Employee Engagement

Your employees play a major role in advancing your company's mission. When they're engaged, they work towards the right goals, communicate effectively, and contribute to a positive work environment.

Employee experience (EX) trends and standards continue to evolve as more HR leaders discover the value of happy employees. But reaching the employee experience pinnacle means thinking beyond snacks in the office and including deeper management practices that help employees feel valued.

Providing simple things like flexible working hours and a good work-life balance strengthens employee satisfaction. And naturally, that improves performance, employee retention, and the company's success.

The rippling effect of a positive employee experience is now the primary focus of employers in today's workplace. So what can you do to keep your team happy and motivated? Read on to learn more.

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Why should you work on your employee experience strategy?

Teams excel when each player gives it their all. But getting the most out of your team doesn't just fall on your employees. It's crucial to put thought into your employee experience and work towards exceeding their job expectations. Doing so allows you to:

• Increase retention rates: Employee churn is at an all-time high, with over 37 million Americans quitting their jobs in the last year alone. That means employers need to consistently give employees reason to stay. You can do this by enforcing job security and career progression through positive employee experiences.
• Boost productivity: Employees who enjoy their job and value their company, coworkers, and managers want to help everyone succeed. Constructive employee experiences increase productivity and efficiency, improving the organization's operations.
• Improve employee engagement: Engaged teams activate critical thinking skills and creative mindsets, leading them to do their best work. When employees feel engaged at work, they're also more likely to collaborate better and vitalize the company culture.
• Strengthen brand reputation: Modern consumers weigh your company culture before making a purchase. People trust organizations that value their employees, so your employee experience management will directly influence your company reputation scores.
• Acquire top talent: During the talent acquisition process, seasoned workers look for a positive workplace culture with flexibility, health benefits, and room for growth. Prioritizing the employee experience will help you acquire experts who will launch your business toward success.

Need more convincing? Read more about how an effective employee experience strategy can help your team succeed. Spoiler: we share 12 concrete EX strategy examples you won't want to miss.

The 11 key pillars of employee experience

Providing an excellent employee experience means meeting and exceeding employee expectations. Keep reading to learn about the eleven pillars you should incorporate into your employee experience strategy.

1. Office space

Employees need a physical environment that enables productivity, comfort, and collaboration. To achieve this physical space, you need to provide your team the following:

• All necessary tools and resources: Employees should have access to everything they need to complete their job, including tech tools, managerial support, and more.
• Public collaboration spaces: Your diverse workforce will deliver the best results when unified. Collaboration spaces, like meeting rooms or digital chat tools, allow employees to work in harmony, which improves engagement.
• Private focus areas: Employees also need private areas for downtime and focus. Providing a fair balance between collaborative and independent work allows employees to excel.
• Comfortable break spaces: When employees spend 40 hours a week in one building, they want to feel comfortable and happy to be there. You don't need to exhaust the company budget on a cutting-edge breakroom, but providing access to healthy snacks, comfortable seating, informal spaces, dedicated exercise areas, and even showers can help employees feel more relaxed and at ease in the office.

Don't forget the home office

The above tips apply to remote employees as well. You should nourish at-home teams with the same tools and opportunities for optimal engagement and remote team collaboration.

Pro tip: If your team is largely remote, you should consider allocating each employee a special budget for their home office tech and furniture needs.

2. Company values and culture

All humans want to feel valued, especially in the work they do. Be sure to build your organizational culture on employee-focused ethics and values — always prioritizing respect and integrity.

A distinguished company culture recognizes employee value and acts on it. For example, if you want to prioritize diversity, implement new hiring protocols, rethink your perks to fit everyone's needs, and organize safe space trainings with your HR team.

👀 Have you read our first ever magazine? We dig deep into workplace culture, how it's created (and by who), and how to rethink it in the new year.

3. Recognition

Recognition is the number one managerial response employees seek. Positive recognition throughout the employee journey empowers hard work, personal growth, and satisfaction. That means recognition should never be a one and done situation.

Getting your managers and employees to recognize each other doesn't have to be a big feat. The key is to empower them with processes and tools that facilitate and guide them through the art of giving recognition. A tool like Good Vibes, for example, features prompts that inspire people to highlight their teammates' positive efforts and brilliant moments.

Use our tips on improving workplace recognition to ensure that no hard work goes unnoticed.

4. Empowerment and autonomy

Each member of your team has unique backgrounds, training, and value that shapes their ways of thinking and working. Empowering employees to speak up, take charge, and voice their opinions helps them understand their contribution within the organization. And ultimately, leads to better employee engagement.

Part of this empowerment is learning to master employee autonomy at all levels, which is especially important in remote contexts. When managers trust employees to take control of their everyday work, employees tend to feel more respected and valued. So if you want to build a high-performing team, don't forget to embed empowerment and autonomy within your employee experience.

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5. Communication

Communication inspires engagement and collaboration. When peers and managers check in on each other, brainstorm and ideate, and talk through challenges together, they develop mutual trust and respect. What's more, they'll also align better on goals and work together towards a common purpose.

Communication can come in many forms:

• Meaningful feedback
• Expectation alignments
• Listening skills
• Task context
• Regular check-ins
• Team meetings
• One-on-one meetings
• Digital communication tools

Do your team members communicate well with each other? Sometimes employees just need a nudge in the right direction. Help them connect and collaborate better with these 13 tips to improve communication at work.

6. Employee feedback

Great employee feedback is the backbone of a happy and high-performing workforce. It helps employees work towards excellence, while also giving them a voice to help drive the company forward. And in trying times, it can be the difference between a struggling organization and one that is thriving.

A successful feedback loop consists of two main parts:

• Giving feedback: Constructive feedback doesn't just tell employees how to improve. It shows them their manager values them and cares about their growth at the company (and in their career in general).
• Taking feedback: Gathering feedback allows you to understand what your employees desire from their roles, manager, or the company. For example, you may discover that most of your employees want more one-on-one meetings. You can even use feedback from employee experience survey questions to shape your entire employee experience program.

Want to give your organization a competitive edge? Focus on creating a solid employee feedback system so you can continuously enhance your employee experience.

7. Alignment with company goals

A train cannot run without tracks, and your team is only as successful as the goals you point them toward. An aligned team focused on a specific, achievable, and measurable goal works harder to see results. Team alignment should include the following:

• Crystal clear goals
• Understanding and audit of the resources needed
• Transparent communication
• Consistent check-ins
• Progression tools to keep everyone on track

8. Well-being programs

Working 40 hours a week — or more for many people — while balancing other aspects of life can be tough and even exhausting. Employees "burn out" when they don't get the chance to prioritize their mental health and emotional well-being. Now more than ever, they're choosing to take charge of this prioritization, and expectations for well-being at work are on the rise.

"The long-term success of many organizations may depend on whether they can rise to the challenge of addressing workforce well-being, given that 57% of employees said they may soon quit for a more supportive job."

Deloitte & Workplace Intelligence study

It's clear then that companies can no longer put well-being programs on the back burner. But how can you address it when well-being means different things to different people? A great place to start is by using an employee wellness survey. Such polls help you understand how your team feels and give you the data to back up your wellness efforts.

9. Flexibility and work-life balance

Like the point above, every employee has different needs when it comes to flexibility and work-life balance. Some employees have young children, some are studying on the side, and others may simply love recharging with social or sportive activities on the daily.

As more businesses move online, more employees embrace remote and hybrid work. Letting employees work in their most comfortable environments and at their own rhythm leads to work-life flexibility and satisfaction.

💡Julie Jeannotte, Officevibe's in-house HR Researcher and Employee Experience Expert, shares her take on work-life balance for managers and what it looks like in today's environment.

10. Resources and technology

Technology should make employees' lives easier. Equipping teams with the knowledge, tools, and tech they need to do the job efficiently improves their day-to-day satisfaction and engagement. Introducing technology advancements, access to external support whenever needed, and adequate software licenses into your workplace can also boost productivity and streamline the employee experience.

11. Training and career development

If you want employees to stay, you have to help them grow. From nourishing soft skills and building knowledge and expertise, to providing on-the-job training, you can bridge gaps in your workforce's needs while establishing recognition and loyalty.

Creating development programs can also help employees think about their future at your company, while helping managers support them throughout their growth. Setting one-on-ones dedicated to the career development talk is a great way to get the conversation going.

Start improving your employee experience

Improving your employee experience can seem overwhelming when you don't know where to start. Thinking about the pillars above and adjusting the status quo accordingly will guide you and your team in the right direction. By gathering insights through employee surveys, feedback systems, and one-on-one meetings, you can uncover the best ways to exceed employee expectations.

If you need help along the way, employee experience platforms like Officevibe, take the guesswork out of collecting feedback, measuring employee engagement, and sharing recognition.

Our current work landscape presents daily challenges and promising growth opportunities for both employers and employees. It's no secret that the aftermath of COVID-19, the adjustment to remote work, and the Great Resignation turned the global workplace upside down. The flip side is these events created the perfect environment for positive change. And there's so much more in store in the new year.

As we move into 2023, key employee experience trends continue emphasizing flexibility, employee wellness, hybrid and remote work, and a better work-life balance. Read on to learn how you can stay ahead of the pack and keep your employees happy and burgeoning this year.

{emphasize}What's in this article

• Trends expected to shape employee experiences in 2023
• How employees are driving the future of work{emphasize}

Trends expected to shape employee experiences in 2023

As we enter the new year, you can expect further evolutionary shifts in the entire employee experience. With the Great Resignation leaving many companies short-staffed and virtual workplaces becoming the norm, many employers need creative ways to promote talent acquisition, stop attrition, and enhance productivity.

Below, we discuss the top trends shaping the state of the employee experience in 2023, all centered around remote employees, well-being programs, and retention tactics.

1. Strengthening team connections for a positive employee experience

Last year alone, approximately 4 million employees quit their jobs. While many factors contributed to the Great Resignation, one key driver was the lack of connection.

While the world of in-person work was far from perfect, it was great for fostering camaraderie, collaboration, and culture. If your company never looked back after going fully remote, you can vouch that replicating this over video calls and instant messaging is tough. But that doesn't mean strengthening team connections should be sidelined.

When tackling this, it's important to look beyond having fun. Sure, a fun work environment usually leads to a positive one, but there's much more to it that leads to strong one-on-one, team, and company-wide connections. In 2023, many organizations will embrace more digital tools that allow for easier team connection in remote settings. The improved connection can strengthen employees' mental health while fostering a more unified, successful team.

{emphasize}You've heard it time and time again: water cooler chats are a rarity these days. But that doesn't mean relationships need to take a hit. Learn how you can maintain connections across remote teams.{emphasize}

2. Prioritizing employee well-being and work-life balance

As more companies embrace employee satisfaction tactics, employees expect their organizations to prioritize their needs, whether that means reduced hours or improved employee benefits. Flexible perks are key here. Many employees are no longer satisfied with working overtime for a bigger check.

Employees want to expand their careers without sacrificing their home life, families, free time, and mental health. Many companies have adopted the flexible work schedule idea, allowing remote workers to get the job done when it's most convenient.

All your employees have different at-home lives and schedules. Letting them choose when and how they work (with a little guidance and structure) can improve the employee experience, increase engagement, boost productivity, and reduce burnout.

3. Refining the hybrid work model

The hybrid work model is a not-so-new concept for employees and organizations around the world. However, it's shifted a lot and we're finally reaching a point of refinement.

In the last few years, many companies began adopting gradual tactics for returning to the office, resulting in partial in-person and digital work hours. For some, it also meant opening the horizons for hiring, which led to teams that are physically distributed across cities, countries, and even the world. More on this later.

Perfecting the distributed employee experience is challenging because every team member works differently and has different preferences.

Most companies have taken two approaches to this puzzle:

• Staff splitting: Many organizations give their employees full decision power and flexibility. Workers can choose between in-office or remote work, depending on what will keep them engaged. This tactic can offer a positive experience for most team members, although you may never see a full staff in the office at once.
• Digital and in-person days: Other companies prefer more organized schedules that require employees to work from home some days and visit the office on others. This hybrid model can allow your team to collaborate regularly on projects, then divide and conquer when necessary.

{emphasize}2023 will be the year to see what works best for your team so you can set clear, long-term policies. Why not use a hybrid work software to back you up with that?{emphasize}

4. Adopting the distributed team model

After spending so much time at home, many employees and employers have realized the benefits of remote work. Companies can expand their talent supply chain by reaching national and even global audiences. Rather than seeking local employees only, you can find industry experts from around the world ready to help your company thrive.

{emphasize}

Balancing flexibility with connection

Companies following this model may no longer have the luxury of seeing their entire workforce at the office on a weekly or even monthly basis. If your team is scattered across the country with many employees far from the HQ, you can choose the staff-splitting method for those living near the head office and take a remote-first approach for employees who live elsewhere.

In 2023, employees will seek this flexibility and autonomy more than ever, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't see their colleagues in person at all. You'll find it useful to host at least one mandatory in-person event to make sure you build connections and foster a great company culture.{emphasize}

Working from anywhere allows employees to explore new life experiences and work at their own rhythm while keeping the security and stability of their current job. The days of leaving a job because of a cross-country move are over.

{emphasize}Is your distributed team thriving? Collecting feedback with a distributed teams survey template can help you gauge how your remote employees feel and how you can improve their employee experience.{emphasize}

5. Enhancing digital experiences

The significant increase in remote work will likely revolutionize the HR technology market. Many people think of HR professionals as hands-on leaders, though much of the role involves analytics, performance management, talent acquisition, payroll, expense reports, and other tasks that can be digitalized. As companies embrace work-from-home models, HR teams can expect exciting advancements in HR technology that streamline managing tasks.

HR tech is not the only mechanism that will improve with the movement toward remote workplaces. The entire employee journey with your company will likely include more advanced technology offering streamlined workflows, integrated customer journey tools, enhanced productivity, and deep employee insights.

