Category: Employee Experience

Healthcare is one of the largest and fastest-growing industries in the world. With the ongoing global pandemic, the demand for healthcare services has increased now more than ever. To ensure that the healthcare professionals work with the same level of consistency as before and their performance is not affected, they need to be evaluated from time to time. Although there are multiple tools for performance management in healthcare, 360 degree feedback proves to be one of the most effective.

Also Read: High Performing Teams In Healthcare

360 degree feedback is a modern feedback process in which every stakeholder with whom the healthcare professional has worked shares feedback. These stakeholders involve managers, subordinates, nurses, hospital aides, and patients. Since the feedback is from multiple sources, it provides a comprehensive view of actions and behaviors and a deeper insight into performance. Read on to know its importance in healthcare.

Examining Overall Skills Through 360 Degree Feedback

Employees who work in the healthcare industry or are in hospital management are usually assessed by the number of patients they treat successfully. Often, it ignores important interpersonal skills that are required to be successful. These skills may include empathy, teamwork, communication, attentiveness, etc.

Having a 360 degree feedback process for your healthcare professionals tends to solve this issue. Peers, patients, supervisors, and subordinates assess different aspects of a healthcare professional’s performance. It is based on their experiences and observations while working with them. They provide valuable insights about the employee that help them to make changes to the way they work. It helps them understand not only their clinical skills but also their interpersonal skills.

Also Read: OKRs For Healthcare Professionals

Improved Patient Care

360 degree feedback is a great tool when it comes to identifying one’s strengths, weaknesses, gaps, and potential blindspots. With the help of it, healthcare professionals learn how to reinforce their strengths and work on their areas of weaknesses.

In the absence of 360 degree feedback, healthcare professionals are not aware of their potential blindspots and gaps. As a result, their actions might end up having a negative impact on their coworkers or patients unknowingly. When healthcare professionals are aware of their weaknesses and blindspots, they work more efficiently to deliver effective patient care.

Higher Patient Satisfaction

The main aim of the employees of any healthcare organization is that their patients are satisfied with the level of care they receive. 360 degree feedback in healthcare serves as an effective tool to measure the patient satisfaction index. In a traditional approach, healthcare professionals are assessed using a top-down approach by their managers and leaders. But in 360 degree feedback, everyone, including the patients, evaluates the healthcare professionals. So it is more valued and accepted by doctors, nurses, and other hospital aides alike. They are more open to receiving feedback from their patients. As patients themselves are part of the process, it helps in improving productivity and increasing the patient satisfaction index.

Also Read: What Is A Performance Management System?

Training and Learning Opportunities

360 degree feedback talks about the importance of talent management in healthcare. It helps doctors, physicians, nurses, and other hospital executives identify training and development opportunities for themselves. This allows them to sharpen their clinical or professional skills while honing their interpersonal skills. It ensures that they are more skillful and professional at work, which, as a result, improves patient satisfaction and safety.

Do you want to know how Engagedly can help you with 360 Degree Feedback? Then request for a live demo.

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Employee engagement is not just when employees are doing their job, but when they are more than happy, and enjoy a level of satisfaction and commitment to do it. They go an extra mile to get the job done. But with most of our workspaces confined to our homes, employee engagement has been a constant issue for most organizations. It can be quite common for employees to lose interest in their work and be disengaged while working from home for such a long time. 

Although many organizations are calling their employees back to office or following the hybrid model of work, we aren’t exactly sure whether we will return to ‘normal’ way of work anytime soon. One more big question which remains unanswered is whether employees would be happy to work from the office permanently.

Also Read: Best Practices For Conducting Employee Check-Ins

Employee engagement has become one of the top priorities for human resources and the leadership of the organization. Here are seven common employee engagement ideas for your team.

Emphasize On Work-Life Balance

One important thing that the pandemic taught us is focusing on ourselves, and making us the priority. 

As employers, it is important to emphasize on the work-life balance of your employees. Educate your employees on why it is important and how it will help them boost their productivity. Employees should know when to switch-off from work and take a break. Whether you are working at a single stretch or in sporadic bursts throughout the day, knowing the correct time to take a break is essential. Doing so will help you avoid burnout and stress.

Also Read: How To Curb Digital Distractions

WHO reports that increased screen time (for all ages) is one common side effect of the pandemic, as most of our lifestyle became sedentary. As a result, cases of neck pain, obesity, irregular sleep patterns, headache and eye problems have increased over the past two years. 

Build Your Wellness Program 

“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”–Sir Richard Branson, Owner Virgin Group.

Along with emphasizing on the work-life balance of your employees, it is important that wellness initiatives are in place. With continuous work from home, more and more people not only suffered from physical illnesses as mentioned above, but also suffered from many mental illnesses too. Isolation, depression, anxiety, insomnia have increased considerably over the past two years(Source: WHO).

It is crucial that organizations and leaders understand and empathize with their employees. Here are some simple steps which you can take to ensure that your employees are doing good, both physically and mentally.

For mental health: 

• Virtual yoga and meditation classes
• Train your employees so they can identify mental health issues
• Organize online mental health sessions by experts
• Make therapy a part of perks and benefits
• Practice mindful living

For physical health:

• Organize for online exercise and yoga 
• Spend on ergonomically friendly remote workspace set-up
• Provide incentives for calories burnt
• Gift fitness bands to everyone to track daily steps

Source: Kaiser Family Foundation

Work-life balance along with wellness programs will not only help your employees to maintain their physical and mental health, but will also help them improve their overall productivity. When they see that the organization cares for them, they feel valued and important. It will improve employee engagement and retention.

