Do you know how to improve employee engagement and retention? Employee engagement is one of the biggest challenges that you have. It isn’t that remote working or working from home is inherently distracting, but it can be hard to stay engaged and on top of progress when you are socially and mentally unstimulated. There are several ways to counteract this, both using new management skills and software tools. By working to keep your employees engaged beyond just their work ethic, you can retain them, help them grow, and push your business goals all at once.
How to Improve Employee Engagement and Retention?
Recreate the Workplace Culture Using an Intranet System
One of the best ways to improve employee engagement is to recreate the workplace culture, only digitally. This can be done with an intranet system, which works as a contained social channel where teams can update others on what they are doing, post personal (but work-related) articles, updates, and so on. They can even get in touch with others outside of their team and communicate privately that way. It doesn’t entirely replace the social element of the office, but it can help build teamwork and encourage collaboration between teams.
Collaborative Video Conferences
Video conferencing is another really important tool to improve engagement. You may need to put rules in place, for example, so that everyone has a chance to talk without anyone else talking over them. For example, have someone be in charge of annotation. They will be there to write out the points made in the meeting and then post them for others to add to later on if they come up with more ideas and additional solutions after the fact.
Business Instant Messaging
Business instant messaging needs to be secure, and robust. You need to share more than just text, but entire progress updates and, for example, even be able to share screen updates. This can be done in one-to-one video messaging meetings, allowing more contextual information to be shared with ease.
Work Progress Software
There are a few types of software that will help you remotely monitor the progress employees are making on their specific tasks. There are different options as well depending on the type of work they are handling. Project management software is great for handling teams working from home, as you can assign and monitor the progress without checking in at all hours of the day.
For teams that make house calls, you are going to need a more specialized tool. Service dispatch software can help you improve scheduling, allow you to keep track of their locations for easier dispatch, and of course, allow you to provide dispatch notifications to both your team in the field and to your customers.
Cloud-Based Collaboration
Above all else, however, you will need all of your solutions to be based on the cloud. When the software and tools you use are cloud-based, everyone who needs access can access them right from home. Just remember to use all the safety and security features to secure these cloud applications for your end, so you can enjoy the benefits without putting your company at risk.
