Employee Engagement

Being a manager means juggling people management with a busy agenda and a long to-do list. With so much going on at all times, it can be hard to spot if one of your employees isn't as invested in the team or company anymore.

Learning to spot the signs of disengagement is important because it can take some time to understand the causes and build action plans accordingly. The earlier you detect these signs, the less progressed disengagement will be, which means you'll face fewer obstacles to reverse it.

If you're not sure where to start, this article is for you. Read on to learn how to identify early symptoms of disengaged employees and implement the right next steps to reactivate your employees' engagement.

What are employee engagement and disengagement?

Employee engagement is the level of involvement people feel in their jobs, their dedication to the organization, and the amount of effort and energy they put into their direct work.

Engaged employees tend to be happy at work and feel valued by leadership. They work with authentic energy and find more satisfaction in their daily tasks.

Disengaged employees, on the other hand, may not feel like themselves at work. They may feel more stress, and show signs of fatigue, loneliness, sadness, and even anger (and if they are experiencing issues in their personal lives, these feelings may be amplified in the workplace).

9 signs of disengaged employees

Disengaged employees are not just unhappy employees. There are a number of other signs and effects to look out for. And while engagement can fluctuate, we can't assume that a disengaged employee will eventually bounce back on their own. If they don't seem like an active part of the team anymore, you need to keep an active eye out.

Why? Because, as we see time and time again, disengagement often results in:

• People quitting the team and an increase in employee turnover
• Inability to deliver team projects
• Team conflict (between engaged and disengaged employees)
• Mistakes (sometimes minor, sometimes more severe)
• Your time redirected from your to-do's, into addressing all of the above

Addressing unhealthy behaviors like missed deadlines, doing the bare minimum, or leaving early all the time are not just the responsibility of HR professionals. Your impact as a manager matters more than you may think, so you shouldn't wait until it's too late to address disengagement.

75% of employees who display low levels of engagement or leave their jobs say it's due to their manager or leadership.

The state of the employee experience

Our report uncovers some thought-provoking employee disengagement statistics. Read more to find ways to turn things around and support a team of highly engaged employees.

Early signs of employee disengagement

An actively disengaged employee will shift from how they used to be. It's not always a clear sign and doesn't necessarily show up as a negative attitude. Sometimes it manifests as a change in their personal work ethic, work quality, or even level of communication within the workplace.

Some early behaviors you should look out for are:

1. A team member who used to love sharing ideas suddenly doesn't do it anymore.
2. A team member who used to reach out to other team members now isolates or sticks to their own space.
3. A team member who used to be on top of deadlines starts missing some.
4. A team member who used to contribute to other aspects of the team (outside of the scope of work) no longer does it.

What's the common denominator? One prominent sign you're looking for here is a change in behavior.

🗒️ Quick note: Keep in mind that it's important to contrast the disengagement symptoms with a previous record of behaviors. Not all employeeshave to innovate all the time, contribute outside their scope of work, go the extra mile, or be a top performer every day.

In an ideal world, sure, that would be nice. But we shouldn't have these expectations from every employee. Sometimes they simply have low energy, have been taking more breaks, or may be going through some personal issues.

Drastic signs of employee disengagement

The longer you let disengagement go undetected, the higher the chances are of it becoming progressively worse. This is neither good for the team and organization, nor for the employee dealing with disengagement.

Some of the most serious signs of a disengaged employee are:

5. They start making mistakes (often).
6. They don't have answers to questions that correspond to their day-to-day job.
7. They often reschedule or cancel meetings with you (their manager) or team meetings and team calls with their peers.
8. They openly resist change with a bad attitude.
9. They stop following protocol and dynamics.

Whether an employee misses meetings altogether or is behind on deadlines, always take note of these changes. Even if you notice early or more drastic behaviors of disengagement, there's still a lot you can do to retain the talent and help an actively disengaged employee become engaged again.

💡Check out some of our top tips on how to improve employee engagement and retention.

Reasons why employees disengage

Before you can properly tackle engagement issues, it's helpful to understand what caused your employees to disengage. That way, you can nip it in the bud and avoid further problems.

High levels of stress and feeling overwhelmed

Occasional stress is normal in any job, but it can't be a constant. If so, your employees will suffer from burnout and disengagement. In fact, Officevibe Pulse Survey data shows that 39% of employees feel negatively about the levels of stress related to their work and 47% often feel overwhelmed at work, so it's important to recognize the causes.

Our data shows that the top 3 factors affecting stress at work include:

• Workload
• Access to non-material resources (like support, training, and knowledge)
• Pay

If, during your self-reflection and diagnosis, stress and feeling overwhelmed seem to be the issues, talk to your team member about these 3 elements and gather their thoughts.

When noticing a disengaged employee, you'll likely discover signs like a lack of motivation to complete everyday tasks or goals, signs of poor sleep, difficulty focusing during meetings or in their own work time, and isolation from the team or social events. If your employees' work is suffering, it's time to connect.

💡To help guide you through the conversation with your team member, consult our meeting template to discuss work stress.

Lack of professional development

We all want to grow and develop. A key aspect of keeping a job interesting is to feel challenged and know that you're moving forward. Considering 30% of Officevibe users say they don't have the opportunity to grow within their organization and 42% see no clear plan to improve their skills, this is especially important. Knowing where you excel and need to improve is essential to career development.

Our data shows that recognition, feedback, and professional development are mostly affected by frequency and timeliness. Employees need new challenges in order to feel highly engaged. Staying in tune with your team and their professional progression is key to making sure they remain engaged employees over time.

Feedback and recognition

If you want to turn a disengaged employee into an engaged employee, you need to focus on offering this constant development, as well as feedback and recognition. Creating a culture of recognition in the workplace is essential, eventually leading to better engagement.

Did you know that 40% of employees are unhappy with the frequency of recognition they receive, and 30% are unsatisfied with the amount of feedback they get?

Ask your team how often they would like to receive feedback from you, and brainstorm ideas to better recognize them.

Officevibe's employee engagement solution measures employees' satisfaction with the frequency and quality of both feedback and recognition, which can help you identify if either are an issue for your team.

Lack of trust, poor communication, and poor collaboration

Working remotely is challenging these areas more than ever. It's not easy to smoothly translate everything that was in-person into a digital context.

Our data shows that collaboration, communication, and trust are affected by:

• Levels of transparency
• Ability to voice one's opinion
• Manager's time availability

The first step to addressing the lack of trust, communication, and collaboration is to help your team feel heard. Offer a dedicated time and place, like a one-on-one meeting, to openly talk about the things your employees are struggling with. Make sure your team knows they can always reach out, and encourage team members to communicate with each other as well.

If you're looking for a solution to give your team a safe and permanent place to share their opinions, without having to add to your work pile, an anonymous feedback tool is a great solution. They can instantly elaborate on specific pain points, and you can respond to their comments while letting them stay anonymous.

Unfair compensation

If employees don't feel their efforts are being compensated fairly, it will be easy for them to disengage and start looking for other opportunities.

We know that team leaders don't always have the ability to change their team members' compensation. So what can you do?

We suggest taking time to align expectations with your disengaged employees. This can help you fill some gaps, look into any excessive workload, and gather insights for upper management to drive change.

Poor change management

Organizations and company cultures evolve and change, and that's a good thing! But we need to make sure we help our teams adapt to those changes, too.

Officevibe data shows that employee motivation and engagement are strongly correlated to:

• Having the ability to connect with the organization’s values and purpose.
• The leaders’ ability to communicate those values and that purpose.

Take the time to bring up any changes your team and/or organization have gone through. Have these impacted how your unengaged employees perceive the company? Do they still have everything they need to meet their (sometimes new) objectives?

Lack of resources and/or support to meet the organization's objectives

Sometimes, it all boils down to employees feeling that they lack help within their team or organization. Oftentimes, this stems from simply not having the right resources to meet the organization's objectives, despite being expected to do.

35% of employees feel their workplace doesn't invest enough resources to measure up to its ambitions.

Officevibe Pulse Survey data

But how can you find out if your team struggles with this?

Employee engagement surveys help management see if employees are disengaged before it happens – even if they don't have time to connect with their employees face-to-face in the workplace. These surveys can help managers collect valuable information and data about their employees that they may not have known about, and in turn, offer support.

[ov_cta id="5119972"]

Actionable tips to re-engage disengaged employees

The best way to identify that something's off before it's too late is by having a record of engagement metrics. By tracking engagement metrics, you'll spot early signs and notice a decline as soon as it happens. Officevibe tracks engagement and runs a quick employee engagement survey each week to check in with your people and ask them for feedback.

That means no matter how busy you are, you're still getting information about how your employees feel and what they need. You can check the data and employee feedback from anywhere, at any time, and respond to their concerns as they arise.

The best part? It smoothly integrates into your team's day-to-day. You can focus on your responsibilities as a team leader, while the tool collects and analyzes the data for you.

So let's break down the steps.

1. Run diagnostics and identify what is disengaging your employees

The first step to solving any problem is to figure out what it is. Tools like employee engagement surveys, anonymous feedback, and one-on-one meetings can help you diagnose signs of disengagement. Open communication can help you retain your top performers, get closer to your team, pinpoint strengths, and come up with solutions.

The key is to ask the right questions. And if you're unsure where to start, you can pull from a curated employee engagement survey question bank. From there, you can address each of the common causes of disengagement and explore what you can do.

2. Self-reflect and be empathetic above all

Once you're able to identify what's causing disengagement, the next step is to put yourself in your team's shoes and be empathetic. Try to see things from their perspective and reality.

Ask yourself and self-reflect:

• If I was in their position, how would I react to the situation?
• What negative changes or situations have we recently faced as a team that also affected that person (or people)?
• Have I been proactive in making sure they have everything they need?
• Think about moments when this person (or people) brought value to the team.
• Reflect on the uniqueness of the employee(s) and their work.

3. Immediately, book a one-on-one meeting (and be honest)

Once you self-reflect and try to sympathize with what is causing an employee to disengage, book a one-on-one meeting.

This template can help guide your talking points during your one-on-one:

• Tell them upfront that you have noticed their disengagement (make sure you come from an empathetic point of view and genuine place to help, as opposed to this being a performance review).
• Mention specific changes in behavior you have observed (the clearer the examples, the better!).
• Bring up stories of your self-reflection about the value they bring to their team, and their potential.
• Give them room to tell you what they think (what is causing them to disengage, their perceptions and feelings). And really listen.
• Set action items that show your team member(s) that you're committed to their employee engagement, and help them know what to do next.

If your team members don't mention any subjects that you identified in your diagnoses and/or self-reflection, be proactive in bringing them up!

There's a chance your employee might be able to verbalize why they're disengaged, why they've lost interest in their job, or why they no longer feel motivated, but may not be clear on where their disengagement is coming from.

💡To help you be proactive, we put together some topics to bring up during your one-on-ones, along with the next steps. Use these one-on-one meeting templates as inspiration.

Encouraging engaged employees within your organization

Now that you know what obvious signs and subtle changes to look out for in a disengaged employee, you'll see the bigger picture. This way, you'll be better prepared to take the steps to help them become engaged employees who are part of the company culture once again. When employees are engaged and happy, business thrives, and when employees are disengaged, the whole team and the whole company feel the effects.

Communication is key, and we like to believe that there's no such thing as non-necessary conversations. Officevibe offers the tools you need to help your company establish better communication with everyone.

What makes up a high performing team? According to experts, what do they have in common and how can managers be conductors of performance?

For most of us, the morning ride to the office is now more of a stumble than a commute. Your team was physically fractured and now operates as a virtual team. And yet, the work and corporate objectives remain the same.

So, as a team leader, you might struggle to boost your team’s performance and team effectiveness. We understand and we’re here to help.

While the word team can be used in many different contexts, at its core:

A team is a collective of individuals that strive to achieve a common goal.

On the field, the goal is to win a championship. In the workplace, it may be to develop an effective marketing strategy for a new product. But ultimately, success is achieved through a process of combined efforts we call teamwork.

The strength of the wolf is the pack

Rudyard Kipling

We’re going to explore 5 characteristics of high performing teams and then share 4 essential tips for team leaders to fuel productivity and performance. These teamwork lessons will help you to lead your team to new heights!

Assess your organization’s employee experience in minutes

Get started

5 traits of the highest performing teams

You’re about to uncover the key characteristics of high performing teams and what contributes to high levels of team performance.