Connect With Your Employees Frequently

It goes without saying that connecting with your employees is the most effective and simplest way to improve employee engagement. The disconnect and the sense of isolation can be reduced among your employees by communicating with them frequently. Let them know that they are not alone and the organization and the leadership is always there to help them out with their issues. As a manager, block and schedule discussions with your employees well in advance. Try to keep the conversations as informal as possible so that your employees can take their minds off from work and connect. 

“At Engagedly, managers and skip-level managers connect with their employees to know how they are doing and if they can help improve anything. Every month, we also have focus group discussions with our founders. It is a platform for the leadership team to brainstorm directly with the employees, and to informally explore solutions to work problems. Not only is it a great opportunity to informally connect with the leadership, but also with colleagues from other teams.”

Provide Upskilling and Reskilling Opportunities

According to the LinkedIn 2020 Workforce Learning Report, 94% of employees would stay with a company if they invested in their training and development. 

Foster a culture of continuous learning in the organization. Encourage your employees to reskill and upskill themselves. It will not only help your employees to learn new skills, but will also help you to create an agile workforce which is much better adapted to change. Additionally, employee engagement increases and attrition decreases. Some common ways to upskill and reskill your employees are:

• Learning And Development:
  • Access to online academies such as Coursera, Udemy, edX, Purdue University Global,.
  • Organize training sessions.
  • Invest in integrated learning management systems.
• Job Rotation and Shadowing: They are budget friendly and easily approachable upskilling and reskilling processes. It gives employees the flexibility to role changes in the organization.
• Mentoring: Mentoring is a great way for new employees to connect with more experienced employees of the organization or vice versa. It helps employees to learn new skills, and grow personally and professionally.
• Form learning groups
• Train your employees in digital and soft skills.

Learn more about How to build a successful upskilling and reskilling program for your organization.

Tangible Rewards

Who doesn’t like gifts? Everyone does! Tangible rewards and care packages are a great way to show your employees that you value and care for them. 

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and the time couldn’t be better for your employees to receive a gift from the company. Although all reward options or gifts might not be budget-friendly, a little investment on your employees won’t hurt. If you are not sure what to gift your employees, here are some suggestions for you:

• Gift your employees company swag items such as mugs, t-shirts, notepads and pens
• Self-care packages
• A set of scented candles
• Box of chocolates and coffee
• Retreat packages
• Sponsor dining or lunch for the family
• Motivational books 
• A month’s subscription to OTT platforms

Performance Management Software

With a diverse workforce spread globally, it is essential to invest in a performance management software (PMS) to manage your employees. Most PMS available in the market not only helps in tracking employee performance but also supports an array of other features. Goal-setting, employee feedback, check-ins, rewards and recognition, gamification, LMS, peer feedback, praise, social feed, etc. are part of most PMS. They not only help employees and peers stay connected with each other but also improves employee engagement and experience.

Also Read: Why Your Business Needs A Performance Management Software

Company Wide Reset

The last two years have not been easy for anyone. It has been tough and your employees have managed to sail through it successfully. They deserve a break! Plan and schedule for a company wide shutdown or break. Until and unless it is urgent your employees shouldn’t be required to attend any calls, meetings (internal or external), emails, or zoom calls related to work. This will give a fresh start to all your employees and help them perform better. Your employees will think with a fresh mind, be more innovative and engaged at work.

Want to know how Engagedly can help you improve employee engagement? Request us for a quick demo!

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Organizations often avoid conducting a 360 degree feedback as they find it more complex and difficult to understand. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be. In the post-pandemic normalcy, feedback in different forms have become a necessity for smooth functioning. 360 Degree Feedback is a powerful tool by which organizations can help their employees enhance their skills, performance, and thereby help them understand things about themselves better. 

True intuitive expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes. – Daniel Kahneman

So in order to upgrade your intuitive expertise, let’s understand 360 degree feedback a little better, how to frame the questions and what are the benefits of 360 degree feedback for your company. 

Also Read: Employee Wellbeing And Absenteeism At Work

Understand What is 360 Degree Feedback:

In simple words, 360 degree feedback is a feedback collection process through which people can ask for insights from all stakeholders they work with. These stakeholders include an employee’s manager(s), direct reports (if any), clients, vendors and peers. Every participant answers to the same set of questions. As a result, at the end of the process, the employee receives a report that depicts the perceptions of her/his colleagues, and what feedback they have to share about her or his performance. The questions typically revolve around key goals, strengths and weaknesses, asking participants to rate on a scale and share a paragraph or two. The responses remain anonymous and completely confidential.

Now that you know how truly simple 360 degree feedback essentially is, let us take you through how you can whip up some good questions for the process to be truly effective. 

Frame Effective 360 Degree Feedback Questions: 

This feedback process can be conducted manually or you can choose to have a 360 Degree Feedback tool in place. Either way, framing the questions right is the key to collecting valuable data. We would like to list out a few factors that will guide you here:

• They should be applicable to all participants
• They should be unprejudiced and fair
• Each question should focus on one attribute so that the participants can give specific answers instead of any vague insights
• Use simple language that is understandable to all parties
• Must align to company vision, mission, values and objectives

To help you with some examples, at Engagedly, we have a very simple framework where we ask all participants some of these simple questions. 

• What are the things this employee should STOP doing in order to be better at work?
• What are the new things this employee should START doing in order to be better at work?
• What are the things this employee is doing well and should CONTINUE doing?

We would love to know your thoughts on the above mentioned framework. Please share them in the comment section below. 

Also Read: 7 Signs To Help You Recognize A Toxic Workplace

Benefits of 360 Degree Feedback:

After understanding the feedback process and how we can frame good 360 feedback questions, we come to the point where we answer for you why you should consider having this in place.

