagement, well-being, mental health, productivity–to only name a few–have had their fair share of ups and downs.

Curiosity is embedded into Officevibe’s DNA. We aspire to be the go-to employee experience platform for distributed teams, and we do our research. So we wanted to hear for ourselves what team members, managers, and organizational leaders had to say about the shift to remote work and about this new era we were diving into. We also wanted to identify key problems that need to be solved, and we wanted their perspective on what the future holds.

Many interesting findings came from our research, including the overwhelming number of research conclusions that boil down to one thing: connections, bonds, and relationships between people.

We’re craving for connection, comfort, and reassurance that it’s all going to be OK. What’s more, with the massive shift to remote work, something happened: work became more human and more personal. As we stepped into each other’s personal spaces, having people to turn and talk to became our only way to manage it all. In the end, it was the human connection that made the shift and adaptation possible. Still today, human connection is what many are craving most for.

Today, due to this shift, we see priorities, expectations, and needs changing. As one of our research participants put it:

Your day is not your workday; your day is your life – and you work in your life.

With that, it’s no surprise that organizations worldwide are investing time, money, and energy into employee experience. Never has the battle for talent been so intense. As Josh Bersin, global HR industry analyst, puts it, becoming an irresistible organization is now more important than ever to attract newcomers and retain your people. Carefully crafting work experiences that feel human and tailored is what the future of EX will be all about. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all.

In this report, we start to look at the data that backs all these key elements shaping modern-day employee experience. Instead of analyzing sales revenue, gross margins, or customer acquisition costs, our metrics account for those hard-to-measure yet essential business factors like employee happiness, well-being, relationships with manager, and ambassadorship (to name a few). In doing so, we can start to map out what a prosperous employee experience can look like for your organization and the actions needed to pave the way.  

Still uncertain about what the future holds, we continue to navigate this not-so-new reality as best we can. Although at times challenging and even overwhelming, what I find most beautiful about it is that we’re going through it together. Never have I seen the world of work become more human in so many ways. This gives me hope for what the future of work holds.

Here’s to a future of work that is and feels, first and foremost, more human.

Cheers!

Julie Jeannotte

HR Expert and Researcher at Officevibe

For the inquisitive bunch – A note on methodology

Each day, around 30,000 Officevibe users worldwide answer an engagement Pulse Survey. In 2021 alone, over 50 million Officevibe questions were answered across 20 different industries in 72 countries.

Officevibe’s Pulse Surveys pull from a bank of 122 questions. Each question is related to one of our 10 Key Metrics of Employee Engagement, then subdivided into 26 Sub-Metrics, selected to highlight the most critical themes within any given Metric. We partnered with Deloitte experts to test and confirm the scientific validity of our survey model against recognized and supported theories. All survey questions were analyzed and validated for content and wording. For this report, we looked at data from 2019 to 2021.

Read the full report: The State of Employee Experience

Topline insights

Key emerging workplace trends that encapsulate the current day state of the employee experience.

Employee expectations have changed

Changes in employee expectations mean employers must adjust and amplify their retention strategies to stay competitive in a fierce market.

• 53% of respondents have searched for jobs in the last year.
• 75% of employees who display low engagement levels or leave their jobs say that it’s due to their manager or leadership.
• 40% of employees don’t have a development plan to improve their skills and drive their growth.

The distributed workforce is not one size fits all

The benefits of distributed work have been revealed, but so have new challenges.

• 96% of respondents said they had a clear understanding of expectations throughout the transition to remote working.
• By the end of 2021, more that ¼ employees still had concerns about returning to the office.
• Flexibility is the new gem of remote work, but boundaries are still necessary.

Hustle culture is a thing of the past

Well-being and balance are paramount. Gone are the days of rise-and-grind and work becoming our purpose as people.

• 47% of people say they regularly feel overwhelmed at work.
• More than a quarter of employees report an unhealthy balance between their work and personal life.
• 26% of respondents don’t feel like their organization really cares about their mental health.

The Great Resignation: Who’s leaving and why?

(This is a shortened version of The State of Employee Experience. Download the complete report for all the data and insights.)

We’ve all seen the record-high turnover and attrition rates of the last year. And this trend isn’t slowing down. What is sending employees seeking new opportunities, and how can employers build retention strategies for their next generation of workers?

The headlines read true: Employees are on the hunt for new work.

More than half of respondents have searched for jobs in the last year. And if offered a similar job at another organization, 36% said they would leave their current company. Further, 15% of employees don’t see themselves working at their company one year from now. However, our research has also found that the employees who are not engaged are the ones looking for greener pastures.

Read the full report: The State of Employee Experience

Get the report

Distributed work: Home is where the office is

(This is a shortened version of The State of Employee Experience. Download the complete report for all the data and insights.)

Many teams and organizations were launched into remote work with little warning when the global pandemic struck. And in the time since, many have discovered the benefits of distributed work and committed to this new structure. Alongside the benefits have come new challenges that leaders need to address to create the conditions for great work.

"What I’ve observed within our company and beyond is emerging recognition that one’s ‘employee experience’ and ‘life experience’ are one in the same. One size fits all programs built to enable office culture and enforce ‘work rules’ are a thing of the past. Embracing the blurred lines of distributed teams and remote work has shifted the ownership of the employee experience from corporate(HR) to individuals, managers, and their teams."

Stephanie LeBlanc

Senior Director, Customer Success, Coveo

Work-life balance synergy

(This is a shortened version of The State of Employee Experience. Download the complete report for all the data and insights.)

Employee burnout spiked during the pandemic and has remained an ongoing issue as the separation between work and life stays blurry. Even pre-pandemic, there was a shift away from hustle culture and ‘workism’ where our sense of life purpose relies too heavily on our work.

Despite upward trends over the last years in many of Officevibe’s employee engagement metrics, Wellness remains the lowest-ranking.

Only 70% of employees report a manageable stress level at work.

While 43% of respondents reported struggling more than usual in Q4 2020, the percentage dropped to 37% in the following quarter.

Around 1/4 of respondents talk about the flexibility offered by their organization when asked what their organization does right to help with stress management.

What your people are looking for

“The remote work-life balance allows me to complete my work in the hours and schedule that work best for my family and me. I’ve had the flexibility to pick up my kiddo quickly, go to appointments closer to home, make healthier lunch options while at home. This format is something that I value deeply and want to continue. Also, I can’t imagine adding in the commute time and extra gas expenses to and from the office daily now that I have experienced how much time and money I can preserve [working at home].”

Read the full report: The State of Employee Experience

Get the report

The ROI of exceptional EX

Putting into action

Three ways to take our insights and start applying them with your teams.

• Start listening to connect and collaborate
  • Revisit your current communication practices (honestly) and be open to improving them—bonus points for involving your team in this activity.
  • Get to know your team better. It can be as simple as making more effort to take a few minutes at the start of the meeting for personal talk before getting into the work stuff.
  • Forge avenues for team members to interact and encourage peer feedback and sharing recognition. Explore ways of doing this at a distance and in person, when possible.
• Promote personal growth and shared purpose
  • Ensure that each team member has a clear development plan in place.
  • Establish that everyone clearly understands how they can grow within your organization.  
  • Learn what your people value and seek ways to demonstrate and connect shared values of your own and those of the company.
• Provide innovative, holistic well-being offerings
  • As you listen more, you learn what really sparks joy with your people. Here’s where the perks come in. They can be unique to your team and company. It’s often better when it is.
  • Killer benefits may be there, but are they being used? It’s becoming more common practice in the competitive talent market to offer draws like unlimited vacation time. But with this, we’re also noticing that employees still hesitate to take this type of time. Is it because their workload doubles when away? Do they have guilt around taking what they deserve? Create a safe place for open discussion to see if your work perks really work.
  • Adjust your offerings based on your findings.

Final thoughts

(This is a shortened version of The State of Employee Experience. Download the complete report for all the data and insights.)

Shaping the employee experience rather than improving it or building it will set your organization apart from others and help you achieve EX excellence

Employee experience has been long viewed as a process, a program, a project when in fact, it’s none of those things. To quote Josh Bersin, “winning the war for talent requires not just taking actions to optimize the employee experience but also placing people at the center of all decision-making.”

If you want to achieve this, emphasis must shift onto shaping employee experience. In contrast to an investment-focused approach, organizations that take the shaping approach focus on influencing how the employee experience feels for their employees, and not so much on what it is.

At the core, shaping EX simply means making your employees central to all your EX efforts. You don’t just collect information on their expectations, needs, and experience at key moments— you collaborate with them at every step of the journey to:

• Identify and understand their expectations for their employee experience
• Shape their day-to-day experience moments
• Shape their memory of how their employee experience feels

Having your people play such an active role in shaping their EX will increase their level of engagement and loyalty to your organization. It’s a win-win situation: a perfect way to bridge the gap between employee concerns and employer expectations by enabling an ongoing dialogue and alignment between the organization and its employees.

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This article was written in collaboration with The People People Group.

Imagine a talented employee, working remotely, consistently exceeding expectations, yet feeling increasingly invisible. Their contributions go unnoticed, their motivation dwindles, and eventually, they start looking for a new opportunity. This scenario is all too common in hybrid workplaces where traditional recognition methods fall short.  

This guide explores why recognition is more critical than ever in hybrid setups, the unique challenges it presents, and actionable strategies to build a thriving culture of appreciation. With practical tips and a downloadable cheat sheet, you’ll learn how to make every employee feel seen, valued, and empowered, no matter where they work.

The power of appreciation: Why recognition matters more than ever in hybrid work

Recognition isn't just a perk; it's a fundamental human need. We all crave appreciation for our efforts, and when our impact is recognized, it instils a sense of belonging and affirms the fact that our work matters.  

Samin Sadeghi, Sr. HR Business Partner at Workleap, captures this perfectly: "Recognition nurtures people's greatest strengths."

In today's hybrid workplace, where physical distance can create disconnection, fulfilling these needs through meaningful recognition is more critical than ever.  