As a team leader, if you're able to integrate these elements into your team culture, you'll also boost teamwork.

See this is as your guide to managing an effective team that will take your team leadership to the next level.

They have a strong sense of purpose

Why? This is the question that has endured since our earliest words. There’s something that drives us that comes from within; an intrinsic motivator that is connected to purpose.

When we do something we care about, we do it better. High performing teams are able to draw a direct line from the work they do in their day-to-day, to the tangible impact it has made on the company, and even the world.

Purpose comes from your team's ability to personally connect with their work.

Knowing the why behind the what will provide motivation to the how.

Your team should be acutely aware of the purpose of their work and how it serves the bigger picture.

How does this look in action in your leadership role?

Talk to each team member and link their work with:

1- The real impact their personal job has
2- How the team's purpose aligns with the organizational goals and values.

By helping them to connect the dots, you create something that isn’t just a job, but something that is vibrant and purposeful.

My players need to feel connected to why they're out there sweating. Linking each task to our greater purpose has been a big reason for our success.

Casey Auerbach - Head Coach of McGill University’s Baseball Team, winners of 5 consecutive Canadian University World Series

They’re perfectly challenged

Bored at work? Good luck being productive.

Once you’ve connected your work to purpose, it's key to make sure that your team's mandate encourages them to grow professionally and learn continuously.

If work is too easy, mundane, or too routinary, your team may find themselves uninspired and spiralling into a state of disinterest. On the flip side, if the work is too tough, your team may feel helpless, anxious and stressed.

So to find that happy place where the challenge sparks motivation, encourage your team to step outside their comfort zone.

Here are some examples of challenges that you, as a manager, can incorporate into the team dynamics:

• Include a goal (personal or team-wide) that includes learning a new skill.
• Ask them to come up with an innovative idea per quarter.
• Encourage systematic experimentation of new approaches.
• Give individual team members responsibilities that impact the team (like team building, establishing team goals, communicate updates/wins with the organization).

High performing teams are motivated by a challenge that they believe is feasible, with a solid understanding of what they need to do to achieve this goal. A proper challenge will encourage collaboration, feedback, and reinforce the purpose of the work.

James Clear, the author of the New York Times bestseller, Atomic Habits, refers to this as The Goldilocks Rule, which states that,

humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.

Goals are golden. Set them, achieve them, and surpass them. That’s the objective, isn’t it?

Use Officevibe's one on one meeting tool to keep track of your team goals. Keep your team challenged and celebrate when new milestones are reached.!

Sign up for free.

They have psychological safety at the core

Let's take some time to reflect:

• Is your team culture collaborative and open?
• Do you and your colleagues feel comfortable sharing constructive feedback with one another?
• Is your team willing to take risks without the fear of failure?

High performing teams have all this, and it’s called psychological safety.

Psychologically safe teams demonstrate high performance, because they don’t shame mistakes, but rather use them as building blocks.

Teamwork is about trust, creativity, and an openness to working fearlessly in pursuit of the best possible outcomes. But as we all know, the best outcomes are rarely achieved without a few bumps, turns, and hiccups along the way.

Those are the learning moments where being agile, collaborative, and open will lead to growth.

When teams have this sense of safety, not only do they perform, they innovate.

Create an environment where everyone has the confidence to create with the unfiltered support of their peers and an open mind. Start thinking “we’re in this together,” so how can we help each other?

They can trust and depend on each other

In order for psychological safety to be effective, your team needs to trust and depend on one another.

In the new landscape virtual teams, we find ourselves physically distanced from our peers and perhaps interacting with teammates we’ve never met. How can we develop mutual trust to work better?

Don’t worry, we aren’t suggesting a blindfolded team-building exercise. What we are suggesting is that as a manager, you lead by example.

Intentionally prioritize building authentic team connections as much as you prioritize hitting those targets.

We like to think of dependability as “keeping it real.”

If you say something, you mean it. If you promise to deliver, you deliver. If you give feedback, it’s your honest contribution to the group goals. In essence, trust builds a bond of security and dependability.

Being able to rely on your teammates catapults teamwork and results.

They are collectively productive

And now, the final question: Is your team productive?

One of the most telling signs of a high performing team is that they produce work, deliver value, and get things done.

This productivity is a result of everything mentioned above. Trust and dependability in one another, the safety to fail together and learn as a team, and a common sense of purpose that drives you toward the finish line.

Productivity is the ultimate goal and the gold standard of high performing teams.

It’s important to continuously review if your team is efficient, effective, and producing results.

What does that look like? Your team is at the pinnacle of high performance, focused, goal-oriented, and delivering value to your clients.

What do experts on productivity have to say?

We reached out to our friends at Toggl Track for advice. They are thought leaders on productivity, and leading experts on working smarter and better.

High performing teams are taking extreme ownership to do top-quality work. Best teams are mission-oriented, autonomous and never micromanaged.

What I observed while working on culture and teamwork at Toggl Track is these teams are always respectful and kind. They are a safe place for each team member to bring their whole self to work, feel physiologically safe and therefore perform at their best.

Dajana Berisavljević, Organizational Development Manager at Toggl Track

So, productivity means you have momentum and your team has found their rhythm, but beware, that can be short-lived if unchecked and an aura of complacency takes over.

Strive to continuously evolve, by asking your team how we can do things better.

Ask your team to reflect on the following at the end of the week:

Team productivity reflection checklist:

❏ Did you give and receive honest feedback?

❏ Did you collaborate or see collaboration amongst your colleagues?

❏ Did you sense boredom or complacency?

❏ Did you feel energized and motivated?

❏ Did you accomplish a high priority task?

❏ Did you deliver value to your client?

❏ Do you know the direction your team is going?

4 solid tips for team leaders to drive high performing teams

Now that you’ve identified the characteristics of high performing teams, let’s transfer that knowledge into action. Here are some tips, lessons and tools to help you lead your team of high performers.

Be clear about roles and responsibilities

A coach won’t just send their players into battle. There is careful preparation, direction, and clarity given on how everyone contributes throughout the process. Employees need this same sense of clarity before jumping into projects.

If you want your team to work collaboratively and win together, everyone needs to know their part. Most importantly, shine a light on how every role assists in the win.

Teams win championships.

Own your mistakes

The second teamwork lesson is to lead by example by admitting to your mistakes as a leader, and encouraging teams to surface theirs instead of sweeping them under the rug.

Create a culture where mistakes are perceived as learnings, not failures.

To do this, start team meetings by identifying your own mistakes, what you’ve learned, and how you’ll perform better next time.

Set goals collaboratively

Give people a stake in their development by not telling them what to do, but asking them how they want to contribute as experts.

When you include your team in the goal-setting process they develop shared accountability and have a sense of ownership, both key for high performance.

Basically, give your team the crystal clear objectives they need, and then let them decide how they are going to achieve them.

Before setting goals together, ask your team to reflect on the following:

• Where are we going?
• Why do we want to go there?
• How are we going to get there?

Create a safe space for feedback and difficult discussions

Teamwork is about honesty. Lead “honesty sessions” where your team has the opportunity to ask questions, give feedback, and have those tough talks.

Organize these safe spaces and give your team that platform to grow. Collaborate, learn, share and discuss your journey to high performance.

Pro tip: Use tools like Officevibe to easily plan your meetings ahead of time and develop collaborative agendas. Give your team the ability to think ahead and add points they want to discuss, and automatically make your team part of the conversation.

Sign up for free!

Your team is starting to vibe as you embody the characteristics and employ the tools above.

As a team leader you have the opportunity to pioneer change and watch as your teammates see more personal fulfillment parallel to high performance becoming the workplace standard.

You aren’t alone in this. Remember you are surrounded by teammates that are there to provide you with feedback and support, just as you are to them.

Build a culture where employees feel safe to share, create, and question. Where goals are set to challenge, not deter. Where you connect the dots by giving purpose to the job. Where your team is productive because you have mastered all of the above.

Too busy? We got you.

You can save the image below (drag to your desktop or right-click and save) with the main and most actionable lessons from this article, and/or send them to your email.

Get the key points

High-performing teams FAQ

What make a high performing team?

A high-performing team is a group of individuals who collaborate effectively, communicate openly, and consistently achieve exceptional results in their shared goals.

What are the key characteristics of a high-performing team?

High-performing teams are characterized by clear goals, effective communication, trust and collaboration among members, shared accountability, and a commitment to continuous learning and improvement.

How can leadership contribute to building a high-performing team?

Strong leadership plays a crucial role in building high-performing teams. Leaders should set a compelling vision, empower team members, provide guidance and support, recognize achievements, and facilitate conflict resolution and problem-solving.

What strategies can be used to build and sustain high-performing teams?

Strategies include establishing a strong team culture, hiring the right people, building effective communication channels, encouraging trust and collaboration, and fostering continuous learning and development.

How can team performance be measured and evaluated?

Team performance can be measured and evaluated by defining metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs), conducting regular performance assessments and feedback sessions, and adjusting strategies based on performance data.

The biggest thing any manager spends their time on is figuring out how to make their team better.

How to make them happier, more productive, and more engaged.

Managers spend an unusual amount of time and energy trying to figure out how to make their team the best it can be.

And that’s tough to do.

Managers have so much on their plate, so many responsibilities, they get none of the credit, all the blame, and when employees are disengaged (or quit) it’s their fault.

Expectations are arguably way too high for managers, considering everything they have to know and be good at.

All of these “key management skills” that are important for them to know, combined with the technical knowledge they need to know can easily become overwhelming.

This ultimately leads to stress, and even worse, burnout, which is scary to think about.

If your manager becomes burned out and needs to take off work, the team grinds to a halt. They need their leader to set goals for them, help them grow, conduct one-on-ones, etc.

Managers clearly struggle with a lot of things when it comes to leading their team, but by understanding these four statistics and thinking of ways to improve them, they can have an easier time and hopefully be less stressed.

What's in this article

• Statistics managers need to know
• Tips to become a better leader

[ov_cta id="5116621"]

Statistics managers need to know

There are a lot of statistics that will help managers become even better leaders, and we often share many of them on our blog, but for now I want to focus on these next four.

They’re incredibly important for managers to understand, and work on improving.

If you can fix these, you’ll be in a much better position to lead your team.

69% of managers are uncomfortable communicating with employees

A survey conducted by Interact found that 69% of managers are often uncomfortable communicating with employees, and 37% said they’re uncomfortable having to give direct feedback about their employees’ performance if they think the employee might respond negatively to the feedback.

This is a huge problem.

Managers need to be communicating consistently with their employees. Employees need feedback to get better at what they do.

And the funny thing is employees crave feedback.

Research by Zenger/Folkman found that:

People want corrective feedback, as we’ve defined it, even more than praise, if it’s provided in a constructive manner. By roughly a three to one margin, they believe it does even more to improve their performance than positive feedback.

When they asked what was most helpful for their career, 72% of people said their performance would improve if their managers would provide corrective feedback.

How to fix this

• Understand that employees are desperately craving feedback from you, so don’t be scared to give it to them.
• Learn how to give feedback that employees will actually listen to. Check out these practical examples of employee feedback to get started.
• Have frequent one-on-ones with each of your employees and listen to their concerns. Listening is just at important as giving them feedback.
• Be specific with your feedback, ideally giving examples and offering support.

75% of companies struggle with overwhelmed employees

According to Deloitte, many organizations struggle with an issue they call the “overwhelmed employee”.

I truly believe that the biggest issue facing organizations today is work-life balance.

People are working harder than ever, and technology is destroying any concept of work-life balance that we have.

At the beginning of this post, I was talking about how stress leads to burnout. I don’t think people fully understand the gravity of what’s going on. Everyone is feeling more and more pressure to be “always on” for their managers, and if their manager is a workaholic it makes it even harder to disconnect.

I’ve witnessed multiple people go through burnout, and it’s one of the saddest things to see. They get physically sick. They have to take weeks, sometimes months off of work.

Just look at some of this research from Deloitte to see how big of an issue this really is:

1. In one day more than 100 billion emails are exchanged, yet only one in seven is critically important
2. The average employee now spends over one-quarter of the workday reading and answering emails
3. People now check their mobile phones more than 150 times a day.
4. 40% of workers believe it is not possible to succeed at work, make a good living, and have enough time to contribute to family and community.