The Bigger Picture Advantage

While you might find useful insights from the feedback received from your manager/supervisor, it is just one person’s perspective at the end of the day. Receiving feedback from peers, clients and vendors also, will give you a more holistic view of your performance; what’s working for you and what you need to work on. 

Employees who receive feedback more frequently from a wider audience grow more comfortable in receiving them with an open mind, and get a better shot at refining their skills and performance.

Gateway to Richer Communication

Adopting the 360-degree feedback process for your organization would open up doors to a free-flow of communication. It will allow your employees to feel more confident in sharing their inputs and perspectives, and build richer connections between them. Moreover, problems can be addressed and resolved more quickly. 

Organizations that encourage transparency and better communication are many times more likely to retain their best workers.

Pathway to Better Career Growth

Here is a staggering insight for you: 

According to Engagedly research, 98% of employees fail to engage in the face of little to no feedback.

360 degree feedback provides employees with valuable inputs about what changes can help them grow in their careers. With this process in place, your employees can get multiple opportunities to learn what they are doing well and what needs improving.

We will end this piece with one very important reminder for you and your organization. 

360 Feedback and Performance Review are NOT the same!

This is a common misconception many harbour while considering 360 degree feedback. People think they can conduct this instead of a performance review. That can’t be the case. 

A 360 degree feedback is meant for the benefit of the employee who’s being reviewed only. It’s not meant for the manager to evaluate her or his employee based on this feedback, or consider salary changes. If a manager has certain performance issues with an employee, they should discuss them transparently, not through the 360 feedback. It is not a process for evaluating if an employee is meeting basic job requirements. 

So, if you’re ready to implement and conduct 360 degree feedback in your organization, and want to simplify the process with the help of a tool, check out our FREE demo on 360 Degree Feedback Software. 

Want to know how Engagedly can help you? Then request a demo from our experts!

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An article in Forbes highlights that 360 degree feedback is used as a cornerstone of leadership development processes in more than 85% of all the Fortune 500 companies.

360 degree feedback, or multirater feedback, or multirater assessment is a type of feedback in which everyone with whom an employee has worked shares feedback. It involves both the internal and external stakeholders. The feedback is more objective and is more acceptable by everyone when compared to the traditional feedback process.

Benefits of 360 Degree Feedback

• Increases self-awareness and insight
• Helps identify gaps and weaknesses
• Creates an open-culture
• Helps employees in their overall development
• Improves team collaboration
• Strengthens customer relationships
• Reduces employee turnover

Also Read: Importance of Continuous Feedback In the Post COIVD Era

Considering only the benefits of the process, organizations often tend to ignore their readiness for 360 degree feedback. As a result, for many organizations, it is ineffective and not valuable. Rather, they end up utilizing resources for the process with nothing in return.

Here are ten questions you should consider to determine whether your organization is ready for 360 degree feedback.

Have You Identified The Purpose?

This is the most important question you need to ask yourself before you begin a 360 feedback process. Most organizations use 360 degree feedback programs for self-development, that is, to help employees know more about themselves and better themselves as well. Don’t use 360 feedback to measure performance.

Also, many organizations use the process to collect feedback about their leadership.

What Do You Expect To Achieve?

Do you want to know more about your direct reports? Or do you want to help your employees know more about their own skills and gaps? Or do you want to know how leaders of the organization can improve themselves? Either way, whatever your aim is and what you would like to achieve from the program, it’s best to be sure of that before you start.

Also Read: Employee Goals: A Checklist To Set Effective Goals

Are The Parameters Defined For The Process?

The process of giving feedback can very quickly become a vague activity. Before you decide the participants for the 360  degree feedback process, share a set of feedback guidelines with everyone. That way, they know what to say, what they shouldn’t say, how they should frame the feedback, what phrases they should avoid, etc.

Is You Organization Culture Supportive?

Your organization’s current culture plays a major role in the success of the 360 degree feedback process. 360 degree feedback requires an open culture where everyone is ready to change and accept feedback. It involves a culture of learning and a high level of trust among employees.

Have You Decided On The Participants?

Some organizations prefer to just collect from an employee’s peers. Others might prefer collecting feedback from managers besides peers. While other organizations might also want to collect feedback from external clients, vendors, etc. The more the number of people included in the process, the more important it is to keep everyone on the same page regarding the 360 degree feedback process.

Also Read: Stay Interviews: A Tool To Retain Your Best Employees

Do You Have Your Employee Buy-In?

There’s no point to a 360 degree feedback program if your employees aren’t ready for the process. To prepare them for the process, explain to them the objectives behind the program, what you hope to achieve, what they will gain from the process, and what happens after the program. Only when employees are ready for the program and know what to expect, a 360 feedback process to be effective and successful.

Have You LentLentLent In The Correct 360 Feedback Software?

In most organizations, 360 degree feedback involves external as well as internal stakeholders who are part of the process. The software should be easy to understand and use by everyone, even with no formal training. It should be robust and easily customizable as per the needs of the organization. And it goes without saying the software should have an efficient support team to help with issues.

Also Read: What To Look For In A 360 Feedback Software?

Generic Feedback Templates OR Custom ?

You can choose to use generic, broadly appropriate templates for everyone across the organization or you can choose to use department or job designation specific templates. If you choose to use custom templates, you can then add competencies based on an employee’s job title. 360 degree feedback software, like Engagedly, helps you add competencies based on job titles for 360 feedback templates. Generic templates are good if you have a small organization where everyone does more or less the same kind of work. Custom templates are a good fit for organizations that have a large number of departments or employees who do very specific kinds of work.

Will It Be Anonymous Or Public?

The call to make a 360 feedback process anonymous rests on the leaders of an organization. To be fair, anonymity can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, more employees might be willing to participate in a 360 feedback process because it is anonymous. On the other hand, there’s going to be some anonymous feedback that employees or managers might not agree with.