Digitization can improve the employee experience and subsequently the customer experience, offering comprehensive benefits for your company. For example, HR teams can have an easier time mapping careers for employees, new employees learn the ropes more rapidly and efficiently, and managers can nip team problems in the bud following a quick data analysis.

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6. Providing meaningful work for improved employee engagement

Everyone wants to feel like they're contributing to something important. Often, employees experience burnout when they don't fully understand the "why" behind their role. Providing more meaning to the employee experience will likely reach the forefront of employee retention tactics in the upcoming year.

How exactly can you help employees understand their purpose? You don't need to add meaning to your existing jobs, per se, as your employees already play integral roles in the organization. If their work was meaningless, their position wouldn't exist. Instead, you want to help your employees better understand how their day-to-day efforts contribute to the bigger picture and why it's crucial to the business's success.

Boosting employee engagement isn't just about fostering a positive atmosphere. In fact, the ROI associated with enhanced employee experience can lead to a considerable improvement in your bottom line.

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Setting your team up for success with OKRs

Meaningful work starts with the right alignment and motivation. Enter OKRs: the key to helping your employees work towards goals that will push your company forward.

Officevibe's OKR goal-setting tool lets you collaboratively map out employee goals that awaken accountability and pave the way for team excellence.{emphasize}

7. Focusing more on diversity, equity, and inclusion

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are hot topics for all HR leaders and company executives entering 2023. Data from a recent McKinsey & Company report shows that organizations with above-average gender and ethnic diversity outperform competitors financially, with as much as 43% higher profit margins.

Companies with healthy diversity, equity, and inclusion boast stronger investment and performance rates, creating better company landscapes with teams built for long-lasting scalable success. When human resources departments offer equal opportunities to each new employee, teams can flourish with healthy competitive environments for optimal professional growth, reducing the widening talent gap.

{emphasize}he perks of having a diverse workforce are abundant, but these are the three benefits of diversity that are sure to make a world of difference in your team.{emphasize}

8. Improving onboarding and candidate experiences

Employee performance begins with the candidate and onboarding experiences. The first few interactions you have with potential employees are critical opportunities for shaping their motivation, passion, and skill sets. The onboarding experience not only trains employees to be successful in their roles, but it tells them how much they will care about their job from here on out.

Imagine you interview for a position with a human resources professional who's incredibly passionate about their role and excited about your potential at the organization. In your first few interactions, your new manager clearly explains how your role will shape the company's future. Then, you're scheduled to meet the right colleagues at the right time throughout the rest of your onboarding process. This type of onboarding nurtures employees who want to work their hardest daily and consistently feel fulfilled.

We expect more onboarding experiences in the upcoming year to prioritize employee importance. With improvements in HR tech, employees will likely see more comprehensive and advanced training tools for optimal role preparation.

{emphasize}If you're tackling onboarding from an HR perspective only, it's time to rethink your strategy. Learn what makes a stellar onboarding plan, and how it creates ambassadors as of day one.{emphasize}

9. Giving employees a stronger voice with feedback

As more organizations make conscious efforts to prioritize employee satisfaction, they'll discover the need for in-depth, helpful, and effective feedback mechanisms. Consistent and targeted feedback cultivates a better workplace environment that celebrates growth and loyalty.

You can use innovative ways to get employee feedback and uncover improvement opportunities in the following areas and more:

• Compensation and benefits
• Hours or scheduling flexibility
• Communication
• Workflows
• Feedback
• Onboarding
• Diversity and inclusion
• Wellness and mental health
• Managerial tactics

Feedback helps you understand how the team feels so you can support them where they need it most. With targeted questions and responses, you can empower teams with the programs, tools, and resources needed to succeed. Regular check-ins also show your employees that you care about their opinions and actively want to improve their experience with your company.

{emphasize}As we enter 2023, more HR tech departments will seek advanced feedback collection software that goes beyond a few yes or no questions. At Officevibe, we offer comprehensive employee feedback software that allows you to prioritize employee development, turn talking points into action items, foster team alignment, understand key improvement insights, and be there for your team when they need it most, no matter how busy you are.{emphasize}

10. Upskilling and training employees to retain top talent

As the number of open jobs rises and employers seek new ways to fill advanced roles, upskilling might become the go-to tactic in the upcoming year. Upskilling and training involve investing in novice workers and nourishing their careers in your organization. By doing so, the employee gains experience and knowledge through their position, encouraging them to expand their career and remain loyal to your company.

As digital education and HR tech advance, upskilling becomes more attainable for many smaller companies hoping to retain and improve their team. You can encourage employees to take various online courses or certifications to refine their skills and reach new career heights.

{emphasize}Do you know where your employees are headed professionally? Do they need guidance to figure it out? It might be time to have the career development talk.{emphasize}

11. Offering benefit flexibility

Another side effect of the post-pandemic remote workplace is the change in benefit priorities. When teams worked in the office daily, they cared about clean break rooms, fresh fruit, holiday parties, in-office gyms, and other luxuries that simply don't apply to at-home work. As we reach 2023, we must shift benefit priorities to what employees care about most, which you can discover by surveying your team.

Remote employment also poses a new challenge regarding payment equity, with workers experiencing different living costs. For example, you may have one employee living in New York City paying $3,000 in rent, while other team members reside across the globe paying just $800. Many larger corporations now adopt more personalized benefit policies based on team members' locations and benefit preferences.

12. Focusing on employee engagement in hybrid environments

Keeping teams engaged in digital environments boils down to one thing: human connection. Human connection can feel impossible when working with colleagues across the globe, but accessible software solutions make it more feasible each day.

The modern hybrid employee experience must include intuitive communication tools for optimal engagement. For your business, this may mean one-on-one video calls, group chat sessions, and unified dashboard planning systems. You can uncover your team's preferred tech, communication, and engagement methods by collecting feedback and trying out different tools until you find one that works.

{emphasize}Great hybrid environments call for effective meetings for all. Follow these 17 remote meeting best practices to help your distributed team succeed.{emphasize}

How employees are driving the future of work

Creating a great employee experience is essential for any organization hoping to thrive in the 2023 work landscape. Companies worldwide continue paving the way for upcoming employee experience trends, focusing on employee engagement, retention, flexible benefits, and culturally sensitive, people-focused team experiences.

Regular, constructive employee feedback can help you make the right decisions to improve the employee experience, ultimately offering business success. With Officevibe's intuitive employee engagement platform, it's easy to gain meaningful insights into employee experience trends in your organization.

The term employee experience (EX) is used a lot lately; the sweeping concept includes the entire relationship between the employee and the organization — from an employee's interaction with their direct manager to their perception of the workplace environment.

Essentially, just about anything, from the company's leadership style to a team member's work-life balance, may influence the overall employee experience.

Savvy HR leaders know that a positive employee experience is the cornerstone of any successful business. When companies focus on EX, they enjoy stronger employee loyalty, increased productivity, a healthier company culture, and ultimately revenue growth.

But how do you go about creating a strong employee experience strategy to help your company grow?

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What is an employee experience strategy?

A successful employee experience strategy should encompass all aspects of EX, including employee productivity, workplace culture, and inter-team relations, in a comprehensive, long-term, and balanced approach. When you strive for a better employee experience, your organization will see:

• Less workplace stress
• Lower employee absenteeism
• Stronger employee ambassadorship
• Higher job satisfaction

But organizations can also reap the financial benefits of implementing a healthy employee experience strategy and start seeing:

• Higher employee engagement. Engaged employees are more emotionally invested in their work and are less likely to be disconnected during operating hours (also referred to as presenteeism).
• Lower employee turnover. Employees who enjoy a happier EX are more likely to stay in their positions in the long term.
• Successful talent-seeking. When your employees are happy, they are likelier to recommend your organization to other desirable, high-performing professionals.
• Stronger customer satisfaction. Happier employees produce better work and provide a higher level of service, which leads to more satisfied customers.

12 Examples of employee experience strategies

So what exactly should HR departments or managers do to enhance employee experience? Let's break down the components of a knockout employee experience strategy.

1. Focus on the employee

An efficient employee experience strategy sees the company's own employees as its most valuable resource. And rightfully so. Your EX strategy should put the individual team member at the center and ask:

• Who is this employee? How long have they worked in the company?
• What drives this person? What do they want to achieve?
• What does this employee value in their workplace experience? (E.g., more flexibility, a family-friendly schedule, access to mental health resources, etc.)
• How can we improve our organizational structure to help this employee achieve their goals?

An employee survey can help you answer these questions. HR professionals can analyze survey results to view trends in different segments of your organization (for example, "About 50% of the employees in our marketing department are young parents who struggle with long office hours").

2. Build trust

Building trust with employees is a vital part of any employee experience strategy. Security, confidence, and knowing that the company promotes their best interests all help employees thrive.

Cultivating trust in the workplace environment involves:

• Honoring individual and team commitments
• Promoting transparent communication
• Taking accountability and owning mistakes
• Fostering a helpful and people-first company culture

Trust is a two-way street and needs to be earned. Build trust with your team by asking your employees poignant questions.

3. Give meaningful employee recognition

Employees like to know that their managers and team members appreciate their hard work and efforts. When employees feel valued, employee engagement and loyalty soar. But according to Officevibe data, a quarter of employees expressed that their organization does not recognize and celebrate accomplishments or efforts.

Effective recognition should be:

• Specific. Instead of "good job," try "Your report from last Wednesday really highlighted our department's work."
• Timely. Recognition works best when it includes both real-time feedback and acknowledgments during significant milestones, like the end of a big project.
• Meaningful. Motivation rises when employees feel their work makes a difference and contributes to their personal development goals and broader company objectives.
• Encouraging. Aside from reinforcing success, recognition can also boost employee morale during challenging times. For example: "We didn't reach our social media engagement targets, but you did a great job increasing brand awareness. We'll work together to adapt our strategy for next quarter."
• Team-oriented. Recognition should flow not just from managers to employees but also between peers. Why not make a colleague's day by letting them know how much you appreciate them?

Everyone wants to be recognized for their hard work, efforts, and contributions. Start creating a culture of recognition and watch your workplace prosper.

4. Promote open, honest communication

Open and transparent communication makes every task easier; it allows teams to spot problems, suggest solutions, and develop creative action plans. To improve communication in your company, make sure you:

• Run regular meetings with employees, either in person or virtually.
• Encourage all employees to provide honest feedback.
• Assess your communication channels. If important messages regularly get overlooked in Slack or other communication channels, consider testing out another platform.
• Emphasize communication with remote employees to keep them involved and engaged.

For those still skeptical about the financial payback of enhancing the workplace environment, our latest article unravels the ROI of a positive employee experience.

5. Encourage diversity and inclusion

A diverse and inclusive work environment helps create healthier, more flexible, and more balanced teams. Today, leaders in many organizations understand that embracing diversity isn't just "the right thing to do" but a pathway to a better workplace experience and higher levels of success.

A diversity program may address questions like:

• Do our recruitment processes provide equal opportunities for employees from different ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds?
• How well does our organization accommodate employees with disabilities?
• On a scale from 1 to 10, how well does our company promote an inclusive environment regardless of sexual orientation, race, age, nationality, or disability status?
• How aware are we of microaggression and unconscious biases in our organization?

Keep the important conversations going with the right diversity, equity, and inclusion questions.

6. Offer mentorship programs and training

Each employee brings something to the table; it's why you hired them in the first placed. Both new employees and personel who move between departments can benefit from:

• An experienced team member who regularly checks on their progress
• A mentorship plan that gives small employee groups a safe space to address difficulties and suggest improvements
• A training program to help employees expand their skill-set

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7. Implement a standout onboarding process

An employee's onboarding process extends far beyond signing a contract and reading some administrative documents. By implementing thoughtful onboarding steps into your employee experience framework, you're showing your new hire that you're investing in them for the long-haul and that you want to see them grow within the organization.

Not sure how to implement structured onboarding into your employee experience strategy? Try using tools like Softstart to foster a genuine sense of belonging on your team.

8. Create professional development opportunities

In today's competitive workplace, many organizations emphasize career growth opportunities for their employees. Professional advancement contributes to higher employee engagement, greater job satisfaction, and a better overall employee experience.

Promoting career growth may include:

• Training programs within the organization
• Structured promotion frameworks
• External workshops, classes, and conferences
• Leadership coaching

Your people are motivated. Give them the opportunity to discuss their career development in a one-on-one meeting.

9. Perform stay interviews

Interviews are a standard part of the hiring process, but what about interviewing employees who have worked in the organization for a few months, a year, or a decade? Periodic stay interviews can help you assess your employee experience and improve employee retention.

Typical stay interview questions include:

• What do you like (or dislike) about your work environment?
• Do you see yourself working in our organization for the next year (or two years, or five years)?
• What's the biggest challenge you face in your work?
• Would you recommend our organization to a friend or colleague looking for work?

10. Provide clear roles and responsibilities

Team alignment is a crucial part of an employee experience strategy. Work flows more smoothly and conflicts diminish when everyone knows what they should be doing, who handles each task, and what the end goal is.

To improve alignment and collaboration within your team, you should:

• Keep tasks within the context of major organizational goals and values.
• Define employee roles and watch out for role overlap.
• Set employee goals that are clear and measurable.
• Schedule regular performance management check-ins.

Making sure everyone is on the same page is key to moving your team in a successful direction. Discover Officevibe's alignment tools and how they can help you rally the whole team.

11. Promote work-life balance

Stress, burnout, anxiety, and other mental health issues deplete employee productivity and cost employers a lot of money. Smart employers will do their best to reduce workplace stress by making sure their employees have time to rest, recharge, and take care of themselves and their loved ones.

An employee wellness survey can help you answer questions like:

• How do our employees rate their stress levels and workloads?
• Do our employees feel that their work obligations encroach on their personal lives?
• Do employee benefits in our organization give people access to physical and mental health services?