How to fix this

• Lead by example. You need to set the tone for making sure employees have a good work-life balance.
• Keep things simple. Get rid of any unnecessary meetings and set rules for emailing after-hours.
• Learn how to say no. Teach employees that saying no is okay.

50% of employees quit their boss, not their Job

According to research from Gallup, 50% of employees leave their companies because of their boss.

A Gallup study of 7,272 U.S. adults revealed that one in two had left their job to get away from their manager to improve their overall life at some point in their career.

Gallup explains that when you have a bad boss, it creates this compounding effect that’s really damaging. Employees are miserable at work, that misery follows them home, making them even more stressed and spreading that negativity to their families.

The survey found that workers feel like they’re given little guidance for understanding what’s expected of them.

Considering how much turnover costs companies, this is a pretty important statistic to understand. Gallup tried to understand what the underlying issues were that were contributing to this scary statistic.

How to fix this

• Gallup found that consistent communication is connected to higher engagement.
• Be approachable. More than half of those surveyed who gave the “highest agreement rating” to the statement “I feel I can approach my manager with any type of question” are considered actively engaged in their work
• Set clear goals for your team and hold them accountable. Employees who don’t understand what’s expected of them will become disengaged.

Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement

If you consider how important employee engagement is and how engagement affects every aspect of your business (profits, customer service, loyalty, etc.), this statistic is incredibly scary.

Managers are overwhelmed and overworked, but this is something that can’t be ignored.

Employees look up to their managers for training and guidance, and if they don’t get it from them they’re guaranteed to be disengaged.

Who an employee’s manager is and how they’re trained to handle certain situations (feedback, recognition, time off, etc.) makes a huge difference.

How to fix this

• Train your managers. This is the number one thing you can do to increase employee engagement across the company.
• Build relationships with employees. Employees are more likely to be engaged when a manager shows an interest in an employee’s personal life
• Give frequent recognition, frequent feedback, and make sure all employees feel included in the team.

Tips to become a better leader

Here are a few simple tips that you can use to become an even better leader for your team.

Find a mentor

More than anything, you want to find someone to talk to, bounce ideas off of, or just vent to.

Ideally, if you can find someone who is senior inside your organization and can help mentor you, even better.

If you can’t find anyone inside the organization, you can meet people at events or follow people online. Just soak up as much information as you can.

Develop a growth mindset

Always be learning. Treat your career like one giant experiment, meant to consistently learn new things and get better at what you do.

Have a bit of fun with yourself, and laugh at your own mistakes.

Have a mindset that lets you fail and not get too upset. This is easier said than done, but if you do this, you’ll be way more successful in the end.

Develop good habits

The secret to success is developing good habits that you can work on every day to consistently make you better.

Have a good morning routine, do everything you can to be focused and productive at work, and have a good nighttime routine.

It’s a lot of work at first, but then, the goal is to build these things as habits so they become natural.

Any tips on how to be a better leader?

Managers know that giving clear, consistent feedback is key to improving employee engagement, and helping them to continuously develop and improve. Learning how to give meaningful and constructive feedback is one of the most important tasks of being a manager.

Whether you're giving positive feedback that helps your employees know they’re doing well, or delivering more constructive and negative feedback that helps them spot things they might have missed, doing so effectively makes all the difference. Despite how much we know about the importance of giving employee feedback...

19% of employees don't feel that the feedback they get is valuable.

Officevibe's Pulse Survey data

If you’re not focused on giving frequent and clear employee feedback, you might be missing out on the chance to develop and challenge your team. Learn how to give feedback that resonates with the framework outlined below.

‍

SBI model: a framework for better feedback

Imagine in your next one-on-one meeting, you tell your employee: “You're doing great with your customer calls, but your reports need some improvement.”

You may think you’ve just had a high quality conversation with your employee. But your employee might leave the conversation thinking: “What about my customer calls is going well, and what about my reports needs improvement?”

This is where the Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI) model can help you give clear, actionable feedback.

The SBI framework:

• Give context to the situation
• Identify the behavior to be discussed, and
• Share the impact this behavior had

In the feedback example above, you could reframe both the positive and negative feedback using the S-B-I model like this:

How to give positive feedback

In the client call I shadowed you on this morning (situation) you did an excellent job describing the features and benefits of our products (behavior). As a result, the client was able to make their purchase with confidence (impact).

How to give negative feedback:

When you completed your inventory report on Friday (situation) you forget to include important details on certain products (behavior).This created inventory discrepancies for our team which lead to extra work being done (impact).

In both the above scenarios, your employee will know exactly what you're referring to and why it's important. To take constructive feedback one step further, you can then focus on a request for improvement.

For example: “Next Friday, please re-read your report or have your colleague check it over before you submit.”

Remember that feedback shouldn’t be arbitrary. For it to be useful and impactful, it has to be focused on what a person did (as opposed to who they are as a person) and on the outcome of their actions. Employee feedback must be applicable in the future for it to be worth sharing. The goal of feedback should always be to help the other person improve.

💡See our comprehensive list of employee feedback examples for more ideas.

Feedback sessions: before, during, and after

Do you have a feedback session or a performance review coming up? Setting up a trusting and open environment to give a person effective feedback can be just as important as the content of what you say when it comes to delivering feedback that lands.

Before: check in with your employees

Make sure your employees are in a good headspace to hear feedback. Don’t have these delicate conversations on the fly or when either of you are distracted. You could use your weekly 1-on-1 meeting to ensure that your employee is coming into the conversation with the right mindset. You should also check in with yourself, and make sure your headspace is cleared too. Consider doing a short mindfulness meditation before entering the conversation.

During: give them your full attention

During the conversation, make sure to give your employee your complete attention so they know that you’re invested in the dialogue. When you're giving feedback, use open body language, like having your arms to the side rather than crossed and making direct eye contact, to make sure they feel comfortable and safe.

Don't forget: mute your email notifications and turn your phone on silent!

After: check for clarity

Once the conversation ends, thank your employee for taking the time to hear you out. Ask them if they understand exactly what it is you’ve said, and if your suggestions for the future behaviors are clear.

You can try saying: “Do you feel you have everything you need to get started on the next steps? If not, what’s missing?”

Ask them how they feel about the feedback and to share their perspective on your impressions. Feedback from one person to another is just that, an impression, so let employees share their perspective on the matter too.

5 Best practices for giving feedback that lands

Beyond what we’ve already covered, here are some quick tips to help you successfully handle feedback conversations.

1. Don’t wait until it hurts

Make sure you’re giving feedback often, and don’t wait until a situation implodes to share feedback. If you consistently make feedback (both positive and negative) part of the general conversations you’re having with employees, it won’t feel like a big deal when you have something specific to share.

2. Avoid any criticism

When giving feedback, imagine that you’re sharing an observation from a movie clip that you watched. You’re thinking back to the scene which you witnessed, and you’re simply sharing the observation of what you saw. This means, no statements or judgement about your employees character or personality. Focus on behavior and performance.

3. Be open-minded

The feedback you give is your perspective, and it's important to remember that it's not the only one. Your employee might see things differently, just as someone outside of the situation may see things differently, too. Always be open to your feedback turning into a discussion that may lead to a conclusion you hadn't considered.

4. Ask for feedback, too

Find out how your employees are feeling about the feedback you’re currently giving them by asking for their feedback. Officevibe's employee feedback tool lets team members share their thoughts with you anytime, with an option for anonymity. Send your response in-app, turning feedback into a two-way chat — while employees stay anonymous (or not).

5. Shift your practice for virtual

As we continue to work virtually, remember the nuances involved with virtual communication. If you have something important to say, consider the tone that comes across over Slack. Your message may be perceived in the wrong way if you don’t take the time to connect face to face. Make sure that important pieces of feedback are delivered over video chat and that you’re still maintaining your presence, even when remote.

If you want to keep your employees engaged, give them effective feedback that resonates!

Here's a fact that might blow your mind: By 2025, 32.6 million Americans, or 22% of the workforce, will work remotely. Today, working from home (WFH) and hybrid work schemes are commonplace, with remote workers enjoying the many perks that remote-friendly companies have to offer — schedule flexibility, commute and childcare cost savings, location freedom, and work-life balance.

Employees are not alone in reaping the benefits. As Dan McGinn, Executive editor of Harvard Business Review, puts it:

Management strategies have to adjust to keep teams near and far engaged, synched, and productive. The good news is that tactics and technology have evolved to meet the demands of a changing workforce.

This article outlines the most impactful ways to engage remote employees — ensuring performance standards and company objectives keep being met even when the office environment is a virtual one.

The importance of team culture and community

Now more than ever, employees want to feel connected to their workplace — to its values and mission, to their peers, to their managers, and to their own careers within the company. This is why younger generations, like Gen Z, value growth and development so much. They are committed to sticking around if it's a mutually beneficial relationship that hits all these cords.

This is no different for remote employees. Just because they're not together physically doesn’t mean they don't value and require the same connection to work culture and community. The importance of a team’s remote working dynamics remains the same — it might just require a bit of working around and creativity from managers to keep supporting them within the bounds of new modern work methods.

3 tips to maintain a strong culture and keep remote employees engaged

When everyone works remotely, employees can start to feel isolated and lonely. This impacts team performance as much as employees’ well-being, so nurturing connection between team members keeps remote employee engagement levels high.

Tip #1. Uphold team rituals and establish new ones if needed

Structure helps create team alignment, but can it also nurture a sense of community and connection? Absolutely. Those daily or weekly recurrences help your team find their rhythm and offer opportunities for human connection. It's about making room for touchpoints when organic moments aren't possible.

Remote rituals can look like this:

{emphasize}

Holding recurrent retrospective team meetings

It's not to say that meetings can't be held ad hoc. But with the unpredictability of the day-to-day, it's a good shout to have a base of planned meetings that happen no matter where the week takes you. Whether weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, retrospective team meetings enable employees to continually share, validate, and adjust their methods of working together remotely.

Adding employee engagement surveys to the routine

Keeping a pulse on remote employee engagement is crucial if managers want to spot any pain points arising. Not every employee will speak up about a concern or realize if an issue is affecting how they are tuning into work. Making pulse surveys a part of the routine is a great way to gather employee feedback and measure remote employee engagement throughout the year. These types of employee engagement activities communicate that remote employees' perspectives are always considered and that managers are equipped to take meaningful action to support their remote teams.

Blocking out time for non-work interfacing

Remote employees' reality sometimes feels like back-to-back, screen-to-screen meetings all day long. A good way to break up the day's monotony is to carve out time for non-work-related interactions. This ensures the human experience of work doesn't get lost in the shuffle of productivity. This can be done by adding an “opt-in” morning coffee time slot or lunchtime video call for the whole team, so they have a daily opportunity for low-pressure face-to-face connection. These moments help maintain remote relationships and spur those water cooler conversations that lead to innovative new ideas.

Remote team rituals exist to keep a certain standard of direct connection amidst the unpredictability of work urgencies and changing schedules. What works for one remote team might not work for another — the key is to check in frequently with remote employees and rely on their feedback to build a structure that works for everyone.

{emphasize}

Tip #2. Establish virtual communication channels and norms

Communication is at the core of human connection. Setting up a virtual environment for effective and dynamic communication helps remote teams better interact and collaborate.

An effective virtual communication system can look like this:

{emphasize}

Using instant messaging for quick interactions

Not everything should be an email. But remote employees don't necessarily have the opportunity to pop over to their colleagues' desks to ask a simple question. This is where instant chat tools come in handy. Software like Slack offers a dynamic instant messaging experience, with emoji reactions, polling features, and GIF sharing for even more interactivity.

Leveraging video conferencing tools

Speaking to each other face-to-face is one of the most powerful ways to communicate. Tone, inflection, and physical cues help a message come across more accurately. Remote employees lack this opportunity. So video conferencing is the next best thing. When communications via email or chat get muddled or challenging, there should be a collective agreement for remote employees to hop on a video call and sort things out verbally.

Creating a communication channel structure

Remote workers will have access to and need to use multiple communication channels throughout the day (sometimes simultaneously) to stay connected and in sync. As different conversation threads pile on, it's easy to get overwhelmed. Having structures put in place to help streamline communications, be it by topic or by internal communities, is a great way to keep a remote workforce organized.

Having online and offline guidelines

Just like with in-office practices, it's important to set remote communication ground rules and revisit them frequently to ensure they’re relevant. Managers can create an FAQ guide for all things regarding internal communications. What information can be shared via Slack or email, and what requires a phone call or video chat? Are there set times for work focus, and should employees update their online status to reflect their availability?