Also Read: The Importance Of Peer Feedback At Workplace

What After The Process?

This is the most important aspect of the 360 degree feedback process. In a good 360 feedback process, all the feedback received is shared with the employee and then their skills and gaps are discussed so that employees can focus on their development. Hoarding the information from a process benefits no one and just serves to make employees suspicious.

Request a demo to find out how Engagedly can help you with 360 degree feedback implementation!

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Employee engagement has become one of the most common buzzwords in the contemporary business world. Given the paramount correlation between employee engagement and business profitability, organizations are constantly working on evolving new engagement strategies. They have employee engagement goals to meet to tap every possible merit of it. Have you acknowledged the interrelation between engagement and business success yet? 

As concluded by Gallup, high employee engagement can augment business profitability by 21 percent. Having said that, there is every pragmatic reason why you ought to lay emphasis on nurturing the engagement levels in your employees. Exemplary engagement is the key to the fulfillment of your business ambitions after all! 

Also Read: Want To Measure Your Employee Engagement? Here’s How

When it comes to the best strategies for cultivating high employee engagement, perspectives and mindsets tend to vary. You may have a different spectrum of ideas for engaging employees, while other business leaders may have a distinct framework for it. However, across all industries and generations of employees, one of the most salient drivers of motivation and engagement is recognition. 

Why is employee recognition quintessential? 

From baby boomers to millennials and Gen Y folks, everyone needs the right proportion of recognition and rewards to engage actively. Even you need your share of recognition to bring out the best in you! You find yourself brimming with the motivation to scale new heights when people around you applaud you, don’t you? In fact, Deloitte reveals that recognition amplifies efficiency and engagement by 14 percent. To add, Gallup concludes that lack of recognition is the primary reason why employees disengage or quit. 

The above insights are enough to establish the imperativeness of employee recognition. They clearly signify that investing to win employee loyalty is as crucial as building customer loyalty. Employee motivation and happiness are the pivotal pillars of employee engagement. Further, rewards and recognition are the piers of motivation and exuberance among employees. If you ask employees what rewards they desire the most, monetary incentives would be a common answer. 

Also Read: The Performance Management Software For Millennials 

However, for smaller and medium enterprises, monetary rewards may not always be feasible. In such scenarios, you can always come up with some excellent ideas for non-monetary rewards. To help you with that, in this article, we discuss some brilliant ideas for employee recognition. These ideas cost nothing or little and yet create a massive impetus of engagement. So, without further ado, let us get started!

• Appreciation for effort 

Appreciation is one of the most valuable yet inexpensive rewards that you can confer upon your employees. Here we are talking about a comprehensive and genuine framework of appreciation that also takes into account the effort put in by employees. Why limit appreciation and recognition to achievements and accomplishments? You also ought to appreciate the effort, loyalty, and commitment displayed by your employees. 

In fact, as per HubSpot, 69 percent of employees opine that they will work with greater diligence if they are appreciated better. This substantiates the simple fact that appreciation holds the key to fostering high employee engagement. Given that, you ought to create a vibrant culture where appreciation and celebration of effort, achievements, and sincerity is a natural virtue. The more inclusive employee recognition gets, the greater will be the returns in terms of high engagement. 

Recognizing employees in front of their colleagues can work wonders to upscale their engagement. Besides, it will assist others in setting their performance goals as well. If your organization is remote, you can extend appreciation during virtual meets or via digital internal newsletters. To add, you can also extend appreciation through social media posts highlighting the contributions of employees.

• Shareholding benefits 

Last year, Woolworths, the Australian retail giant, gave shares of the company to over 100,000 workers as a token of recognition. The workers were rewarded shares of net worth up to $750 for their commendable work amid the pandemic. Having said that, if your company is listed on the stock market, you can take a leave out of Woolworths’ book. 

You can offer little stakes to your exclusive and unparalleled performers as an ultimate perk. With this, you can make the idea of employees’ sense of belonging quite literal! This is a reward of the highest order that will give your employees one of the biggest reasons for sticking to you and staying engaged around the clock.

Also Read: Workplace Culture:How To Create And Sustain It

• Better designations and job titles

It may not be possible all the time to offer promotions to employees regularly along with salary hikes. However, even for employees, it is not always about the salary. Employees have the basic anticipation of getting proportionate career advancement opportunities in the workplace. Getting their fair share of professional growth is in itself a reward for them irrespective of monetary increments.

Having said that, offering better designations and titles to your employees in lieu of their exemplary performance is a credible idea. For instance, a top performer exhibiting great diligence persistently can be made an additional project manager. 

On similar lines, an excellent graphic designer who brings great value to your organization’s marketing can be named the creative head. Even without increments in salaries, the escalation of designations will be priceless to employees inspiring greater engagement in them.  

•   Exclusive mentoring programs 

Learning and development prospects are critical to the engagement and exuberance of employees. They want to learn consistently and keep adding more value to their professional development. This is the reason why employees are keener to work for organizations with cultures facilitating learning. To validate, almost 90 percent of millennials assert that learning in the workplace is essential for them. This insight is in line with the inferences of Middlesex University for Work-Based Learning. 

Also Read: 6 Guidelines To Developing A Professional Mentoring Program

Therefore, having some exclusive mentorship programs for achievers and top performers will be an incredible idea. With performances superseding a certain performance benchmark, let your employees unlock new horizons of mentoring. These in-person mentoring programs should cater to the most important verticals of professional development. Employees will see these as adding immense value to their pursuit of career building.

Let the highest form of learning or remote training be an affluent reward in the workplace. With this strategy, you can engage the winners as well as others who would then realign their goals to qualify for the same. 

