The Pandemic has been a troubling time for many of us. The entire shift to digitalization has been either a blessing or a curse in disguise for people. Nevertheless, the alterations in lifestyles it has brought have been challenging.
Businesses have especially suffered terribly during this time. While many might argue about the advantages of work from home, the online system isn’t proving to be fitting for everyone. Many people are new to it and still facing trouble understanding how to monetize their devices efficiently. Many people prefer to work in a physical environment instead of a virtual one. It leads to a decrease in morale, and many managers are worried about their employee engagement rates.
Employee engagement is critical for a business’s success. The more engaged the employees are, the higher their productivity will be. Employee engagement also directly affects the quality of work and customer satisfaction. However, many companies find increasing employee engagement in an online setting quite challenging.
Below, we have mentioned a few ideas about how you can boost employee engagement rates during an online corporate event.
Arrange fun virtual events
Making your event fun and attractive, whether online or not, is vital to raise employee engagement rates. An exciting way to make your virtual event more fun and involving is by adding a little entertainment between speeches and presentations.
These could include short online games where you could invite your colleague on a video call and play a series of trivia and communication games. These games are great for team bonding. You could also arrange a short virtual show. For example, a 90 minute live stand-up comedy session by a famous local comedian over zoom. You can also hire an online magiker for something unique and different.
Activities aren’t only fun during in-person conferences. It would help if you put in a bit of effort and planning, and online games and sessions can be just as fun.
Communicate
Communication is critical in boosting confidence, and this holds in virtual spaces as well. You need to ensure that you communicate your expectations and instructions with your employees. Poor communication can directly affect your employee engagement rate by bringing it down.
You have so many options for the tech you will be using to host the conference. Unfortunately, all your employees might not be familiar with it. So, to avoid any confusion and last-minute hassle, it is best to send them a guide beforehand. It could contain a video tutorial explaining how to attend the conference, navigate their way through the site, and interact while a meeting occurs.
You are responsible for making sure your employees are well-prepped for the conference. Communicating and guiding them will not only affect your employee engagement rates but also boost their confidence.
Encourage collaboration
Collaboration in the workplace is an effective strategy to give colleagues a chance to understand each other better. It strengthens their relationship and increases productivity. When employees work together, their goals and techniques become more aligned—chances of better outcomes and efficiency increase. When you encourage employees to act as participants in meetings, you promote dialogue. Which means you are stimulating a sense of connectedness within employees.
Collaboration under an online setting might seem tricky, but it is not impossible. Make sure you choose a system that allows easily accessible messaging tools so everyone can share their take on a matter. Zoom, for instance, will enable participants to be separated in breakout rooms where they can communicate and exchange their views and ideas. It is an excellent way to promote virtual networking.
Remember To Schedule Breaks For Longer Meetings
Remember, the last thing you want is for participants to zone out while attending your conference. If you have planned on hosting a long meeting, make sure to schedule breaks in between. Even the most interested employee can get bored of listening to a conference for hours.
Keep a short break every hour. It will give participants a chance to recharge, fetch some snacks, and take a break. Not only that, but it will also provide the hosts with an opportunity to relax for a bit and prepare for their next plan. Even the hosts may get drained while presenting in the conference for hours.
Acknowledge contributions
Suppose you are going to encourage your employees to participate in the meeting. In that case, you must acknowledge their contributions as well. It doesn’t have to be a glorious gesture. Just a ‘Thank You,’ ‘That’s a good idea’ would do the job.
But, it would help if you don’t ignore employees, especially when they make an effort to speak to them. Not acknowledging or valuing their contribution can hinder their confidence and bring down morale. It can also leave an impact on employee engagement rates.
Provide a variety of content
More content can promote effective engagement. When scheduling an online conference, you need to be aware of all the distractions on and offline. The Internet is an addictive tool. There are thousands of things you could be searching for, so getting distracted, especially during virtual meetings, is possible. Apart from that, there are a billion distractions at home as well.
Luckily, we live in a technologically advanced world where digital media has multiple content options to keep users engaged throughout. For example, some virtual event content includes transcripts, virtual planners, speakers, social media, and spreadsheets.
Value feedback
There is no better engagement motivator than providing employees with what they expect. One way to find out about employees’ expectations and advice is through feedback. Getting feedback is vital. It helps you summarize where you went wrong and where you could have worked better.
If you have hosted a similar conference before, then carry out a feedback survey for that conference and look for areas of improvement. Again, make sure you try to imply what’s in the feedback and provide employees with what they expect.
Similarly, it would help if you ended your recent conference by asking all participants to leave feedback. Then, you can use the feedback as a reference for all the upcoming meetings.
Conclusion
Employee engagement is valuable, crucial, and necessary for a business’s success. The more welcomed and comfortable you make your employees feel, the higher engagement rates you’ll achieve.
You should also ensure that your event strategy is digitally fitting. Use the most efficient and effective software. And the ones which are easy to use because, again, not everyone is tech-savvy. You should be able to keep your event enjoyable, entertaining. Still, you should also be able to captivate everyone’s attention at the same time.