Part of managing remote employees is establishing effective communication practices that make interacting with each other as clear, smooth, and enjoyable as possible. Managers should make sure a map of communication channels and norms is accessible by all remote team members — and shared during remote onboarding.

{emphasize}

Tip #3. Enhance the remote employee experience

Great employee experience is vital to any team’s success, but for virtual teams, it’s even more essential to keep the employee experience sensational.

Investing in the remote employee experience can look like this:

{emphasize}

Amping up acknowledgement and employee recognition

Remote workers miss out on opportunities to give each other literal pats on the back. Hence why it's necessary to recreate virtual equivalents. A great way to engage remote employees is to amp up employee recognition efforts. Acknowledging good performance through a chat shout-out or during the next video meeting is a great way to boost remote employee engagement.

Sharing to show you care

Like with sharing kudos, sharing news and events occurring within the company reminds remote workers of the mission they all share. Managers should regularly communicate priorities, progress reports, promotions, new talent hires, and company wins to ensure remote employees feel looped in. It's a bonding experience when remote employees share their own good news too, like the arrival of a new fur baby or an exciting trip they've booked.

Adding interactive tools to your arsenal

Ultimately, the remote work experience is heavily reliant on the tools remote workers are provided. While chat and video calls are great, several other software exist to brighten up the remote employee experience — from project management software, collaborative tools, remote team quiz games, and more. More on that further down this article.

By improving the online experience of remote workers, managers help create a company culture of engagement that brings peers together. The more engaged employees feel, the better job satisfaction they experience, which leads to higher levels of employee productivity.

{emphasize}

Screen-to-screen: How to facilitate online meetings

Meetings are a core aspect of working together — remote or not. That said, virtual realities mean adapting to a screen-centric world. From video conferences to online polling and virtual whiteboards, there's plenty of technology out there to help facilitate the interactions of remote teams. Applying best practices and tactics ensures remote meetings can feel as effective and natural as possible.

Setting up teams for success with the right technology

The first step for success: A team's tech setup. While it's important not to overwhelm remote employees with tech to the point of inefficiency, it's important to set everyone up with the right tools to collaborate effectively. In an era of technology abundance, quality over quantity is key.

Look for all-in-one solutions

Seek out software and other tools that integrate within existing company systems. This will provide a smooth online collaboration experience, enabling remote employees to maintain their day-to-day meetings without having to switch in and out of different platforms.

Managers should consider tools that cover multiple aspects of online meetings under one roof. Platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Slack provide a multi-channel experience, from video calls to instant messaging features. This streamlines the online interaction process.

User-friendliness and training are key

Technology, no matter how amazing, is useless if it can't be utilized to its full potential. Not everyone in a remote team is a tech wizard (nor should they be) so tools that offer a user-friendly experience are the way to go. Remote work already comes with its own set of challenges — why complicate it?

Ease of use goes hand-in-hand with providing the right training. While remote tools might already be intuitive, not all remote employees might be familiar with them. Allowing for adequate time to onboard and get a hang of new software ensures communication tools are accessible to everyone.

How to effectively run remote meetings

While there are best practices that apply to both in-person and remote meetings — like waiting one's turn to speak or having an agenda — online meetings demand a few adjustments to ensure sustained remote employee engagement and productivity.

Here's how to run remote meetings smoothly and effectively:

Creating a digitally-accessed agenda

Everyone should come to a meeting well-prepared. This means having an agenda that outlines the meeting topics and objectives in advance. For online meetings, it's important to have an agenda that can be digitally accessed and referred back to by remote employees. This can be done by creating a live shared document linked to the calendar invitation or using an engagement platform with one-on-one features to facilitate meaningful and trackable conversations.

{highlight}

Use agenda templates to save time and ensure remote workers have all the necessary context to come to meetings prepared.

{highlight}

Having a camera-on policy

Some remote employees are more camera-shy than others. That said, everyone should show up to a meeting on the same playing field. Enforcing a policy where cameras remain on for every team member sets a standard of respect, professionalism, and participation. It's also more effective to engage remote employees through video than by voice alone.

Record and share

A remote workforce might mean that some team members are distributed across different time zones. While it's important for meetings to be set in a way where every member can attend, sometimes it's simply not possible. Recording technology is a solution that can ensure meetings can be rewatched by those who missed them.

Encourage active participation

There's a difference between passive and active participation. Active participation is when remote employees do more than just keep their cameras on during meetings. It's easy to zone out of meetings, especially long ones, when multiple screens are in eyeshot. So managers must encourage remote employees to raise their virtual hands to ask questions, speak up to share insights, or submit reaction emojis as ways to acknowledge they're actively listening.

Online forums are not the same as in-person. It does take some adjustment to run remote meetings effectively, but with the right structure and tools, it's totally possible. Remember: The more you engage remote employees in meetings, the more they collaborate virtually during and outside of meetings.

{emphasize}

At Workleap, we love remote meetings.

Our teams are diverse, dispersed, and succeeding! Here, our CEO, Simon, shares his best practices for hosting productive virtual meetings:

1. Take the basics seriously: Start and end on time, set a clear purpose, have a clear agenda, come prepared, appoint a facilitator, and establish the next steps at the end.
2. Use video whenever possible, but ‘breakout rooms’ are a must if you have a large group.
3. Spend some time, especially in the beginning, exploring the tools if people aren’t used to them, and make participation easy by preparing templates beforehand.
4. For longer meetings, schedule a 5-minute break and ask people to remove their headphones, go for a walk, look away from their screen, etc.
5. When possible, try to finish 5 or 10 minutes early so people do not fall into back-to-back online meetings.

{emphasize}

Spicing it up with out-of-the-box interactions

Virtual meetings have a way of feeling redundant after a while. Even if every meeting is about a different topic or with different people, remote workers are still sitting in the same seat, looking at the same screen, in the same room, 8 hours a day. So, introduce some creative elements to remote meetings.

Here are a few ideas to spice up the remote meeting flow:

Breaking the (virtual) ice

Starting calls with a quick icebreaker is a simple way to create connections and keep the human aspect of meetings alive. Sharing personal updates or a joke is a fun way to segue into the rest of the meeting. There are many apps, like Trivia, that integrate into day-to-day communication tools, allowing remote teams to play icebreaker games and bond virtually.

Virtual whiteboards

It's hard to keep focused when you're looking at the same split-screen for a while. Stimulate and engage remote employees through virtual brainstorming sessions that use collaborative whiteboards. Apps like Miro offer digital canvases that allow real-time contributions and cater to creativity, which makes online meetings much more exciting and fuels discussion.

Rotate meeting leaders

This suggestion is a fun twist to encourage active participation from remote employees during meetings. By assigning a different team member to take the lead at each meeting (when appropriate), online meetings benefit from diverse perspectives. This not only promotes leadership but also ensures everyone can feel involved in the decision-making process of online meetings.

Engaging remote workers in online meetings goes beyond sticking strictly to business-related discussions. Injecting personal touches, fun, and creativity contributes heavily to building a positive and cohesive remote company culture.

Adjusting work-life balance and wellness for remote workers

When employees start working remotely, especially from home, the lines between “work” and “not work” can become blurred — and this can lead to burnout.

It doesn't have to be that way. Working remotely can allow employees to structure a personal wellness routine that enables even better focus and productivity. This requires the support of managers, so employees can become more empowered in their work, accountable toward their well-being, and engaged with their peers.

How to help employees build their routine

Establishing a clear framework and ground rules is essential to maintain a healthy work-life balance when working remotely. Here are ways to help employees build a routine that keeps them productive, engaged, and healthy while they work from home.

Here's what helping employees create a routine looks like:

{emphasize}

Setting clear boundaries

Similar to online and offline guidelines, employees should create a routine that defines specific work hours and break times. This includes when the work day starts and finishes, but also when personal time can be taken throughout the day — such as for a coffee break mid-afternoon where it's okay to walk away from the screen.

Making health breaks and leisure important

Speaking of coffee breaks, managers and leaders should emphasize the importance of taking small moments of leisure to unwind and recharge. This could be as simple as breaks dedicated to activities like an outdoor walk or stretching. Employee engagement comes alive through workplace culture, and work-life balance is sustained by a workplace that supports physical and mental health.

Creating a dedicated workspace

Boundaries separating work and home life can mean physical ones, too. When remote workers have a physical space that is dedicated to work, even if it means keeping their laptops and work notebooks in a designated area, they can end the day properly by walking away from their "office".

Starting the day off with a morning routine

How many times have remote workers gotten up from bed, put a clean shirt on, and immediately tuned into work from their screens? That's no way to start a day off right. By encouraging employees to create an energizing morning routine for themselves, where exercise and hearty food are on the menu, the rest of the day falls even better into place.

Encouraging regular check-ins

Finding the right work-life formula is an exercise of constant adjustment. Managers should check in regularly with remote employees to ask how they’re doing, what challenges they’re facing, and how they can support them to help maintain ideal remote employee engagement levels.

Each employee is unique and has different needs. Encouraging employees to make the right adjustments to find a healthy work-life balance structure that works keeps employee morale levelled.

Nurturing wellness at work in remote settings

Supporting employees in their physical and mental health is non-negotiable for modern-day employers. To do this in remote settings requires a holistic strategy that blends tactical support and external resources.

{emphasize}

Here's what nurturing wellness remotely looks like:

{emphasize}

Providing mental health resources

External third parties offer unbiased, safe, and expert support to employees in need. Remote employees may face unique challenges, and having resources available ensures they can seek assistance when they need it — from mental health to medical support. This can include virtual counselling services, stress management workshops, or reading materials. HR can be a great support in this aspect.

Offering flexible schedule options

Remote employees might have different needs. Some may have days that naturally align with "office hours," while some have to work around different time zones to be present during online hours. If companies leverage a remote workforce, they should offer flexible scheduling options. This allows remote workers to juggle work and home responsibilities better. Flexible work schemes may include adjusted work hours to accommodate personal commitments or a compressed workweek. Flexibility empowers employees to optimize their productivity and to increase remote employee engagement.

Encouraging team or company-wide initiatives

The sense of community remains a huge influence on work wellness. When remote workers feel connected, understood, and supported, they can better tackle the challenges ahead. A great way to foster both community and wellness in remote work contexts is by promoting team or company-wide wellness initiatives. Think fitness challenges or a monthly wellness newsletter where remote workers contribute to its content. There's nothing like camaraderie among colleagues to strengthen employee well-being.

By fostering a culture that prioritizes well-being, remote teams enhance their collective resilience and bring the best out of themselves. After all, a healthy team is a thriving team, no matter where their workplace may be.

{emphasize}

How is your team adjusting to remote work?

In a remote world, the beauty lies in the ongoing dialogue — how teams support each other, exchange insights, and collectively shape the future of remote collaboration. As long as the narrative remains focused on the opportunities for growth, innovation, and enhanced well-being, companies can succeed.

Let's continue the conversation. How has your team embraced remote work? Which strategies have worked best to keep remote employees engaged? Is there room to improve?

Find out more about Workleap Officevibe — providing virtual offices with the right vibes for maximum employee engagement.

Inspiration doesn’t always come naturally, and even the most motivated employees occasionally need a boost.

Employee motivation is a complex process and, as a manager, you might not always have the time to implement exhaustive motivation techniques. That's where short positive quotes come in handy.

Sometimes all we need is to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. A little bit of perspective can go a long way, and quotes from inspirational figures can just be the spark that your team needs to overcome a challenge, reach a performance goal, or simply get through an ordinary day.

Whether you want to enhance an email, make your next presentation more impactful, or give your employees a morale boost before a big week, we’ve got a quote for you. Set the tone and get your employees motivated and inspired with this diverse selection of inspirational quotes for any occasion.

Why you should motivate your employees

Employee motivation is a critical aspect of employee engagement. Because it leads to so many benefits for employees, teams and companies, managers should try to find out what motivates their team members. A motivated employee will be willing to go the extra mile to ensure the success of the team and the organization as a whole.

Also, motivation inspires — if an employee is motivated, the behavior might spread to other team members, boosting collaboration and creating a sense of belonging in your team.

On the other hand, a demotivated employee can also spread negativity to others. Be wary of the signs of disengagement so you can quickly re-engage your demotivated employees.