The bottom line is, exclusive or not, mentoring programs are critical to boosting the efficiency and engagement of employees. You do not have to be a boss always. At times, you need to step into the shoes of a mentor and construct mentor-mentee relationships with your workers.

• Wellness benefits

Wellness has become a great concern for employees, given the ever-increasing work stress they find themselves reeling under. To make things worse, the horrifying COVID-19 pandemic has made employees worry even more about their health. In such a scenario, wellness benefits will work as invaluable rewards for your employees. You can offer the following health rewards to your top-notch talents while setting a benchmark for others as well. 

• Health insurance covers 
• Free membership/subscription to gyms, mindfulness programs, fitness apps, stress management programs etcetera. 
• Exclusive mental wellness webinars featuring eminent psychologists and counselors to discuss employees’ mental health issues 
• Free of cost annual health checkup
  

Also Read: Understanding Employee Wellbeing In 2021

• Flexibility 

One of the most attractive awards for employees in this revamped corporate world known for work from home jobs, remote cultures, and virtual meetings is flexibility. If you ask your employees, all of them would say that they desire discretionary flexibility. The flexibility we are emphasizing is the flexibility in terms of working style, working hours, and working tools.  

Employees want to work remotely most of the time as they believe it enables greater work-life balance and optimized productivity. Given the fact, the idea of flexibility is essential for employees, why not craft a reward out of it? The better the employees perform, the more can be the number of work from home days they can win in a month. Besides, flexibility as a part of employee experience can also enhance their efficiency. You can put a ceiling on the maximum number of days in a month that employees can avail remote work.

• Bonus paid leaves 

Additional paid leaves can be a great idea for a reward! Employees do not get more than one or two paid leaves in a month. Hence, they have to be careful and cautious with their utilization of paid leaves. This is where they also begin to feel that their work-life balance is getting crippled. However, persistent performers can be entitled to a few more paid leaves than others in lieu of their valuable contributions. Seems like a great idea, doesn’t it?

By fixing a maximum number of additional paid leaves to be won, you can extend bonus leaves to your employees proportional to their achievements and consistency. All employees will feel quite fascinated about the opportunity to win some additional paid leaves. For that, they will naturally feel the urge to set the bar high and engage better to win bonus leaves. Who would not want to win such perks and rewards after all?

Author:

Jessica Robinson is a charismatic corporate leader, a selfless educator, and a versatile content creator. Despite a management degree, her vision behind blogging is not only to follow her passion, but to create more informed societies. Her selflessness reflects in every piece of her work on The Speaking Polymath.

Want to know how Engagedly can help you improve employee engagement? Request for a live demo.

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Employee engagement is one of the most important aspects of current HR. Though most managers understand the importance of keeping their employees engaged and satisfied with their work, sometimes they tend to unintentionally destroy employee engagement.

Do you want to re-evaluate your practices to check if you’re accidentally destroying employee engagement at your workplace? Here are a few signs to look out for:

Your Employees Don’t Receive Enough Feedback

One of the very common reasons for employee disengagement is that they aren’t satisfied with the amount of feedback they receive. As a manager, you should find a way to talk to your employees about their performance and give them enough feedback and time to improve.

Also Read: Tips For Conducting Effective One On Ones

Setting Unrealistic Goals And Deadlines

Goals shouldn’t be very easy to attain because they won’t let the true potential show. But also remember not to make them so unrealistic that they intimidate your employees.

Before setting goals and deadlines, think how these goals affect your organisation and work culture. If not, these goals instead of motivating your employees and promoting employee engagement, kills employee morale.

Lack Of Appreciation For Good Work

Imagine that you were given a really challenging task and you took a lot of effort and risk to complete it on time. After you complete the work, your boss takes all the credit and doesn’t even bother to give you a little appreciation.

Would you give your maximum efforts again on any other task? Now you know how that feels, don’t you? Appreciate and recognise your employees when they meet your expectations. A simple act of appreciation goes a long way.

Also Read: 5 Key Focus Areas For CEOs:The Post Pandemic Shift

Highlighting Only The Faults

Like mentioned above, employees make mistakes, but they also complete their given tasks. You can’t only focus on the mistakes they make and ignore their accomplishments. You don’t have to focus only on their mistakes and taunt them always.

All you can do as a manager is, to talk about the mistake and help them correct it if possible.

You Don’t Keep Your Word

Promising something to your employees and not keeping those promises, makes you lose your personal credibility.

When you promise something to your employees they take it as a done deal. Be sure that you can keep a promise before making it. By saying this, we do not mean that you lie to your employees; it is just that, you should be sure of your ability to keep the promise you make. If you constantly fail to keep your promises, your staff may completely lose respect for you.

Interaction Is Missing With The Team

When you are a manager, you can’t just be an emotionless, command-giving robot in the office. Communicate with your employees and understand their problems. Talk to them about their work, your work, or anything.

When you don’t communicate your ideas with your employees, they can never reach your expectations. If you want to see your organisational goals met, then get started.

Also Read: Employee Recognition:The Virtual Edition

You Are Subconsciously Biased

As a human, you might enjoy working with a few people and it is completely normal. But, when you are a manager, you’ve got different responsibilities and different people working as a team under you.

You can’t respond differently to different people for the same behaviour because of your personal preferences. If you do, it creates a really unfair workplace environment.

Want to know how Engagedly can help you improve employee engagement? Request for a live Demo!

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Building up a strong team that contributes to outstanding achievements is one of the greatest challenges any manager faces. If you are looking to nurture a team that excels, inculcate the 3-fold responsibility approach on every team member.

You should align them with the following 3 responsibilities–

1. Connecting with teammates
2. Wiring up with work
3. Aligning with the company goal

In a research article published by The Harvard Business Review, they say, ‘‘over the past two decades the time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50 percent or more.”