12. Perform exit interviews

The end of an employee's journey in the organization should include an exit interview that assesses their experience throughout their employee lifecycle.

Exit interviews can help you:

• Evaluate the employee's experience during their time in the organization and see what your company can do to improve employee satisfaction at pivotal points.
• Understande why employees quit (lack of growth opportunities? More lucrative employee benefits in another company?) and working on strategies to improve employee retention.
• End professional relationships through a friendly and constructive process.

How to implement an employee experience strategy

Now that you know what your EX strategy should include, how do you apply the concepts we outlined above to create a more positive employee experience?

Make employee experience a critical component of your company culture

In big organizations, many employees experience a lack of visibility, especially in the digital workplace era. Creating personalized experiences for your team helps offset the "little cog in a big machine" effect and bolsters employee loyalty to the company.

You can help employees feel seen when you:

• Recognize individual employee achievements.
• Celebrate employee milestones like work anniversaries.
• Acknowledge workers' birthdays and other personal celebrations.
• Invest in regular one-on-one communication.

Identify challenges

Be honest with yourself. What, in your opinion, is the current biggest barrier to a stronger employee experience strategy in your organization? Ask yourself:

• When discussing obstacles, do we encourage transparent communication, even when it highlights issues we may not like to see?
• Are our managers and team leaders ready to be accountable for past errors and adapt employee experience strategies that didn't work?
• How healthy, supportive, and collaborative is our company's work environment? What challenges do we encounter as we work to promote employee happiness?

Create employee journey maps

Employee journey mapping is a process that helps you evaluate employee experience throughout the employee's lifecycle, from onboarding to leaving the company.

Journey maps help you recognize where your organization could use a better employee experience strategy. For instance, journey mapping can identify underdeveloped onboarding processes or lack of mentorship when employees move between departments.

Employee journey mapping involves these basic steps:

• Gathering data
• Creating archetypal employee personas
• Identifying pivotal moments for these different personas
• Constructing a journey map
• Suggesting EX improvement solutions for critical steps in the employee's journey

Define goals with OKRs

Employee happiness may be your endgame goal, but how do you break your employee experience strategy into specific OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)? Are you shooting for higher levels of employee engagement, business initiative, or a stronger focus on day-to-day tasks?

Officevibe's OKR framework is an intuitive, user-friendly tool that can help you:

• Create a clear and easily navigable plan.
• Keep your employees actively encouraged and empowered.
• Promote team accountability.
• Recognize and celebrate progress.

Ask for employee feedback on employee experience

To build a systematic employee experience strategy, you must first understand the current state of employee experience in your organization. The most efficient way to do this is by asking for employee feedback.

Team meetings and one-on-one conversations are a great place to start, but getting every employee's opinion in person may be challenging in large organizations. Also, some team members may draw back from giving 100% honest feedback face-to-face.

Measuring employee experience is easy with Officevibe's employee feedback tool, which allows managers and human resources departments to run simple, interactive, and completely anonymous employee surveys. We also provide templates of employee surveys with ready-to-use questions that will help you gain actionable insights.

Measure your results

Your first employee experience survey is a valuable starting point that allows you to assess your progress. As you keep running month-to-month or quarterly employee surveys, you can cross-reference your survey results, determine company policies, and see how the decisions you implement impact the outcome of your next survey.

A consistent and reliable survey platform will become your strongest ally as you strive to optimize the employee experience in your company.

Seek continuous improvement for a positive employee experience

To succeed, an employee experience strategy should be an integral part of your company's mission. Rather than a one-and-done effort, your EX strategy needs to include regular assessments and a commitment to constant improvement.

Getting genuine, regular, and constructive feedback from your team is an essential part of any employee experience plan. Officevibe offers user-friendly employee engagement surveys, one-on-one meeting templates, a peer recognition platform, and that can help you understand how your employees feel and discover efficient ways to improve the employee experience in your company.

While a competitive salary and great employee benefits can always attract top talent to a company, what ultimately makes them want to stay is a positive employee experience. Employee experience is such a pivotal factor for every company since it can have a significant impact on the overall success, productivity, and profitability of the business. When employees have a standout workplace experience, they'll be happier and more engaged with their teams and their projects.

So what can a company do to ensure that engaged go-getters don't become disengaged clock-watchers? We'll let some numbers do the talking.

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9 statistics on employee experience

When it comes to understanding the factors that impact the employee experience, there's a lot we can learn from employee engagement statistics. From what keeps employees engaged and the importance of work-life balance, to career development and preventing employee turnover, we explore 9 key statistics that give us a clear overview of what affects employee satisfaction and employee engagement most.

1. 65% of employees are disengaged employees

Engaged employees are productive employees, plain and simple. So the fact that a Gallup study revealed that a jarring 65% of employees don't feel engaged is certainly eye-opening and cause for concern. The same study also found that when employees are highly engaged, teams see a whopping difference of 81% in absenteeism and 14% in productivity compared to their disengaged counterparts.

To keep employees engaged, it's imperative for companies to focus on performance management activities like clearly communicating expectations, ensuring people have what they need to successfully complete their projects, and providing ample career development opportunities.

The power of employee engagement should never be underestimated. Start implementing these employee engagement best practices and witness firsthand how your workforce can thrive.

2. High employee engagement means 23% greater profitability

Having a thriving workforce and highly engaged employees works in everyone's favor. According to Gallup research, when employees feel motivated, the quality of their work increases — and in turn, so does the growth and financial success of the company (by 23%, to be precise.)

On the flip side, this also means that actively disengaged employees can take a serious toll on a company's profitability. They're less likely to feel motivated to go the extra mile which can not only affect customer satisfaction but also eventually leads to increased turnover.

So just how much does this affect the bottom line? Another Gallup study revealed that disengaged employees cost their company the equivalent of 18% of their annual salary. What it boils down to is that keeping employee engagement up has a direct impact on keeping profits up.

If things are starting to take a turn on your teams, it's important to act fast. Read more about how you can spot the warning signs of employee disengagement.

3. Engaged organizations see 59% less employee turnover

Employee experience plays a significant role in increasing engagement and retention and decreasing turnover. Motivated employees aren't just more productive, they also tend to be more loyal and committed to their companies. When an employee is engaged in their work and happy with the company culture, they're far less likely to set their sights on a new job somewhere else. It's no wonder that organizations with an engaged workforce enjoy 59% lower employee turnover rates.

When an employee is satisfied and engaged, they're more likely to have longevity with the company and speak highly of it. In fact, Gallup research shows that engaged employees are 23 times more likely to recommend their organization as a great place to work.

Start improving employee retention with proven strategies and keep your top talent around for the long-haul.

4. 77% of job seekers say that employee experience is a deciding factor

When looking for a job, people want to know that they're committing themselves to both a role and a work environment that suits them. So it's no secret that a positive employee experience helps attract great talent.

One of the best ways for potential candidates to gain this knowledge is word-of-mouth from engaged employees, whether through direct conversations or stumbling upon social media posts praising the company. Glassdoor, a heavy hitter in the realm of employer reviewing sites, reported that 77% of candidates seriously take the company's culture into consideration before deciding to accept an offer.

Want to learn how you can calculate your company's employee Net Promoter Score? All you need to do is ask one simple question. Read Officevibe's comprehensive guide to the eNPS.

5. 1 in 4 employees say their company doesn't celebrate accomplishments

Recognition and workplace happiness are closely tied together — and with good reason. When employees make extra efforts and are acknowledged by their managers or peers, they're more likely to be motivated and feel connected to their work.

But according to Officevibe data, 25% of employees don't feel like their organization dolls out enough kudos. When recognition is given in a genuine manner, it can look as simple as a private message celebrating a small victory and can go a long way in making a colleague feel valued.

Improving your employee experience can start with upping your kudos game. Create a culture of recognition in the workplace with these tips and techniques from Officevibe.

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6. 87% of employees expect a healthy work-life balance from their employer

Now more than ever, a healthy work-life balance is non-negotiable to maintain a team of engaged employees. A Glassdoor survey found that the vast majority of employees expect their employer to support them in being able to balance their life between work and personal commitments.

But a healthy work-life balance goes beyond being able to take a break every once in a while during the day; with 47% of people regularly feeling overwhelmed at work, it also means providing your team members with access to important resources for mental and physical health. When you invest in the well-being of your team, you'll also boost employee engagement and job satisfaction, as well as employee performance, which will allow them to provide an overall better customer experience.

How is your team feeling? Check in on your people regularly and ask the right questions in an employee wellness survey.

7. 40% of employees don’t have a development plan to sharpen their skills and drive their growth

When employees feel that they have the opportunity to grow and advance within the company, they're more motivated and engaged in their work, and more likely to stay long-term. However, Officevibe data shows that 40% lack a clear development plan to help them reach their professional goals.

Career development and training can help make employees more effective in their current roles, and better prepared for future roles within the company. Organizations that offer career development opportunities tend to have a more supportive and positive company culture, which can also improve employee morale and satisfaction.

Offering career growth opportunities can help companies retain and develop their talented employees. Sit with your team members and have the important career development talk in your next one-on-one using this free template.

8. 25% of remote employees say that they lack a sense of belonging

The recent shift to remote work has had many positive effects on employees like reducing commute time, increasing autonomy, and creating greater work-life balance. However, a recent BetterUp report revealed that 25% of employees feel as though they don’t belong at their workplace, and 40% of employees now feel isolated.

When employees lack a sense of belonging, their performance suffers and they’re far more likely to seek employment elsewhere — with a turnover risk of 50%.

Building lasting relationships with colleagues is a key factor in boosting engagement and improving the employee experience. Learn how you can maintain genuine connections, regardless of where your employees are logging in from.

9. 73% of employees are considering leaving their jobs

According to a recent study by Joblist, 73% of employees would consider leaving their job if the right offer came along, even if they hadn't been actively seeking new employment at the time. And what's important to note is that changing jobs isn’t always about a higher salary.

In fact, the study also revealed that 74% of younger employees would accept a pay cut for the opportunity to land their dream job, and 23% would take a new position without a pay increase at all. This speaks volumes about the importance of employee experience, career development, and company culture.

Ways to build a better employee experience

From maintaining open communication to putting action plans in place, there are a number of ways managers can improve the employee experience.

Ask for feedback on employee experience

Nothing is more valuable than getting direct feedback from employees on their experience within the company. Tools like employee surveys can help you identify areas where you may need to make improvements, and can also help you understand what your employees value and appreciate about their jobs.

The best way to get the conversation going is with a straightforward survey. Ask your teams these employee experience questions and see how you can move things forward.

Set clear goals for employees

Setting clear goals for your employees can be a powerful way to engage them. It helps them understand what is expected of them and how their work contributes to the overall success of the organization. By implementing a goal-setting framework into your company culture, you can:

• Boost employee retention
• Improve team alignment
• Create a solid vision for the future
• Strengthen employee engagement

Goal-setting can be challenging, even for the most experienced of managers. Try these effective goal-setting tips to help create a better employee experience and boost alignment on your team.

Make changes and monitor progress

The most important thing about collecting employee feedback is what you do with the data. Once you've identified areas where you can make improvements, you can actively work on making changes and monitoring progress on a regular basis.

If you're not sure where to start measuring, take a look at these 8 key metrics to start improving your employee experience.

Encourage continuous feedback

Continuous feedback allows employees to regularly share their feelings and concerns with managers while also allowing managers to share theirs too. It provides you with ongoing insights into employee happiness, what’s working well, and what needs to be improved.

To optimize your organizational strategies, one must be aware of the potential gains in the return on investment from employee experience. Our comprehensive guide explains this concept in detail.

Use software to bolster your employee experience

What these employee engagement stats show us is that cultivating a great employee experience truly benefits everyone. From employee engagement and satisfaction to company success and profitability, everyone wins if you prioritize and support your most invaluable asset: your workforce.

Officevibe offers tools to help boost employee engagement, foster great company culture, increase employee retention, and give important recognition in the workplace. After all, happy employees are the heart of a healthy organization.

Follow the trends: Check out our report on what the last two years can tell us about the current state of employee experience and the future of how leaders and companies can shape it.

For most people, the human resources team is their main point of contact throughout their employee journey: from the very first nerve-wracking moments of the recruitment process to bittersweet exit interviews, an HR professional is usually there to guide you through it all.

Working in tandem with senior leaders and managers, your HR reps are also in the unique position to help build and maintain a great workplace experience. And one of the most sure-fire ways to help foster a positive experience is by ensuring that your employees feel engaged and motivated in their daily projects.

But keeping engagement high is sometimes easier said than done; the reality of remote work and major shifts across industries present a whole new set of challenges to the employee experience. While there may be some obstacles along the way, your HR department is there to help ensure employees are happy, motivated, and engaged.

In this article, we'll explore some of the ways in which your human resources team can implement effective strategies to drive employee engagement.

What is employee engagement in HR

As you may already know, employee engagement can be defined as the emotional connection an employee has to their job. In most organizations, the HR department is at the head of the recruitment process, but they're also tasked with ensuring employee well-being and fostering a happy, productive company culture. The HR department is also closely linked to every other unit in your organization and is perfectly poised to offer insight into how managers can improve engagement on their teams.

The importance of employee engagement

There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it: ensuring your employees are engaged is vital to the overall success of your organization. Without an engaged workforce, your company will experience:

• Lower employee retention
• Increased absenteeism
• Unachieved business goals
• Higher workplace stress

If that wasn't enough, Gallup has also reported that businesses with highly engaged employees enjoy an increase in profitability of 23%. If there's a downside to high employee engagement, we sure haven't found one yet.

Strategies to improve employee engagement

It's all well and good to discuss the numerous benefits of keeping employee engagement high, but how should HR professionals actually go about implementing concrete employee engagement strategies to keep your top talent around for the long haul?

