It’s all new isn’t it? Just as we figure out or at least try to figure out employee engagement, it all changes. Now we have to figure out how to engage employees working between home and the office. There will be challenges but nothing that can’t be overcome.

Perhaps the best and most obvious way to engage team members is to enable managers to communicate.  Ensure there are different options to communicate and be patient as people get used to juggling different forms of communication rather than walking across the office. It can be strange jumping between the phone/WhatsApp, teams or email so it will take time to get used to different communication methods.

Communication needs to be two-way though so allowing for a conversation is vital, it can’t just be a one-way message.

Facilitating meetings and training remotely requires extra thought as well to allow for participation. However long meetings should be avoided as they can tie up managers and staff for a long time preventing both work and actual conversations as good managers need to be available for their team and no one can do that if there are meetings about meetings.

Whilst it is great news that a company wants to engage their employees the most important factor is that instead of a company telling employees they will be engaged and this is how it will work, that there is a discussion.

Employees will only truly be engaged if they have had a say.

So employee groups, even a video call to find out what people need, remembering it will be different for everyone especially now that working setups could be so different. Some people are in the office all the time, others working in a hybrid way and maybe some are remote working 100% of the time.

One size will not fit all. But even starting the process is better than doing nothing.

For advice and guidance on engaging your hybrid working team, get in touch.