5 Ways to Engage Your Employees in the Era of Social Distancing

As the COVID-19 threat continues to grip the world, more and more employees are moving online. Remote work is surging, as 42% of U.S. workers who did not work remote before COVID-19 now find themselves telecommuting.

While work from home may seem like a luxury, many employees are reporting feeling overworked and overwhelmed. This is likely a combination of shock and panic from the pandemic and dramatic changes to our daily lives.

Corporate Wellness App

CircleCare

CircleCare employee engagement platform provides companies with a platform and tools to motivate their employees via positive reinforcements and rewards to establish and maintain healthy lifestyle choices.

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As an employer or manager, there are steps you can take to keep your team happy and motivated in the new era of social distancing. Read on for 5 ways to promote employee engagement during remote work:

1.  Utilize employee engagement apps

CircleCare employee engagement app encourage employees to regularly share and inspire each other to stay mentally refreshed and productive. It allows employees to communicate in a private social feed like environment, so your employees can engage for both work and other fun activities.

Try setting up a fun question challenge specifically for non-work-related interaction. Every day, have an employee such as an office administrator post an icebreaker question. Examples could include “How does your home workstation look like?” or “what is your favorite album of all time?” This will inspire employees to engage in conversation with one another and allow them to get to know each other better.

2.  Establish daily check-ins with honest communication

Managers should be checking in with employees daily. Whether this is through one on ones or team briefings, even a 10-minute call can go a long way to improve feelings of isolation. During your daily communications, encourage employees to communicate honestly about how they are feeling during quarantine.

During this time, you can also share helpful resources that relate to telecommuting. If your company wasn’t doing remote work before, establishing a new normal away from the office can be a struggle. Encourage employees to organize a home office space that relaxes them to help inspire productivity.

3.  Schedule a virtual happy hour 

If your company held happy hours before social distancing, don’t stop now! Take your happy hours online via video chat. Come up with simple activities your employees can play during the happy hour to keep everyone entertained.

Quick tip: schedule the happy hour during working hours, rather than after, to treat your employees to some much-needed relaxation time. This will make happy hour seem like a fun team building activity, rather than a late weeknight online. Also if you’re able, consider letting employees expense $5 to purchase a happy hour drink of their choice.

4.  Motivate your employees to make healthy choices

Mental health is a huge concern during social distancing. Many are adjusting to less human interaction and increased time spent indoors. Inspire your employees to make healthy choices while working from home using the CircleCare app.

This software is designed specifically to improve job satisfaction and output by encouraging a holistic approach to wellness. Employees that participate in the wellness program can earn CarePoints for healthy actions such as logging vitals, burning calories, taking medicine, and communicating experiences.

5.  Gift a mental health day

Times are tough, and many employees are putting in extra hours to help fight for their jobs and keep their departments afloat. While productivity is needed now more than ever, employee burnout can be much more costly than one day of PTO.

Consider gifting a mental health day (or half day) to your employees. Let them pick which days, but make sure they aren’t all on the same day, so your business doesn’t take a hit. This random act of kindness is sure to lift your employee’s spirits, and they’ll return refreshed and ready to get back to work.

Part of being a good leader is being an empathetic listener. Make sure to consider your employee’s feelings as you make department decisions during this time. The best way to keep employees motivated is to keep them at ease through communication, fun, and helpful benefits.

How Do I Start A Corporate Employee Engagement Program?

If you are in HR or you are a wellness champion at your workplace and you would like to find out how CircleCare Corporate Wellness and Engagement App can take your team’s health to the next level, contact us now.