It's important to note that only employing a single strategy will be less effective in empowering employees. We recommend trying a combination (or all!) of the following initiatives to really improve engagement on your teams.

1. Choose the best employee for each position

During the hiring process, the HR team is responsible for helping find the best candidate for different roles. Since they're aware of a team's needs and the company's broader objectives, they can weigh in on who they think the best fit could be.

This also means that it's HR's responsibility to ensure an employee thrives on their team. So if a team member seems to be struggling in their unit, an HR rep should work alongside their manager to see if they might be better suited under different leadership or honing different skills in a new role.

2. Offer a stellar onboarding

A great workplace experience begins with exceptional onboarding. When an employee joins a company, they usually have a million and one questions about things like their job role and compensation, but also about company culture and the resources available to them.

Onboarding tools like Sofstart help HR leaders and managers offer new employees a seamless introduction to the company and can really go a long way in establishing high employee engagement from the get-go.

Does your HR department oversee a distributed team? Check out this ultimate checklist for remote employee onboarding to get your new hires started.

3. Practice clear and open communication

Improving communication is key to the success of any team and that rings especially true for HR departments. For many organizations, human resources also double as the main point of communication between senior leaders and the rest of the company, making transparency of utmost importance.

Open channels of communication must also extend to one-on-one sessions with employees. For the HR department to successfully improve engagement, employees must feel they can trust them with their concerns and questions. If you get the feeling that employee satisfaction and engagement are dipping, conduct stay interviews to avoid employee turnover.

If you're not familiar with the stay interview, check out these six questions to get the conversation going.

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4. Collect employee feedback

One of the most effective engagement initiatives we'll always rally behind is collecting anonymous feedback from your teams. Many employees might not feel comfortable submitting feedback directly to their managers, so it's crucial to provide teams with a safe space to submit their thoughts and opinions without fear of repercussion. Use a survey template to measure employee engagement and ask your team members for feedback on areas that could use some improvement.

After you've gathered employee feedback, take a look with managers to see which employee engagement metrics stand out and if there are issues that need addressing. From there, you can work with team leads to craft employee engagement activities that best suit individual units.

📋 Follow these steps to create your own employee engagement survey and start collecting invaluable employee feedback.

5. Deliver on wellness programs

With Officevibe data indicating that a quarter of employees feel like they have an unhealthy work-life balance, HR teams must prioritize mental and physical health to keep engaging employees. When people are tired, stressed, or on the verge of burnout, they obviously cannot be expected to perform at their best.

Make space in the budget for wellness programs that allow employees to stay active and provide access to mental health resources. An employee wellness survey can also provide a wealth of insight into the well-being of your people. Ask the right questions and keep the conversation going to engage employees.

6. Promote recognition

In an ideal world, employees and managers would be doling out acknowledgments to express their gratitude, but according to Officevibe data, only 66% of employees are satisfied with the frequency at which they receive recognition.

Promoting peer-to-peer recognition platforms that let employees thank their colleagues or give props after a job well done is one of the best low-cost and high-reward engagement initiatives HR departments can implement.

Make gratitude a cornerstone of your employee experience and learn how you can create a culture of recognition in the workplace.

7. Encourage team building activities

If your organization oversees a distributed team, establishing genuine connections can prove to be challenging. By encouraging and organizing team-building activities, HR can help bring that "human" touch back to your department.

Suggest some of these unique activities to keep engaging employees:

• Innovation challenges
• Job rotation programs
• Team potluck dinners
• Interest-based games and events

Looking for more team collaboration inspiration? Try these remote teamwork tips!

8. Provide professional development opportunities

Last but not least, providing development opportunities is a great and productive employee engagement strategy. Your people are creative and driven, but sometimes they need help finding and accessing professional development courses to fine-tune or enhance their skills.

HR professionals can send engagement surveys to check in with their teams to see if there are certain topics they'd like to learn more about. Workshops, lunch and learns, and language courses can offer employees a wealth of personal and professional knowledge and can even help bring about business success across the board.

How workplace experience tools can boost employee engagement

Your HR team is at the heart of the employee journey. Their raison d'etre is to help managers find the best people for their teams and then ensure they feel engaged in their work. But even the most knowledgeable HR professionals can use a little help every once in a while to keep employee engagement high.

Luckily, there are tools out there, like Officevibe's employee engagement solution, that allow you to collect employee feedback and measure engagement. With data-backed insights, you can use your results to shape employee engagement strategies, boost business success, and offer an all-around stellar employee experience.

No matter which way you slice it, the foundation of any good relationship is healthy communication – and relationships in the workplace are no exception.

When it comes to communicating with employees, there's a huge difference between simply talking to employees and truly connecting with them. Forging real connections can have a tremendous impact on employee engagement and retention – and in turn your company's success – so fostering good internal communication is key.

A recent study by Gallup revealed that only 17% of employees strongly agree that "there is open communication throughout all levels of the organization." Without open communication, engagement wanes, so let's explore how we can improve employee engagement through an effective communication strategy.

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Elements of effective communication

As a manager, you know that constructive two-way communication makes life better for everyone. But since every employee is different, you also have to know how to adjust and connect in a way that works for each person on your team.

Here are some elements that contribute to effective communication and increased employee engagement:

• Honesty: It's easy to spot when someone is being dishonest and it can tarnish an employee-manager relationship. If you're aiming to improve your communication, speaking your truth is always a good idea. It fosters trust and also encourages employees to reciprocate their honest thoughts and feelings.
• Transparency: Often bundled with honesty, transparency is about making important information accessible to relevant parties. If something directly concerns an employee or their work, you should make them aware in a timely manner. It's always best for employees to hear things from their managers first, rather than through the grapevine.
• Openmindedness: The best communicators are those that are open to discussing anything and everything. Employees' backgrounds, experiences, personality types, ways of thinking, and perceptions of the world may be different than yours. But approaching conversations with an open mindset is sure to spark valuable dialogue.
• Clarity: Leaving an employee feeling confused or unsure about something following a conversation can cause unnecessary stress and anxiety. It's therefore crucial to be clear and concise, and always avoid beating around the bush. If you think you may have left too much room for interpretation, or potentially caused confusion, be sure to offer clarification.
• Frequency: A common cause of poor communication within a team is simply not communicating enough – whether in person, through video calls, or even messaging. The good news is that this is an easy fix. Spotting opportunities to say hello, check in, or recognize someone are great ways to up your communication frequency. With time, speaking with your team often will come naturally.

We've put together our top 10 tips to encourage effective two-way communication so you can improve employee engagement on your team.

Tips on how to improve communication with employees

A functional, positive work environment is one with an engaged workforce where employees feel comfortable connecting with one another. Leaders can improve internal communication with employees by fostering a healthy two-way flow. Let's take a look at 10 ways you can do just that.

1. Engage on a personal level

It may be business, but it's also important to be personal. Whether working remotely or at the office, employees spend hours interacting with each other everyday. Getting to know teammates and engaging on a personal level can make all the difference when it comes to feeling heard and understood. It can also do wonders for your company culture and employee engagement levels.

Everyone wants to feel valued, so it's all about showing a genuine interest, asking questions, and remembering the details. So go ahead and check in, share stories, and even make plans with team members outside of work hours. Whether shy or outgoing, we're all social creatures at the core, and nobody wants to feel like they're just a number. Engaged employees are ones who feel like they matter to their peers.

🥶 Icebreaker activities are a great way to get through any awkwardness and build personal relationships with our peers.

2. Build trust

Without trust, we can't expect honest communication, so this might be one of the most essential ingredients in the mix. When employees feel that they can trust their managers, they're far more likely to have more open communication, feel engaged on a more meaningful level, and even report problems when they arise.

As a manager, you should always try to foster an environment where employees can freely share their ideas and concerns. While building trust doesn't happen immediately, it's worth the investment in time. By speaking openly with employees about anything from goals to concerns, you'll encourage others to do the same.

When you establish trust, you forge a better connection and create a safe space for this kind of transparency. Trust is a two-way street that plays a vital role in ensuring long-term communication and improving employee engagement.

3. Give meaningful feedback

Put simply, employee feedback is essential to employee satisfaction and an engaged workforce. When an employee knows that their manager is invested in their professional growth and development, they feel engaged in their role and more likely to strive towards reaching their full potential.

Managers who offer specific feedback and meaningful employee recognition support a company culture of ongoing talent development. So say it like you mean it, and watch the magic happen.

👉 Jumpstart your team's feedback loop with these 20 impactful employee feedback examples.

4. Set clear expectations

When you set a clear goal, you're far more likely to achieve it. So if you want to be on the same page as your employees, you must learn to set clear expectations. From concise and achievable business goals, to tasks on a project, to accountability in a role, managers should clearly outline everything for their employees so that they feel realistic and attainable.

By setting clear expectations, managers can help support employees in their daily tasks and long-term objectives, while improving team alignment. Once you've clearly communicated these expectations, it’s also crucial to manage them with regular meetings. This is where your team can ask questions and you can give clear feedback. After all, aligned employees are engaged employees.

✅ Keep your meetings organized and on-track with this one-on-one meeting checklist.

5. Communicate the company vision and mission

Communicating the broader "why" behind your team's work is key to boosting employee engagement. When people share a common goal and know how to achieve it, they can rally together to get there.

An inspiring company vision makes people feel part of something special, and that their individual work contributes to a larger purpose. So be sure to communicate the organization’s mission and values so that you can encourage employee engagement by rowing in the same direction as a team.

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6. Listen attentively

A little listening goes a long way, and active listening goes even further. Most of your conversations with employees should center on their thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and points of improvement. By listening carefully and taking note of their sentiment, you'll be able to better coach employees and help them perform at their best.

A great way to practice your listening skills is by encouraging employees to give feedback, actively responding to it, and taking action promptly. When employees feel heard and know that their voice makes a difference, they're far more likely to use it.

🙅 Don't let employee feedback go unaddressed. These tips will help you respond to feedback effectively, whether it's positive, constructive, or critical.

7. Give clear context for tasks

It's one thing to assign projects and tasks, and it's another to explain the context of the request and the purpose it serves. How does this project impact the company? What value does the employee's contribution bring to it? While it may make perfect sense to you as a manager, the reasons may not be as clear to your employees.

That's where context comes in. When people understand the impact of their responsibility, it gives them greater purpose. Establish that from the get-go and be sure to maintain that same communication from start to finish.

8. Learn employee communication styles

When it comes to communicating with employees, one size doesn't always fit all. The most effective communication happens when you understand what each employee is most receptive to, and how they approach communication themselves. Everyone's communication skills are unique, meaning managers need to take time to learn and adapt to each individual's style.

Some employees prefer in-person conversations, while others may feel more comfortable expressing themselves via digital channels like email or Slack. Some are comfortable being direct, while others take more time to express themselves. Lean into that and take it into account when addressing them.

9. Avoid assumptions

Jumping to conclusions and making assumptions indicates a barrier in internal communication. If an issue arises, managers should strive for more open lines of communication, rather than deducing how the issue came up and figuring out how to resolve it on their own.

If you're ever caught in a situation, give your employee the opportunity to explain themselves so that you can find the best resolution. Scheduling regular check-ins as part of your employee communication strategy is a great way to avoid poor communication and see things from your employee's perspective.

😕 Are you facing a sensitive issue with an employee? Navigate the conversation with this one-on-one meeting template for tough talks.

10. Check in regularly

As we touched on above, constant communication is good communication. Make a habit of setting aside time into your schedule to interact with each team member and give them your undivided attention. Having a regularly scheduled time to connect and talk opens the doors to conversations about recent challenges, concerns, and accomplishments, and gives you the opportunity to address them in a timely way.

It's a key part of an effective employee communication strategy, so no matter how busy your schedule is as a manager, be sure to carve out the time.

What does "regularly" mean for you, though? Follow these 5 tips to determine your ideal one-on-one meeting frequency.

Ways to keep internal communication going

Now that we've explored ways to boost internal communication and improve employee engagement, let's explore the tools you can use to take both even further.

One-on-one meetings

Regular one-on-one meetings are one of the most effective ways to boost employee engagement and make sure everyone on your team is aligned. Being aligned helps keep employees motivated, which works wonders for long-term retention. What's more, one-on-ones are also key to build trust and connect on a human level.

Learn how to make meetings more efficient and productive with our ultimate one-on-one meetings guide.

Team meetings

While one-on-one meetings give managers and employees the opportunity to connect on a personal level, team meetings give everyone the chance to come together and align on shared objectives. They help get everyone on the same page, build trust and rapport, drive understanding of objectives, goals, and responsibilities, and encourage employee engagement. This also helps individual team members understand how they fit into the bigger picture and how they can best contribute.

When's the best time to have a one-on-one meeting vs. a team meeting? Learn when to use each type.

Employee engagement surveys

Employee engagement surveys (also known as pulse surveys when sent frequently) feature questions that are designed to measure employee engagement metrics like alignment, employee satisfaction, ambassadorship, happiness and wellness, and relationships with managers and peers. They're a great way to encourage transparent communication, especially when done anonymously.

Engagement starts with letting employees share how they feel and quickly acting on your findings. But what's the best way to collect insights? This employee engagement survey guide covers it all.

Monthly town halls

Town Halls are an effective way to bring all your employees together and update everyone on what’s going on inside the organization. They offer an outlet for people across all departments to receive the same information simultaneously, like the organization's goals and accomplishments. They're also a great way to communicate key employee engagement results. These types of meetings are often led by senior leaders and are typically less frequent than the other methods.

Encourage an engaging work environment

Good communication really is key to improving employee engagement, keeping employee morale high, and boosting employee productivity. Healthy communication plays a critical role in ensuring employees feel connected to their organization.

Start small by taking a pulse on how employees feel about your communications skills with a manager communication survey template. If you want to go a step further, seek external support and try an employee engagement solution.