{emphasize}

Employee motivation is essential to creating a positive and engaging work environment. Managers should work towards implementing long-lasting engagement initiatives that will contribute to maintaining motivation high, increasing productivity, and achieving team goals.

{emphasize}

70 short and inspiring motivation quotes for your employees

Here is a list of our favorite office motivational quotes. These inspirational quotes reflect the wisdom, resilience, and determination of remarkable historic figures. Use them as motivation messages or encouraging phrases for your employees to guide them in doing their best work.

1. "Before anything else, preparation is the key to success." — Alexander Graham Bell
2. "Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get." — Dale Carnegie
3. "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'" — Eleanor Roosevelt
4. "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." — Theodore Roosevelt
5. "You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction." — George Lorimer
6. "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." — Helen Keller
7. "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." — Martin Luther King Jr.
8. "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
9. "However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at." — Stephen Hawking
10. "When you do something beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun, every morning, is a beautiful spectacle, and yet most of the audience still sleeps." — John Lennon
11. "So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great, good fortune." — Ruth Bader Ginsburg
12. "If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on." — Sheryl Sandberg
13. "To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace." — Doug Conant
14. "When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute." — Simon Sinek
15. "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." — Benjamin Franklin
16. "I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough." — Marissa Mayer
17. "Every strike brings me closer to the next home run." — Babe Ruth
18. "Focus on the journey, not on arriving at a certain destination." — Chris Hadfield
19. "We must all learn not only to not fear change, but to embrace it enthusiastically and, perhaps even more important, encourage and drive it." — Tony Hsieh
20. "Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, “I’m possible!" — Audrey Hepburn
21. "Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers." — Stephen R. Covey
22. "Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment." — Oprah Winfrey
23. "Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try." — John F. Kennedy
24. "Research indicates that workers have three prime needs: Interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company." — Zig Ziglar
25. "If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything." — Malcolm X
26. "If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced." — Vincent Van Gogh
27. "When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." — Lao Tzu
28. "When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it." — Henry Ford
29. "The most effective way to do it is to do it." — Amelia Earhart
30. "It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years." — Abraham Lincoln
31. "Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune." — Sam Walton
32. "Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve." — Mary Kay Ash
33. "The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team." — Phil Jackson
34. "There are only three measurements that tell you nearly everything you need to know about your organization’s overall performance: employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow." — Jack Welch
35. "You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you." — Barack Obama
36. "Some companies don’t have an engagement problem, they have a hiring problem." — Bob Kelleher
37. "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." — Thomas Edison
38. "If you don’t understand, ask questions. If you’re uncomfortable about asking questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions and then ask anyway. It’s easy to tell when a question is coming from a good place. Then listen some more." — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
39. "The first thing that has to be recognized is that one cannot train someone to be passionate–it’s either in their DNA or it’s not." — Richard Branson
40. "If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try." — Seth Godin
41. "In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different." — Coco Chanel
42. "You are never too small to make a difference." — Greta Thunberg
43. "If you don’t give people a chance to fail, you won’t innovate. If you want to be an innovative company, allow people to make mistakes." — Indra Nooyi
44. "The only way to do great work is to love what you do." — Steve Jobs
45. "Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success." — Arianna Huffington
46. "Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection." — Mark Twain
47. "Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships." — Michael Jordan
48. "When you take risks, you learn that there will be times when you succeed, and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important." — Ellen DeGeneres
49. "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." — Bill Gates
50. "If people are doubting how far you can go, go so far that you can’t hear them anymore." — Michele Ruiz 
51. "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." — Winston Churchill
52. "People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things." — Edmund Hillary
53. "The one thing I learned is to just give everything a shot. You don’t want to live in regret." — Chloe Kim
54. "The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." — Walt Disney
55. "Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them." — Madam C. J. Walker
56. "Often any decision, even the wrong decision, is better than no decision." — Ben Horowitz
57. "Remember that just because you hit bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there." — Robert Downey Jr.
58. "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." — Thomas Edison
59. "You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." — Maya Angelou
60. "Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune." — Jim Rohn
61. "Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own." — Michelle Obama
62. "Getting the right people and the right chemistry is more important than the right idea." — Ed Catmull
63. "It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish." — J.R.R. Tolkien
64. "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." — Mark Cuban
65. "The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win." — Tom Brady
66. "You can’t be afraid to fail. It’s the only way you succeed. You’re not gonna succeed all the time and I know that." — LeBron James
67. "Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting." — Larry Page
68. "The most important investment you can make is in yourself." — Warren Buffett
69. "If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito." — Anita Roddick
70. "You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take." — Wayne Gretzky

Ideas to share motivational quotes with your team

Employee motivation quotes can be used as a quick motivation boost and be sent once in a while to coworkers. This is a simple, time-efficient way to help keep your team motivated.

Inspirational quotes for employees can be used for a short motivational speech before the beginning of an important project or business meeting. You can also start a "Monday motivational quote" tradition with your team — using one per week will give you more than a year's worth of quotes to share!

{emphasize}

Encouraging and inspirational quotes are not a long-term solution to maintain engagement levels high within your team. Officevibe's employee engagement tool provides intuitive features to find out how your team really feels and measure the impact of your engagement initiatives, so you can take the right next steps.

{emphasize}

FAQ on employee motivation

What is the link between motivation and employee engagement?

Motivation and employee engagement are closely linked. Motivation refers to employees' drive and enthusiasm for their work, while engagement is their emotional connection to the organization. These two concepts reinforce each other: motivated employees are more engaged, and engaged employees tend to be more motivated.

As a manager, fostering this link is essential for a high-performing team. Implementing strategies for skill development, recognition, and a positive work culture boosts motivation and engagement. Encouraging open communication, collaboration, and teamwork further strengthens this connection. Prioritizing employees' well-being and professional growth also creates an inspiring and fulfilling workplace, leading to increased productivity and job satisfaction.

What are the types of motivation?

There are two primary types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation comes from within an individual and is driven by personal satisfaction and enjoyment. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation arises from external factors such as rewards or recognition.

Understanding and nurturing both types of motivation can lead to a more motivated and engaged team. Aligning tasks with employees' interests and providing appropriate rewards and recognition are two initiatives managers can use to create a positive and fulfilling work environment.

What are some strategies to improve employee motivation?

To improve motivation and engagement within their workforce, companies can implement various strategies that cater to the needs and aspirations of their employees. These strategies range from recognizing and rewarding outstanding performance to fostering a positive work culture that emphasizes growth and development.

• Offer opportunities for skill development and training to help employees feel empowered and confident in their roles.
• Implement a performance recognition program to acknowledge and reward outstanding achievements and contributions.
• Create a positive work culture that emphasizes teamwork, support, and a healthy work-life balance.
• Set clear and achievable goals to give employees a sense of direction and purpose in their work.
• Encourage open communication and feedback to foster a sense of trust and involvement among team members.
• Offer competitive compensation and benefits packages to show employees their value and worth to the organization.
• Allow for job autonomy, giving employees a sense of control over their work and decision-making.
• Organize team-building activities and events to strengthen relationships and camaraderie among colleagues.
• Provide opportunities for career advancement and growth within the company.
• Celebrate milestones and successes, both big and small, to create a sense of achievement and motivation.

Employee engagement: the industry term du jour – and with good reason. Employee engagement refers to the emotional or mental connection someone might have to their job and company. Essentially, it's how invested an employee is in what they do and where they're doing it.

We know that employees are the lifeblood of every organization. So it stands to reason that if your people are happy with what they do and are eager to wake up every day to tick tasks off their to-do lists, then your organization will be better primed for success.

While traditional ways of engaging employees may have worked in the past, most modern professionals need more than free coffee or casual Fridays to keep them feeling productive and inspired. Let's explore why.

‍

The importance of employee engagement initiatives

The most successful teams are made up of engaged employees who want to contribute to their company's mission and collective goals.

But actively engaging your employees can prove easier said than done, especially during challenging moments like an organizational restructuring or a shift to a hybrid work model. In these bumpier contexts, the importance of employee engagement can't be overstated as a more engaged workforce can result in:

• Higher productivity
• More collaborative teamwork
• Stronger company culture
• Genuine job satisfaction
• Lower risk of burnout
• Better employee retention
• Reduced employee turnover rates

And the list goes on.

When an employee is passionate about their career and feels connected to their company values, it shows in their day-to-day work. But with the shift to remote work, it's become more challenging for managers to keep the pulse on how their team members are feeling. You can help keep your employees engaged by making time for interesting, motivational, and downright fun activities and initiatives.

14 effective employee engagement ideas for your team

Let's dive into some employee engagement ideas that are more apropos for the 21st-century workplace.

1. Create a safe space for employee feedback...

One of the best ways you can engage employees is by listening to what they have to say on anything from interpersonal challenges and administrative policies to creative direction and company vision. Creating a continuous feedback loop to collect your team's opinions, questions, and comments will help clue you in on how your employees feel.

To ensure all your employees feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and new ideas, you should offer them the possibility of submitting feedback anonymously. This will allow your team to comment on what matters to them more freely and without fear of repercussion.

{emphasize}

💡Discover some of the best methods and tools for collecting anonymous employee feedback.

{emphasize}

2. ...and always act on it

Collecting feedback is an ongoing process but it's just half the battle; what matters most is how you respond to it. By acting on their comments, you're encouraging employees to keep submitting their honest thoughts which can help bring about positive change for their own personal development, your team, and even the entire company.

{emphasize}

Read how you can respond to feedback so your employees feel valued.

{emphasize}

3. Send out pulse surveys

One of the most tried-and-true employee engagement activities in the management book is to send out pulse surveys. Pulse surveys are a quick and efficient way to measure if you're sufficiently engaging employees by asking them a series of short but poignant questions (with qualitative or quantitative answers on a sliding scale) like:

• Do you have the resources necessary to grow in your role?
• Are you satisfied with the amount of feedback you get from your manager?
• Do you feel like your employer cares about employee health?
• What can your organization do to boost employee satisfaction?

Pulse survey tools in software like Officevibe can help you keep track of how your people feel in a safe space, allowing employees to share their thoughts more candidly.

{emphasize}

💡Need some inspiration to craft your first survey? Try out these 25 pulse survey questions designed to see if your employees feel engaged.

{emphasize}

4. Make sure your team's objectives are aligned

According to Officevibe data, 73% of employees feel their managers can define more precise goals.

When you're not all on the same page, it's easy for employee engagement to slip; misaligned objectives can lead to frustration and frustration can lead to resentment, ultimately hurting employee happiness. Clarity around what you expect from your people (and what they expect from you) is a non-negotiable if you want your team to succeed.

Using goal-setting tools like the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) framework can help your team reassess and realign collective and individual goals and improve team performance.

{emphasize}

Goal setting is an art form. Master it with Officevibe's essential OKR email course.

{emphasize}

5. Don't let recognition slip through the cracks

No matter how busy things get, it's crucial to keep employee recognition at the forefront. Since our data shows that 34% of employees report unhappiness with how frequently they're recognized at work, neglecting this vital element of employee engagement can lead to high (and costly) turnover rates for your company. Recognize employees for their wins, big and small, express your gratitude for the time they put in, and show your employees how much you value their contributions.

{emphasize}

💡Get inspired by these 27 employee recognition message examples and send your team a few kind words to boost employee performance and engagement.

{emphasize}

6. Encourage professional development

Learning is a lifelong affair and as a manager or HR professional, it's part of your raison d'être to help your people grow. Cultivate employee engagement on your teams by providing opportunities for career development with workshops, short courses, lunch and learns, or mentorship programs. You can even invite a colleague from another unit to discuss a lesser-known topic to promote cross-team communication and learning.

Help your employees sharpen their skill sets for their current roles, or encourage them to get out of their comfort zones and tackle a new competency that will help them land a new title on your team or in a different department.

[ov_cta id="5119423"]

7. Connect with your team on a personal level

You might spend 40 hours a week chatting and working alongside your team members, but how well do you really know them? While professional boundaries are healthy and necessary, it's also important to learn what they're passionate about beyond their work and engage them on a personal level. You might learn that some of your coworkers are avid readers, hiking enthusiasts, or trivia buffs, so why not organize a book club, a trek through the woods, or a game evening as a team-building activity?

Connecting with your employees can be challenging, especially if you have remote team members. If you have the opportunity to meet offsite for a few hours, it can go a long way in fostering more genuine employee engagement.

{emphasize}

👉 Amplify team connections, build trust, and encourage employee engagement with these 10 team-building activities.

