From recognizing achievements to motivating your employees, here are the 12 answers to the question,
“What are some things you can start doing today to re-engage your teams?”
- Recognize Achievements and Praise
- Change the Tone of Your Business Communications
- Reward Creativity
- Normalize Collaboration Through Daily Input
- Take Them Outside for Fresh Air
- Upskill Across Departments
- Align Work to the Company’s Impact
- Pay Attention to Their Long-Term Goals
- Practice Active Listening
- Create Shorter Goal Posts
- Have Meaningful Conversations
- Inspire and Motivate Your Employees
Recognize Achievements and Praise
Dale Carnegie, in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People, which became a bible of interpersonal relations, underlines the importance of praising people for what they do.
To re-engage your teams, you need to recognize what they are doing. You may use some metrics to measure progress, but no metric can replace the simple words of praise that motivate people at work.
Praise and appreciate your employees for all their efforts in order to re-engage them with their jobs and make them feel good about working together as a team. But remember—you have to be honest. Because that’s the factor separating praise from flattery.
Natalia Brzezinska, Marketing & Outreach Manager, US Passport Photo
Change the Tone of Your Business Communications
About six months ago, I decided to completely change up the tone of my business communications (email, Slack, calls, everything). It was not at all intended to re-engage employees, but it had that effect.
I think people just feel stifled by modern business communication, and how prim and proper everything has to be. Not every email has to start with “Hi Sara! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I just wanted to check in…”. We’ve fallen into this robotic form of communication in business that desensitizes us and creates barriers between us as humans.
Now, rather than using the above form of communication, I’ll go with something like “Hey what’s up Sara. when you have a sec, could you…”. I’ve encouraged my employees to communicate like this too (at least internally), and it shockingly seems to have improved morale and engagement. People feel friendlier and more casual, which I love.
John Ross, CEO, Test Prep Insight
Reward Creativity
One great way to re-engage your teams is to reward creativity. I’ve seen tremendous positive responses from people when their ideas are valued and followed up on.
It could be something as small as a genuine thank you for their contributions or something more tangible, such as recognizing someone publicly for going above and beyond the call of duty.
Showing others you value their opinion encourages innovation and boosts morale because it empowers employees to be innovative and take risks, knowing it will reward them for doing so. Reward creativity in your teams today and be pleasantly surprised at the results.
Lorien Strydom, Executive Country Manager, Financer.com
Normalize Collaboration Through Daily Input
The best way to re-engage your team is to encourage input from your team every day. For example, in Slack, ask your employees to mention one thing they did that day to support their mental or physical health. Your employees will get in the habit of finding hobbies in common, supporting each other, and regularly communicating—increasing collaboration across your team.
Cesar Cruz, Co-Founder, Sebastian Cruz Couture
Take Them Outside for Fresh Air
To re-engage your teams, why not take them outside? Fresh air and outdoor activities can be great for providing a change of scenery and resetting focus. Think about what outdoor activities your team members might enjoy and work together to come up with something fun that everyone can get involved with.
Whether it’s outdoor sports, a picnic in the park, or a beach day, outdoor team-building events are a great way to provide a break from the daily grind and give everyone some much-needed rejuvenation.
Not only will outdoor activities help provide relaxation and refreshment, but they also promote camaraderie, cooperation, and creative problem-solving—all while having some fun!
Jim Campbell, CEO, Campbell Online Media
Upskill Across Departments
One of the best ways to re-engage your teams is to upskill across departments. Not only will team members learn new skills in line with those of their peers, but also it can reinvigorate their thirst for knowledge specific to their own role (and cross-department upskilling can provide refreshers on aspects of their own roles too).
Wendy Makinson, HR Manager, Joloda Hydraroll
Align Work to the Company’s Impact
What does engaging work really mean? It means waking up every day with a purpose and finishing work with a sense of satisfaction. So, as leaders, one of the best ways we can create those feelings for our team is first to understand what excites each team member.
Although it’s not always possible to only do work we love, knowing what our teams love to do means we can be more aware of what tasks we delegate and where.
The second piece is to make it crystal clear consistently how our team’s efforts (both individually and as a unit) impact the business and the mission. This supports our team in feeling a part of something bigger and that their work matters.
Shauna Moran, Founder, Operate Remote
Pay Attention to Their Long-term Goals
More often than not, employees become disengaged when they feel a lack of purpose in their job. One way you can help them revive this is by understanding and working around their long-term goals.
When their job allows them to take steps towards these goals through upskilling programs, projects that interest them, or tasks that help them grow, they’re more likely to re-engage and have a newfound love for their job.
Asma Hafejee, Sr. Marketing Executive, CMR Surgical
Practice Active Listening
If there’s one solution to re-engaging your teams, it’s by understanding what their likes and dislikes are and making the changes.
It’s easy to push them into being productive; however, this doesn’t always work and can have adverse effects on employee morale. When you can have a conversation with them and understand how you can make their job better, you’re more likely to have a team of employees who want to engage and grow with the company.
Larissa Pickens, Owner, Repeat Replay
Create Shorter Goal Posts
Short-term goals can be much more engaging than long term. You can revitalize your teams by realigning your overall work goals into more manageable packages. This can help reduce the feeling of burnout that teams get from striving for goals that take much longer to achieve. It will also give your team a needed boost in morale if you celebrate more achievable goals more often.
By lowering your goalposts, your team will feel more appreciated for the tasks they complete each day, and it will highlight the importance of a consistent job well done by your business.
Neel Shah, Founder, EZ Newswire
Have Meaningful Conversations
One thing you can start doing today to re-engage your teams is to provide more opportunities for them to have meaningful conversations about the work they do.
It might surprise you at how much this simple step can help your team members feel less isolated and more connected to each other.
By encouraging your employees to share stories about how they got started in their field of work or what they’re most excited about right now, you can open up avenues of communication that will make everyone feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves.
Kimberley Tyler-Smith, VP, Strategy & Growth, Resume Worded
Inspire and Motivate Your Employees
Motivation and inspiration are essential for high-performing teams. Leaders should take the time to get to know their employees, understand their needs, and create an environment that encourages growth and development.
Provide regular feedback and set measurable goals so employees can track their progress, recognize areas of improvement, and stay focused on the task at hand.
In addition, provide coaching sessions to help team members develop their skills, build confidence in themselves and their abilities, learn new techniques or approaches to problem-solving, or just receive moral support when needed. Coaching also gives managers a chance to work directly with their teams to provide guidance and clear expectations for each employee’s success.
Karl Robinson, CEO, Logicata
At Keystone Group International, we believe that most business problems are actually people problems. To get at the root cause, leaders must go deeper than the business layer with questions that are rooted in culture and people. Take a look at The Culture Climb, written by our CEO & Founder, Jaime Taets.