The Officevibe employee engagement platform offers a range of tools and resources to help keep communication open, frequent, and effective for all team members, helping you keep employees engaged for the long term.

Employee engagement is having its moment, and we're here for it. The data keeps flowing in and points to one thing: organizations cannot afford to neglect their employees' engagement levels. That's because happy, productive, and engaged employees work better, strengthen the company culture, and contribute even more to the bottom line.

According to Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2022 Report, business units with engaged workers have 23% higher profits compared with their disengaged counterparts.

The stakes are higher with a remote workforce. The scattered nature of a distributed team makes it easier for engagement to dwindle if it isn't looked after. But it doesn't have to get to that point.

With these strategies and tips, you can keep remote employees engaged and build the foundations for a winning team.

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What is remote employee engagement and why is it important?

Employee engagement is the emotional commitment that an employee has to their organization. It impacts the way employees work and is driven by 10 employee engagement metrics, including feedback, personal growth, wellness, and job satisfaction.

Having an engaged workforce is vital to an organization’s success, regardless of where and how your employees work. It’s the glue that holds teams and the broader organization together, through thick and thin. When engagement is high, employees contribute higher-quality work, collaborate well together, and act more positively at work.

When your team is distributed, it’s smart to pay even closer attention to engagement levels. That’s because the perks of good employee engagement – as well as the pitfalls of disengagement – are amplified when employees work remotely.

When engagement is on the rise, you’ll reap countless benefits:

• Easier and faster employee onboarding
• Higher chances of reaching (and even surpassing) business objectives
• Happier and more productive employees
• Increased employee retention rates
• Stronger employer brand and easier recruitment processes

However, if you let it slip through the cracks, employee disengagement can bring serious risks for remote teams:

• Feelings of isolation and poor team chemistry
• Long and costly onboarding
• Difficulty meeting objectives
• Misalignment and lack of collaboration between teams
• Poor peer-to-peer and employee-manager relationships
• Fragmented and weak company culture

Do you know where your team stands? Look out for these 9 signs of disengagement and close the gaps before anything escalates.

12 Ways to engage remote employees

Tackling engagement doesn’t have to be incredibly challenging. The trick is to take an approach that will address engagement in the short, medium, and long term. Therefore, a great employee engagement strategy will feature quick wins, long-haul initiatives, and everything in between. We put together a list of 12 ways to engage remote employees to help you get started.

1. Stay connected

At the height of the pandemic, Officevibe found that 1 in 5 employees felt huge discomfort being isolated. While the world has regained a sense of normalcy since then, many people still feel this way when working from home every day. Actively seeking and encouraging connection is the number one way to avoid any feelings of isolation.

2. Promote open and regular communication

One thing many of us took for granted before remote work became the norm was the ease and frequency of in-person communication. Think water cooler chats, lunchtime conversations, popping into someone’s office, or even peeking over your cubicle to ask someone a quick question. These interactions no longer exist for fully remote employees or seldom happen for hybrid teams. But that doesn’t mean communication has to take a hit.

Circumvent this by encouraging employees to reach out to you or their teammates whenever they have a question, need to bounce ideas, or simply want to chat.

3. Choose the right communication tools

To promote communication in the most constructive way, it’s important to use the right communication platforms and tools. This can be the difference between having a unique remote organizational culture, and one that falls flat. For example, using a platform like Slack internally gives employees a chance to create channels based on interests, projects, and teams, while allowing them to respond to conversations with more personality.

When it comes to collaboration, connectivity, training, and technology policies, 29% of employees ranked robust, standardized, and integrated as their top 5 qualities for virtual-collaboration tools.

Mckinsey & Company

Pro tip: If your team is hybrid, be sure to adopt a remote-first communication policy. This includes making all meetings virtually accessible and ensuring the experience is not impaired for remote attendees.

4. Meet with employees regularly

According to Officevibe data, 70% of employees say they’d like to spend more time with their managers. By meeting with employees individually through regular one-on-ones, you can easily satisfy this common employee need. To make your one-on-ones more impactful, set some talking points beforehand, opt for video calls whenever possible, and kick them off with a personal check-in.

Notice a dip in engagement? Dig deeper in your next one-on-one with this employee engagement meeting template.

5. Follow best practices for virtual meetings

Working through a pandemic has taught us that many things normally done in the office environment can be replicated at home, including meetings. The key to keeping them engaging and effective is to follow remote meeting best practices, like setting manageable time limits, recording the meeting, and sharing a recap.

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6. Make time for social activities

A good way to increase remote employee engagement is to sprinkle in lighthearted and fun social activities into the mix. It's easy to overlook the value of virtual activities, but for remote teams, they're the primary time and place for employees to get to know each other and build rapport.

You can spice virtual team activities up by involving your employees and having each team member host a session based on their interests. For example, wine connoisseurs can organize a wine tasting, foodies can teach a cooking class, and game enthusiasts can plan a virtual game night.

Need more ideas? Many employee engagement activities can be adapted for a remote environment using video conferencing platforms and break-out rooms.

7. Focus on collaboration

With a fully remote workforce, the risk of working in silos is bigger and can easily cause frustration and disengagement across the board. You can counteract this by focusing on collaboration in your employees' everyday work. This can be done by creating interdepartmental teams for specific projects or sprints based on the different skills needed to get the job done.

You can also structure collaboration between remote employees by implementing a responsibility assignment framework, like the RACI chart. This framework divides tasks by responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed parties, and helps keep everyone in full swing.

👉 Overcome common collaboration challenges with these remote teamwork tips.  

8. Create a feedback loop

Another way to keep remote employees engaged is to add mechanisms, like an employee feedback loop, to facilitate continuous improvement. A great way to capitalize on employee feedback is to make it two-sided. Doing so gives your people agency in their employee experience and helps them perform at their best while guiding managers in the right direction.

💬 Spark productive, two-way conversations by adding these continuous feedback loop strategies to your engagement plan.

9. Make employees feel valued

In our latest data report, The state of the employee experience, Officevibe found that the two engagement metrics with the strongest correlation are recognition frequency and happiness at work. It's no wonder then that making employees feel valued is a key way to improve employee engagement.

The data also found that 72% of employees get praise less than once a week, and 1 in 4 says their organization doesn’t celebrate employee accomplishments or learnings. The opportunity for improvement is huge and can be achieved by fostering a culture of recognition. Making it genuine, regular, and personal are a few ways to increase recognition in the workplace.

⭐️ Client spotlight: See how Gorilla76 elevated its remote company culture and boosted its employee recognition metric by 60% using Officevibe.

10. Facilitate seamless employee onboarding

Onboarding sets the tone for remote workers' experience at a company, so why not make it as seamless and enjoyable as possible? A new hire's first few weeks are crucial, so it's important to book introduction calls, put together packages with relevant training documents, and set up all necessary accounts with your IT department. During this time, an onboarding tool like Softstart can keep things tidy for managers and employees alike.

In the subsequent months, it's important to make sure new employees understand their roles and responsibilities clearly and have all the resources and tools they need to perform well.

✅ Set new remote employees up for success with this ultimate remote onboarding checklist.

11. Offer career development opportunities

Employees should never feel stuck in their career paths because they work remotely. If they do, disengagement will rise rapidly and motivation can easily plummet.

Only 60% of employees state that they have a development plan to improve their skills.

Officevibe's report on the state of the employee experience

Offering remote employees access to online training platforms like Coursera, internal mentorship programs, and job shadowing opportunities are great ways to help them build the skills they need to take on new challenges within your organization. When remote workers feel confident with their development plan, they're likely to become highly engaged employees.

12. Meet in person once a year (if possible)

Remote work has made in-person interactions all the more meaningful. If your budget allows for it, consider organizing a yearly in-person event to gather your remote employees together. This can be around the holidays, or near an important company date. The key to making the most out of an in-person event is to plan an agenda to the tee.

Activities to organize during these events include:

• Brainstorming sessions
• Innovation challenges
• Team dinners or potlucks
• Executive presentations or townhalls
• Workshops to build new skills

Next steps: Measuring employee engagement and acting on your findings

Adding these strategies to your engagement plan is a great place to start. But to make sure your remote employees work and feel their best, you'll want to keep tabs on how they are doing so you can continuously support them.

The best way to do this is by measuring employee engagement with frequent pulse surveys, regularly acting on the results, and tracking your data over time.

Step 1: Send remote employees weekly pulse surveys to measure engagement

An employee engagement survey is a survey used to collect data on all metrics of engagement. When kept short (five to seven questions long) and conducted frequently (weekly or biweekly), these surveys are referred to as pulse surveys. As their name suggests, they help managers keep a pulse on employee engagement and sentiment.

Measuring employee engagement with Officevibe

Pulling from a bank of 122 tried and true employee engagement questions, Officevibe does the heavy lifting for you by sending employees weekly or biweekly polls to gather insights you can act on. These science-baked Pulse Surveys are 100% anonymous, offering team members a safe space to share their honest feelings at work.

Ready to give it a try? Get your survey on with our complete guide to conducting employee engagement surveys.

Step 2: Gather results and act on your findings promptly

Before hitting send, let employees know a survey is coming their way and explain why it's important for them to answer. After all team members answer, gather the results and look out for any red flags first: is anyone answering very negatively? Are any results alarming? These should always be tackled first, and as quickly as possible.

Next, look out for exceptional results. Is your employee Net Promoter Score off the charts? Do most team members strongly agree when asked if their workloads allow them to maintain a good work-life balance? Take note of what's going great, and make sure you continue nurturing these areas of engagement.

Step 3: Track data over time and keep your strategy nimble

Engagement levels will change over time. And for the most part, this is nothing to be concerned about. Seasonality, company milestones, and specific sprints may bring peaks and troughs in your data, so it's important to address engagement based on current results.

Keeping track of data over time also helps you measure the effectiveness of the engagement initiatives and activities you put in place. If the data is stagnant, it's a sign that you need to reevaluate your strategy.

Engage remote workers with an employee experience sidekick

Managing a remote team poses its challenges, but with the right tools, you can face them with confidence. When you notice a downtrend in remote employee engagement, turn to this list of engagement ideas and try implementing something new.

If things start feeling tough or overwhelming, remember: you're not alone! An employee engagement platform like Officevibe can help you keep yourself and your remote team on track with built-in features like anonymous feedback, Good Vibes, and Pulse Surveys. Every superhero needs a sidekick, and we're happy to be yours.

We've heard a lot about employee engagement recently; why it's so important to the success of your organization, how to measure it (and boost it), and what the signs of disengagement might be.

To refresh your memory, employee engagement refers to the emotional investment a person has in their job and company. The benefits of employee engagement are well documented by now, as it's been proven that engaged employees are happier, perform better, and stay longer at their organizations.

But what motivates employees to form genuine connections with their jobs? When managers and senior leaders understand what's driving employee engagement, they can more easily achieve broader business goals, build solid relationships with their people, and improve overall performance.

To help you develop and implement effective engagement strategies to boost happiness, productivity, and satisfaction in the workplace, we've outlined the most critical drivers of employee engagement and the steps you can take to ensure a healthy environment for your teams.

What's driving employee engagement?

A recent survey from Gallup's State of the Global Workplace Report revealed that only 21% of employees feel engaged in their work. This jarring stat highlights the disconnect modern professionals feel with their daily tasks, which can lead to:

• Increased employee turnover
• Reduced productivity
• Declining ambassadorship
• Higher levels of absenteeism

A sound employee engagement strategy could make all the difference in keeping your team happy and connected with their work. Let's explore the top 15 drivers of employee engagement that managers can keep an eye on to improve overall engagement and workplace wellness.

1. Meaningful work

What's better at inspiring employees than providing them with meaningful work? When employees feel aligned with company values, engagement levels rise. People want to feel like they are contributing to something larger than themselves, so revisiting the company's mission and values could be a good step toward boosting employee engagement.

Additionally, ensuring your employees are aligned with team objectives will help foster a more collaborative and productive environment. When your team rallies around shared goals, you can move forward more efficiently.

2. Career growth opportunities

One of the key drivers of engagement is investing in employee success. As with businesses, success will mean something different to each employee, but presenting them with options for professional development is an easy way to positively affect engagement.

Most employees sense when managers are disinterested in their personal growth. Senior leadership can prevent this disconnect by creating a work environment that drives engagement and allows every team member to flourish. Create career development opportunities for them to sharpen their skills or learn new industry-specific competencies.

3. Leadership integrity

Most drivers of employee engagement offer ways that management can encourage employees and improve business performance. However, this driver reflects whether or not leadership has gained employee trust and emphasizes the direct impact that trust has on employee experience.

Think about your team and how employees feel when they come to work. Ask yourself:

• Do employees have positive relationships with members of leadership?
• Does your company culture promote transparency, regular communication, and accountability across all levels of the organization?

{emphasize}Respect is a two-way street. Learn how you can improve trust and integrity on your team.{emphasize}

4. Employee empowerment and recognition

One of the most critical employee engagement drivers is ensuring that employees feel valued. While a simple "thank you" can sometimes go a long way, managers and C-suite leadership can maintain and improve a hard-working employee's engagement level by recognizing them for quality work.

According to Officevibe data, a quarter of employees feel like their organization doesn't celebrate accomplishments or learnings. By upping your recognition game you will see an increase in:

• Employee happiness
• Job satisfaction
• Retention rates
• Productivity
• Team collaboration

{emphasize}Recognizing your employees' dedication keeps them engaged and illuminates their value to the team. Start creating a culture of recognition at your organization; it's easier than you think.{emphasize}

5. Sense of belonging

As a manager or team leader, one of your top priorities should always be to ensure you are fostering a safe and inclusive space for your diverse teams. A key part of employee engagement is building a positive workplace that encourages coworker relationships and a sense of community, in the office or virtually, but unfortunately, Officevibe Pulse Survey data shows that 19% of employees do not feel that people’s personal identities are respected by everyone in their organization.