The psychology of recognition

Recognition in the workplace is more than just a pat on the back; it's a powerful psychological tool that fulfills fundamental human needs. At its core, recognition addresses the intrinsic human desires for belonging, achievement, and self-esteem. These needs are rooted in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which posits that once basic physiological and safety needs are met, individuals seek social belonging, esteem, and self-actualisation.

Belonging and social connection

Recognition fosters a sense of belonging and inclusion within a team or organization. When employees feel recognized, they perceive themselves as valued members of a community. This sense of belonging is crucial in reducing feelings of isolation and enhancing teamwork and collaboration.

Achievement and self-esteem

Recognition acknowledges an individual's accomplishments and contributions, boosting their self-esteem and reinforcing their sense of competence. When employees see that their efforts are noticed and appreciated, it validates their work and encourages them to maintain or increase their performance levels. As Sadeghi points out, "Leaders giving recognition cultivate an environment that allows talent to grow beyond its limits."  

This is more than just research — it clearly and consistently surfaces across the workplace research we have access to, including:

• Increased employee engagement: According to Gallup's Q^12® meta-analysis report, organizations with high levels of employee engagement experience a 18% increase in productivity and a 23% increase in profitability. Recognition helps employees feel more connected to their work and the organization's goals, leading to higher engagement levels.

• High motivation: Recognition serves as a powerful motivator by reinforcing desired behaviors and outcomes. A report by Bersin & Associates found that companies with effective recognition programs have 31% lower voluntary turnover rates. When employees are motivated through recognition, they are more likely to strive for excellence and go above and beyond in their roles.

• Improved retention: Employee recognition significantly impacts retention rates. Research from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) indicates that 68% of HR professionals believe employee recognition has a positive impact on retention. When employees feel valued and recognized, they are more likely to stay with the organization, reducing turnover costs and retaining valuable talent.

The reality is, these challenges have always existed, even in fully in-person workplaces. However, as hybrid work becomes the norm, their significance has grown exponentially, and many traditional solutions are no longer effective.

We’ll first explore the unique aspects of hybrid work that amplify these challenges and then delve into actionable strategies to bridge these gaps effectively.

Why hybrid work makes it harder

Hybrid work, while offering flexibility, introduces unique challenges to effective recognition — challenges that are often neither obvious nor immediately clear.

Feedback from members of The People People Group (TPPG) highlights several critical issues at the intersection of hybrid work and employee recognition today.

Here are a number of the most important to be aware of:

• The visibility paradox: "Out of sight, out of mind" takes on new meaning in hybrid work. Remote employees, despite their contributions, can easily be overlooked in day-to-day communication. TPPG research suggests that remote employees are 20% less likely to receive informal recognition than their in-office counterparts.

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Example: A remote employee develops a crucial piece of software, but because they aren't physically present, their work isn't as readily acknowledged in the team.

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• Inconsistency breeds resentment: Ad-hoc recognition, dependent on individual managers, creates uneven and potentially unfair experiences. Some teams may thrive on regular praise, while others receive little to none. This inconsistency can erode trust and create a sense of inequity.

When leaders lead by example in giving recognition, they set a powerful precedent. It creates a ripple effect where appreciation becomes a shared responsibility, not just a management task.

Samin Sadeghi. Sr. HR Business Partner at Workleap

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Best Practice: Establish company-wide recognition programs with clear guidelines and regular cadence to ensure all employees feel valued regardless of where they are working.

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• The emptiness of generic praise: "Good job!" While well-intentioned, generic praise lacks the specificity and sincerity that truly resonates. Employees crave recognition that acknowledges their unique skills and the impact of their work.

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Example: Instead of "Great presentation!", try "Your presentation on the new marketing strategy was incredibly insightful. The data you presented clearly demonstrated the potential ROI, and the team is excited to implement your recommendations."

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• Inauthenticity kills motivation: Forced or superficial recognition can be worse than no recognition at all. It feels disingenuous and can actually demotivate employees.

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Tip: Encourage authentic expressions of appreciation by training managers on how to deliver meaningful feedback.

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• The missing link in peer-to-peer recognition: Organic peer-to-peer recognition, a powerful driver of team cohesion, is harder to cultivate in virtual settings. Without deliberate facilitation, these vital moments of appreciation can be lost.

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Best Practice: Implement online platforms or tools that facilitate peer-to-peer recognition and make it easy for colleagues to acknowledge each other's contributions and/or give public praise easily

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In short, there’s plenty for HR leaders and companies to navigate. Fortunately, we’ve shared lots of actionable suggestions inspired by members of TPPG to help you close this gap effectively.

Closing the gap: How to make hybrid recognition work

Creating a robust recognition culture in a hybrid environment demands intentionality and a well-rounded strategy. Drawing from TPPG’s expertise and insights rooted in the psychology of motivation, here are proven approaches to help you succeed:

Values-based recognition: Start by clearly defining your company's core values. Then, align recognition efforts with those values. This reinforces desired behaviours and strengthens your company culture. "In giving recognition, true leadership reflects the brilliance of those they lead," notes Samin Sadeghi.

• Psychological Principle: Connecting recognition to values increases its perceived meaningfulness and impact.

Example: If "innovation" is a core value, regularly recognize employees who demonstrate creative problem-solving.

Creating consistent rhythms of appreciation: Establish regular recognition rituals, such as weekly shout-outs, monthly awards, or quarterly celebrations. These structured opportunities ensure that contributions don’t go unnoticed, regardless of work location.  

• Psychological Principle: Regular reinforcement strengthens positive behaviours and creates a culture of anticipation and appreciation.

Empowering managers to recognize effectively: Equip managers with the skills and tools to deliver authentic, specific recognition. Sadeghi emphasises this point: “Recognition is 50% message and 50% delivery. Some employees thrive on public praise, while others value a quiet note of appreciation. A successful recognition program honours those differences.”

• Psychological Principle: Manager recognition is particularly impactful as it validates an employee's contribution within the team and organization.

Share the employee recognition examples in this article as inspiration for expressing gratitude and showing your entire team they're valued.

Fueling peer-to-peer recognition: Peer appreciation fosters trust, camaraderie, and a sense of belonging. Encourage peer-to-peer recognition through online platforms, team meetings, or dedicated Slack channels.  

• Psychological Principle: Peer recognition strengthens social connections and creates a sense of shared purpose within the team.

💡Want to help your managers nuture a culture of peer recognition? Send them these 6 ideas they can start implementing right away.

Showcasing impactful recognition: Highlight great examples of recognition during team meetings, company newsletters, or onboarding sessions. Sharing stories of meaningful recognition inspires others and reinforces the importance of appreciation.

• Psychological Principle: Social proof demonstrates the value of recognition and encourages others to participate.

These practical steps will help you quickly address the recognition gap. However, to ensure lasting change, it's crucial to establish a strong foundation rooted in data and insights, allowing you to track progress and make continuous improvements along the way.

How to measure the success of your employee recognition efforts

To ensure success, it’s essential to have solid data to back your efforts. Without it, securing or maintaining investment — let alone initiating it — will be an uphill battle.

To ensure your recognition program is built to last, consider using the following pillars:

1. Defining success

Before launching any initiative, define what success looks like for your recognition program. What specific outcomes are you hoping to achieve? Consider the following metrics:  

• Increased employee engagement: Measured through satisfaction surveys detailed engagement surveys and eNPS, employee feedback platforms, or participation in recognition activities.

• Improved retention rates: Track employee turnover and identify any correlation with recognition initiatives.

• Enhanced performance: Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and assess whether recognition efforts contribute to improved productivity or quality of work.

• Stronger company culture: Gauge employee sentiment through surveys and focus groups, paying attention to feedback related to recognition and appreciation.

• Increased peer-to-peer recognition: Track the frequency and quality of peer-to-peer recognition using dedicated platforms or tools.
  

2. Gathering insights with the right tools

Use a variety of methods to collect data and understand the effectiveness of your recognition program.

• Employee surveys: Conduct regular pulse surveys to gauge employee sentiment and identify areas for improvement. Include specific questions about recognition effectiveness and preferences.

• Focus groups: Organize focus groups with representative employees from different departments and work locations to gather in-depth qualitative feedback.

• Recognition platform analytics: If using a dedicated platform, leverage built-in analytics to track usage patterns, identify top performers, and understand which recognition types are most popular.

• Manager feedback: Regularly solicit feedback from managers on the ease of use and effectiveness of the recognition program. Encourage them to share anecdotal evidence of positive impact.

3. Adjusting and iterating based on results

Regularly review the data collected and use it to refine your recognition program. Be prepared to adapt your approach based on employee feedback and observed outcomes.

• Experiment with different recognition types: Try out various forms of recognition, such as peer-to-peer awards, spot bonuses, public acknowledgements, or personalized gifts, and track their effectiveness.

• Refine communication strategies: Ensure that recognition is communicated effectively across the organization, regardless of work location. Utilize various channels, such as company newsletters, team meetings, and online platforms.

• Empower managers: Provide managers with the training and resources they need to effectively deliver recognition and provide meaningful feedback.

• Celebrate successes: Publicly acknowledge and celebrate the positive impact of the recognition program to reinforce its value and encourage continued participation.

Recognition isn’t just an investment in your employees — it’s an investment in your organization’s success. By fostering a recognition-rich culture, you’ll boost morale, strengthen engagement, and drive meaningful business outcomes.

Ready to Transform Your Hybrid Workplace? Open our free cheat sheet now to get started and build a recognition program that works for your team.

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Good communication at work plays an essential role in each and every responsibility you have.

Whether you're building relationships, managing conflict, or explaining clear objectives: you set the tone when it comes to learning why good communication skills are important.

Adding remote work into the mix, effective ways of communicating become fundamental for a positive employee experience.

To help improve both the quality and frequency of communication on your team, we put together 13 tips for effective workplace communication with an emphasis on helping distributed teams.

