45 employee engagement ideas for your workplace

Employee engagement ideas and activities have been viewed as one of the most essential aspects of employee management for a long time now. Why so? Research shows that highly motivated and engaged employees are much happier, more productive, and less likely to consider changing jobs. And employee engagement activities are a fantastic way to achieve that, helping employees feel valued, trusted, and enthusiastic about achieving the company’s goals and committing to the business growth and development.

 Benefits of employee engagement activities

Implementing employee engagement activities into your company’s working routine from the moment you start your business can provide lots of benefits that will become clear in the long run. That includes not only the personal well-being of employees, which helps reduce employee turnover, but also increased productivity, which leads to better business results. Here are the five biggest benefits of employee engagement activities:

• Job satisfaction,
• High loyalty to the company,
• Reduced absenteeism,
• Higher work performance,
• Happier and more engaged employees.

Looking for some effective employee engagement ideas to boost your employees’ satisfaction and make your working environment happier and more appealing to new team members as well? We have compiled a list of useful team engagement ideas for you to check out that will help you to increase motivation and productivity at your workplace. 

What are the best employee engagement ideas?

Using our list of the best employee engagement ideas will improve your working environment, motivate employees and increase efficiency. Remember that employee engagement is a two-way commitment and trustful communication between the company and staff is a crucial part of it. So, use these team engagement ideas to build trust and honesty within your team – you can be sure that you will see the results!

P.S. These employee engagement ideas are great to implement for both in-office and remote teams, but you will also find some bonus virtual employee engagement ideas that are especially suitable for remote workers at the end of this article.

Best employee engagement ideas

1. Apply gamification

Gamification in the workplace is a relatively new and effective approach to increasing employee performance and decreasing turnover and absences. It is also a fun employee engagement activity to try within your company! You can use the Loquiz gamification platform to create real-world and virtual games to onboard new employees, entertain your team, or receive feedback in an engaging way. If you’re looking for creative ways to engage employees, create your own team game now or use one of the existing templates!

2. Take care of your employees from day one

Don’t miss out on the time when new employees come to your workplace full of enthusiasm and fresh ideas! Start engaging your employees from the first day and help them fit into your team. There are various small things you can do, for example, making sure you introduce them to each of their new colleagues or assigning one of the existing employees as their mentor to help with the transition. This will make them feel welcomed and motivated to start a career in your company and leave a positive impression of your working culture.

3. Help with personal growth or encourage personal projects

One of the best employee engagement ideas is to encourage your employees to pursue personal projects, hobbies, and passions. This can help create a healthy work-life balance, showing your staff that their work doesn’t have to be their whole life. Is there any personal skill they want to develop? You can share your advice, cheer them up, or offer a more actionable opportunity – a personal coach to help with personal growth.

4. Help with professional growth

While helping with personal growth is an important part of work engagement activities plan to improve the employees’ well-being and work-life balance, professional growth is equally essential, as it directly affects the success of the company. There are many employee engagement ideas to implement from free access to various online learning platforms and courses to attendance of workshops, lectures, or master classes during working hours to increase their qualifications. Some training session ideas that can work for employees in different roles include time management, agile workflow management, as well as soft skills.

5. Make a career development plan for employees

More and more employers tend to plan their employees’ career paths by setting career goals together with them. Such an employee engagement activity takes time and effort, but is definitely worth it, as it adds meaningfulness to work, helps set the direction of their career, and engages employees more in their professional development and that of the company.

6. Prioritize work-life balance

One of the most effective team engagement ideas is to pay more attention to the work-life balance of the employees. For instance, policies such as flexible schedules allow employees to feel more freedom by working when they are the most productive. This staff engagement idea will also make your team members feel appreciated and trusted, and, therefore, happier.

7. Implement ongoing feedback

Feedback is one of the most essential parts of any work environment. If you are looking for the best team engagement ideas, this might be the first to start with. Try using pulse surveys to collect feedback from employees. You can do it on a weekly or monthly basis, focusing on a specific topic, such as work organization, personal well-being, mental health, collaboration with coworkers, and other topics that will provide the best understanding of how your colleagues feel and what they want to improve.