A team can only function if everyone's well-being is taken to heart. Tune in to how your people are feeling with a series of diversity and inclusion activities and develop connections with these team-building activities.

6. Role clarity

One of the most common drivers of employee engagement is having roles and responsibilities clearly outlined for each of your team members. When managers explain how individual employees contribute to the bigger picture, your people can develop clearly defined game plans for their short and long-term professional aspirations.

It's also important to note that while an employee might perform well at certain tasks, their heart might not necessarily be in that type of project. Have an honest and judgment-free conversation with your team members to understand where their strengths lie and uncover the tasks they genuinely enjoy performing to drive employee engagement.

{emphasize}Take the time to clarify roles and responsibilities in your next meeting with this free Officevibe one-on-one template.{emphasize}

7. Psychological safety

This engagement driver lies in a manager's ability to create a space that encourages honesty and integrity. Achieving consistently high engagement requires a safe work environment. When employees feel secure at work, they can feel comfortable receiving and giving constructive feedback, making mistakes, and speaking up about what's on their minds. When people feel comfortable to be themselves, they're better able to collaborate with their peers and can fully immerse themselves in their projects.

{emphasize}Psychological safety is of the utmost importance in any workplace, regardless of your field or industry. Get your team's perspective on the level of psychological safety within your organization using this free template.{emphasize}

8. Work-life balance

Another critical engagement driver is ensuring a flexible work-life balance for your whole team. Employees simply cannot perform to the best of their abilities if they're showing up to work burnt out and exhausted because they're unable to disconnect after quitting time, on the weekends, or even on their lunch breaks. When employees can enjoy and maintain their personal lives without guilt or fear of repercussion, they'll be happier and better equipped to pour their time and creativity into their daily tasks.

{emphasize}If you're noticing an employee of yours struggling with their mental health or maintaining a stable work-life balance, act quickly and schedule a one-on-one meeting or send them an employee wellness survey.{emphasize}

9. Resources and tools

An employee's job performance is only as good as the materials they have at their disposal. Though often underestimated in its efficacy, when you provide employees with the right equipment for their work space, they'll feel more comfortable undertaking tasks and completing projects regardless of their physical location.

Additionally, you can drive engagement by ensuring that your team not only has access to physical tools, but to resources and software that simplify their work.

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10. Transparency

More transparency from leadership can do wonders to improve company morale and increase employee retention. One of the most important marks of a great leader is how honest you are with your people when the going gets tough. By keeping your employees in the know, you can foster strong employee-manager relationships and a company culture of honesty and accountability. Remember: if you make a mistake, own up to it and keep yourself accountable...there's always room to grow, regardless of your rank!

11. Fairness

No matter your industry, employees will naturally compare themselves, their salaries, and the treatment they receive from management to their peers. As a manager, it's your responsibility to honor that desire for equity by ensuring that all team members receive the same treatment. Rather than feeling competitive or envious, you can empower employees to work together as a team to maintain a positive environment for everyone.

{emphasize}Take the pulse of your team to see where they stand on the levels of equity at your organization with these 21 diversity, equity, and inclusion survey questions.{emphasize}

12. Autonomy

Of all the employee engagement drivers we've listed thus far, autonomy can be the trickiest for managers to balance. People need guidance to do their jobs, but giving employees autonomy is less about letting them have free reign and more about trusting them to make informed decisions. After all, you hired them for a reason.

When you establish mutual trust and respect between the management team and employees, you give people the confidence they need to do their job. This vital confidence will provide motivation and increase employee engagement across the board.

{emphasize}💡Check out these seven tips to improve and master employee autonomy in a remote context.{emphasize}

13. Clear communication

It goes without saying: effective, clear, and open communication is critical to overall performance and is also a non-negotiable if you want to build solid relationships with your team members. With remote and hybrid work models the new reality, clear communication has become one of the top drivers of employee engagement as the non-verbal cues of in-person conversations are no longer there to guide you. If you want to improve communication at work, make sure you're practicing active listening to better understand and meet your team's needs.

Leadership should also set an example of quality communication by providing actionable objectives and clarifying the company's goals. Doing so sets a standard for communication throughout the organization, improving awareness and engagement from top to bottom.

14. Workload distribution

Part of prioritizing employee wellness is ensuring that no single person takes on more work than they feel comfortable handling. As a manager, it may be hard to tell when certain people feel overwhelmed, but that's where quality communication comes in handy.

Working with individuals and team leaders, you can identify areas where perhaps some departments need further delegation of tasks. As a result, no one feels overworked or overwhelmed, and productivity will naturally increase as everyone settles into their roles.

{emphasize}If you notice an employee struggling with their workload, it's important to schedule a meeting with them sooner rather than later. Discuss how you can help them reduce their work stress with this one-on-one template.{emphasize}

15. Rest

Rest is another one of those engagement drivers that requires leadership to set an example. Sometimes, it can be challenging for employees to set boundaries and take the time they need to recharge.

You can help your team members feel comfortable caring for their well-being by encouraging rest and self-care. As a result, individuals can return to work rejuvenated, and employee engagement levels will reflect this boost in energy.

Increase employee engagement with easy-to-use software

Common engagement drivers span multiple industries, but it's up to you to find what members of your organization need and value most for them to succeed. Employee well-being has understandably taken a hit in recent years, but an employee engagement survey is one of the most efficient ways to measure engagement, get employee feedback, and tackle issues before they evolve.

To improve morale, increase employee retention, and ensure the success of your business, your management team needs to foster a positive, encouraging company culture. Increased engagement won't happen overnight, but with enough time and effort, you can forge meaningful connections with your team members and create a healthy, happy, and productive work environment.

Learn more about Officevibe's employee engagement solution to see how you can get the ball rolling on developing employee engagement strategies that work for your organization.

Employees are at the heart of every organization's success. Ensuring employees are fully engaged makes a workforce more united, collaborative, motivated, and performant.

But how can you measure engagement levels? And how does engagement fit into the bigger picture of organizational goals? As a manager, how can you equip yourself to track and continuously improve engagement at work?

The answer lies in employee engagement surveys. They’re valuable tools to help assess employee satisfaction, company alignment, wellness, and the overall health of your workplace. They gather actionable insights from the source, revealing where your organization excels and what can be improved.

Managers can unlock this secret weapon of ultimate productivity by understanding the purpose of employee engagement surveys and the right implementation methods.

What is an employee engagement survey?

An employee engagement survey collects data on employee well-being, work satisfaction, performance, and other key engagement metrics. 

Engagement surveys can help HR and management examine current organizational values and culture to set up strategies and initiatives that maximize performance.

Employee engagement surveys involve the entire organization — from senior management to junior staff members — because everyone's feedback counts. More often than not, they’re facilitated by managers, providing complementary insights to other important engagement feedback mechanisms, like performance appraisals and one-on-one conversations.

{emphasize}Download our e-book on employee engagement surveys, which includes best practices, survey types, when to use them, and how to interpret the results.{emphasize}

What employee engagement surveys measure

There are many ways to measure employee engagement — and surveys are a key component. Depending on your engagement surveys' questions, they can measure metrics around job satisfaction, culture, alignment, collaboration, and work relationships. Different themes and aspects of work can be covered in engagement surveys.

The type of data that can be lifted from employee engagement surveys also depends on how your questions are designed. For example, answers based on a rating system will give you an overall score, whereas open-ended questions might provide more qualitative, nuanced insights. Consider these types of questions:

• Rating or Likert scale
• Multiple choice
• Yes or no answers
• Open-ended questions
• Close-ended questions
• Ranking questions
• Demographic related

Not every employee engagement survey has to be the same — some can be short, and others can be more exhaustive. Managers can build a comprehensive understanding of where their teams are over time by using a mix of recurrent surveys that scratch high-level feelings with once or twice-a-year surveys that dive deeper into certain subjects.

Employee engagement: A multi-dimensional understanding

Technically, employee engagement isn't derived from a singular metric. Rather, it’s a score distilled from several different metrics. Employee engagement is a layered understanding of engagement across:

• Manager and peer relationships
• Perceptions of career advancement opportunities
• Recognition initiatives and their impact
• Alignment between employee and company values
• Satisfaction around responsibilities and compensation

The employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) can be seen as an employee engagement index — a great way to summarize engagement metrics to provide an overall understanding of employee engagement and satisfaction. Each facet of employee engagement can and should be examined in detail to inform specific engagement strategies.

The significance of employee engagement: Why conduct an employee engagement survey?

To understand why these surveys are so important, managers must first tap into the importance of employee engagement and how this plays a critical role in overall business success.

Employee engagement relates to each employee's intrinsic commitment to their job; it's the motivation that fuels an employee's perseverance, sense of purpose, and investment in their work. Engaged employees feel a high sense of loyalty, not just to their own position but also to the organization as a whole. They understand company objectives, work hard to promote them, and are less likely to consider a position at other organizations.

Engagement at work closely relates to employee satisfaction — but they aren't interchangeable. What’s undeniable, though, is the fact that engaged employees feel more satisfied with their jobs, and satisfied employees are more dedicated.

In a nutshell, companies with high engagement levels benefit from:

• Better team performance
• Increased employee productivity
• More objective achievements
• Positive workplace vibes
• Lower burnout rates
• Less absenteeism
• Higher retention rates
• Strong employee ambassadorship

These engagement benefits ultimately translate into better productivity, higher sales, and a positive corporate reputation — all contributing to a company’s bottom line. As Gallup highlights, organizations with the highest levels of engagement were 21% more profitable than organizations with the lowest engagement levels. The benefits of employee engagement are clear, and the ROI is undeniable.

The best questions to ask in employee engagement surveys

Engagement surveys are only as good as their questions. So, crafting effective questions is essential for gathering meaningful insights. Here are some examples of questions to consider:

Questions relating to job satisfaction

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with your current role?
• What aspects of your job do you find most fulfilling?
• Are there any areas of your job that you find particularly challenging or frustrating?

Questions relating to company culture

• Do you feel that your values align with the company's values?
• How would you describe the overall workplace atmosphere?
• Do you feel a sense of camaraderie and teamwork among your colleagues?

Questions relating to managerial support

• How would you rate the support you receive from your immediate supervisor?
• Do you feel comfortable discussing problems or concerns with your manager?
• Does your manager provide regular feedback and recognition for your work?

Questions relating to career development

• Do you feel there are opportunities for growth and advancement within the company?
• Are you satisfied with the training and development opportunities provided by the company?
• Do you feel that the organization supports your career goals?

Questions relating to work-life balance

• Do you feel that you have a healthy work-life balance?
• Are you able to manage effectively your workload and personal commitments?
• Does the company offer sufficient flexibility to accommodate your personal needs?

Questions relating to communication and feedback

• How would you rate the communication within your team and across departments?
• Do you feel that your opinions and ideas are valued by management?
• Are you satisfied with the frequency and effectiveness of feedback you receive?

Questions relating to employee well-being

• Do you feel that the company prioritizes employee well-being and mental health?
• Are you satisfied with the benefits and wellness programs offered by the company?
• Do you feel supported in maintaining a healthy work-life balance?

{emphasize}For even more inspiration, find our list of employee engagement survey questions covering the most common workplace contexts.{emphasize}

4 tips to use employee engagement surveys the right way

For employee engagement surveys to be effective, they require planning, thoughtfulness, and consideration. By following survey best practices and top tips, you can leverage their benefits as much as possible:

1. Define and align employee engagement survey goals

Different employee engagement surveys may have different aims. Is this your company’s first major employee survey, or are you planning a quick pulse check? The goals of a survey influence its structure, format, and content.

If your survey aims to gain deep insights and a comprehensive understanding of engagement levels across multiple aspects of work, then you might want to consider a robust structure that includes a variety of question types. If you aim to do a surface check of engagement levels about a specific area, then regular pulse surveys, compared over time, are the way to go.

With the appropriate format selected, creating the right questions is critical for insights to be of value. Managers should ask themselves: Which business areas need to be looked at? How is engagement potentially impacting these areas? For example, if a company underwent restructuring, managers might want to see how employee engagement level is related to the present workplace culture.

Defining the goals of each survey and how they will serve organizational decision-making will inform the survey questions that need to be asked. But if you aren't sure there are many free employee engagement survey templates to take inspiration from.

2. Pick the right questions depending on the context

Effective employee engagement surveys come down to asking the right questions. To choose the right employee engagement survey questions, managers should consider factors like the size of their team, survey frequency (i.e., a monthly or an annual survey), and data available on current employee engagement rates.

For instance, survey questions might need to be altered depending on if the workforce is engaged or disengaged. Or, if the company is experiencing a busy period and employees have little time already, short pulse surveys might be favored over a single, long, and tedious survey.

What will the survey insights be used for? If managers need to collect hard numbers, then multiple-choice or scale rating questions are ideal for this type of data — their answers are quickly and easily quantifiable. Open-ended questions might be best if the idea is to gain a deeper understanding of employees’ psychological and emotional states. Their answers take more effort to group and analyze but provide valuable insights.

3. Communicate the intentions to your employees

Reaping the full benefits of employee engagement surveys requires gathering everyone’s feedback. Low participation rates can skew results and miss important insights, leaving managers with employee engagement blind spots.

Involving employees in the employee engagement survey process will help improve response rates. Before sending out an employee engagement survey, let your teams know what to expect and communicate its objectives. Crafting a simple message that underlines the importance of survey participation could look like:

Or, a friendly nudge to encourage employees to participate in the survey:

That said, there are many other ways to increase survey participation. Communication is a fundamental one.

4. Use anonymity options for total transparency

Once managers are ready to send out an employee engagement survey (which can be sent via a Teams poll or Google Forms) there might be an additional consideration to anonymity. If the questions are delicate or the answers potentially sensitive, anonymity might affect how honest employees answer questions — especially if their perspective is less than positive. Thankfully, there are pulse survey tools that guarantee anonymity, manage results, and track trends over time.

