I had a really interesting conversation with an old friend yesterday about employee engagement. So I’m going to stretch my Wellness Wednesday topic to be about the health of a team. It’s my blog space – I’m allowed!
We were talking about the challenges of managing a team that is was fully remote during Covid and I remarked that I didn’t find it that horrible. Which seemed a bit surprising to my friend. My team’s engagement metrics actually grew over the course of the pandemic – and I think it’s because I actually listened to my team every step of the way.
Remember those first days of the lockdown when nobody knew what day it was? I used our Teams channel to do a morning greeting to my team EVERY day. To make it more fun, I used a Holiday Every Day website to give us something to “celebrate.” Some days I tried to tie the holiday celebration to what was happening with work – but most days, it was just a way to allow us to pretend we were still all around the table at the office and have a little chit chat to start the day. I did polls, asked for stories from the team and offered funny observations on everything from the weather to what I could see out my window.
More than that, I listened to what they wanted. We did a couple lunch meetings over video but ultimately, the team decided we would do a Friday morning meeting. It allowed us to talk over what had happened over the week, decimation of “news” from team leader meetings and make plans for the coming week.
And from time to time, I sent care packages to everyone. I did holidays with home made cookies and candy. When one of my team members had ankle surgery, I sent a package with all kinds of goodies to make the convalescence easier. I sent electronic gift card “prizes” for a weird trivia contest. I wanted them to have unexpected things that were just plain fun.
In other words, I cared about my team. And if there’s one thing most people respond to, it’s being valued. They were valued – and they engaged. I miss them!
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