8. Listen to your employees

It might seem like a trivial employee engagement idea, but it works! Allow every team member to speak their mind and suggest ideas in their own way. Perhaps, this can be done at monthly meetings, through surveys, or through creative brainstorming. Knowing that their point of view is considered in the decision-making process will make your employees feel more appreciated and happier.

9. Praise your coworkers

Sometimes we need just the smallest amount of recognition from our employer or colleague to feel better at work. That’s why the best employee engagement ideas include praising the team for excellent work or thanking the team members for valuable comments or ideas. An easy team engagement idea like this requires minimum effort but can significantly boost your team’s engagement.

10. Develop an employee recognition plan

Another step to take towards better employee engagement is to develop an employee recognition plan. This is one of the best engagement ideas for work because it is very easy to implement. In your employee recognition plan, you can include such ideas as starting the meeting with colleagues thanking each other for help, contributions, or major successes. You can also reward team members with small prizes such as movie tickets or gift cards developing the criteria and rules for your company’s reward system.

11. Focus more on health issues

As we spend so much time at work, it is essential to think about your employees’ health and well-being. Feeling physically good directly affects productivity and work performance. Some simple employee engagement ideas to improve their health are offering healthy snacks or partial or even full compensation for a gym membership. If your budget doesn’t allow much spending, try free and creative ways to engage employees to stay healthy, for example, suggest a walking club during lunchtime.

12. Create an achievement board

Achievement boards are one of the best employee engagement ideas to try in your office. They can be devoted to the personal or professional achievements of the employees. This will create some healthy competition as well as tell coworkers what is going on in the company or in the personal lives of employees, they want to share. Just remember to hang the board in a prominent place where everybody can easily see it.

13. Liven up the office

Who wants to work in a boring office? That’s right, nobody! If you are seeking effective engagement ideas for work, try to create a pleasant and comfortable working environment for your coworkers. It is as easy as it sounds – just adding indoor plants or soft bean bags with a game console in your office recreation area will make your employees feel well rested during the breaks and create a happier working environment.

14. Encourage short breaks

Everyone needs a break from challenging work occasionally to avoid burnout, so it is essential to encourage short breaks during the working day. You can suggest employees use a timer that will remind them to have a break, stretch their legs, rest their eyes, or drink some water to avoid dehydration. This might seem overly simplistic compared to other employee engagement ideas but trust us – it will significantly improve the productivity and well-being of your coworkers which will, in turn, make them more engaged.

15. Organize a hackathon

Probably one of the most creative ways to engage employees is to organize a hackathon – an event where every team member puts aside their daily work and dives into creativity and innovation by working on interesting ideas and projects. While hackathons are usually held in software companies, you can try and adapt this team engagement idea to other areas of business as well.

16. Provide all the necessary tools and technologies

This is one of the most important employee engagement ideas that often goes unnoticed. To help them effectively perform their tasks and be fully involved in work, you must provide your employees with all the necessary tools and also keep tabs on the newest technology solutions in your field. The new generation quickly adapts to various new technologies and desires to use them in their work environment, meanwhile, obsolete tools can cause frustration and dissatisfaction.

17. Find out what attracts younger workforce

Building on the previous employee engagement idea, if you’re from an older generation, it’s a good idea to find out what is important to millennials and zoomers and what engages them (for example, new technology or gadgets), and then try to implement into your working environment to attract a younger workforce, if it is relevant for your company.

18. Make information more accessible

With easy access to all the necessary information from everyday tasks to career development, you will provide your employees with a clear understanding of what and how to do their work. As employee engagement is all about understanding the employee’s role in the organization, use this team engagement idea and make all the information more accessible, for example, you can use an internal communication software for employees to ask questions and get answers.

19. Initiate internal blogging

When it comes to internal blogging, it’s important to allow your team members to be authentic and write about a wider variety of topics, not just work. There are numerous ways how you can adapt this approach to your communication channel within the company but, in order for it to work, the content must, first of all, be interesting to read. Encourage your team to share about their hobbies, passion projects, trips, or other non-work-related topics alongside their experiences at work to boost the team spirit or learn more about each other and shared interests. That in turn will reduce the risk of your employees feeling isolated and unhappy at work.