What's in this article

• 1. Practice authentic communication
• 2. Create a communication-friendly culture
• 3. Keep workplace communication constant
• 4. Hold weekly team meetings
• 5. Offer a platform for anonymous feedback
• 6. Ask for employee feedback
• 7. Communicate face-to-face
• 8. Master your body language
• 9. Know when less is more
• 10. Take time to listen
• 11. Personalize your communications
• 12. Set aside time for non-work related discussions
• 13. Prioritize workplace communication training

1. Practice authentic communication

Internal communication may often feel rehearsed, which makes some messaging less meaningful. Encourage your team to stay authentic. Not only will this help with productivity and engagement, but it will also help your team know that they can speak up when they need to.

As a manager, you set the example. Emphasize your humility and vulnerability. This will help others feel a level of approachability as well as indicates that they too can share their perspectives.

For example: When you communicate with sincerity by admitting to mistakes or not having all the answers, you establish psychological safety. This helps to level the playing field for others to do the same. Once that seed of authenticity is planted, everything from building solid relationships to having difficult conversations becomes that much easier.

2. Create a communication-friendly culture

To make sure your day-to-day is communication-friendly, set your team up with the right tools for online communication. Apps like Slack and Zoom are great for staying connected with remote employees and make communication feel accessible and collaborative even from afar.

In a communication-friendly culture, it's essential to emphasize the importance of expressing emotions, and ideas, and being unafraid to bring up difficult conversations.

Teams who show a high level of productivity have established psychological safety in their communication. In fact, many value trust and open communication and see it as integral to their team's success. This is especially true when broaching tough conversations.

Tip:

At Officevibe, we have a set of team norms that act as our guiding principles. These outline acceptable behaviours and one of these values underscore communication: "Call out the elephant in the room".

Essentially this means that we hold team members accountable to make sure we're not sweeping important issues under the rug.

3. Keep workplace communication constant

Maintain a healthy communication flow with your team. Instead of relying on annual reviews to discuss performance and goals, find the time for monthly 1-on-1s.

Holding yourself and your team accountable to stay up to date on each other's workload, morale, and resources will nurture two-way conversations. Not only does this help with employee productivity, but it also boosts employee motivation and engagement.

Don't rely on reading body language from afar. You'd be surprised how much your team has to say if 1-on-1s or team catch-ups didn't initiate important conversations.

There are also amazing tools for online communication that can help you organize your streamlining. See which one fits your team better.

4. Hold weekly team meetings

In addition to monthly one-on-one meetings, schedule the same sort of initiative but for the whole team in an open forum.

During prolonged times of uncertainty, having more frequent meetings will be helpful to re-communicate goals, and objectives, collaborate on projects and discuss shifts in strategies. This is also a great time for the team to ask questions and get on the same page.

Tip:

Individuals may feel too awkward to bring up questions in a virtual group setting. Remember, you are the leader. Normalize sharing candid thoughts by demonstrating your own curiosity. Ask your team questions that prompt reflection and leave space for them to answer.

💡 Instead of "is there anything unclear about the new strategic direction?" try "what part of the new direction is lacking clarity?" or "what excites you about our upcoming projects?'

Also, if you're working remotely, your team might be missing some of the benefits of physical meetings. You need to be ready to smoothly transition to the future of work: a hybrid reality that includes remote work and periodic face-to-face interactions.

Incorporating co-working spaces that enable productive and efficient collaboration, could be the best approach to combining remote and physical work.

5. Offer a platform for anonymous feedback

Allowing anonymous feedback is crucial for effective workplace communication. Sometimes, employees shy away from sharing feedback.

They might be hesitant to make a complaint or divulge their authentic thoughts and emotions openly. In this case, the option for anonymity facilitates the process of sharing more difficult sentiments, which are key insights for managers.

❤️ Officevibe helps managers improve team communication and build a culture of continuous feedback

We take communication seriously and put continuous effort into ensuring that our product helps managers and teams master effective, two-way communication. Here’s how:

1. Our anonymous feedback tool allows employees to share their thoughts anonymously, and lets managers respond to the feedback directly in the platform. Opening up a dialogue about issues in real-time helps start important conversations before problems become too big.
2. Answering feedback isn’t always easy. Our latest Feedback Guidance Feature guides managers in responding to all sorts of feedback. We’ll always be there to guide you, but you’ll improve over time, and eventually, answering even the toughest feedback will become natural to you.
3. We believe in meaningful, effective, and collaborative communication, always. Our one-on-one tool lets managers and employees set talking points in a collaborative agenda and even helps managers kick-start discussions with dozens of Conversation Starters that are proven to promote solution-finding and openness.

Try it free!

6. Ask for employee feedback

Effective communication is never top-down or one-way. Always give the team the chance to give you, their leader, feedback.

For example: Ask teams to communicate their feedback on your performance as a manager. Or ask them to share their input on the upcoming strategy you presented. The idea is to keep lines of communication open and get rid of hierarchical barriers. Everyone has something to learn, especially managers.

💥We created a Toolbox for managers with frameworks, guides, templates, and checklists to get them through their most common management challenges.

7. Communicate face-to-face 

Using tools like Slack and email is efficient, however, they're not the most ideal for building lasting connections.

It's important to remember that face-to-face communication holds a great amount of value when it comes to sincerity and authenticity. In-person conversations aren't always accessible, but there are ways to facilitate this in a remote work environment.

Part of effective communication is human interaction. With this in mind, try speaking instead of typing as often as possible without disrupting the flow of work.

This will further facilitate getting to know your team's body language, personality, and tone. It's especially helpful when it comes to giving feedback.

Tip:

If you can't be face-to-face, try hosting video calls rather than phone calls. They help to reduce distractions during important conversations and strengthen peer-to-peer interactions when you and your employees can't physically be in the office.

8. Master your body language

Non-verbal communication is important. Your body language has a huge impact on how people perceive you and gauge reactions.

Communicate with physical presence and ensure that your body language is open and approachable. When working remotely, your body language speaks volumes. Here are a few key points to keep in mind:

• Smile (if you're feeling it). Seeing your teammate smiling back at you is comforting!
• Keep your arms uncrossed to demonstrate openness
• Maintain an upright posture to show your engagement
• Maintain eye contact. Looking into the camera when you speak and looking at the person speaking when it's their turn shows that you're present.
• Turn off device notifications to minimize distractions

9. Know when less is more

In a perfect world, employees can power down after work hours and stop checking emails. The truth is, many of us are so connected to our jobs and our devices.

The line between a healthy work-life balance gets blurred even further while we're working from home. Building a boundary is helpful to achieve a healthy work-life balance. Make sure you keep the number of emails you send after core hours to a minimum. While communication is important, rest is equally a priority.

According to data we collected during the transition to remote work, 32% of employees don't feel they have a proper balance between their work and personal life. As a manager, employees look to you to lead by example and help draw clear boundaries.

10. Take time to listen

One of the most essential and meaningful elements of communication is practicing active listening. It's like the old adage: we have two ears and only one mouth for a reason. Listening to your team gives them the space to share honest and transparent feedback.

Bonus: it shows empathy and promotes healthy professional relationships with humility at the base.

Here are 3 quick tips to help you be a more active listener:

1. Normalize comfortable silences: Leaders might dominate conversations. It's important to lead by listening. Open-air gives people time to reflect and think about how they can contribute to the conversation.
2. Be present: It may seem obvious, but listening means focusing on the interaction in front of you. Put your phone away, turn your notifications off, and dedicate your attention to being here, now.
3. Confirm what you know: Repeat what's been brought up. Let the other person know that you were truly listening by confirming what you heard. This ensures you're both on the same page and can move forward with clarity.

11. Personalize your communications

Understanding your employees' individual communication style takes time.

Great leaders know that it's worth being patient. Being mindful of the way you communicate and how this will land with the people you speak to, goes a long way and has a big impact. Consider this:

Employee A might prefer to communicate in a private space and appreciate specific examples when receiving feedback.

Employee B might like to walk and talk during difficult conversations because it requires less direct eye contact, rendering the conversation less formal.

Employee C might have a hard time communicating altogether. This would be a good time to work on communication techniques as part of their development.

One way to discover each employee's communication preference is to ask:

• What is the best way I can share feedback with you? 
• What is most important to you when it comes to communication at work? 
• What do you find difficult about communicating?

12. Set aside time for non-work related discussions 

Employees are multidimensional people. That person from marketing might have interesting travel stories, or that new person on your team might be working towards a big personal fitness goal.

Whatever the case may be, knowing that you’re communicating with people initiates empathy. Talking about topics beyond the scope of work leads to positive relationships and strong team dynamics.

Try this activity:

Ask everyone to share a piece of information that no one at work knows about them. Write it down on a piece of paper. Throw it into a bowl. Shuffle each piece of paper around. Now, work together to guess who it belongs to. You’ll be surprised what you learn about each other! You can even draw names in a remote setting using a tool like Name Picker.

13. Prioritize workplace communication training 

Emphasize the importance of communicating effectively with your team. This is especially important for managers to nip bad habits in the bud.

At Officevibe, we’re enrolled in Conscious Communication training (also known as Non-Violent Communication training). Initially, the program was limited to our managers, but the benefits were so great that now 300+ employees are taking part in a two-day workshop! The goal is for everybody to become more self-aware when it comes to communication. We’ve especially noted the impact our choice of words has on teams.

Effective communication leads to engaged employees. It helps everyone understand what’s going on in the company and what’s expected of each other.

It helps us build relationships, have tough conversations, and successfully tackle problems. It removes ambiguity, stress, and confusion that is compounded while working remotely. Communication is the thread that ties through all successful teams.

Our feedback guide helps you put these tips into practice. Check it out and tell us about your experience!

Exceptional employee experience starts with onboarding. That first impression can leave a lasting mark on employee engagement, motivation, and retention. And it can be as easy as beginning by asking the right employee onboarding survey questions. Yet many organizations struggle to orient new hires optimally.

Only 12% of employees strongly agree that their organization does a great job onboarding new hires.

Gallup

So in most companies, there’s a big gap between what people expect from the onboarding process and what they actually get.

Fortunately, you can do a great deal to close this gap simply by asking the right questions. So here are the best questions to ask and instrumental advice on how to get the most from onboarding surveys.