{emphasize}

8. Create a memorable onboarding experience for new employees

The hiring process can be stressful, but onboarding doesn't have to be. Engagement begins even before a new employee logs on for their first day, so it's crucial to make sure new hires are fully equipped with the resources they need to succeed in their job.

Make sure the latest addition to your team is comfortable and has a clear understanding of the scope of their position and their role within the organization. Luckily tools like Workleap Onboarding exist to help you offer your remote employees the same authentic onboarding process as you would any onsite employee.

9. Prioritize employee well-being

We know that mental health and wellness have taken a hit in the last few years, but did you know that, according to Officevibe data, 47% of employees are feeling overwhelmed at work? That's a jarring statistic. This means that many employees are signaling to their managers that they are feeling stressed, burnt out, and unhappy.

If you want to boost employee engagement, you need to make sure your team members feel safe enough to speak up when they can no longer maintain a healthy work-life balance. Sending employee wellness surveys can help you pinpoint areas of the employee experience you might need to reassess to keep your employees happy. You can also promote a mindful lifestyle by holding in-person or virtual yoga sessions, providing healthy snacks at the office, or offering access to wellness applications.

10. Foster a positive company culture

When you make employee well-being a priority, you begin to elevate your entire employee experience. Positive company culture is rooted in mutual respect and can lead to stronger collaboration, higher employee productivity, and overall happier, more engaged employees.

When your team feels supported and motivated by their peers and company leadership, they will be better equipped to reach their personal and professional goals as well as broader collective goals.

11. Promote equity, diversity, and inclusion

The workplace must be a safe space for every employee, regardless of gender, socio-economic background, race, or religion. To truly support your employees, you need to foster a company culture that is accessible and inclusive for every team member.

Get the conversation going with a series of diversity, equity, and inclusion survey questions that will encourage employees to speak freely on topics that matter the most to them. These types of engagement efforts aim to uplift employee voices and make sure everyone is involved in important company discussions that can shape workplace culture.

12. Hold one-on-one meetings with your employees

Sometimes a simple conversation can be the best way to connect with your employees. Regular one-on-one meetings can clear up confusion for ongoing tasks, ensure alignment on team objectives, and can help resolve internal conflicts.

Asking the right questions can help you improve employee engagement by getting a clearer picture of your team's reality. We've put together a list of some useful one-on-one meeting questions to prompt conversations with your employees:

• Are you excited about what you’re currently working on?
• Are there things happening on the team that make it difficult to collaborate?
• Do you feel challenged at work? Are you learning new things?
• Is there something we could do as a team to improve recognition?

{emphasize}

Uncover more benefits of holding regular one-on-one meetings.

{emphasize}

13. Include your team in decision-making

Many HR professionals and team leaders make the cardinal error of excluding their direct reports from important conversations that affect daily operations. More often than not, your employees will be the ones most impacted by high-level decisions usually dictated by senior leadership.

Managers should tap into their best resource (their employees) to get feedback before implementing new policies or starting new projects. Get your employees involved by opening the floor for feedback and questions. Giving your team a seat at the table to express their thoughts will do wonders for making employees feel valued.

14. Encourage employee activism and volunteering

Your team is dedicated and that extends well beyond the workplace. Learn what causes are dear to their hearts and organize an offsite volunteer day. A more altruistic employee engagement strategy like this one is a great opportunity for team building and can bond peers over common goals and shared values.

Every organization has a social responsibility to contribute to the greater good, and engaging in acts of community service is a wonderful way to inspire employees.

Implement an employee engagement program in your workplace

Improving employee engagement can seem like a gargantuan task if you don't know where to start. Should you dive right into organizing team bonding activities or should you hold one-on-one meetings to have a quick chat? The truth is, there is no wrong answer.

Remember: employee engagement will look different for each of your team members. The best way to move forward and foster a happy work environment is to get your people motived and excited to perform at their best.

Regardless of how you engage with your employees, the important thing is to make the time to check in with them regularly and connect with them in a way that suits your team's needs and ambitions.

What do you do when you can’t get along with one of your coworkers? Does it really matter? Could you just not get along and mind your own business? I suppose you could, but where’s the fun in that?

Your coworkers have a huge role in your happiness and engagement at work.

One of Gallup’s questions on their famous Q12 survey is “Do you have a ‘best friend’ at work?” because they understand how important friendship at work can be.

Specifically, they found that people who reported having a best friend at work were:

• 43% more likely to report having received praise or recognition for their work in the last seven days.
• 37% more likely to report that someone at work encourages their development.
• 35% more likely to report coworker commitment to quality.
• 28% more likely to report that in the last six months, someone at work has talked to them about their progress.
• 27% more likely to report that the mission of their company makes them feel their job is important.
• 27% more likely to report that their opinions seem to count at work.
• 21% more likely to report that at work, they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day.

These results clearly show that companies should be doing everything they can to develop those friendships at work.

[ov_cta id="5116559"]

Similarly, in one of Officevibe’s infographics about friends at work, we found that:

• 70% of employees say friends at work is the most crucial element to a happy working life.
• 58% of men would refuse a higher paying job if it meant not getting along with coworkers. 74% of women said the same.
• 50% of employees with a best friend at work reported that they feel a strong connection with their company.

So, clearly having friends at work is an important part of enjoying it.

But, of course, this is all easier said than done. You don’t always get along with the people you work with.

I’ve always been fascinated with the way workplaces operate.

You can choose who you’re friends with outside of work, but in the workplace, your “friends” are chosen for you.

I’ve always found that to be one of the most interesting social experiments.

Let’s take a bunch of people from different walks of life who have never met before, put them together, and tell them that they have to collaborate, get along, and become friends.

Now especially, with all of the focus on culture, team building, and being one big happy family, we all have to get along.

But is that really realistic? It sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

Your coworkers can cause you damage

A team of psychologists surveyed 1,100 employees as part of research for their book about dealing with coworkers.

They found that roughly 80% reported moderate to severe stress as a result of working with a difficult coworker, boss, or subordinate.

In another study led by Arie Shirom at Tel Aviv University, which looked at how coworkers affected health, they found some startling results.

The researchers tracked 820 adults for 20 years, starting with a health exam in 1988 to establish a baseline.

Over those 20 years, they were constantly being asked questions about their boss, their coworkers, and their work environment, all while being monitored for their health.

What they found was:

According to the study, workers with little or no “peer social support” in the workplace were 2.4 times more likely to die during the study.

So the stress that comes from dealing with coworkers that you might not like has a huge affect on your health.

This is important for you to understand, because realistically there will be coworkers that you don’t enjoy working with, but you have to try hard to get along with them. More than anything, for the sake of your health.

How to get along with your coworkers?

There's a start to every relation. Here are a few tips to get along with new coworkers that will help to prevent conflict.

1. Show interest in them

People love to talk about their passion. In order to build positive relations with your coworkers, take the time to get to know what are their interests outside of work. However, be careful not to overstep boundaries.

Examples of questions to ask to get to know your coworkers:

• What made you choose your field of work?
• Why did you choose to work here?
• What is one skill you're trying to develop?
• What are your interests outside of work?
• What are your career goals?

2. Reach out to them

If you want to have a positive relation with coworkers, don't wait for them to make the first move. When you show interest, your coworkers are more likely to have a positive perception of you.

The 30 minutes you take to have a coffee with a new coworker is time well invested if it helps to lay foundations for positive relation that will last.

3. Give positive feedback

Employees love to know when they are doing good work, so don't hesitate to give positive feedback when it's due. Even when feedback is negative, you should find a way to make it constructive so the person has an opportunity to grow from it.

4. Be open to new ideas

Everyone has a different journey and experiences often shape the approach to certain situations. In discussions, try to remain as open to new ideas as possible.

If you are perceived as an open person, your coworkers will be more comfortable being around you and expressing their feelings. This reduces the chances of conflict because you will be able to discuss together when disagreements happen.

5. Be clear when you communicate

Disagreements sometimes are sometimes the result of misunderstandings between two colleagues. To prevent this type of conflict from arising, you should make sure that you leave as little to interpretation as possible.

With the shift to distributed work, text message interactions between colleagues are more frequent than they used to be. If you feel like you are unable to express yourself in a message, do not hesitate to call your coworkers. The extra time you take to communicate is worth it since it may prevent conflict from arising.

Tips to deal with a coworker when conflict arises

Here are a few tips that you can use to deal with a coworker you can’t get along with.

1. Say what’s on your mind

The worst thing you can do is just bottle up all your feelings and walk around all day angry.

It’s important, in a polite way, to tell the coworker how you feel. Be honest, straightforward, and explain why you feel the way you do.

A good tip is to avoid any personal attacks and focus your message on the behavior, and how that behavior makes you feel.

For example, “When you interrupted me during the team meeting, that made me feel like you don’t respect my contributions”.

2. Never assume

Sometimes when we think we dislike a coworker, it’s for something that we’ve imagined in our heads. Making an assumption about a coworker is a dangerous thing to do.

Instead, ask questions to try and find common ground with a coworker.

3. Find something in common

Ideally, you want to have good relationships at work, so try to find ways that you guys can have things in common.

I bet if you try hard enough, you’ll find a common TV show or band that you both like.

4. Change your own behavior

You can’t change other people, but you can change yourself.

One of the best ways to try and fix a relationship with a coworker is by changing your own behavior. If you change, they’re likely to change too.

The best tool you have to change their behavior is to change yourself.

5. Be the bigger person

You need to be the bigger person and figure out a way to get along with this coworker.

The truth is, you don’t have time to deal with these things. Don’t let the stress of a coworker you can’t get along with ruin your life.

Learn how to get along with them for everyone’s sake.

6. Take the blame

This is related to being the bigger person, but a good strategy is to take the blame for their behavior.

For example, instead of saying something like “why do you always belittle me in meetings?”, say something like “I must have said something wrong during that meeting. Is there something you think I should have said instead?”

That will help strengthen your relationship.

7. Show empathy

Maybe when they snapped at you or shot down your idea in the meeting they were dealing with something personal?Sometimes, it’s more about them then it is about you…remember that.Show empathy to your coworkers and you might be surprised at how much more you like them.

As a last resort, if you really can’t get along with a coworker and you’ve tried to change but are unsuccessful, you can report them to your boss.

How to report it to your boss

When you get to the point where you need to report a coworker to your boss, you need to be prepared. You don’t want to be perceived by your boss as a whiner.

Here are a few important things to keep in mind if you’re reporting a coworker that you don’t like to your boss.

1. Show that you’ve tried

You should be able to clearly show that you’ve tried many different ways to get along with this coworker, but nothing seems to be working.

Your boss should get the impression that this is really the last resort.

2. Have a plan

Your boss will be much more receptive if you come prepared with a plan.Don’t make your boss do all the work for you, you want to come prepared with a solution that is fair for everyone. This will show good initiative to your boss.

3. Don’t get defensive

If your boss suggests something or starts asking about your behavior, don’t get defensive. Listen attentively and thank your boss for taking the time and energy to spend on this.

Any stories about not getting along with a coworker?

Picture this - it’s the third time that you’ve given feedback to an employee and their behavior still hasn’t changed.

How frustrating!

Giving an employee feedback is hard enough to do as it is. Most managers dread doing it and employees can get turned off if it’s done wrong.

You might think that it’s not a big deal if you don’t give feedback, but employees are craving for more feedback.

In fact, 65% of employees say that they want more feedback.

Employees want corrective feedback even more than praise. From a Harvard Business Review article about feedback:

They need it to help them improve. The concept of mastery and constantly getting better is what truly motivates an employee, and feedback helps them get there.

But an important question to ask, is if employees crave feedback and want it even more than praise, why does some feedback not get listened to?

What is it about the feedback that makes an employee ignore it? Is it the feedback giver? The content of the message? More importantly, how do we get employees to listen to our feedback every single time?

I’m going to share a few tips, but first I think it’s important to understand why feedback is so sensitive.

Simply put, feedback is seen as a social threat. Our brains are protective of us, and so they go out of their way to make sure we always feel like we’re in the right, even if we’re not.

When we receive criticism, our brain tries to protect us from the threat it perceives.

David Rock, author of Your Brain at Work and the guy who coined the term “neuroleadership”, came up with the SCARF model to explain the social threats that our brains perceive.

SCARF stands for Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness.

