Top 13 Employee Engagement Ideas to Prioritize in 2024

Looking for some employee engagement ideas? You have come to the right place!

Maintaining and improving high engagement in the workplace are some of the main priorities for organizations across the globe. 

In this world of disruption, constant change, hybrid and remote workplaces, it is not easy to understand various employee experience factors that impact employee engagement, motivation, productivity, and retention.  

In this blog, we will cover some of the most important employee engagement ideas and initiatives that should never be neglected.

The Current State of Employee Engagement

Many companies are still trying to understand whether hybrid and remote work have a positive or negative impact on employee engagement in the workplace.

In a recent article, Josh Bersin talks about how this crisis has positively affected employee engagement and experience in the workplace. Even though we have also entered the era of great resignation, many people experts see this pandemic as a big opportunity for organizations to transform.  

Research done in the middle of this pandemic shows that companies are treating their employees better than ever. 

But why are we witnessing this big change?

According to many leaders and HR professionals, COVID-19 has created a level of transparency and trust we haven’t seen in decades.

The Willis research found that 90% of companies believe their culture has improved, 83% believe their employee experience is better, and 84% believe employee engagement has gone up.

💡 Before we move forward, check out these powerful employee engagement stats!

Coming Up With New Employee Engagement Ideas

Employees themselves should play an important role in shaping their own experiences at work. This is why they should be actively involved in the process of coming up with new engagement ideas. 

Too often, managers, leaders, or HR professionals try to come up with new employee engagement ideas without asking employees to share their own suggestions, concerns, and questions. 

According to research, only a quarter of employees feel like they can freely express themselves at work. One quarter report that they often choose not to speak up at work, even though they have something they would like to say.

Don’t try to figure it out by yourself. Instead, encourage employees’ share of voice. This is the best way to make sure you are doing the right things targeted to the right people. Also, various departments in your organization may have different challenges. Various generations may face different bottlenecks at work. Various cultures may face different obstacles. 

It is, therefore, crucial that you can segment your employee personas and target them with specific content and personalized surveys. This is the best way to really understand what drives their engagement and experience in the workplace!

💡 Related: The Ultimate Guide to Managing a Multigenerational Workforce

#1 Make Experiences More Personalized 

Both at work and in their personal lives, people expect more personalized experiences. Days, when we would just use the same workplace initiatives and programs for all employees, are over. 

Employers need to think of ways to deliver targeted experiences based on their employee characteristics. Even though this can be hard in multigenerational and multicultural workplaces, it’s not impossible. 

Haiilo, for example, enables organizations to create personalized content for every employee and deliver it at the right time. It empowers employees and employers to create content hubs targeted to their employees’ interests, job titles, geo locations, languages, preferences, and much much more. 

Hyper personalization was introduced years ago by the world’s leading social media networks, but today, employees expect exact same experience in the workplace.

#2 Keep Employees In the Loop

Some experts say information overload is the biggest employee engagement and performance killer, and some say lack of communication is the biggest reason for workplace failures. 

So how to find the right balance? 

By using storytelling and by making information more relevant and easily accessible for every employee. Employees need to understand what is going on in the organization. They should never be left in the dark because this creates a sense of a lack of belongingness. 

Search for information, especially in the world of hybrid work where we depend on asynchronous communication, can be the biggest source of frustration for employees. Consequently, it negatively impacts your employee engagement levels. 

So the idea here is that you create a social intranet or a centralized content hub relevant to employees and accessible to everyone regardless of their job nature and tech-savviness. 

#3 Build a Recognition and Rewards Program

This one should always make it to the top list of employee engagement ideas! It’s no secret that employees who feel appreciated also give back more. 

According to research, 69% of employees say they would work harder if they felt their efforts were being better recognized.

When building an employee recognition program, however, always make sure that it aligns with your organization’s core values. This is the best way to embed new behaviors in the workplace and showcase desirable behaviors and actions. 

To make recognition programs even more impactful, make them social! When someone is recognized, this should be visible to the entire organization. The impact of social recognition is much bigger because it drives other people to join the appreciation and think of someone they may want to give kudos to as well. 

For example, you can create a designated #kudos channel where every employee can say thanks to a colleague accompanied by a nice message of gratitude and appreciation. 

#4 Launch an Official Employee Feedback Program

Frequent employee feedback is one of the biggest engagement drivers. Every employee has the right to understand how their work contributes to the company’s success. 

However, too many companies still do quarterly or even yearly employee feedback sessions. This is not enough. 

Organizations need to be more agile in order to make timely and best decisions for improvement. To do so, employees need to get regular feedback about their performance. 

💡 Also, learn about the importance of bottom-up feedback in the workplace!  

#5 Clearly Communicate Your Mission, Vision, and Core Values

Transparency builds trust in the workplace. And trust is the biggest prerequisite for building a positive and enjoyable workplace culture. It is on employers and their leaders to help every employee understand how their personal values align with those of their organization. 

Also, remember that your organization’s core values don’t have to be set and stone. They can, and should, change as your organization grows. 

For example, if giving more freedom and flexibility wasn’t one of your core values before, that might have changed in the past 2 years. Today, employees expect work flexibility, better work-life balance, and overall well-being. 

Such core values have proved to be on the top of the list of talent attraction magnets. 