How to measure employee engagement survey results and take action

Once all answers are collected, it's time to analyze the results — identifying patterns and trends and considering the appropriate actions that need to take place to improve engagement. Analysis can be a manual process, especially with open-ended questions, but AI-assisted analytic tools exist to make this less tedious.

There are many ways to translate and interpret survey data into actionable insights, but a general rule of thumb would be to consider:

• Central themes: What types of recurring employee feedback did the survey results produce? For instance, did a significant percentage of employees mention unreasonable workloads as a major difficulty in their current position?
  
• Changes compared to previous surveys: Unless this was your first employee engagement survey, there should be readily available statistics from previous surveys focusing on the same metrics. Look to see what changed from the last quarter or year and how changes implemented may have influenced employee engagement.
  
• Team and department trends: How do different teams and departments compare in terms of engagement and performance? If one department lags significantly behind others, managers may look deeper into this department's practices and how they influence employee engagement.

Segmenting the results of engagement surveys by employee groups may also deliver useful insights. For example, let's say you discover that recently recruited employees demonstrate high job satisfaction and engagement levels while more senior, experienced employees report considering a career switch.

These results indicate a positive onboarding experience and highlight long-term retention concerns. Here, the appropriate action may be to call a leadership meeting and brainstorm ways to improve employee retention throughout the entire employee lifecycle.

{emphasize}Pro tip: Measuring employee engagement should focus on your specific organization's metrics — not another company’s. Benchmarking against yourself using previous engagement scores and survey results is always best!{emphasize}

Final step: Creating an action plan

The result from the analysis should leave you with a clear path forward on what to improve (and what to keep doing) — this is where creating an action plan comes in.

Engagement action plans should focus on the areas that require improvement the most, with specific steps and activities outlined on a timeline. The best plans to improve employee engagement also consider the following:

• Slow reforms: Significant change may take time. If a survey reveals that many employees feel stuck in their career development, there may be a need for improvement over time — including mentoring programs, sponsored courses, and team restructuring.
  
• Quick changes: Do employee engagement survey results point to something that can be resolved quickly? It’s important to take advantage of these opportunities. If many employees feel they don't receive enough manager feedback, feedback frequency can be adjusted almost immediately.
  
• Clear, focused goals: Breaking down action plans into multiple, specific actions across timelines will ensure success. Instead of a vague goal like “improving team communication every week,” specific actions such as “all direct managers are to email their team at the start of every week with an update on objectives” are more impactful.
  
• Motivated leaders: It’s important to ensure the ones responsible for carrying out the action plans are engaged managers and HR leaders, as they will motivate the rest of the troops and lead by example.

Moving towards a culture of high engagement and continuous improvement

Creating a workplace where everyone feels valued and connected is key to success. Employee surveys help us understand what's working well and where we can improve. By listening to feedback and taking action, managers can make their teams happier and more effective, fostering an environment of openness and support.

Making this shift requires clear communication, a willingness to learn, and a focus on improving things for everyone. The right tools and approach can make all the difference in enhancing this process. 

As more and more companies work towards higher engagement, it’s not just about improving business — it’s also about building a stronger, more united culture that values each person's voice and looks to improve continuously.

When you carry out a survey to gauge how your team is feeling, how do you share the results with them?

For some, measuring employee engagement can be challenging — especially for managers overseeing large or distributed teams — but an employee engagement survey can help you craft effective communication strategies to elevate your organization's entire employee experience.

The employee survey results you collect can give you a detailed breakdown of how employees feel via honest feedback, and this transparency opens the door for more genuine conversations.

However, asking the right questions through your employee engagement survey is only the first step in your surveying journey. The most crucial part of conducting employee engagement surveys is communicating results so that together you can dive deeper into where your company needs improvement and develop a collaborative action plan.

If you're not sure how to move forward with your survey results, here's how we recommend you communicate your analysis to your team or the rest of your organization.

‍

Steps to communicating survey results

Engagement surveys are an excellent way to get your finger on the pulse of the employee experience at your organization. With these employee surveys, you can keep track of key engagement metrics like:

• Feedback
• Relationship with Manager
• Recognition
• Company Alignment
• Happiness
• Ambassadorship

Maximizing the potential benefits of an employee engagement survey requires you to communicate survey results effectively to teams throughout the company. To ensure your team sees a positive impact following your employee engagement survey, share the results with key players from every part of your company, including the executive team, department leads, and of course, the employees. By allowing people in every position to feel heard, you can set the stage for continuous improvement.

Wondering how to communicate employee engagement survey results effectively? Here's what we suggest:

1. Thank employees for participating

Employee feedback is at the core of engagement surveys, and showing your appreciation can go a long way. Actively acknowledging feedback can encourage employees to talk openly about their thoughts, enabling the entire company to make positive changes. Saying "thank you" can be as simple as sending a company-wide email or scheduling an all-hands meeting to share the survey results' key takeaways.

Showing you care allows employees to feel more comfortable sharing feedback in future surveys. If an employee has expressed concern (anonymously or not), it's crucial to respond to this feedback and address any issues before they burgeon.

2. Share an initial overview of the survey results

Providing constructive feedback to managers can be intimidating, but employees want to know that you're committed to improving their workplace experience. After reviewing employee survey results, share the key metrics in a company-wide meeting. You'll want to do so relatively soon after your employees complete the survey to showcase your focus and dedication to addressing their concerns in a timely manner.

In this initial overview, you can highlight company scores, key findings, and common employee perceptions. Remember: while, it's important to share positive survey results and what your company does well, be sure to highlight opportunities to strengthen your organization. The goal is to start an open dialogue between employees and company leaders, and the key is transparency.

Likewise, a great way to showcase your ongoing commitment to improving the employee experience is by providing details about how you plan to tackle current concerns. Whether that includes engagement initiatives or a separate revision process, your dedication can strengthen morale to show employees that you're taking their feedback to heart.

3. Analyze results with the leadership team

The next step is to meet with the leadership team to examine the details of the results more thoroughly. This is a good time to go over the company engagement score and overall trends as you evaluate the health of your organization. Focus on using employee feedback to develop solutions for concerns illuminated by the engagement survey results.

Here, the executive team can plan future engagement initiatives. This meeting is also an excellent opportunity for the leadership team to express any concerns so you can talk through them.

Put your money where your mouth is: learn how to analyze and take action with your employee survey results.

4. Analyze results with other managers

The next step in communicating your employee engagement survey results is breaking them down with other department managers or team leads. The whole of a business is only as strong as its parts. Successful communication requires honest conversations with people at every level of your organization, so, an honest conversation will involve reviewing team results – including employee feedback about manager satisfaction.

The importance of measuring employee engagement cannot be overstated. According to Officevibe data, 47% of employees regularly feel overwhelmed at work. Without collecting employee feedback through engagement surveys, it becomes much more challenging to uncover insight on crucial topics surrounding employee well-being. When used effectively, an employee survey can increase engagement and create a happier and healthier workplace.

Providing managers and department heads with actionable solutions to challenges can help foster a more collaborative environment during team meetings and improve manager-employee relationships. This process may take time, but the increase in productivity and workplace happiness will be well worth it.

Employee well-being should always be your top priority as a manager. Check in on your people using an employee wellness survey.

5. Communicate updates and follow up with your team

Completing the survey is the easier part. The real trick to improving engagement is continuously communicating with your team after the survey concludes. Bridge the gap between employees and managers by frequently giving, receiving, and using feedback to make adjustments in the workplace.

Doing so can help build trust with your employees and promote collaboration across departments. Whether you prefer bi-annual employee surveys or collect survey results more frequently, your dedication to progress will help your employees feel more comfortable participating in engagement surveys in the future.

Discover tried and true continuous feedback loop strategies to increase engagement in your workplace.

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Communication tips and best practices

We know that every manager is unique and will have their own communication style. But it's important to connect with your employees and learn how to best share survey results with them. Let's explore ways in which you can best communicate with your people.

Be transparent

As with any company-wide initiative, leadership can set the example for addressing feedback. To encourage employee participation in open discussions, be honest about the survey results. Doing so can strengthen that budding trust between you and your employees.

Remember that trust in the workplace must be earned, so if you stumble, own up to it, be transparent about it, and be ready to learn from your mistakes. Your team members will likely feel more comfortable coming to you with their questions or their concerns if they feel like they can be open with you.

Additionally, avoid excessive jargon or lengthy explanations. Aim to make the results as clear and accessible as possible so your employees can easily understand company objectives moving forward.

Respect your employees' responses

Honesty and open communication is the bedrock of a healthy organization. Employees should never feel guilty about expressing their concerns. They need to feel comfortable giving and receiving feedback so the company can make changes, which means you need to be open to positive and negative survey responses.

Create a safe space for your employees to share their opinions and ideas through anonymous feedback channels.

Encourage employee participation

When your employee engagement survey concludes, you'll likely have multiple methods of delivering the results. Charts, graphs, and statistics can help paint a clearer image of the overall trends in feedback. Still, employees should also be able to connect the results to their personal experience in the workplace.

A simple way to get everyone on the same page is to implement several rounds of communication. These varying approaches can include:

• A town hall meeting: This method allows everyone in various departments to receive the same information simultaneously. Plus, you can record these meetings for later review.
• Focus groups: Gather employees from the same or different departments and encourage them to discuss the survey results. Doing so may highlight deeper issues and provide further clarity.
• One-on-one sessions: A fantastic way to break down hierarchal barriers is by holding one-on-one meetings. Employees have the opportunity to address managers and leadership directly about their concerns, and managers have the chance to communicate on a personal level with their people. As a result, you may see an increase in engagement.

💡Need help initiating a one-on-one conversation? We've got your back. Check out these tips from managers on how to make the most of your one-on-one meetings.

Collect feedback regularly

When the first survey goes well, it's easy to forget that improving engagement is a long-term commitment and process. What works for your team today might not work a month from now; goals, needs, and expectations can shift over time. To maintain the momentum following a successful survey, remember to be flexible and remain attentive.

The communication loop should always be active, with feedback coming and going between managers and employees regularly. Don't be afraid to repeat the survey process! Creating a highly engaging workplace is an ongoing, collaborative endeavor, and you'll need all hands on deck to discover what works best for your company.

🗝️ Feedback is key to fostering a healthy office culture. Try these tips for creating a positive feedback culture in the workplace.

Keep on surveying and boosting employee engagement

Developing effective employee engagement strategies can be challenging, but the work is worth the numerous benefits. From cultivating a better company culture to increasing employee happiness, engagement surveys give you fast, comprehensive insights about your organization's health.

Officevibe's Pulse Survey tool lets employees provide anonymous responses to your survey questions, eliminating that initial hesitation and making it easier than ever to begin the survey process. What kind of surveys you conduct will depend on your company's needs. With our vast array of employee engagement templates, you can find and use employee surveys for:

• Annual check-ins
• Employee well-being reviews
• Job satisfaction check-ins
• Remote employee check-ins

The most important thing to remember while conducting an employee engagement survey is to practice active listening. Be attentive, ask follow-up questions, and reflect on what your employee is telling you.

By flexing intuitive communication strategies, conducting employee engagement surveys, and analyzing feedback, you'll be one step closer to fostering a thriving culture.

When it comes to creating and maintaining a thriving workplace, we should never underestimate the power of employee engagement. Having an engaged workforce truly is the backbone of business success, so it's imperative to connect with employees and make sure they enjoy what they do, feel seen and heard, and recognize their value within the company.

In essence, engaged employees are ones who find more satisfaction in their daily tasks and work with authentic energy. Disengaged employees tend to feel unhappy and more stressed at work, which unsurprisingly has a direct impact on their performance.

To keep employees engaged and foster a positive environment, managers need to keep a pulse on their team’s employee engagement levels by applying several best practices on a daily basis.

To help guide you through ways to improve employee engagement, we've put together our top 10 employee engagement best practices.

{emphasize}Try our 10 best practices to boost employee engagement

• 10 employee engagement best practices
• Use the right tools to measure and increase employee engagement{emphasize}

10 employee engagement best practices

While there are many things managers can do to track and encourage employees' engagement, there are some fundamental employee engagement best practices that we recommend most. No matter the field or industry, these are effective across the board when building an employee engagement strategy:

1. Create a feedback culture

A little feedback can go a long way when it comes to employee engagement. So much so that creating a feedback loop is at the top of our list of employee engagement best practices for a reason. Regularly gathering employee feedback and acting upon it is one of the very best ways to boost employee engagement.

In fact, Officevibe Pulse Survey data shows that 83% of employees appreciate feedback. On the flip side, holding back honest feedback can cause low employee engagement rates and reduced productivity.

Tools like employee engagement surveys and pulse surveys are key when it comes to helping employees feel heard. By frequently conducting surveys, you gather valuable information on how your coworkers feel about their work and which aspects of their work life could use improvement.

Taking action as a result of the feedback makes them feel valued. Feeling valued makes for an engaged workforce that's more satisfied at work. It's a virtuous cycle.

Psst: What's the secret to enhancing your team's employee engagement? Implement an employee feedback loop to help eliminate issues and frustrations at the source.

2. Have transparent communication

Building a feedback culture and encouraging transparent communication go hand-in-hand. When employees feel comfortable enough to open up and share their honest thoughts, you get more valuable feedback and better employee engagement.

While some employees may shy away from expressing themselves in an open setting, offering them the option to share their feedback anonymously is a great way to promote honest communication in a way that suits them.

Officevibe data shows that 23% of employees are unsatisfied with the frequency of feedback coming from their direct manager, so be sure to implement this in your employee engagement program.

Good communication is essential to ensuring mutual understanding and cooperation within the workplace. Fostering transparent communication is built on trust, which we will get to next.

Discover 5 ways to collect honest feedback from your employees so you can improve your team’s workplace experience.

