Boosting Employee Engagement In A Remote Environment
Keeping employees engaged in their workplace and building a fun environment has always defined our culture and has driven our identity, as it does for thousands of other companies across the globe. It is true that bringing different personalities together and helping them see a common vision can prove to be tough, and the remote culture has made these distances greater, but our HR team has risen up to the occasion and has found unique and effective ways to keep morale high, get people to engage and build relationships, and most importantly, work towards a common goal.
This is how we do it.
Putting health and mental wellness at the forefront
The pandemic has changed not only our work lives but has had a huge impact on our lifestyles and the way we do things. While things have certainly been hard, we want to encourage our employees to actively engage in a healthy lifestyle while they are at work and at home. We understand that long working hours and hectic schedules can take a toll on health, and we remedied this by introducing a fitness/wellness program to encourage them to go out and focus on their health, even if it is in a small way like a fun run.
The GeekFit challenge which was held last year was a primary example where we encouraged employees to post about their fitness journey and inspire others to follow suit to ensure a healthy balance between work and personal lives; the main reason behind this being to establish new patterns and routines to bring more happiness into all aspects of our employees' lives and make them feel more engaged, happier and healthier.
Inculcating a fun work environment
We have managed to keep the employees invested in their work and feel a sense of belonging amongst their co-workers. For us, employee engagement goes beyond restraining it to ‘just having fun. We try to drive passion and build commitment. But games and activities don’t hurt the process!
Work can sometimes be a drag and we truly believe in the power of appreciation because of which we want to foster a culture where productivity and creativity are not affected when working remotely. To break the monotony, we introduced fun activities like meme wars, weekly quizzes, etc. where we encouraged everyone to come together, participate and have a great time. These activities have played a huge role in helping lift team spirit and foster a positive and interactive atmosphere while encouraging employees to interact more and have a laugh at work.
Fostering meaningful personal relationships
Our company culture is all about including everyone and we realize that when we're not working together in the same physical space, team members can feel disconnected and it becomes more difficult to build and maintain relationships. Despite all efforts, you inevitably lose some face time with people and some context of what their work is and what they are doing and this can make it hard to be a good teammate and communicate when distance is involved.
We want to instill a strong team spirit and we want our family to bond in the same way as if we were still working from the office and the HR team has found various ways to ensure that interpersonal communication within the workplace is not affected. We seek to bring people together in a meaningful way and create an environment that is inclusive because of which we introduced the concept of online coffee sessions and virtual hangouts where our family could get to know each other, not only within their own team but across departments.
Celebrating festivals and other events remotely
We believe that more than just a place to work, the office should be a place to enjoy the best of times with your teammates. Festivals and celebrations are times to live, enjoy and catch up with loved ones and these celebrations do not have to be non-existent until the pandemic is over. We like to celebrate all kinds of festivals, from Eid and Diwali to Christmas and Thanksgiving and while we haven’t been able to catch up in person to celebrate together, we wanted to provide our work family with the best possible experience by adding a dash of color to their lives when working remotely.
Virtual celebrations are ways to recognize achievements and observe special occasions when working remotely and these online celebrations and shoutouts are fun ways not only to relax together but also to acknowledge each other's achievements. From sending out gifts on birthdays and other special occasions like festivals, we want to appreciate our employees to the maximum as we believe that celebrating these events as well as employees’ achievements is a huge part and gives meaning to our professional lives.
Endnote
Working remotely may be hard but it can get a whole lot easier when your company cares about boosting employee engagement. That’s why we, at GeekyAnts, are dedicated to fostering and building an environment where this gets easier and employees do not get into the rut of monotony that can come with working remotely. We want to ensure that our employees are motivated and passionate and while they have done enough to go above and beyond for the organization, we hope that this only continues and the best way to do this is to engage them and help improve their work-life as much as possible by fostering an interactive culture.