Given that we spend a significant amount of time communicating with our co-workers, this should ideally lead to enhanced teamwork. But there is an essential ingredient, without which teams fail miserably—Connection.

Also Read: Tips For Conducting Effective One On Ones

As humans, not just in our social or private spheres, we crave to be successful, satisfied, encouraged and valued even at our workplaces. When we cannot derive the connection, we disconnect from work and productivity.

Here are 5 simple ways to handle teamwork challenges.

Help Build Trust Among Your Team Members

In order to build trust, team members have to know each other, on the professional and personal front. Else they won’t connect, nor engage, and they obviously won’t trust each other. To instill trust, get your team members to spend time in some fun activities and interact with each other.

Manage Conflicts Well

Difference of opinion can be a good thing. It can prompt insightful debates, bring out different perspectives, expand knowledge and lead to innovation. If that difference of opinion grows to become a conflict, that can become a challenge. If you can handle the situation carefully, instead of the team breaking apart, it can enhance the team bond and inspire growth.

Also Read: The Delicate Art Of Conflict Resolution

Build Transparency

There is no trust where there is no transparency. Important thing is, it has to start at the top. As a senior employee, it’s your responsibility to trigger and enhance it. Employees will automatically follow you when they see the good results.

Promote Knowledge Sharing

Every team member brings in distinctive skills, knowledge, proficiency and prudence to the table. A strong team would liberally share knowledge for the benefit of everyone. This strengthens the team and propels it forward.

Also Read: Why Do You Need A Real Time Performance Management Software?

Team Collaboration

Some teams require great focus and hence, working in silos is commendable. If you wish to build a strong team though, working in silos won’t get you very far. Every person has limited exposure and experience that can only get you so far. Power comes when the whole team is working together in earnest in order to achieve a goal. It’s a great feeling to be part of a team where every member is thinking of it as one and not just themselves.

So, if you wish to form and regulate an excelling team, notice behaviours. When you notice something that might put a wedge in the team, stir things towards clarity and transparency. It’s when we change the way we conduct ourselves; we can make the greatest impact and build an effective team.

Want to know how Engagedly can help you manage teams better? Request for a demo.

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What Is 360 Degree Feedback?

Although considered to be new, but 360 degree feedback has been there for almost around 40 years! 85% of all the Fortune 500 companies use it as a building block for their leadership development process (Source: Forbes). Global organizations such as PepsiCo, IBM, GE, Amazon, etc.

360 degree feedback is a type of feedback wherein employees receive performance feedback not only from their managers but also from colleagues, vendors, customers, etc. It is an intensive type of assessment which involves collating a lot of data and is subjective in nature. There are numerous effective software available in the market with the multirater module that can help you conduct them with great ease.

6 Tips To Get 360 Degree Feedback Right

Do It With A Purpose In Mind

One of the biggest mistakes that organizations make regarding 360 degree feedback is not having a clear purpose in mind. Don’t do it because it is the ‘in’ thing to do, instead, do it if you actually believe in it. An important question to ask yourself before running a 360 degree feedback is what do you hope to achieve?

More information about employees? Accurate feedback from a variety of sources? A structured feedback process, etc.

Once the purpose of the process is clear, it will be easier to have a successful 360 degree feedback.

Also Read: 5 Benefits of Employee Recognition Software

Set Guidelines For The Process

Giving feedback during a 360 degree feedback quickly becomes a vague activity if there are no rules beforehand.

Before you invite employees to participate in the process, share a set of feedback guidelines with everyone who is taking part. That way, they know what to say, what they shouldn’t say, how they should frame the feedback, what phrases they should avoid, etc.

Controlling how feedback is shared (not necessarily dictating the terms of what one has to say) goes a long way towards ensuring that the 360 review process smoothly.

Practice Constructive Feedback

The main aim of a 360 degree feedback is to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each employee, and work towards a wholesome growth, professionally and well as individually. So criticisms are definitely an integral part of them. Only worry is, criticism is one of the places where performance reviews tend to go horribly wrong. An employee is entitled to their opinion but before you begin the process, lay down the ground rules for what counts as fair criticism and what does not. For example:

• Good criticism: Mark is not very punctual to work. However, I have noticed that he completes all of his assigned tasks on time.
• Bad criticism: Mark is not punctual and spends a lot of time in the office doing nothing.

If you look at the first example, you will see that while Mark’s tardiness does not please the reviewer in question, he or she notes that Mark is dedicated and works efficiently. The criticism has some value to offer. The second example offers no information except for what seems to be a malicious observation. Mark does not have much to learn from it.

So train your employees and managers in such a way that they practice giving constructive feedback only. That is one of the most important things you need to keep in mind when carrying out performance reviews.

Also Read: 7 Video Conferencing Etiquettes For You To Follow

Ensure Confidentiality

Confidentiality is not the same as anonymity. If participants of a 360 degree feedback are not sure of how confidential their feedback is going to be or have previously been subjected to a breach of confidentiality, then naturally the results of the program will be skewed. You will get feedback that is tempered or diplomatic because quite naturally, employees are fearful about being pulled-up for the feedback they have shared.

If you want a 360 degree feedback to run smoothly, ensure that the participants’ feedback will remain confidential.

And more importantly, that you need to make that bit of information expressly clear to them.

Make It A Regular Process

360 degree feedback is not that impactful if they are not done frequently. Reviewing your employee less frequently makes them think that their work doesn’t need any improvement, and the organization is happy with their current working style.

When a 360 degree performance review finally happens, your employees might be astonished to find that everything is not alright. This usually leads to disengagement. If you decide that you are going to have a performance review yearly or quarterly etc, then do make sure that you have been having frequent reviews until then.