3. Build trust

Trust is at the very core of employee engagement. To have open communication with your team members, your organization must build and foster trust at every level. This starts with being approachable and human so that employees feel supported and connected on a more personal level.

Trust in the workplace also helps employees feel more secure in their jobs and ultimately reduces turnover. When you lack trust, you feel less connected to your organization and peers, and in turn feel less engaged in your role.

4. Develop wellness programs

Allowing for a good work-life balance, encouraging physical fitness, and paying attention to mental health are all important employee engagement best practices. Now more than ever, focusing on these work elements is truly non-negotiable when it comes to creating an effective employee engagement program.

When employees can balance their time and take care of their minds and bodies, they feel happier and more fulfilled both at work and in their personal lives. Implementing a health and wellness program at work benefits both the employees and the company.

When employees feel healthy, they usually also feel more engaged and productive at work. We recommend implementing employee wellness surveys to gather valuable insights into how you can improve engagement and connect with your team on a genuine person-to-person level.

5. Conduct stay interviews

Most people are familiar with the exit interview when an employee decides to leave the organization. They're conducted to help managers, leaders, and HR professionals better understand the reasons for their departure. But what's equally important (and sometimes overlooked) is the stay interview. These discussions should take place with current employees to understand what’s keeping them on your team and at your company.

It's important to note that not every employee who stays is satisfied with their role in the organization. During these conversations, you may uncover areas of improvement that can make your employees happier and more engaged.

The information you gather from a stay interview helps you better understand employee needs and implement a retention strategy that meets them. When employees needs are recognized, they feel more engaged.

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6. Ensure your team is aligned

From understanding the company's values to working towards shared goals, alignment is key. When employees move in the same direction with clear expectations and objectives, they are far more likely to succeed and feel like they are making a significant contribution to the organization.

When your team is aligned, each employee understands the importance of their role and believes in the team vision. This increases employee engagement and creates a sense of camaraderie and belonging.

There are several ways to encourage alignment, including clearly communicating company core values and setting clear goals for your team. To dive deeper, check out our 5 ways to ensure team alignment.

7. Allow flexibility

The past couple of years have really shifted the way we work. Navigating the new normal is different for every organization and every employee, so we all have to adapt to the times. This is especially true for a leadership team and human resources when it comes to keeping employee engagement high in a remote or hybrid model.

Allowing for greater flexibility shows employees you trust them to manage their time and stay engaged. It also makes management more responsible for ensuring that teams and employees don't feel disconnected. This best practice is a must for keeping up with today's ever-changing work environment.

Managing teams has always presented challenges and this is no different in the new distributed work environment. Make things easier on yourself by learning how to effectively manage and engage remote teams.

8. Encourage career development

Without growth, we stagnate and tend to lose our motivation. That's why it's so important to support employees' professional development. If employees don't have clear career paths, they tend to start feeling unattached to their work. Recognize their potential, encourage their development, and give them opportunities to grow.

Encouraging them to take on new challenges and more responsibilities or learn new skills helps employees feel engaged and valued at work. One-on-one meetings are a great way to establish employee goals and steps needed to achieve them.

9. Acknowledge successes with employee recognition

The best managers know that gratitude is the best attitude, so acknowledging employees' accomplishments and successes can have a truly positive impact on employee engagement. Recognizing different teams for their efforts plays a pivotal role in building trust and increasing employee engagement.

From giving private kudos, to celebrating milestones, to sharing peer-to-peer recognition, there are many ways to acknowledge everyone's achievements – not just the "star employees".

While many employees don't mind if managers publicly acknowledge them, others prefer not to be in the spotlight. That's why tools like Good Vibes are a great way to send meaningful, personalized messages to employees. Want some employee recognition message examples to get inspired? We've got you.

10. Lead by example

The saying "do as I say and not as I do" has no business in business! Leading by example is a powerful way for managers to remain genuine and connected to their employees. Teams look to their leaders for inspiration and motivation, so walking the walk shows that they believe in the company goals you are all striving for together.

Employee engagement is heightened when employees feel a human connection and relatability to their managers. This best practice is something to keep in mind when putting together an effective employee recognition program.

Use the right tools to measure and increase employee engagement

Engaged employees are happy employees, so putting these employee engagement best practices into play is an effective way to achieve happiness, boost satisfaction, and maintain motivation. Improving employee engagement efforts starts at the top, so putting together the right employee engagement strategy is key.

Officevibe's employee engagement solution has all the tools managers need to keep employees engaged. From measuring engagement through employee engagement surveys, to growing a healthy company culture, to supporting employee retention, our platform helps promote open communication and propel business forward in a positive direction.

When it comes to employee engagement, it's safe to say that the most engaged employees are the happiest, most productive employees. That's why it's so important for managers and senior leaders to check in often and be aware of how their teams are doing to ensure a positive employee experience.

While we encourage other methods and tools equally, employee engagement surveys play a key role in staying on top of employee satisfaction, commitment, motivation, a sense of purpose, and passion for their work. You'll hear us say this often: employees feel valued when they can communicate openly and feel heard. That's where an employee survey comes in clutch.

Whether you're just getting acquainted with building a solid employee engagement strategy or are looking to refresh your approach, we're here to help guide you through how to create your own employee engagement survey and how to measure employee engagement. Not sure where to start? We've got you.

{emphasize}Create your employee engagement surveys

• What is an employee engagement survey?
• Why should you have employee engagement surveys
• How to create an effective employee engagement survey
• You've sent your employee engagement survey. What's next?{emphasize}

What is an employee engagement survey?

To kick things off, let's start with the basics. An employee engagement survey is a set of strategic questions used to measure the connection an employee feels towards their work, team, and organization.

These employee surveys give employees a voice within their organization and are a great way to get a high-level view of employees' engagement levels over time. Surveys provide honest feedback directly to their manager, who then has plenty of actionable insights to work with.

When it comes to creating the right employee engagement survey questions, there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach. The employee survey questions should be carefully crafted to be aligned with your organization and its objectives. Staying aligned is essential for sustaining performance over time. Alignment and employee engagement go hand-in-hand when it comes to creating a happy and productive work environment.

The frequency of employee surveys also varies. From annual to quarterly, to bi-weekly, and even weekly – they all have their own purpose and value. The annual and quarterly kinds are usually conducted by the organization to give leadership teams high-level information on things like employee experience and company culture to help guide business strategy and HR initiatives.

The more frequent kind, like pulse surveys, provide a more accurate and timely way to get employee feedback that is current and relevant to measure employee engagement levels and job satisfaction in real-time.

Dive deeper into survey types and frequency in our guide on employee engagement surveys.

Why should you have employee engagement surveys

There are so many benefits to conducting employee engagement surveys. First and foremost, employees feel heard. Give them the opportunity to have a voice because, once again, when they feel as though their opinions matter, they feel more valued.

Receiving honest employee feedback also allows the organization to identify issues and opportunities. Are there problems within the team that managers might not be aware of? What can they do to improve a situation? How can they increase employee satisfaction? Figuring these things out allows managers, human resources professionals, and organizational leaders to make meaningful and effective changes.

Responding to employee feedback with actions is a great way to build trust, which in turn helps improve employee engagement. When employees know that their suggestions are taken into account and being acted upon, it opens the door to even more honesty in future surveys.

Having this level of trust also helps foster a healthy company culture. Employees feel more comfortable speaking up, the organization is more accountable for taking action, and everyone feels more in sync. Essentially, an employee engagement survey is a great tool for everyone.

Frequency is key. That's why having a continuous feedback loop strategy is a great way to gather feedback, opinions, suggestions, and comments from employees regularly.

How to create an effective employee engagement survey

Now that you're familiar with employee engagement surveys and why they are such an important tool, it's time to learn how to create one.

We'll walk you through the survey process with the three key steps you need to take – from establishing your metrics to crafting the employee survey questions to clicking send when you're ready. Once you're acquainted with these steps, you'll feel more confident in your approach.

Step 1: Establish which engagement metrics you want to measure

It's one thing to ask questions and gather information, and it's another to measure it. Before getting started on creating your employee engagement survey, you'll need to establish the employee engagement metrics you want to measure. What does this mean? Quite simply, there are several metrics you can measure to assess your employee engagement levels. You'll measure these consistently over time to get a clear picture of what's going on with your employees and teams.

At Officevibe, our pulse survey tool uses 10 metrics to gauge how people feel. These are relationship with manager, feedback, personal growth, relationship with peers, wellness, recognition, company alignment, happiness, satisfaction, and ambassadorship.

This comprehensive list is a great launchpad from which to categorize your employee engagement survey questions, which we'll get into in the next step.

Having a consistent view of these metrics gives managers the ability to see what's going well and what issues need tending to. The results of these metrics will help give you the ability to tackle and resolve issues that you may not have been otherwise privy to. Once you have this established, it's time to create the employee engagement survey itself.

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Step 2: Build the employee survey

Now that you've established the metrics you want to measure, it's time to start choosing the specific employee engagement survey questions that are relevant to your team and tailored to your organization. A great way to start your engagement survey design is to map out the questions per metric category.

Here are some solid examples of questions based on the 10 metrics we covered in the last step. You can use them as-is or leverage them for inspiration when creating your employee surveys:

Relationship with manager
Do you feel that you can trust your direct manager?
Does your manager take the time to support you when you ask for help?
Do you think your direct manager cares about your well-being?

Feedback questions
Are you satisfied with how often you receive feedback from your direct manager?
Is the feedback you receive specific?
Does the kind of feedback you receive help you with professional growth?

Personal growth questions
Do you feel you have enough freedom to decide how you do your work?
Is there someone at work who helps you with professional development and achieving career goals?
Do you have the opportunity to grow within your organization?

Relationship with peers
Can you depend on your peers when you need help?
Do you and your team members collaborate well together?
Is your communication with your peers honest and transparent?

Wellness questions
Overall, how do you feel about your level of work-related stress?
On a scale of 0-10, how would you rate your organization’s efforts to promote employee wellness?
Do you think someone would say or do something if you felt distressed at work?

Recognition questions
How would you rate the frequency at which you receive recognition?
Does recognition feel genuine and meaningful when you receive it?
Does your organization encourage employees to recognize each other?

Company alignment questions
Do your organization's leaders acknowledge that employees are essential to its success?
Do you believe that your organization can reach its objectives?
Do you feel aligned with the company's values and goals?

Happiness questions
Do you enjoy the work that you do?
Do you feel that you have a healthy work-life balance?
Have you noticed your work taking a toll on your personal life?

Job satisfaction questions
Do you know what you need to do to achieve your goals and objectives?
On a scale of 0-10, how reasonable is your workload?
Are you comfortable in your physical work environment?

Ambassadorship questions
On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend your organization as a good place to work?
On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend your organization's products or services?
Do you feel proud to be a part of your organization?

Prefer not to start from scratch? Choose the survey that’s right for your team from one of our 5 free employee engagement survey templates.

Step 3: Send it out

After putting together your employee engagement survey questions, it's time to send them out to your team members. Before jumping right into it, it's important to have a strategy in place. There are several key factors that come into play when ensuring the proper use and success of your employee engagement survey. Here are our top quick tips:

1. Let's start with creating employee surveys of an appropriate length. While you may have many questions you want to ask, you shouldn't ask them all at once. Employees' time plays a factor, and you don't want them to feel overwhelmed. The amount of time an employee spends on an engagement survey will affect your response rate. In essence, shorter, more frequent pulse surveys result in higher participation rates and tend to have higher-quality survey data. Fewer questions tend to mean more time spent on each answer.
2. Consider survey format. For example, some more in-depth employee engagement surveys can be around 30 questions long, while shorter pulse surveys can be around 10 questions. Sometimes, you can even keep them to just a few questions. Remember tip #1, survey length can factor in on the quality of survey results.
3. Regarding frequency, weekly or bi-weekly pulse surveys are a great way to stay in tune with employees and understand the highs and lows they're experiencing in real time. Frequent employee engagement surveys make it easier to spot and address issues before they turn into bigger problems. Annual surveys serve their own purpose, as do these more frequent ones.
4. When sending out the employee engagement survey, be sure to explain to your employees why you're sending it. Be honest, transparent, and approachable. And most importantly, if this is an anonymous survey, be sure to clarify that. Allowing for anonymity can open the forum for employees to give more candid feedback and provide you with richer results.

You've sent your employee engagement survey. What's next?

Once the employee engagement survey has gone out and employees have taken the time to respond, it's up to managers, senior leadership, and human resources to review, reflect upon, and analyze the survey results. This allows them to measure employee engagement, identify issues, and close in on where there's room for improvement.

This data is so valuable. Measuring employee engagement survey results, analyzing them, and building an action plan can create tremendous changes within the organization and its culture. Taking the time to measure employee engagement, respond to feedback, and take action shows that management is listening and that they care. In turn, as we've learned, this results in greater employee engagement and employee satisfaction.

And it doesn't stop there. Repeat surveys enable you to gauge how well the action plan has been working and to spot changes in employee engagement and sentiments so you can continue striving for increased employee performance, happiness, satisfaction, and productivity.

While you want to analyze changes, be sure to vary the questions in your follow-up surveys and avoid asking the same questions. Survey fatigue is real. For greater employee engagement and more genuine responses, switch them up and keep them fresh!

Employee engagement is an ever-evolving thing that requires constant attention and acknowledgment. Officevibe Pulse Surveys make creating and analyzing the survey results simple. Easy-to-understand key findings and reports tap into top insights that can help guide you as you build your action plan with data-driven decisions.

Greater employee engagement makes for greater employee empowerment. In fact, did you know that 83% of employees who use Officevibe feel like their manager cares about their opinion? These kinds of numbers really help with employee retention, positive employee experience, great company culture, and even business success.

Let's effectively survey employees and make sure all employees feel heard. Our employee engagement solution can help you do just that.