Employee engagement seems easy during the holidays – parties, presents, and all kinds of good cheer. Before you know it, it will be January 2nd and the new year will have begun. The post-holiday blues have been shown to spill into the workplace, taking a toll on employee motivation, engagement, and productivity. It’s never too early to think about how to engage employees following the holidays. Here are some low-cost ideas for driving employee engagement following the holidays:
- Office get-togethers shouldn’t be seen as one-time events. Companies should remember to thank their employees throughout the year.
- Pledge to improve your communication process, with a commitment to having frequent and transparent communication going forward. Consider establishing a ‘Communication Promise’, a detailed communication protocol for communicating to all employees.
- Build a learning culture. A key engagement driver is staff development which can be accomplished through stretch assignments, mentorships, cross-sectional task teams, brown bags, etc.
- Determine and communicate your employment brand. Assemble a cross-sectional group of employees to determine why people work for your organization.
- Host a YouTube video contest linked to a business imperative. Have employees use smart phones to record what it means to them to work for the company. Post the winning entries on your web site.
- Keep social interaction levels high by having theme nights monthly. For example, January will be “Mexican Night Sponsored by Accounting – All are Welcome”, February could be “Italian Night”, and so on.
These are just a few of the ways to keep the holiday spirit alive! What are you doing to keep employee engagement after the holidays have passed?