Also Read: Crucial Conversations: Strengthen Relationships and Contribute Better

Develop An Action Plan

When employees hear that 360 degree feedback is going to happen, they expect there to be some changes after the program is done. 

There is no point in carrying out a 360 degree feedback if there is no follow-up action plan after the program. It simply becomes a useless exercise. Before the program begins, state how you expect to tackle potential problems or blind spots. And once the program is done, take action and invite employees to participate in offering solutions as well. Guide them on how to overcome the problems.

Want to know how Engagedly can help you with 360 degree feedback? Request for a demo.

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Remote working has made some major changes to the style of our work. Employees are now taking part in meetings now more than ever. Often the meetings are with peers from the same team or at times from different teams. There are too many virtual one-on-one meetings happening at almost every organization.

Also Read: Video Meetings:7 Etiquettes To Follow

One-on-ones can be simply defined as standard scheduled time for managers to check-in with their direct reports. These meetings are important for both managers and direct reports because they ensure that both of them stay on the same page. It also helps in improving employee engagement.

Is there a right way to conduct these one-on-one meetings? Well, the answer is both yes and no. No, we don’t have a prescribed format to conduct a successful one-on-one meeting, but we can use a few best practices to make the most out of one-on-one meetings.

Here’s a list of best practices for effective one-on-one meetings:

Have A Purpose

With the increasing number of meetings managers have these days, it is very important to clarify the agenda of the meeting when you send out a request to schedule a meeting. Having a clear agenda helps both parties to prepare better for the meeting. This also helps the parties understand what priority the meeting needs to be given.

It doesn’t only help the opposite party realize the purpose of the meeting but also helps you, in a sense, to prepare beforehand for the meeting.

Also Read: Know How To Make Remote Employee Check-Ins Effective

Ask Relevant Questions

This totally depends on the type of meeting you intend to have. But most one-on-one meetings require either of the participants to ask a few questions. So, if you are the participant who needs to question the other, make a relevant set of questions to ask in the meeting.

This becomes easier if you already communicated the agenda. For example, if you are having a meeting with one of your direct reports about their performance on a particular project, you need to have a set of relevant questions that you need to ask them about it.

Document The Highlights 

Document the highlights of the one-on-one meeting. As a manager, it is hard to keep track of everyone in one meeting you have, so document the highlights of each one-on-one meeting you have with your employees. This will help you get started for the next meeting you have with them and you will miss nothing important from the past meeting.

Send Effective Meeting Recap

Once you document the contents of the meetings, it is ideal to email the participants of the meeting with the highlights that you’ve made note. Also include in the email, what is expected of them by the next meeting. This helps you and the participants in the meeting to have a document to refer to if they need to revise the contents of the meeting.

Also Read: Why Are Stay Interviews Essential For Your Organisation?

Don’t Miss To Follow Up

Following up on a meeting is vital. Always remember to keep track of the progress made on the aspects of the meeting after a one-on-one meeting. Be ready to help them with implementing the action plan discussed in the meeting. This will help all participants of the meeting stay motivated and productive at work. One-on-one meetings give the best results when they are recurring; so, experiment with the frequency of meetings and set a regular schedule for one-on-one meetings with your employees/ direct reports.

Want to know how Engagedly can help you conduct effective one-on-ones? Then request for a live demo.

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Why is it so important to keep employees motivated or improve employee engagement? Employees spend about 70% of their day’s time in front of their screens working. Now with everyone working from home, that has increased even more with no defined boundaries for work and personal life. So if your employees lack motivation and are disengaged, they wouldn’t contribute to the organizational success.

Here are a few tips for you to motivate your employees and drive employee engagement:

1. Establish A Culture Of Continuous Feedback 

Most managers do not realize the importance of giving feedback to their team members frequently. Did you know that 24% of workers would consider leaving their jobs if they have managers that provide inadequate performance feedback? As an HR manager, it is important for you to create a culture of frequent employee feedback.

Feedback helps employees understand the issues with their performance and helps them fix the issues, and improves employee engagement. At Engagedly, we use Engagedly’s employee feedback software that allows users to give, receive and request for feedback and also allows the feedback receivers to acknowledge their feedback and work on it.

Also Read: Importance Of Continuous Feedback In The Post COVID Era

2. Recognize Your Employee’s Hard Work 

Another way to motivate employees in your team is to recognize their accomplishments and celebrate them. It is important to create a culture of employee recognition and awards. This gives a sense of validation to the employees and inspire them to put more effort and be better the next time. Recognition is the primary thing that employees say that their manager could give them to inspire them to produce great work. It has a direct impact on employee engagement.

At Engagedly, we use rewards and recognition on Engagedly. There is also a way to praise employees publicly on the organization’s social dashboard. With Engagedly, you can also award discretionary points to your employees for their accomplishments, which one can later redeem for gift cards.

3. Promote Transparency

Transparency is one of the most underrated aspects that drives employee engagement and motivates employees. Employees want to know about their contribution to their organization. But, most organizations fail to clarify to their employees how their work matters in the bigger picture. So, set SMART goals for your employees and align these goals to the organizational goals. It will help them understand their role in organizational productivity.

At Engagedly, we use OKRs (Objectives And Key Results), a very popular approach to setting goals as well as measuring and tracking them. Engagedly’s OKR software allows you to set individual goals, assign goals to your team members, track the progress, and align these individual goals with department goals and organizational goals.

Also Read: 5 Things To Look For In An OKR Software

4. Help Your Employees Grow 

It is important to give employees the opportunity to develop themselves and improve their skills. With Gen Z joining the workforce rapidly, it is important to provide employees with opportunities to improve themselves at work. Let your team members feel valued at the workplace by providing them with opportunities to enhance their skills. In the current scenario, it has become even more important for employees to reskill and upskill themselves. Leaders and managers must design developmental plans for each employee. It will help close the skill gap accelerated by the pandemic.