20. Encourage small talk

While digital communication nowadays is more than usual, do not forget about real-life conversations as well. Encourage small conversations at the beginning of meetings to talk for five minutes about each other’s personal news and everyday little things. Such an easy staff engagement idea will create a more friendly working environment.

21. Share your company’s goals or mission

Every company has its business goals and mission but are your employees familiar with them? If the team understands the goals and how the company is meeting them, it is going to be easier for them to engage more in their work life. We suggest using this team engagement idea to occasionally remind your team about why you all are gathering there in the first place.

22. Use transparent means of communication

As one of the main pillars of employee engagement is transparent communication, it is essential for management to share their decisions with the team to increase job satisfaction and make employees feel engaged and valued.

23. Trust your employees

Trust and fairness, based on mutual respect between employers and employees, are the basis of every healthy work environment. When employees feel trusted enough to work autonomously, they feel that their skills and contributions are valued. This leads to a better sense of responsibility and job satisfaction.

24. Bring employees together outside work

Another great employee engagement idea to try! You can find something that is in common among your coworkers you can do outside your workspace or just come up with new ideas such as charity events or volunteering in the animal shelter. You can use such employee engagement activities on an ongoing basis or as one-time employee engagement events.

25. Show the results of their work

One of the team engagement ideas that often happens to be forgotten, is showing the results of work to your team members. Show the progress of your company and provide “proof” such as positive reviews from the customers to show your team that the effort they make is paying off.

Fun employee engagement activities and ideas to try instantly

The employee engagement ideas that we already looked at in this article have more to do with establishing a company culture, setting standards for communication among colleagues, improving the employee’s well-being and other long-term approaches. However, we understand that a lot of managers are simply looking for some quick events that they can try setting up straight away. If that’s the case with you as well, don’t worry – we got you. Try these fun employee engagement activities in the office to boost your employee’s team spirit and satisfaction with their working environment by bringing some fun to your workplace!

10 fun employee engagement ideas

• Celebrate birthdays, personal milestones and various holidays.
• Try organizing a creative team building event such as a scavenger hunt.
• Organize silly and fun employee engagement activities such as a race on chairs (because why not?).
• Go to a cooking class or on a guided tour together.
• Create an office tradition such as a monthly gathering for a board game night.
• Organize a book club (e-book club also counts) – it can be books related to the company’s field of business or just fiction.
• Suggest monthly contests such as a photo contest on a certain topic (don’t forget about the rewards!).
• Hold a sports activity day or a company picnic.
• Create a team mascot.
• Pick a day of the month when employees bring in treats to share with the team.

Bonus work engagement activities: The most effective virtual employee engagement ideas for remote teams

If your team is working remotely, do not forget about work from home engagement activities to be sure that your team has a fruitful remote working environment. While the activities listed previously are more suitable for in-person teams, the ones you’ll find below are especially effective for the remote work environment.

10 best work from home engagement activities

• Create virtual team-building games to engage your remote team.
• Involve remote team members in work planning, decision making, and everyday work processes.
• Use surveys to involve remote employees in various discussions and ask their opinion.
• Create company-related hashtags that the remote employees will want to use on social media and encourage sharing some episodes from their work or personal time (for example, their home office desk setup)
• Create an informal chat for involving your remote employees in your company’s life.
• Organize virtual employee engagement events such as a remote movie-watching party to watch a movie together at the same time.
• Visualize your remote team by sending the team photos or creating collages of personal photos to form a sense of community.
• Encourage using video feeds in meetings to avoid them feeling de-personalized.
• Send inspirational quotes at the beginning of the work week to create positive vibes (this employee engagement idea is also perfect for office teams).
• Create and send out weekly or monthly newsletters to show what is happening in your company

Whether you’d like to incorporate high employee engagement into your company culture or are just after some quick and simple ideas that will help you drive engagement in the short term, now you have a list of ideas to try out. We’re sure that these employee engagement ideas will help you succeed in creating a happier work environment in your company!