The importance of onboarding surveys for new employees

An effective onboarding process brings new team members up to speed quickly. It helps them settle in, improves employee engagement, and improves employee retention. On the other hand, poor onboarding can be expensive—leading to high employee turnover that may cost 100-300% of the total salaries involved.

Human resources teams use onboarding surveys to find out how people feel about the process of bringing them into the organization. By gathering qualitative and quantitative feedback from new hires, companies gain insights into improving onboarding.

Done well, onboarding surveys can:

• Show you areas where new employee’s questions remain unanswered
• Highlight any onboarding problems that need to be addressed
• Gather valuable data about how people feel when joining the company
• Give insights as to whether employees are likely to stay
• Provide ideas for enhancing the hiring process

How to formulate your onboarding survey questions

When creating your survey, aim for a mix of questions to elicit a full range of responses from team members. These may include:

• Open-ended questions: allowing employees to express themselves any way they like in the answers
• Numerical-scale questions: ask people to rate their reply on a scale of 1-10 or another appropriate range
• Percentage-scale questions: when you need a more granular response, it may make more sense to ask for a percentage
• Likert-scale questions: give employees options ranging from ‘Strongly disagree’ to ‘Strongly agree’

Scale-type questions are great for collecting hard feedback that can be analyzed and compared. But remember to include some open questions. These allow you to gather sentiment that you would otherwise miss. 

To ensure that important matters are not overlooked, consider including questions relating to each of the following topics:

• Recruitment: did they consider the recruitment process to be a positive experience?
• Their decision: do they have any regrets about joining the company?
• Induction: how did they find the initial orientation process?
• The onboarding experience: how could onboarding have been handled better?
• Engagement: do they feel engaged with their job, colleagues, and manager?
• Organizational alignment: are their personal goals a good fit with business objectives in your company?
• Role perceptions: how do they view their new role in the organization?

✅ Remember that the questions you choose will impact how you welcome new team members into the business. So it’s well worth taking the time and trouble to get the survey right.

30 employee onboarding survey questions

While any onboarding survey is helpful, you will get the best results if you poll new hires several times to assess their sentiment. Regular check-ins will give you insights into how their feelings about the organization and roles change over time.

One effective strategy for gathering the information you need is to survey new employees three times:

• At the end of their first week
• At the end of their first month
• At the end of their first quarter

This approach will help you track the pulse of changing feelings and quickly bring any problems to your attention.

Here are some suggestions for onboarding questions you can ask. You can also check out our article on 30 employee satisfaction survey questions for more valuable ideas.

Week 1 survey questions

In their first week at work, employees will be excited but also a little nervous. So it would help if you asked questions to probe their initial feelings about their new job.

1. Do you feel welcome in your new job?
2. What could have made your first day better?
3. What do you like about your new job?
4. What do you NOT like about your new job?
5. Was the onboarding process satisfactory?
6. How could we improve the recruitment process? 
7. Have you received adequate help and support?
8. How would you rate your relationship with your manager?
9. If you could change one thing, what would it be?
10. How would you rate your first week on a scale of 1 to 10?

Month 1 survey questions

After a month, employees will start to settle in. But now they understand the organization a little better, and they may have new questions and concerns. Now is your chance to find out what they think.

11. Are you happy with the way your job is progressing?

12. Do you feel comfortable that you fully understand your role?

13. Do you find your colleagues to be friendly and helpful?

14. Have you received sufficient training to do your job well?

15. Do you have all the equipment you need to do your job?

16. What obstacles are slowing down your progress?

17. Is there any aspect of the workplace you are uncomfortable with?

18. How does your new job compare to your previous position?

19. How would you rate your first week on a scale of 1 to 10?

20. Do you feel you made the right decision joining this organization?

Month 3 survey questions

Three months in, new employees should be fully settled and an integral part of the team. Now that they fully understand their role, it’s time to ask more career-oriented questions.

21. Do you consider your onboarding to have been successful?

22. Have you noticed any shortcomings in the onboarding process?

23. Do you now feel confident you can do your job well?

24. Do you see yourself having a long-term future here? 

25. Would you recommend a friend to join our organization?

26. How would you rate your relationships with colleagues?

27. How would you rate your relationship with your manager?

28. What do you like best about your job?

29. What do you dislike about your job?

30. How would you rate your first month on a scale of 1 to 10?

Onboarding survey questions for remote workers 

With off-site work playing a more prominent role in business than ever, it’s essential that your survey questions cover the needs of remote workers, too.

You may want to ask them:

• Do you have the online communication and collaboration tools you need to stay in touch?
• Are you experiencing issues with feeling isolated or disconnected from the team?
• Do you feel comfortable working without direct supervision?
• Are you sufficiently involved in team meetings and discussions?
• Do you think you are treated differently from on-site employees?

Benefits of a good onboarding process and asking the right questions

There are many benefits to employee engagement surveys. But success is not just about asking questions; it’s about asking the right questions. 

Onboarding is an opportunity to welcome employees to their new place of work. As well as showing them how to do their job, you can also introduce them to the organization’s mission. You will achieve amazing things together when everyone has the same vision, working culture, and core values.

Your investment in your employees is a significant expense, so it makes sense to get things right from the start. First impressions count, and you need to get the first weeks right. Employee onboarding surveys help you achieve that goal.

How to interpret onboarding survey results

Once you’ve started gathering survey data, how do you interpret it? To get the most from the information, you need to understand it. Here are some tips on how to start:

• Review your response rate: a low return rate may suggest employees feel their input doesn’t count or that the benefits of participating were not clearly communicated
• Analyze perceptions and impressions: responses will give you a good indication of employees’ first impressions, plus how they perceive their work environment. Use this to improve the work experience for everyone
• Watch for trends: if you start to see patterns emerging, it’s time to dig deeper. When an issue is a concern for many people, you know it’s time to take action
• Compare with previous surveys: check to see how sentiment and perceptions change over time. Understanding how employees’ feelings change is critical to extending their tenure

What to do with onboarding survey answers to improve employee engagement

Having gathered your survey responses, you need to take action. Calculate the changes that will have the most immediate impact based on the data.

Implement these as quickly as possible and share progress with your team. When people know you take their feedback seriously, they will be more likely to participate in the future.

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The answers may also show that you need more insights in some areas. So be sure to update your questions regularly. Discard those not producing valuable results and expand on areas of greater interest.

It’s also important to keep measuring employee sentiment beyond the onboarding stage. An employee feedback system such as the Officevibe Pulse Survey Tool will help you maintain the momentum.

💡 For more ideas, you can also check out our complete guide to employee engagement surveys or see what to do with employee feedback survey results. 

Better employee onboarding surveys mean better outcomes

Success depends on having a team of engaged, productive employees in any business. A good onboarding strategy is critical to making this happen.

With the right employee onboarding survey questions, you can optimize your system to achieve the best results. That means more employee satisfaction, a better company culture, greater output, and increased profit.

When it comes to touching base with employees, keeping track of their workload and deliverables, and just checking in on a personal level, one-on-one meeting questions are the way to go. While one-on-one meetings are a great time to ask your direct reports any important questions you have for them, they also serve as a great time to address any questions your direct reports might have for you.

As a manager, you have a long to-do list and many moving parts to keep track of. As a result, you might not always have the time to craft the perfect questions for your one-on-one meetings. Sometimes, it can be challenging to know what one-on-one meeting questions to ask managers and employees or what you should be discussing with your team members.

We get it. So to help you get enough feedback (and valuable insights!) we’ve put together a handy list to keep you on track, dividing them by subject. Because, after all, if you’re not asking the right questions, you might not be reaping all the benefits of one-on-ones.

Use the following questions to efficiently set discussion points in your next one-on-one meeting agenda so that you can focus on your employees’ answers, and the next steps that come from these meaningful conversations.

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How to structure one-on-one meetings

Before even jumping into one-on-ones, it’s important to brush up on how to structure them appropriately. While the conversations should always feel natural, preparing for them will help you feel confident in your approach and can even help improve communication and build trust over time.

Whether you want to talk about professional development opportunities, company culture, or anything in between, a one-on-one meeting template can help you get started and master your one-on-one conversation!

The great thing about a template is that it still allows you to stay true to your management style and put your personal touch on it. Managers and employees alike will benefit from proper preparation and structure.

While different types of meetings call for different structures, the goal is to cover the right talking points and follow up on action items. For example, a classic one-on-one meeting generally follows these steps:

1. Informal check-in (5 minutes)

2. Recent work recap (10 minutes)

3. Upcoming work preparation (10 minutes)

4. Wrap-up and set action items (10 minutes)

A goal-setting meeting will follow a different structure, with some preparation ahead of time:

1. Employee self-reflection (before your one-on-one meeting)

2. Setting individual employee goals (during your one-on-one meeting)

3. Establish smaller action items (wrapping up your one-on-one meeting)

Now let’s jump into the questions, shall we?

50 One-on-one meeting questions

Now that we’ve explored the structure of one-on-one meetings, let’s walk through the kinds of questions you can ask in each situation. From general check-ins and career development meetings to personal or difficult conversations, we’ve got you covered.

Come prepared with appropriate questions for the meeting in order to cover everything on the agenda and maintain a great flow.

Questions to check in with employees

Whether it’s your first one-on-one with an employee or you’ve been having regular sessions for a long time, it’s always good to have a check-in meeting. Open up your next regular one-on-one conversation with a meeting question from the list below.

These questions will help you understand what’s on your team member’s mind, so you can direct the conversation from there during your check-in:

• Can you tell me about what you’ve been working on and how it’s going?
• What’s been on your mind concerning work these last two weeks?
• Can you share a recent example of a work situation where you thrived? What were the key components that led to your success?

💡 Did you know? Open and honest communication between managers and employees can have a huge impact on employee motivation, satisfaction, and even productivity. So having one-on-ones regularly can even help with employee retention. In fact, a recent study showed that high employee engagement actually results in 18% more productivity (Gallup).

