There is more pressure than ever before to implement and maintain good levels of employee engagement and strong mental health and wellbeing of employees under severe restrictions. Supporting employee mental health during the pandemic, and implementing good levels of employee engagement at a time when the economy is struggling and there isn’t as much money around to perform the tasks, we have all become accustomed to, brings with is some obvious challenges. It is possible though and should be approached with a view to a long-term strategy that everyone can buy into, including professional training to improve leadership within the company and to open up honest and transparent lines of communication that help engage with employees in a genuine way.
Long-term professional training opportunities do not have to cost your company a lot of money necessarily. If you can focus on training that can be taken remotely during this time, this can keep a healthy level of employee engagement and let your staff know that you care about them at a time when you might not have necessarily been in the same room as them physically for months. This demonstrates that you still want the same things as you did prior to the pandemic, a long-term process of engagement and training that improves every employee and allows for personal growth and development within the structure of your company, including career opportunities that are clear from the outset.
On a day-to-day basis, employee engagement is of course, more difficult to maintain during times of economic trouble, especially if your staff are working remotely some or all of the time. This is why you should modify your approach to include little perks and praise from day to day, maybe more so than you usually would. This is a great way to maintain team spirit and contact with your team when working remotely. It is difficult for some people to work from home, so an arm around the shoulder is a cost-effective way to show strong leadership and employee engagement.
Employee engagement is a necessity for any successful company. Over the course of the last few months we have seen greater engagement in difficult discussions about race and diversity in all walks of life. It is important that workplace diversity continues apace in the post-Covid world, even in situations where there is a focus on remote work or phased return to physical working spaces. It is important more than ever before to keep up the good work and keep on improving the workplace for everyone, no matter the industry or location of the business.
Implementing a system of employee engagement that works for your business takes time and patience. It has to come from the upper echelons of the company and be sincere in its intent, involving all aspects of the business and bringing every single employee on board for the journey ahead. If you can implement genuine employee engagement, you’ll see a significant increase in productivity, employee retention rates and morale in the workplace over the coming years. With good training opportunities from professional training companies, you can instil employee engagement channels that work for the business and your staff.
