Team Engagement is the degree to which an employee feels connected to his or her team, the company, and the organization.
Learning from experience
We recently conducted a simple exercise among colleagues in the organization that I work for. We did it in a regular connect call, with around sixteen people joining from ten different countries. The question was easy, to share what engagement means to us personally. We went in a circle and everyone was in a maximum of 30 sec. gave their answers. You could feel the energy on the call immediately started rising, everyone was sharing enthusiastically and I can sense a positive team at this moment and engaged employees. From feeling valued, empowered, and cultural to the ability to learn & grow…. I personally named three: purpose, fun, and team. As well as, their experiences such as customer experience, professional development, and their performance as individual employees.
The Key Ingredient to Team Engagement
And actually, Team, human connections, relationships with colleagues, and the manager were the common answer for all. To achieve this you need to have strong internal communication, employee engagement initiative, and emotional commitments.
The relationships with colleagues at work are one of the most important drivers of engagement! And indeed, there is a reason why one of Gallup’s Q 12 Employee Engagement survey statements is “I have a best friend at work”. At Gallup, they discovered the power of this item in identifying talented workgroups – that the strongest agreement occurred in the most productive workgroups.
How does team engagement help organizations today?
As a result of our findings, we have all agreed as part of our call that investing in teams is critical. And that investment means putting team time, face-to-face or remote team closure. This will help the lines of communication to be effective communication for everyone regardless of employee engagement level on a regular basis which will bring the biggest impact to each and every one. Not letting a busy business agenda or remotely set up teams become an excuse to make time for teams. We also need to make the employee have their own personal life such as having gym memberships. Creating space where people can connect, build relationships, collaborate, and get challenged together.
Ideas you can use in team engagement…
It can be done in simple team sessions whether remote team, where teams get to know each other better or identify what types of employees they have in an organization, in a full day session working on the team’s purpose, or spending time outside the office doing fun and interesting team activity.
So team leaders, HR partners – it’s a call for you! Make sure you put teams first and help them bond, and grow friendships. Create time for team building and team activities as this will drive the team’s engagement and ultimately drive better business performance.