Other managers themselves are often some of the best people to ask for tips on having better one-on-one conversations.

Questions about personal life

While chatting about career goals and offering constructive criticism is an important part of one-on-ones, it’s also important to show an interest in their personal life. How employees feel in the day-to-day is often a reflection of what’s going on outside of the workplace.

Not only does tapping into this help build a better relationship, it also plays a big role in building trust. At the end of the day, we are all human. It’s important for everyone to be able to talk about the challenges they are facing, as well as the non-work highlights they would love to share.

At the same time, it's also important to maintain the balance between being personal and remaining professional. While it's necessary to show that you care, it's also important to ensure and respect privacy.

To help you navigate this, here are some questions to ask when you want to check in with your employees on a personal level, without being invasive.

• How are you doing, and how is life outside of work lately?
• How do you feel your work/life balance is right now?
• Is there something you enjoy doing in your free time that you feel you haven’t had time for lately?
• Is there something you wish you could change about work that would positively impact your personal life? What would that be?

Pro tip: Be specific whenever you can. If they have children, ask their names and be sure to check-in and ask questions about them. If there has recently been a holiday or a life event, ask about that too.

Showing an interest, remembering little personal details, and having these relatable conversations can make a world of difference in an employee’s day.

Questions about employee engagement and motivation

So many factors that contribute to employee engagement and motivation, so tapping into what those are is key. After all, a successful business runs on employees who are driven and content in their role and career progression.

Sometimes the biggest challenge managers face is making sure their team stays motivated and kicking ass, so these meeting questions are designed to find out what they’re enjoying, what they’re not, and how you can address the challenges they face:

• Are you excited about what you’re currently working on?
• What motivates you to come to work?
• How do you feel about our upcoming projects?
• Do you sometimes feel bored or unchallenged at work? If so, how can we make your day-to-day more motivating?

Questions about employee performance

Success is a two-way street. Employees perform better when the company succeeds in listening to their needs and responding in a way that enables them to hit their goals. Performance management helps with professional growth, which in turn contributes to company success.

Here are some questions to ask to ensure you’re receiving feedback that can help boost employee performance:

• What skills or behaviors do you demonstrate at work that are a win-win for you and for your team or company?
• Do you ever have to work on more than one task at a time? If so, how could your duties and your responsibilities be reorganized so that you avoid having to multitask?
• In your judgment, what does our company value or expect from you regarding your performance? Have you had the opportunity to satisfy these expectations or actualize these values in your work?
• In your judgment, is the method for evaluating and awarding one’s job performance justified and fair?

Pro tip: Have performance review meetings with new hires after their first 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days to set the tone for future performance discussions.

One-on-one questions about team alignment

Staying aligned takes some finessing, but finding the right balance is always possible when done right. Having your team aligned can help improve performance and increase employee satisfaction (win-win!).

Deep dive into these questions to assess what’s working, and what can be done to increase alignment:

• Do your colleagues know when they can interrupt you? If not, how could you communicate this to them without it undermining your ability to collaborate?
• Are there things happening on the team that make it difficult to collaborate?
• Do you feel the team has sufficient resources (IT, human, budgetary, material, or other) to achieve our shared team goals?
• If there was one thing you could see our team or company accomplish, what would it be? What would help you or your team to achieve it? What do you think might get in the way?

Pro tip: Officevibe is the ultimate tool for getting everyone to focus in the same direction. 

Questions about professional development

When it comes to professional development, everyone has their own career aspirations. From learning new skills to building long-term goals, growth is subjective. That’s why it’s essential to find out what matters to each employee, the direction they want to take, and the career goals they have.

HR leaders and managers alike can benefit from having these career conversations in order to help each individual grow.

Ask these professional development questions in your next one-on-one:

• Do you feel like you’re making progress in your role?
• Do you feel challenged at work? Are you learning new things?
• What is something we could do to help you achieve your short and long-term goals?
• Do you feel we’re helping you advance your career at the pace you want?
• Are there any events you’d like to attend or training you’d like to have to help you develop your skills?

💡 Did you know? 1 in 3 employees say they don’t have someone at work who helps them grow and develop (Officevibe Pulse Survey data). 

A workplace mentor can be a great way to help further an employee’s professional development. Get tips on how to mentor an employee.

One-on-one questions about employee challenges

No role comes without its share of challenges. Whether it's learning how to manage distractions (at the office or while working remotely!), day-to-day problems with communication, or even an issue with the company culture, employees should always be encouraged to speak up.

Remedying these issues and blockers will help improve employee satisfaction and performance. Even if past managers haven’t taken the time to take employees’ grievances into consideration, you certainly can!

Here are some useful questions to ask in your future meetings (on-site and with remote teams):

• What elements of your work environment cause the most frequent interruptions to your productivity and how could you remedy this problem?
• In your judgment, is your workload reasonable? If it isn’t, can you suggest solutions that we could implement together to address the problem?
• What are the best ways for you to communicate with me when you find you lack resources whether IT, human, budgetary, material, or others?
• What are the best ways for you to communicate with me when your role and your responsibilities at work aren’t clear to you?

💡 Did you know? Remote workers face a number of challenges that aren’t necessarily faced in the office. Since a recent study has stated that a quarter of working hours will continue to be worked remotely (BNN Bloomberg), it’s important to ensure that remote employees’ challenges will continue to be addressed. 

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Check out 6 proven solutions to common distributed teams challenges.

Ask questions about recognition preferences

Being recognized for your work is a huge motivational force for employees. But how they receive positive feedback can differ. Checking in to ask about the method and frequency is a great way to keep employees on track with their accomplishments and recognized in the way they want.

Ask these questions when checking in during your one-on-ones:

• In what context would you prefer the good work you’ve done to be underscored?
• What kind of employee recognition would have the most positive impact on you? Do you prefer voiced appreciation of your input during team meetings, positive feedback from me in one-on-one meetings, team activities that highlight the success of a given project, or something else?
• Do you make an effort to recognize your peers’ work and accomplishments?
• Is there something we could do as a team to improve recognition?

Employee feedback and communication questions

Similarly to recognition preferences, it’s also important to ask your employees how they like to receive feedback in general. Some employees take well to receiving feedback and constructive criticism, while other employees require a different approach. Getting to know what works and what doesn’t is key.

Here are some straightforward meeting questions you can ask each individual:

• How do you prefer to receive feedback?
• Is there a piece of constructive feedback that you received recently that was particularly helpful? Why?
• Do you feel comfortable offering your colleagues feedback on the work you collaborate on?
• Is there anything I could give you feedback on right now, or any feedback you might have for me?

Pro tip: Check out our employee feedback guide for managers and find out how to give constructive feedback that helps your team.

One-on-one meeting questions about career goals

Setting career goals helps to keep employees on track and focused on where they want to be in both the short term and the long term. But it’s a manager’s role to help them determine what those are, and how to stay on track when trying to achieve them.

Asking the right one-on-one meeting questions is a great place to start:

• Do you need to have a clearer picture of how your individual career goals allow us to attain our goals as a team or a company?
• Do you need my help identifying which actions could help you achieve your long-term goals?
• As things stand, do you think you will be able to achieve your goal?
• Do you think that we should work together to revise your goal, or set new ones?

Setting employee goals can be tough. In Officevibe, you can set individual goals collaboratively with employees, and connect them with your team’s collective goals. From there, you can set smaller action items at every one-on-one meeting, so your team members are set up for success to achieve.

Ask questions about employee work-life balance, wellness, and stress.

Just like the importance of asking questions about an employee’s personal life, checking in on their work-life balance is also crucial. Now more than ever there is a focus on managing stress and taking care of mental health.

Be sure to ask the right questions to let your team know you are listening and that you support a healthy balance:

• How are you prioritizing work-life balance?
• Do you feel comfortable taking breaks, time off, and making use of flexible work policies?
• Can you give me concrete examples of stressful situations you experience at work?
• In your judgment, what’s causing the stress? Is it a sense that you lack control, a feeling that you aren’t proficient, or difficulties dealing with unpredictable or new aspects of your job?
• Are you able to ask colleagues with more experience than yourself for help, support, or input when it comes to managing stressful situations?
• What do I do as a manager already, and need to continue to do, to support our team’s physical and mental well-being?

Pro tip: Checking in on your employees’ mental health can be a sensitive thing to handle, but it is a necessary one. A mental health template can be a great guide in helping you navigate through asking the right questions.

Questions to wrap up and set next steps

From career development to an employee’s wellbeing, every issue is worth diligently following up on. Personal productivity questions are just as important as work culture questions, so these open-ended options can cater to everything and anything that may be on an employee's mind during your meetings.

• What’s one thing you’ll put into place in the next week or two based on our conversation?
• Is there a specific talking point we should circle back to in our next meeting?
• Before we wrap up, can you think of anything I could do to help you out?

If agreeing to the next steps is important, tracking them is even more so. Officevibe lets you assign every action item (to your team member or yourself!) at the end of each meeting. Then, it sends you an email on Mondays to remind you of your commitments.

Action items automatically carry over to your next one-on-one agenda on the platform, so you never lose track of what you both said you’d do.

One-on-one meeting best practices

Now that you’ve navigated your way through each section of questions addressing topics like career growth, growing more soft skills, challenges while working remotely, and so much more, it’s a great time to check out the ultimate one-on-one meetings guide for more ideas to get you fully prepared for your upcoming meetings.

It’s got all the best practices, top tips, and insider knowledge you need in your toolbelt as a manager.

Get well equipped

You’re a great manager, and these questions will help you have great conversations with every direct report on your team. Whether it’s discussing goals, having a difficult conversation, getting a status update, or checking in on wellbeing, with Officevibe you’re well-equipped to cover any talking point needed.

We started to write a piece on the most essential tips for managers and then realized, who better to pitch in for this content than real leaders?

So, we collected 9 pieces of manager advice from incredible leaders who not only lead successful teams, but believe in teams as much as we do.