#6 Provide Access to the Right Technology and Employee Engagement Tools

Many people probably don’t think about putting technology on their list of employee engagement ideas. But since we live in a world in which we highly depend on technology, workplace tech absolutely deserves a spot on this list. 

However, not just any technology will do it. In the sea of various employee experience and employee engagement solutions, it is not easy to choose the right one. This is why we have put together an employee engagement app buyers guide for you! 

Keep in mind that one of the most important things is that your solution integrates well with the rest of the tech your employees use. Well-integrated platforms provide much more benefits than working as standalone standalone solutions. 

💡 Check out our comprehensive guide for boosting employee experience in your workplace! 

#7 Develop Career Growth Paths

According to research, 61% of adults in the United States seek career development opportunities when considering job opportunities.

When employees are not offered career advancement opportunities, they tend to leave their employers earlier. Organizations that don’t invest in career development plans are, therefore, more prone to high employee turnover rates. 

Some companies, on the other side, have well-structured and transparent career development plans. This not only keeps people longer with their existing employers but can also be a powerful employer branding magnet to help you attract high-quality job candidates. 

For many years, lack of career development opportunities has been one of the biggest reasons why people leave their employers. Today’s talent is ambitious and passionate about their jobs. They are career-driven and they should be offered opportunities to accomplish their career goals. 

#8 Help Employees Stay Connected

Many organizations today are tasked with ensuring their employees stay connected even if they are physically never together. 

The emergence of remote and hybrid work makes it harder to communicate so we need to better understand how to leverage the best out of asynchronous communication in the workplace. 

Due to these changes, organizational silos happen more than before. Even though companies try to be more transparent, the lack of physical contact makes cross-functional collaboration and team communication much harder. 

Besides providing communications best practices, it’s important to organize virtual team-building activities and fun initiatives for employees to get to know each other and build stronger relationships. 

Furthermore, it is crucial to have a solid solution for internal communications that enables easy messaging and virtual meetings. 

#9 Train Your Managers to Be Great Leaders

Leadership programs should be on the top of your list of employee engagement ideas. Why? Because managers account for over 70% of the variance in employee engagement. 

Even though not all people have the necessary leadership skills, they can certainly learn and develop them.  

In this process, it is important to identify those managers who need help and those who are great leaders. Instead of bringing an outsider to educate your managers, you should always consider leveraging the knowledge and experience of your existing leaders. 

Furthermore, managers should be data-driven and closely follow relevant people analytics and KPIs. In order to do so, employers need to provide them with data collected via regular company surveys. 

According to research, 58% of employees wish their company measured employee engagement more frequently. 

💡 Related: The Ultimate Guide to Empowering Leadership in the Workplace

#10 Don’t Forget About Comp and Benefits

This employee engagement idea is absolutely nothing new. But because it is so obvious, many employers don’t think about it often enough. Even though compensation may not be the most important thing to all your employees, it is on the top of the list for most of them. In other words, good compensation and benefits packages are a prerequisite for employee motivation and engagement.  

The labor market has changed dramatically in the past few years. Since people can work from anywhere, it is hard to understand the boundaries and compensation benchmarks in different countries. 

Constant analysis and adjustments are, hence, very important today. 

#11 Enable Employees to Be Your Best Advocates

In your organization, you likely have many people who are proud to work for the company. These people are probably already your advocates and you don’t even know about it. Some may talk about you as a good employer, and some may be talking about your products and services to their families, friends, and networks. 

Building a formal employee advocacy program can play a big role in boosting employee engagement in the workplace. Consequently, it can have a direct impact on your company’s marketing, sales, revenue, and even HR-related KPIs. 

Many research has already proved that people trust the words of your employees more than they trust your brand’s or CEO’s words. So consider this fact and make sure to enable your employees to be your brand ambassadors!

#12 Focus on Boosting Employee Morale

Low employee morale has a negative impact on employee engagement. So if you are looking for new employee engagement ideas, start by focusing on boosting employee morale in the workplace.

Low employee morale can be caused by many different factors, but lack of empowernment, unfair compensation, and poor relationships with managers are some of the primary reasons.

Before you start investing in various initiatives, make sure that you understand the primary cause of low employee morale.

#13 Ensure Adequate Employee Onboarding

Employee onboarding is the very first touchpoint in every employee’s career journey, and it directly impacts the level of engagement in an organization.

Research by Brandon Hall Group found that organizations with a strong onboarding process improve new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%.

So make sure that you have a structured employee onboarding program. If you are a remote company, ensure that employees from various departments have an opportunity to connect with each and transfer knowledge on a daily basis.

Leveraging Technology to Drive Employee Engagement 

As mentioned earlier, technology plays a big role in enabling employees to succeed and improving their overall workplace experience. 

Haiilo is an employee engagement cloud with a set of solutions designed to implement most of the above-mentioned employee engagement ideas. It keeps employees connected, makes the working environment more collaborative, and provides easy and timely access to all the important company information. 

Unlike many other solutions, Haiilo offers robust employee segmentation criteria, enabling organizations to deliver hyper-personalized, engaging content.  

Its employee surveys are built to collect feedback from any employee, analyze results, and deliver valuable insight and recommendations for improvement helping managers to be better leaders and prevent unexpected leaves.