• Status is a person’s position relative to others. If someone's status is threatened, they’ll feel like you’re talking down to them.

{highlight}

A good way to fix this is to encourage employees to give themselves feedback on their own work. Ask them something like “How do you think that went? Was there anything you think you could improve on for next time?”

{highlight}

• Certainty is all about the future. How certain are you with what’s going to happen. At work, this is related to job security.

{highlight}

A good way to fix this is to set clear goals with your team and remind employees of the goal when you’re giving them feedback.

{highlight}

• Autonomy is about how autonomous someone feels over a project or task they’re working on. If the feedback they get is perceived as micromanaging or reducing that autonomy, they’ll get threatened.

{highlight}

A good way to fix this is to offer an employee a few ways of doing a task and then having them decide, so that they maintain that sense of control.

{highlight}

• Relatedness is how you relate to someone else and if you perceive them as an enemy or a friend. If feedback is demeaning or is made to sound like they’ve failed, they can feel threatened.

{highlight}

A good way to fix this is to make a personal connection. When giving feedback to an employee, you can say something like “I remember when I had to do that, I was so bad at first, but then I did this thing that doubled my results…”

{highlight}

• Fairness is all about how they perceive they’re being compared to everyone else. If they think they’re getting more feedback than other employees, they’ll feel threatened.

{highlight}

A good way to fix this is to make it clear that everyone is getting a similar amount of feedback. Work hard to make an employee feel like they’re not being singled out.

{highlight}

Tips to get your feedback listened to

Here are a few tips you can use to make sure your employees consistently listen to your feedback.

Be honest and direct

An important part of having your feedback listened to is just being honest and direct. It seems simple and obvious, but it’s amazing how many managers avoid giving honest and direct feedback.

What they'll often do instead, is something called the “feedback sandwich” where you put feedback between two pieces of praise to make the feedback sound less harsh.

But this often doesn’t work.

In a research paper called Tell Me What I Did Wrong that looked at how different people responded to feedback, they found that the feedback sandwich doesn’t work.

From the research paper:

The negative feedback is often buried and not very specific.

They say that a much smarter idea is to just be straightforward.

Earn respect

This might be the most important tip on this list.

No matter how structured or polite the feedback is, if an employee doesn’t respect you, they won’t listen to it.

According to the American Psychological Association you need to be seen as a “credible source of advice”. If not, the feedback won’t be listened to.

Employees need to feel as if you have their best interests at heart. Earning respect takes time, but then feedback will be consistently listened to.

Tell employees you’ll follow up quickly

This is all part of building trust with your employees. One of the biggest problems with feedback in organizations that no one thinks anyone will do anything with feedback they give.

According to a CareerBuilder survey:

48% of employees would stay with a company that asks them what they want and acts on that feedback.

If you show them that you’re taking the process seriously, then they’ll take it seriously too. That will help you build an overall culture of feedback.

Express your feelings

You never want to make the feedback a personal attack on someone. You want the feedback to be focused on the behavior, not the person.

A great way to get feedback listened to is to express how the behavior you want changed is making you feel.

For example, if you say, “When you do X, it makes me feel Y..” This allows the recipient to empathize with you and perceive it as an honest suggestion.

Listen to your employees

The more you listen to your employees, the better your ability to give effective, relevant feedback.

Research from Zenger/Folkman finds that the more you listen, the better employees think you are at giving feedback.

Giving relevant feedback is an important part of getting it listened to. Listening to your employees shows that you care and will help you build that trust and respect with them.

Set clear goals when giving feedback

The best way to improve performance is to not only make your feedback specific, but to tie it to a specific goal.

That way, employees know very clearly if they’ve improved how you wanted them to.

Without a specific goal, it becomes hard to properly evaluate what effect the change of behavior had.

Give feedback frequently

They say that practice makes perfect. You’re much more likely to have feedback listened to if employees are used to a culture of frequent feedback.

Research shows that companies that implement regular feedback experience 14.9% lower turnover rates than companies that don’t implement regular feedback.

It’s possible that employees might not listen to feedback the first few times you give it, which is why creating a culture of regular feedback is so important.

Follow up

Of course you should be following up with any feedback you give to make sure it was implemented and to hold an employee accountable, but it turns out that following up on feedback helps improve long-term performance.

In a study done with 252 managers over 5 years, researchers found that managers improved more in years when they discussed the previous year’s feedback with their direct reports than in years when they did not discuss the previous year’s feedback.

The more you follow up with feedback and then make adjustments, the more chance you have to improve performance, because you’re actively monitoring it.

The more you train and develop your soft skills, the better you will feel about managing your team. And with good reason: the essence of high-performing teams is based largely on the relationships between the people in them.  

A concept you might be overlooking is that of psychological safety. According to some research (which we discuss later in this article), psychological safety seems to be a key factor that distinguishes high-performing teams.

Our data shows that 20% of team members do not feel like they can voice new ideas.

Just think about all the potential you might be missing from team members who feel like they can't speak up.

In this article, we will define the concept of psychological safety, show you how to measure levels of psychological safety on your team, and offer you some tips on how to build a team culture that offers psychological safety to all its members.

‍

What exactly is psychological safety?

Credit for coining the phrase belongs to the brilliant Amy C. Edmondson, who defines it as “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.”

Simply put:

Psychologically safe teams trust each other to experiment without judgement, voice opinions without being shamed, and fail without being labelled a failure.

In Edmondson’s quest to determine what characteristics comprise the most performing teams,  she first noted that high-performing teams seemed to make more mistakes than their counterparts.  

But upon digging a bit deeper she realized that it wasn't that high-performing teams didn’t actually make more mistakes than low-performing teams.

High-performing were just admitting to more mistakes.

Why? Because there was a safe environment to do so.

But how is it that accepting more mistakes leads to better performance? Well, because treating failure as an acceptable outcome enables teams to learn, innovate, discuss, and work together to develop better results.

Research shows that psychological safety is a key factor when it comes to performance

Google spent two years conducting Project Aristotle, an attempt to discover what sets their most effective teams apart from the pack.

Their initial assumption was that high-performing teams were founded on the right blend of complementary hard skills. Little did they know that their hypothesis was wrong.

After interviewing 180 teams, it was crystal clear that high-performing teams are in fact founded on a balance of human-centred traits.

Psychological safety was at the top of the list, every time.

How to measure your team's levels of psychological safety

In trying to understand if your workplace is psychologically safe, there are key indicators to look out for.

Barbara Frederickson found that the below traits are solid indicators of psychological safety in the workplace:

1. Curiosity to ask questions and think big
2. Trust between employees
3. Open-mindedness to change, perspectives, etc.
4. Self-motivation and a sense of purpose
5. Resilience in confronting and overcoming conflict

While these indicators are a helpful starting point, it’s important to dig a bit deeper. To do that, you’ll need to ask questions.

Leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.

Andy Stanley

Ask your team, as a whole and in private one-on-ones, to share feedback on how they feel about topics around inclusivity, trust between colleagues, admitting to mistakes, being themselves, comfort to share ideas, tendency to ask questions, etc. Use one on one templates if you're having trouble coming up with questions.  

You can use Officevibe to collect continuous feedback and honest insights about how your team really feels. Sign up for free.

7 tips to better psychological safety on your team

These are our tips to develop a team culture of psychological safety:

1. Focus on learning, not executing

If your team misses the mark on a project, take the time to understand what went wrong instead of rushing to find the solution and moving onto the next task. Position failure and challenges as opportunities to learn and problem solve together as a team. It’s important to give them the space to discuss it openly as a team without shame or fear.

2. Encourage experimentation

A big part of learning and innovating is trying new things. Encourage experimentation and support the exploration of ideas. If you are going to promote a “think-outside-the-box” mentality, be prepared to speak in hypotheses, not certainties. This lessens the blow of failure and therefore makes it easier to share more “risky” ideas.

3. Demonstrate curiosity

Lead by example and ask a lot of questions. Not only will this spark discussions and demonstrate the value of pushing the status quo, you’re showing that your workplace is a safe environment to be vulnerable and not know everything. Even managers have plenty to learn, so let them see that!  

4. Acknowledge your own fallibility

Failure is an inevitable part of learning. How you react to your own mistakes will have a big impact on how your team will react to their own. Be transperent, own your mistakes, and work togethere to gather insights. Lead by example to set a precedent.

5. Embrace discomfort

We’ve all felt the anxiety leading up to a difficult conversation. However, if you set a standard that you and your team openly discuss issues and deal with them head-on, you’ll prevent smaller issues from spiralling into real problems. By creating a safe environment to confront tough topics, you’ll work through the issue and come out stronger.

6. Set it, but don’t forget it

Creating a safe workplace takes time. As your team grows and evolves, dynamics will change. You’ll need to focus on maintaining psychological safety. That means continuing to survey your team on how they are feeling, in group discussions and one-on-ones.

7. Build team values

Create a set of written norms for everyone to follow. Build a mission or value statement unique to your team, including the characteristics that your team will embrace and embody, and the values that you’ll all respect and hold each other accountable to.

Developing a safe, open, and inclusive workplace requires work. But it’s undoubtedly the key to tapping into your team’s full potential, enabling them to innovate, push their boundaries, and truly differentiate your company.

Businesses have traditionally crafted their surveys from a customer standpoint, with questions on customer satisfaction, how to acquire new customers, and on ways to boost customer loyalty. But today, business leaders across industries understand that employee satisfaction is just as vital to the operation of the organization.

Just as a customer NPS (Net Promoter Score) can help companies map out the customer journey and identify unhappy customers, the employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) helps organizations gauge employee experience and get actionable feedback to improve employee engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty.

What is an eNPS survey, and how can businesses use online surveys to build a healthier company culture? Read on as we share some helpful insights and provide employee Net Promoter Score questions you can use in your next survey.

What is an eNPS survey?

Fred Reichheld of Bain & Company* created the net promoter system in 2003. He discovered that using an NPS survey to calculate a company's promoter percentage helps organizations develop more effective marketing strategies and improve both brand recognition and brand loyalty.

Since 2003, many companies have implemented NPS in their market research. More recently, workplace culture-oriented organizations have begun applying this method to their employees as well as their customers.

* Net Promoter Score and NPS-related emoticons are Bain & Company's registered trademarks.

Employee NPS and employee engagement

Employee NPS is a metric that helps you know how employees feel about your organization and whether they would recommend it as a good place to work. ENPS works very much like customer NPS but treats employees as the customers and your organization as the product package you're trying to "sell" to top talent in your industry.

The eNPS formula has a tight relationship with employee engagement, which impacts just about every aspect of your business, from employee retention to long-term success. Engaged employees are more productive, more creative, and likelier to remain in the company.

Measuring eNPS: How to calculate employee net promoter scores

How do you measure employee loyalty, engagement, and satisfaction? It may seem extremely complicated, but in fact, employee net promoter score surveys use a simple eNPS formula.

The eNPS score revolves around the following question: "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company as a workplace?"

The respondents fall into three categories:

• Promoters: Employees who rated your company at 9 or 10
• Neutrals: Employees who gave your organization a rating of 7 or 8
• Detractors: Employees with ratings of 0 to 6

Promoters' feedback marks the happiest, most loyal employees who are likeliest to recommend your company to others. Detractors are dissatisfied employees who are unlikely to promote your organization and may also leave their position if a different work opportunity crops up.

This is how you calculate employee net promoter scores:

{emphasize}

eNPS = Percentage of promoters - percentage of detractors

{emphasize}

For example, if your organization has 100 employees on its roster, 25 of whom are promoters, 10 are detractors, and the rest are neutrals, your employee net promoter score (eNPS) equals 25 - 10 = +15.

What constitutes a good eNPS score? Anything above +10 shows that your company has a healthy percentage of generally satisfied employees. Leading companies that invest quite a few resources in keeping their employees happy often boast an eNPS score of 40 or higher. HubSpot, which is well-known for its investment in employee loyalty and satisfaction, has an eNPS score of 77.

You should track your employee net promoter score over time and always aim for a higher eNPS. However, the eNPS score as a standalone metric isn't enough to evaluate employee satisfaction and engagement. Longer and more detailed employee engagement surveys will help you separate happy but passive employees from engaged and active team members that drive company success.

20 examples of employee Net Promoter Score questions

The primary employee Net Promoter Score question is always some variation of, "On a 0 to 10 scale, how likely are you to recommend our organization as a workplace to a friend or colleague?"