Some of these tips might hit home or already be in your toolbelt. Others might be great additions as you continue to develop in your role. All the advice in this piece should be a small reminder that you are part of a community of leaders that just like you, have been in the trenches of overwhelming days and difficult times on their team.

Take a moment to recognize the complexity of your job and appreciate and all the good work you do. As a brand dedicated to helping managers and teams succeed, we are always in awe of you.

And now, let’s hear what your leader peers have to say!

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9 honest manager tips, from one team leader to another

1. Get curious, check your assumptions at the door

🎙 Never assume. We’re all gifted and different. We’re used to going fast and being on autopilot. Take the time to defuse preconceived ideas with curiosity. Listening actively and unpacking both information and emotion (your own or your team members’) can enrich everyone around the table. All while unlocking true greatness.

- Ingrid Enriquez-Donissaint, Director, strategic planning at Tam-Tam  TBWA

Beautifully said! Great managers put in the work to unpack their own biases and preconceptions (we all have them). Don’t assume you always know the answer. Be genuinely curious about how people are feeling, and why projects are working, or not. Before judging things like underperformance or conflict, try to understand the real reason behind it. Talk about it. Unpack it. Have a tough conversation about it. Taking the time to ask thoughtful questions that push beyond the surface is what will help you really understand your team's needs.

💡 Tip: Get time on the books to connect with each team member on a bi-weekly or monthly basis. Use these 1-on-1 moments to ask meaningful questions that give you well-rounded insight into what both drives and pains your people. If you don’t ask, you just won’t know.

2. Be sure you really understand what it means to be a manager

Caren Carrasco, Managing partner at Benjamin David Group

🎙 It has to start with a desire to lead a team. Many mistakenly believe that a transition to a manager is the only way to grow a career. A successful team needs direction, attention, guidance, feedback, development, etc.

(...) This not only requires a tremendous amount of time, but it’s time that often doesn’t come with a clear output, which could be a challenge for delivery-focused individuals. In my experience, the best managers are usually the ones who really know how to put their team first, above their own priorities. A team can feel this. You can’t fake the sincerity and involvement that’s required to lead one, and like most things, you get what you give. Take the time to think about what you really want before becoming a manager. And when you are a manager, focus on your people.

There’s lots to think about here, especially for a first-time manager.

Becoming a manager is not a continuation of your individual expertise. Management is a job in and of itself with a whole new set of responsibilities. Most importantly, it’s no longer about you. It’s about your people. To be successful as a manager, your drive needs to extend beyond your own career growth to the growth and development of your team.

💡New manager? We have a full guide to help you get into the right mindset for the role.

3. Focus on people’s strengths

- Annick Robinson, Communications Leader, Alstom:

🎙 What distinguishes great leaders are those who find the strengths of each person on the team and look for every opportunity for them to shine. As a leader, I think of myself as the obstacle remover for my team, so they can each score.

(...) I give them visibility, opportunities, and push them to grow. In my first meetings with new team members, it is key that I understand not just where they are now, but where they want to go, and where they want to grow - and then try to make that happen for them.

We could not agree more. Your team members will excel when they feel their skills, talent and strengths are being properly used and nurtured in their company. If you hire someone for their expertise, let them put it to use! Don’t micromanage. Instead, remove obstacles that pop up along the way and give your people the space they need to put their skills to work. That means don’t flood your team with work that does not motivate them. Instead, help people develop where they already possess potential.

💡 Did you know? 30% of employees do not currently feel that their skills are being used. How does your team feel? Find out using Officevibe's employee engagement solution!

4. Be vulnerable with your team if you want them to be open with you

🎙 Build a psychologically safe environment for each team member. When employees feel included and safe, they are engaged, they share their ideas, they learn, they innovate and ultimately perform (often beyond your expectations!). Communicate as human beings first and as professionals second through consistent check-ins. To achieve this safety on your team, model vulnerability. Our teams are as open, vulnerable and safe as we are as leaders.

- Nogol Madani, Founder at Glee Factor

The discussion around vulnerability in leadership and psychological safety on teams has picked up a lot of steam over the past few years. Officevibe is on this bandwagon. Being a manager does not mean you need to be infallible. It doesn’t mean you need to have all the answers. And it certainly doesn’t mean you aren’t human. Great managers get real with their team, so their team can get real with them. Make mistakes, be your authentic self, and emphasize inclusion. This is when team cultures vibe.

💡 Try this: Start each team meeting with a human check-in. Something as simple as “Use one word to describe how you are coming into this meeting”. When you and your team members are given the space to share their state of mind, empathy and safety grows.

5. Don’t wait. Be proactive and responsive to problems

Louis Bridgman, Manager, SAP:

🎙 I've been managing high-performing software engineering teams for five years. The best tip that I can give is to be responsive. For example, one of my teams had become frustrated with a new project assignment lacking a clear mandate, with mixed messages coming from different stakeholder groups.

(...) This became clear to me through multiple 1-on-1 conversations. I didn't have the answer, but I knew that the only way to get clarity was to sit these stakeholder groups down, compare the conflicting messages, and strive for some unified direction for the teams to do their jobs! Responsiveness requires active listening, empathy, and a bias towards action. I didn't have the answer, but I knew that the only way to get clarity was to sit these stakeholder groups down, compare the conflicting messages, and strive for some unified direction for the teams to do their jobs! Responsiveness requires active listening, empathy, and a bias towards action.

Louis highlights the importance of acting fast to alleviate pains, which we agree is a key management skill. Find solutions for team issues before the fire grows.

What we love about Louis’ anecdote is that he used his 1-on-1 meetings like a pro. During these conversations, he was able to surface individual employee pain points and spot patterns across the team. Without taking the time for these important conversations, how long would the problem have persisted?

6. Empathize: push yourself to take a different perspective

- Jacob Morgan, TED Speaker & Host: The Be Your Own Boss Podcast:

🎙  Empathy is about being able to take that person's perspective and to put yourself in their shoes to feel what they feel. Being a master of empathy allows you to create better products for your customers, resolve conflicts more effectively, and foster collaboration. You're able to build connections with other people because you can understand them and take their perspective.

This reminds us of what Ingrid said about letting go of your assumptions and preconceptions. Empathy has a part to play in this, and an even bigger part to play in being a fair manager. This pillar of emotional intelligence allows you to build real connections with your team by putting yourself in their reality and judging it from their vantage point, not yours.

You might not always agree with an employee’s perspective, but try to understand where they are coming from. A great manager is always willing to challenge their own thinking.

💡  Tip: Ask yourself important questions before reacting. For example, “how would I want to be treated if I was in the same situation as my team member”?

7. Listen closely, as if your job depends on it  

🎙 "Listen! Really, really listen! Listen to understand, not just to respond or confirm your own hypotheses."

- Mike Ross, VP at Simons

This might seem like a no-brainer, but the problem is, it’s easier said than done. As your day moves fast and your to-do list grows, being present in conversations is not always top of mind.

But, more than anything, your employees want to be heard. Be intentional about every conversation with your team members. Go in with an open mind. Leave your own hypotheses and biases on the backburner. Focus on what they are trying to tell you, even beyond the words they are using. Listening is a life skill, and we can all use a reminder of its importance once in a while. Listen to listen, not to respond.

💡 Tip: When you are listening to your employee and your “response” pops into your head, push it aside and keep listening. To show them that you’ve listened, summarize what they said back to them.

8. Take "you time”. It’s the only way to show up for your team

- Rajkumari Neogy, Management coach and founder at iRestart

🎙 Take care of yourself so you can show up for your team. Right now, the biggest concern for managers and employees is burnout, which directly impacts the mental health states of the company’s workforce. Time blocking is the single most important skill to master during the “living at work” situation the pandemic is forcing upon us. Block 15-30 min in your calendar in the AM and in the PM and then commit to that block of time. This allows us to take time for ourselves and to unplug briefly. When we are able to make time for self-reflection, we are prioritizing our mental health.

As the old adage goes, you should always put your oxygen mask on before helping someone else. Ultimately, burnt-out managers cannot lead successful teams. You have a lot to do in a day, so it might feel irresponsible to take some “you time”. But, as Rajkumari explains, self-reflecting and stepping back from the bustle of the day is key for clarity, and mental health. Managers matter too.

Try out time-blocking, what she referred to in our chat as “popsicle moments”. A nice reminder to take a lighthearted step back and do something for yourself. Why not even encourage your employees to do the same? When employees know their leader has their best interest at heart, trust tends to grow.

💡 Ask yourself: “Did I allow myself to take a break today?”, “Did I eat lunch away from the computer?”, “Did I unplug after work?” If your answer is no to these, it’s time to take the time.

9. Follow the trifecta: shared values, alignment, and focus

🎙 To lead successful teams, managers must operate in an ecosystem comprised of 3 things: shared values, alignment on company-wide goals, and a dedicated focus on positive customer outcomes. As a manager, you must have a relentless focus on these three core pillars and the rest will fall into place.

- Stephanie LeBlanc, Director of Customer Success at Coveo

Steph’s point on shared values really resonates. Once a year, our team takes a day away from work to re-align our values. We discuss our needs as workers (for example, no meetings before 10 am), but also, our human values. From these conversations, we determine a set of Team Principles to live by that helps us better communicate and collaborate.

Some team principles that have really helped our team thrive:

• Think in hypotheses, not certainties
• Seek to understand before challenging one another
• Have tough conversations: call the elephant in the room

💡 Tip: Your team’s values should be revisited as the team grows and new people with new perspectives and ideas are brought on board. Here’s how we built our Team Principles.

Thanks to the wonderful leaders who took the time to share their best management tips and advice. There is nothing more authentic than hearing from real people and their real experiences.

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The future of work is diverse

Diversity in the workplace is more essential now than it’s ever been. If you’re wondering what that means and why it’s the case, we’re here to help shed some light on where things stand today, where we feel they’re headed in the future, and why there’s never been a better time to upgrade diversity and inclusion from buzzwords to business initiatives.

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So, What Exactly is Diversity?

