Winter is Coming. How to Keep Your Teams Engaged
The events of 2020 and the impact of COVID-19 have permanently changed employee engagement, even among high-performing teams. “That’s what we’ve always done” is no longer enough and it’s important to enter the new year prepared for… well, whatever 2021 has in store.
That’s why we’re sharing a series of blog posts—to share how the landscape has changed, what best-in-class companies are doing to keep their employees engaged, and what steps you can take to maintain motivation, reduce burnout and lower employee stress.
COVID-19 Has Upended Engagement
The events of the past year have put a pin in company gatherings, from annual celebrations to monthly pizza parties and weekly team meetings. And your employees are feeling the change.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic:
75% of employees say they feel more socially isolated
57% are feeling greater anxiety
53% say they feel more emotionally exhausted (Harvard Business Review)
How Have Best-in-Class Companies Responded?
Maintaining your company culture online is a new challenge, but not an insurmountable one. Top-performing companies are adapting with four simple words: communication, flexibility and ongoing engagement.
85% of employees say they’re most motivated when management offers regular updates on company news. (Trade Press Services)
55% of executives expect to extend options for most of their office workers to work from home at least one day a week post-COVID, up from the 39% of companies who did so before the pandemic. (PWC)
42% of executives plan to address employee work-life balance with online resources and clear rules to separate working hours from leisure hours. (PWC)
Why is it important to address these issues? Because employees who say their organizations have responded particularly well to COVID are four times more likely to be engaged and six times more likely to report a positive state of well-being. (McKinsey) To maintain employee satisfaction and productivity, updating your approach is a must.
Give Employees the Resources They Need
It’s critical to find the right engagement strategy for your audience—and Navigate’s platform can help, with communication tools, third-party integration and more.
Communications: Our platform’s Message Center allows you to create custom communications, segment your audience by role or location, and more.
Flexible technology: You can post resources and updates on the platform. Your employees will have access to Navigate’s all-purpose hub for anything related to your benefit offering and wellbeing program.
Engagement tools: Group challenges, user-create Snap Challenges, a social wall for posting encouragement and much, much more—our platform is designed to draw teams in and keep them together.