For more useful and detailed employee feedback, you should also include at least one follow-up question in your survey. We list 20 survey questions below that typically yield useful results in eNPS and employee engagement surveys.

1. Please share the primary reason for your score.

What made this employee rank your company at 10, 7, or zero? Does it have to do with workload, salary, or other factors?

2. What would prompt you to give our company a higher score?

Would your employees value more flexible hours, more helpful management, or a broader healthcare package?

3. What do you enjoy most about working in this company?

Discover what your employees value most about your organization. Is it the opportunity for professional advancement, a positive company culture, or perks like a free lunch program?

4. Is there any specific factor that would prevent you from recommending our company to potential employees?

While this question may yield some potentially uncomfortable answers, like "low salary" or "toxic managers," you can use it as a springboard for improvement.

5. Would you say that your experience of working at our company has improved or worsened over the past 6 months?

Employee Net Promoter Score and employee engagement are all about trends. Even if the current situation could use improvement, this question can help you discover whether your organization is on the right track.

6. Would you say our company invests enough resources in employee satisfaction and well-being? Yes/no.

This type of question can give you easily quantifiable results ("60% of our employees believe that this organization should invest more in employee well-being").

7. On a scale of 0 to 10, how helpful is your manager when you encounter a problem at work?

A high percentage of low ratings here, coupled with a generally low eNPS score, could point to a management-level problem affecting employee engagement that you may wish to discuss with your team leaders.

8. Do you see yourself working in this organization for the next five years?

You may structure this as a yes/no question or offer a more open format by adding, "Why or why not?" Either way, you may gain helpful insights into the risks of employee attrition in your company.

9. On a scale of 0 to 10, how recognized and valued do you feel in our organization?

Employee recognition is a major driver of employee engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty. Low scores in this area may indicate that your organization needs more recognition initiatives.

{emphasize}

💡Check out these 8 tips to increase recognition in the workplace!

{emphasize}

10. How exciting or interesting would you say your work is, on a scale of 0 to 10?

Employees who give your organization an overall high score but rank low in this question may be laid-back team members who will do their job yet are unlikely to go the extra mile.

11. Would you say our organization is more or less attractive to employees than its industry competitors? (More, less, the same)

Do many of your employees believe that other companies in your industry offer their employees a better deal? Consider looking into your competitors' employee engagement practices.

12. Did recent changes in our organization improve, impair, or have no effect on your work experience?

This question may be useful if your company has recently undergone major changes like restructuring or increased automation.

13. What would potentially induce you to move to a different organization?

Is it a higher salary, an expanded benefits package, or a company-sponsored vacation in Hawaii? Knowing the answer can help you circumvent your competitors.

14. What is your biggest challenge/difficulty in working here?

This question gives your employees an opportunity to voice their concerns: from lack of training to inefficient software.

15. Why did you choose to work with us?

Answers like "the chance of professional growth" or "a competitive salary" can let you know what attracts employees to your organization.

16. From 0 to 10, how closely would you say our organization met the expectations you had when you started working here?

This follows up on the previous question: for example if a worker stated "flexible hours" was their main attraction to your company but gave a score of 3 here, you may wish to look into employee schedules.

17. Which of the following, in your opinion, should we prioritize to improve? a) work-life balance, b) employee incentives, c) workplace culture.

Close-ended questions of this type help you focus on relevant answers and achieve measurable data.

18. For promoters: What makes our organization a good choice for employees?

This question focuses on your organization's top players and aims to find out what makes them happy about working with you.

19. For detractors: What is your biggest obstacle to achieving a positive work experience in our organization?

Show your least satisfied employees that you validate their experience by asking a question that focuses on their needs.

20. For neutrals: How can we take your work experience from ordinary to great?

Find out what steps you can take to turn disengaged workers into enthusiastic, driven team players.

Types of questions in eNPS surveys

As you see from the examples above, your employee Net Promoter Score survey questions may fall under the following categories:

{emphasize}

• Digital scale questions ask the respondents to rate their experience or the strength of their agreement with a particular statement on a 0 to 10 scale. The survey's first and most essential question belongs to this type. Digital scale questions are convenient because they yield easily measurable results.
• Open-ended questions. While an open-ended question gives harder results to group or calculate, it also allows participants to offer personalized, detailed feedback that provides valuable insights. An open-ended question is, "What, in your opinion, is the most important step the company management could take to improve your job satisfaction?"
• Yes/no questions. Despite their rigidity, yes/no questions produce focused, quantifiable results that can help you evaluate employee experience. Questions like, "Are you happy with our transition to new CRM software?" work well in a yes/no format.

{emphasize}

Employee Net Promoter Score survey structure

Every employee Net Promoter Score poll starts with the core question: asking your employees to rate their workplace on a 0 to 10 scale. It proceeds with at least one follow-up question that encourages the employee to elaborate on their first answer and can help you glean useful information about that employee's experience in your company.

To get the most accurate and useful survey results, we suggest that you:

{emphasize}

• Send out eNPS surveys once a quarter. Quarterly surveys will regularly assess your employee Net Promoter Score without over-surveying.
• Keep the survey brief. A classic eNPS survey consists of just two questions: the 1 to 10 scale rating and another question that gives insight into the respondent's first answer. You may include a few additional questions, but keep the survey short to avoid survey fatigue.
• Ensure anonymity. Some employees feel uncomfortable giving negative or constructive feedback if they believe the management can identify them. To encourage unbiased answers, assure your team that all responses will remain anonymous.
• Encourage honesty. We all like a pat on the back, but that's hardly the purpose of your survey. You want the results to reflect reality as closely as possible, just as if you were doing market research. You may include a statement like, "We value your honest opinions. Please let us know what you really think, even if it means giving a low score."
• Motivate participants. It's easy to forget about answering a survey in the middle of a busy workday. To encourage higher participation rates, you can give your staff a nudge via email or your company's work operating system and say something like, "We hope you'll take the time to answer our recent survey. Your feedback helps us consistently work towards making our company a better place." A targeted, easy-to-use survey platform like Officevibe will help promote survey participation.

{emphasize}

Officevibe: The people-first platform for helpful employee feedback

Happy employees are the key to your company's success. Officevibe's people-friendly, employee engagement solution will help you measure engagement, gain actionable insights to improve employee satisfaction and work towards continuous improvement in your company's culture.

Check out more articles by Workleap to dive deeper into how employee surveys work and how they can help promote your organization's values.

It doesn’t matter how much you love what you do, how amazing your company is, or how engaged you are with your job. At some point, you’re going to have a bad day at work. And if it’s a really bad day, it can be easy for that bad day to bring down your mood and infringe on your personal time — but it doesn’t have to.

Let’s take a look at a variety of strategies for shaking off a bad day at work. Because different strategies work for different people, not all of these will hit the mark. So feel free to choose the tips that feel like the best fit for you.

5 Tips to handle a bad day at work

1. Go outside

If you’re feeling stressed, upset, or overwhelmed after a bad day at work, you might be tempted to crawl right into bed when the workday is done. But one of the best things you can do to shake that bad day off and give yourself a much needed mood boost? Spend some time outside.

According to research from Cornell, spending just 10 minutes in nature can help you feel happier and less stressed. So, if you’re struggling to bounce back from a bad day, carve out a few minutes to spend time outside enjoying nature.

{emphasize}

Where to get your fresh air: Spend some time enjoying your backyard or a local park, take a walk around the block, or head to a nearby beach.

{emphasize}

2. Be physically active

Another surefire way to recover from a bad day at work? Getting your body moving. Doing a physical activity gives you something to focus on aside from your bad day, and channel any pent-up energy into.

Not only that, it's scientifically proven to make you feel better. When you're physically active, your body releases of a variety of neurotransmitters that help to both boost and regulate mood, including dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, and endorphins. You don't need to do a full-blown workout — research shows that even a short burst of exercise can help to alleviate a bad mood.

{emphasize}

How to get moving: Go for a walk, hike, jog, or bike ride. Head to the gym, do an at-home workout, or follow along with a yoga or dance video.

{emphasize}

3. Take a screen break

Most jobs require you to spend a lot of your time staring at a screen. And after a bad day at work, the last thing you need is more screen time. A recent study found that people experienced lower levels of happiness and well-being when they spent more time in front of screens. So when you get home after a rough day, it's good to spend some time intentionally disconnected from technology.

Screens also emit blue light, which can inhibit the production of melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone that helps you fall (and stay) asleep. And you’re not going to have a better day at work tomorrow if you don’t get enough sleep tonight.

{emphasize}

Screen-free activities: Read a book or magazine, tackle a puzzle, cook a meal or prepare a lunch for tomorrow, or do a personal hobby you enjoy.

{emphasize}

4. Act as if you had a great day

Fake it 'til you make it, the saying goes. Obviously, a bad day at work can put you in a bad mood, and it's okay to let yourself feel frustrated, upset, or hurt when bad things happen. But to help yourself snap out of that and get back to a more positive mindset, you have more control than you might think.

It sounds cheesy, but research has shown that smiling can put you in a better mood, and improve your outlook at work. So something as simple as a smile can be the first step in getting past a bad day. And there are plenty of ways to achieve that without staring into the mirror and forcing it (although that could get you laughing, too).

{emphasize}

Practicing positivity: Listen to a funny podcast, talk to a friend about what's gone well for you (or for them) this week, or write out a list of things you're grateful for.

{emphasize}

5. Hit the reset button

When you’re having a bad day, it can feel like an onslaught of one unfortunate circumstance after another. And the longer that bad day goes on, the more it can feel like those unfortunate circumstances are just going to keep coming.

Sometimes, what you need is a pattern interrupt, something to stop the bad day in its tracks and give you a chance to restart. Not only can this help you shake off a pessimistic attitude, it can also help you approach things in a way that will lead to more positive outcomes. So you'll be more solution-oriented, and less likely to see everything as yet another blow.

{emphasize}

Resetting tactics: Take a shower, lie down for 15 minutes (maybe even take a nap), meditate or try a mindfulness activity, or journal about your day.

{emphasize}

What to do in the middle of a bad day at work

You don’t have to wait to get home to deal with a bad day at work. These strategies can help you get your mood back on track while you’re still actively working.

• Take a break. If you're feeling overwhelmed or like there’s too much to do, stepping away from your desk may seem impossible. But giving yourself 20 minutes to go for a coffee, step outside for a moment, or call a friend. Whatever you can do to take a step back from the day at hand, a break will help you regroup and return prepared.
• Seek out a positive coworker. Research from the University of Warwick found that moods, both good and bad, can be “picked up” from friends. So, when you spend time with a coworker with a positive attitude, that positivity can be contagious. Be careful not to influence your friend instead. Let your friend know their cheerfulness is why you sought them out, and they can help you get there, too.
• Prioritize and look ahead. A quick pep talk reminding you that there’s only a few hours left of work — and tomorrow will be better — can help give you the boost you need to make it to the end of the day. Write out a list of what you absolutely must accomplish today, and prioritize getting those things done. Think about some things to look forward to at the end of the day or in the days ahead, and use that as your motivation.

Remote tips to handle a bad day at work

Recovering from a bad day at the office is tough. But when your home is your office, it can be even tougher. Here are a few remote tips to help you bounce back from a bad work day at home.

Out of sight, out of mind

If you’re working from home, your laptop might permanently be stationed at your dining room table or you might have stacks of paperwork sitting next to your couch. But having visual reminders of your work all over your house will make it hard to fully disconnect. And if you had a particularly bad day at work, those visual reminders can keep the bad mood going into your personal time.

So, at the end of the workday, put away your work. Whether it's simply powering down your computer, tucking it away, or closing the door to your home office, finding a way to separate 'work' and 'home' will help you shift from one to the other.

Use rituals to bookend the day

When people commute to an office, that commute acts as a barrier between their work time and personal time. But when you work from home, it can be hard to create that sense of separation. Creating rituals between your work time and your personal time can help give you that feeling of 'clocking in' and 'clocking out' at the start and end of the day.

Having a daily routine at the start and end of your day lets your brain and body know when you’re starting and ending work. You might have a cup of coffee and spend 10 minutes reading the news every day before you start work, or take a 15-minute walk every day when you end work. 

Kick that bad day at work to the curb

Bad days are never fun — and hopefully, your bad days at work are few and far between. But now that you have the strategies you need to recover from a bad day at work, the next time you get hit with a not-so-great day? You’ll be prepared.