In terms of the workplace, diversity refers to an organization ensuring the talent pool they recruit, retain, and develop is a varied one. This means making efforts so that everything from different races and ethnicities, genders, religions, sexual orientations, and abilities are all well-represented within your walls.

It’s also something that you should view as an opportunity – not an obligation, or an exercise in political correctness.

One of the main things to understand when considering diversity is that it counts for very little without inclusion.

It’s about looking past the notion of simply employing a diverse group of people, and instead seeing such initiatives as your organization’s chance to tap a diverse set of experiences, backgrounds, world views, and methods of problem-solving. Your clients and your audience – not to mention the world at large – aren’t homogenous after all, so why would it benefit you to build a team that is?

But one of the main things to understand when considering diversity is that it counts for very little without inclusion – which represents the flip-side of the same coin – and its success begins and ends with your company’s culture.

It’s not just up to HR leaders, but every member of an organization to help foster a culture of inclusion and acceptance. In relation to diversity, inclusion is specifically where team managers working on the frontlines personally hold the greatest sway over how integrated and respected each employee feels.

If it’s up to an organization’s leaders to institute diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives across the board, it’s in the team managers’ hands to ensure those values are lived by the people they work with each and every day. This in turn directly affects a company’s bottom line as employees who feel they can bring their full selves to work are naturally more productive, and easier to recruit and retain in the same way that employees who feel well represented amongst their colleagues will always be more engaged on the job.

5 Types of Diversity in the Workplace

To help illustrate these points, we’ve compiled a selection of statistics related to diversity and inclusion taken from studies released over the past 5 years.

Multiple reports on this topic have emerged over that time, and while not intended to represent the entirety of diversity in the workforce, the information below works to provide a snapshot representative of the most common types of diversity companies and teams embarking on D&I initiatives can focus on in the immediate.

These include gender diversity, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and disability – but keep in mind that diversity can also encompass anything from age, socioeconomic status, education, and beyond. The goal is ultimately to foster equitable recruiting, development, and overall lifecycle practices, that can result in diversity of thought throughout an entire enterprise.

The numbers below reveal some of the ways our unconscious biases can affect hiring practices, the ways certain areas of diversity are beginning to improve for the better, but mostly, how long of a road we still have ahead of us if we truly hope to get things right for employees and organizations alike.

Portion of 750 talent managers surveyed who list diversity shortcomings as a “significant” challenge to their recruiting efforts.

Race and Ethnicity

List diversity as a major factor in deciding where to work.

of Latinos

of Women

of Asians

of black respondents

As of 2017, the percentage of jobs in computing and mathematical fields made up of men. Fewer than 15% were black or Hispanic.

Likelihood of companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity to earn above-average revenue in their industry.

Women and racial minorities are often considered under the same umbrella of stigmatized groups, but in the U.S. white women often comprise close to 40% of all employees in a professional setting. Black women and men rarely comprise over 5% in the same setting.

Religion

According to a 2016 study by the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, religious discrimination claims have nearly doubled since 2001. For this reason, it is very important to understand what constitutes religious discrimination in the workplace.

Gender

White men typically make up to 85% of all board members and executives and 95% of all organization CEOs.

Blind auditions increased the probability that female musicians would be hired by between 25% and 46% in a study by Harvard and Princeton.

50/50: Teams with equal gender diversity outperform other teams in quality of work

Sexual Orientation

of Fortune 500 companies prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

of Fortune 500 companies prohibit discrimination based on gender identity.

Disability

Number of respondents with disabilities who experience bias at work – the more visible the disability, the more likely the bias.

Portion of employees who feel comfortable enough to disclose a disability to HR.

Inclusion

Diversity means nothing without inclusion. A 2017 report shows organizations with inclusive cultures are:

2x more likely to meet/exceed financial targets

3x more likely to be high-performing

6x more likely to be innovative and agile

8x more likely to achieve better business outcomes

Why are Diversity & Inclusion Important Today?

Diversity is the future of the workforce – and rightfully so. Successfully cultivating a diverse and inclusive culture within your organization comes with a host of benefits – both tangible and intangible – from an improved ability to connect with your clientele, to an increase in team performance, to greater creativity and innovation, not to mention a huge boost to your employer brand and recruiting efforts.

At its core, it’s also one of the most impactful and meaningful ways for companies to walk the walk of a people-first mindset and help crystalize the values they hold to heart.

Bottom line, diversity is a competitive advantage – and one that’s primed to pay off for those willing to lean into it.

As the workforce in certain sectors continues to move towards automation, roles centered around creativity and innovation will increasingly become areas where humans can have the greatest impact and influence. Teams that can bring diverse points of view to a project in these instances will already be ahead of the pack; futureproofing themselves in a sense as industries around them continue to evolve.

Bottom line, diversity is a competitive advantage – and one that’s primed to pay off for those willing to lean into it.

While companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple are still far from perfect in the present, the effort and expense they’re exerting to begin shoring up their diversity gaps should be a clue that diversity and inclusion are the future of some of the world’s biggest organizations for a reason. Those who fail to see the value in that – from both a human, and business standpoint – may very well be left to tread water while the competition swims laps around them.

There are no one-size-fits-all solutions when it comes to diversity and inclusion, and every organization will need to find an approach that aligns with their DNA. But as with anything, progress here begins with a shift in mindset, an openness to change, and of course the willingness to listen to your people.

Get everything from understanding to action planning in our full Diversity & Inclusion content series.

Part of a manager’s job is to keep employee engagement high — and there are many ways to do that. From nurturing feedback loops to making employee experiences more personalized, engagement strategies help sustain productivity levels. 

Research points to employee engagement as one of the most impactful engagement tactics. Our stats roundup reveals employees who feel recognized are 4X more engaged than those who don’t. 

Meaningful recognition helps keep team morale up, fosters connection and offers direction to employees by validating the efforts that contribute the most to success. 

So, how can managers provide adequate recognition when many employees now work in remote or hybrid settings? Today, employee recognition tactics require a bit of creativity. You’re in the right place — this article has a few tricks and tips to help you build a lasting and impactful culture of recognition at work!

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Why remote employee recognition is important — especially today

Employee recognition increases engagement and productivity and helps build a positive company culture. The impacts of remote employee recognition include: 

• Encouragement and support through remote challenges: Virtual recognition helps balance out negative emotions that can occur throughout the day. Just because you can’t see an employee across a physical desk doesn’t mean they aren’t facing difficulties and pressures across a screen. Recognition is a great way to show support and keep human moments going, even if we’re not there in person.
  
• Increased employee engagement: Employee engagement increases when teams feel valued. Making recognition a habit increases their productivity and motivation — whether it’s a small acknowledgment or a more significant moment of recognition of good work done.
  

Improved employee retention: Happy employees, happy work life. Recognition immensely impacts retention — organizations prioritizing employee appreciation have a more loyal workforce and advocate for their employer.

Recognizing employees: Do the same rules apply remotely vs in the office? 

The fundamental recognition principles apply to all employees, regardless of work setting. That said, nuances must be considered when recognizing remote employees — the lack of face-to-face interaction calls for a more deliberate and structured approach. 

Managers need to be more proactive in seeking out opportunities to create moments of recognition remotely despite the distance. 

The 4 types of recognition — and how they apply to remote work

Four types of employee recognition exist: public, private, monetary, and promotional. Recognition can come from managers and direct supervisors (top-down) or peers. Here are some examples that can apply to remote or hybrid contexts:

Public recognition

Public recognition involves acknowledging an employee's achievements or contributions publicly.

In a remote work context, this could be:

• During a virtual team meeting
• Via company-wide email
• In a peer-shared Slack channel

Private recognition

As the name describes it, private recognition takes place through one-on-one conversations. This type of recognition is more personalized.

In a remote work context, this could be:

• During a manager-employee meeting
• Via a peer-to-peer recognition platform
• Through a private feedback report

Monetary recognition

Monetary recognition includes tangible rewards. Think of financial incentives with a calculable monetary value attached to them.

In a remote work context, this could be in the form of:

• Salary bumps
• End-of-year bonuses
• Virtual gift cards

Promotional recognition

Promotional recognition, also called rewards, involves providing other opportunities as a form of recognition for exceptional performance.

In a remote work context, this could look like:

• Career advancement opportunities
• New responsibilities 
• Specialized e-training

Different employees respond better to different types of recognition — some employees may really value the opportunity to be praised in front of their peers. In contrast, others may view private acknowledgment as more personal and meaningful.  

Managers need to determine which types of recognition are the most impactful for each team member to ensure their recognition efforts are well-received and have the desired effect.

What other kinds of recognition do employees value the most?

Within the four main pillars of recognition exist variants of recognition messages. Generally, recognition is a positive acknowledgment or praise, formal or informal. But recognition doesn’t only come from managers — it can come from peers, too.

What is positive recognition for job performance?

Positive recognition for job performance is about acknowledging and appreciating an employee's efforts or contributions. Written or verbal (or even attached with some rewards), the point of positive recognition is that it reinforces desired behaviors.

What is an example of formal recognition?

Formal recognition is typically part of structured recognition initiatives — annual awards, employee of the month programs, or performance-based bonus schemes. Think of formal recognition as a systematic approach to appreciating employees.

What is an example of peep-to-peer recognition?

Peer-to-peer recognition builds camaraderie between team members, where colleagues acknowledge and show appreciation to one another, be it Slack channel shout-outs, thank-you notes, or nominating them for internal awards.

By getting everyone involved in fostering a culture of appreciation, you’re ultimately setting up remote employees with more opportunities to connect and feel seen.

8 remote employee recognition ideas to keep your team engaged from home

You may have scrolled right to this part of the article — and we don’t blame you. Remote managers need to get creative when it comes to building their team's engagement and morale across a screen. 

Here are some key employee recognition ideas for you to put into action:

1. Don’t wait for formal opportunities: Give an employee kudos every day

Employee recognition doesn’t have to be turned into a big deal for it to mean a great deal — even a small kudos can make someone’s day. Managers and peers should be generous with showing appreciation, especially in a remote setting where human moments don’t occur as frequently.

Share a remote employee kudos via:

• Personalized private messages
• Slack shoutouts
• In a virtual team meeting

Not sure how to phrase a kudos? Personalize this script: 

Thank you, [Team member name], for your [help, positive attitude, support, ideas, or other]. Thanks to your contribution, [describe impact]. Make sure to pass on kudos to someone else on the team who has impacted you this week!

2. Begin and end virtual meetings with moments of recognition

Like the sandwich method, managers should try to begin and end every one-on-one meeting with moments of recognition — whether about performance or simply attitude. Not only does this set a positive tone for any discussions planned in that meeting, but it also ensures the meeting ends on a motivating note.

Meeting-appropriate recognition can also look like: 

• One-on-one acknowledgment from a manager
• Team appreciation during a weekly status
• Round table recognition by peers

The following question should help you reflect on what to praise:

• How has this person influenced good outcomes?
• Has this person’s work, attitude, or actions supported our remote team?
• Has this person exceeded expectations? If so, how?

3. Make virtual recognition a team effort

Managers support their teams. That said, colleagues support one another too. While formal recognition from a superior has a lot of value, so does informal recognition from peers. It’s important to encourage everyone to show praise.

Virtual team recognition ideas:

• Direct peer-to-peer recognition via chat channels
• Virtual recognition wall or board
• Team building activities

4. PDA: Recognize team members cross-team and company-wide

Great leaders don't take all the credit — they share it. By sharing recognition publicly, managers demonstrate that they value their employee’s collective contribution. This is also another way to lead a positive company culture by example.

PDA (public displays of appreciation) remotely can be:

• Public acknowledgment at meetings online
• Employee of the month programs
• Employee appreciation virtual events

Pass the mic to others who have contributed!
Invite other employees to chime in and recognize one another during those public moments. Recognizing effort and good work builds team morale, confidence, and job satisfaction big time — so leverage more voices!

5. Address remote work directly and point out what's going well

Not everyone has the same ease with remote work, so even acknowledging good performance within remote contexts can keep morale going. Managers should point out what’s going well, specific to remote work.

Noteworthy things to acknowledge for remote employees:

• Team collaboration across time zones
• Remote or asynchronous communication 
• Support for one another even from afar

Invite employees to share remote work solutions

Who better to share hot tips and insights on improving remote work than those directly in it? Managers can gain insights and increase employee engagement by asking teammates to share remote work productivity hacks.

6. Leverage virtual experiences and get creative

Thanks to the boom of remote and hybrid work in recent years, thousands of new software solutions specifically made to enhance the virtual office experience have hit the market. But managers and employees can also think outside the box in showing recognition efforts.

Some ideas to consider: 

• Interactive chat integrations with GIFs
• Monthly recognition emails or newsletters
• Care packages sent to home offices

Running out of ideas? Ask employees for their fresh take!

If you need new ideas to level up recognition tactics, get inspired by employee suggestions. Pulse surveys are a great way to get a virtual “ideas box” going.

7. Celebrate milestones together, even from afar

Even remotely, employees celebrate big milestones such as work anniversaries or the end of big projects. Real life continues to happen even behind a screen — it’s important for managers not to forget about celebrations.

Things to celebrate, even in remote settings:

• Team celebrations on project completion
• Recognition badges or certificates
• Work anniversary celebrations

You can have your remote cake and eat it, too.

For significant milestones like work anniversaries, remote employees can: 

• Chip in for a cake or meaningful gift sent by post
• Sign a virtual card using a collaboration platform like Miro 
• Book out an hour in the day for a virtual break to celebrate together

8. Consider remote rewards

Words are great, but who can say no to a reward? Everybody appreciates a tangible token of appreciation — and they should still be a central part of recognition strategies, even in remote work contexts:

Rewards that work for remote employees:

• Flexible work options
• Digital gift cards or vouchers
• Spot awards celebrated on Zoom
• Creative awards or trophies sent by mail

Biggest reward? Professional development opportunities!

One of the most gratifying rewards for employees comes in the form of career advancement. Professional opportunities are a way to incentivize employees to keep performing at their best and are a key driver for sustained engagement.

6 tips for making remote recognition effective and meaningful 

Mastering remote recognition is essential for keeping your team motivated and engaged. Here, we’ve listed six expert tips to ensure your recognition efforts hit the mark — no matter where your employees work.

1. Ask remote workers how they want to be recognized

In a remote work environment, individual employees may have different preferences for how they like to be recognized. Rather than play guessing games, managers should take the time to learn individual preferences and directly ask each employee what works for them.

Here are some useful questions to spark the conversation (either through a one-on-one conversation or via a pulse survey):

• What kind of recognition is most meaningful to you? 
• How do you prefer to receive recognition: publicly or privately?
• Do you prefer verbal recognition, written acknowledgment, or tangible rewards?
• How do you define meaningful recognition in the context of remote work?
• Are there any past instances of recognition that stood out to you as particularly impactful?
• Do you have any suggestions or ideas for improving or making recognition more meaningful in our remote work environment?
• Is there anything else you would like to share about your preferences regarding recognition?

2. Make recognition authentic and from the heart 

While gift cards and monetary rewards have their place, personal and sincere feedback often leaves a lasting impression. Instead of relying solely on material rewards, managers should also offer verbal or written feedback that explicitly acknowledges an individual's contributions (and their positive impact).

In fact, a Deloitte survey shows that 54% of employees prefer to be recognized with a “Thank you” message, compared to 7% who would prefer a gift.

Here are some messages of recognition templates to inspire you:

• Specific feedback: "John, I wanted to express my gratitude for your exceptional work on the recent project. Your attention to detail and ability to meet tight deadlines significantly impacted our team's success. Thank you for going above and beyond to ensure its completion."
  
• Personalized recognition: "Sarah, I want to take a moment to recognize your dedication and creativity in handling the client's request last week. Your innovative approach solved the problem efficiently and impressed the entire team. Your contributions are truly valued and make a difference."
  

Genuine appreciation: "David, I just wanted to say thank you for your consistent positivity and willingness to help out whenever needed. Your enthusiasm is contagious; working with someone who always brings their best to the team has been a pleasure. Your efforts don't go unnoticed, and I appreciate everything you do."

3. Encourage team member recognition across the board

Recognition isn't limited to a top-down approach. Colleagues, managers, and executives alike benefit from it. Promote peer-to-peer recognition across the hierarchy. By fostering a culture where everyone acknowledges each other's contributions, everyone helps create a positive and supportive work environment.

How to encourage team member recognition at every level:

• Foster a culture of appreciation where everyone feels empowered to recognize their colleagues and incorporate this in onboarding programs.

• Provide platforms or channels for peer-to-peer recognition, such as dedicated Slack channels or moments during team meetings.
  
• Lead by example by openly acknowledging and appreciating the efforts of your team members at all levels.
  
• Celebrate successes and milestones collectively as a team, reinforcing a sense of unity and camaraderie, where higher-ups are invited.

4. Offer staff recognition to individuals who work behind the scenes

A lot goes into a project. Managers need to remember to recognize those who work behind the scenes or indirectly contribute in valuable ways.

Managers should also encourage team members to highlight the achievements of those whose work goes unnoticed. Not only does this help develop leadership skills among team members, but it also fosters empathy and camaraderie within the team.

Ways to recognize employees working behind the scenes:

• Acknowledge the efforts of support staff, remote administrators, or those working on the infrastructure that enables others to excel, like tech support.

• Encourage team members to express gratitude for their colleagues' less visible but equally valuable contributions.

• Incorporate recognition of behind-the-scenes work into regular team meetings or virtual gatherings to ensure visibility and appreciation.

5. Incorporate remote employee recognition program surveys in your feedback system

Managers can leverage feedback mechanisms to gauge recognition frequency and quality. By implementing ways to understand how employees are feeling and what they need from you, you’ll be able to adjust your performance management approach at need.

Additional ways to collect recognition insights from employees:

• Incorporate brainstorming sessions with the team to address any low engagement metrics revealed in the surveys. Tap into the collective intelligence of your team to find solutions.

• Implement regular surveys or feedback mechanisms specifically focused on recognition and appreciation.

• Use anonymous feedback tools to encourage honest responses and gather insights into the effectiveness of recognition efforts.

• Utilize a visual team engagement report to get a quick overview of your team's happiness levels and identify areas for improvement.

• Use AI to analyze survey results to identify trends, areas of improvement, and opportunities to enhance the recognition culture within the organization.

6. Keep recognition efforts regular — consistency is key!

Whether it's a daily shout-out or a monthly recognition event, keeping these efforts consistent fosters a culture of appreciation and motivates employees to continue delivering their best. Hey, there’s no shame in setting calendar reminders, too!

Tips to help everyone make recognition a habit:

• Establish a schedule for recognition activities, whether a weekly shout-out during team meetings or a monthly awards ceremony.

• Integrate recognition into everyday interactions and communications rather than saving it for special occasions.

• Use technology tools like recognition platforms or apps to automate and streamline the process of acknowledging achievements.

• Encourage managers and team members to incorporate recognition into their daily routines, making it a natural part of the work culture.

• Provide training and guidance on effective recognition practices to ensure all employees understand the importance of consistent feedback and appreciation.

Enhancing moments of recognition for employees near and far

In a remote work dynamic where trust and autonomy are heavily relied upon, sustaining high levels of motivation and engagement is non-negotiable. 

However, cultivating a culture of appreciation requires consistent effort and attention —  and the modern manager needs to adapt the virtual experience to make recognition moments as human and impactful as possible. This is where technology designed specifically for employee recognition can make a difference. 

By leveraging software to gather valuable insights directly from their team and understanding their sentiments and managerial needs, managers can adjust their recognition efforts to fit the bill. 

Creating a culture of appreciation and value is just the beginning — and the necessary foundation for creativity and innovation. By keeping remote teams connected through day-to-day recognition efforts, you’ll be one step closer to a connected workforce motivated to give its all.

Hungry for more recognition insights? Download Officevibe's recognition guide for more best practices on appreciating your team.