Engagedly uses its learning management system to assign courses to employees in various formats. Engagedly’s Mentoring Complete allows you to assign mentors to employees and promote on-site learning.

5. Care For Your Employee’s Wellbeing

According to the U.S. National Comorbidity Survey for Americans ages 15 to 54, 18% of employed individuals experienced symptoms of mental health issues.

There are many reasons why employees experience mental health issues and do not speak about it as often as they should. Remote working has worsened mental health issues. The number of employees reporting for stress, anxiety, screen fatigue, burnout, depression, etc., has increased drastically over the past one and a half years.

As a manager, it is important for you to commit yourself to the health and wellness of your own employees. Spread awareness and conduct training sessions for employees so that they do not feel ashamed to open up about these issues. Many employees do not speak about their mental health issues because of the fear of being misunderstood. Create a culture that encourages employees to speak about their mental health issues.

Also Read: How To Support Mental Health Of Your Remote Team

Many workplaces offer free sessions with therapists for their employees’ mental health assessment and support. Support your employees and encourage them to take therapy sessions occasionally. This will help them understand and acknowledge their deep-rooted issues and gradually solve them.

Want to know more about Engagedly? Request for a demo from our experts!

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COVID-19 has changed the way we do business. We need to find ways to keep our remote workforce engaged and happy now, more than ever. The pandemic is making companies mandate working from home for their workforce.

Most employees are feeling disengaged, unhappy and under-appreciated since the long session of working from home has begun. Is there a way to fix this and help employee engagement? Well, recognizing remote employees and their efforts could be the first step. In fact, according to a recent study, 58% of employees when asked how to improve employee engagement, they pointed to employee recognition. The only problem here is that managers aren’t really used to regularly acknowledging and recognizing the work of their remote teams.

Also Read: Workplace Culture : How To Read And Sustain It

If you’re a manager looking to recognize your remote employees, here are a few things to consider:

Have Frequent One-On-One’s With Your Employees

As a manager, it is important to have frequent one on one meetings with your remote employees. Though this isn’t recognition, these steps help you understand your employees and acknowledge their work. Once you acknowledge their efforts, it will be easier for you to make judgement on who deserves recognition and not.

One-on-ones can be simply defined as standard scheduled time for managers to check-in with their direct reports. These meetings are important for both managers and direct reports because they ensure that both of them stay on the same page.

Also Read: 5 Tips For Effective Weekly Check-Ins

One on one’s help managers with the following:

•         Keep track of team goals
•         Discuss action plan with their team
•         Stay aligned with direct reports’ goals
•         Sharing ideas and concerns

Understand The Objective Of the Program

Determine and understand the objective of recognition. Before you reward and recognize a remote employee, it is important for you, as a manager, to have a proper vision about it. Don’t make recognition programs only about increasing your overall organization revenue. Identify the focus of the recognition program and make sure that it aligns with your organizational values.

Use Employee Recognition Software

Digitize the employee recognition process. There are various tools to recognize and reward employees for their exceptional work. Give your remote teams access to these tools so that they have a specific platform to recognize and reward employee progress and accomplishments. This way they can also recognize their peers.

Many employee recognition tools are now available for you to implement this in your organization.

Also Read: 5 Benefits of Investing In Employee Recognition Software

Be Unbiased and Frequent

Being honest about feedback is one of the keys to a positive work culture. It is important to understand that there could be some limitations and challenges you face when initially implementing employee recognition programs. One thing to always remember is, practice makes perfect. So, keep practicing and revising the format of employee recognition programs, eventually you are bound to get it right.

Want to know how Engagedly can make your remote employee recognition programs easy? Request for a demo from our experts.

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Looking forward to investing in a 360 feedback software? If not, you might want to reconsider. In this new era of the virtual and remote world, feedback is becoming increasingly essential, not just from managers but from all collaborators. Millennials and Gen Z’s are not shy to receive feedback. They are open to receive and share suggestions and perspectives with better clarity, and every organization’s responsibility is to make that seamless for our employees.

We at Engagedly have created a list of things which you should check before you invest in one. But before we move on to the list, let us look at ‘What is 360 degree feedback?’.

What Is 360 Degree Feedback?

Ken Blanchard rightly phrased, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” Everyone requires feedback. Moreover, a feedback process in which everyone takes part creates an open culture, improves employee engagement and drives retention. Here where 360 degree feedback comes in. It is a process where employees receive and share feedback with their peers, colleagues, direct reports and managers. 

Also Read: 5 Best Tips To Reduce Employee Turnover

Although considered a modern method, one of its very first research papers, “Group feedback and group contingencies in modifying behavior of fifth graders”, was published in 1974. Organizations like GE, IBM, Amazon, PepsiCo. and many others are already using the process because of its effectiveness.

Now, coming back to you! Before you decide on which software to use for the process, make sure employees understand the process. Most processes in organizations fail because employees either have no knowledge or half knowledge about the processes in place. Help your employees understand how it differs from normal feedback, and let them know the benefits. Once your employees are fully cognizant of the process, it will be easier for them to use 360 feedback software. 

Here is a list of things to check for in a 360 feedback software.

Should Be Simple To Use

As mentioned above, there are multiple collaborators in 360 degree feedback, and some of them are external stakeholders. Every individual who will be part of the process may not be equally tech-savvy. So, it is essential to select a 360 feedback software which is easy to use and understand with no training. The user interface should be clutter free, and easy to move around.

With a pilot group of users, review free demo or trial versions of the software before investing in it for the organization.

Customization Of Features In 360 Feedback Software

When selecting a 360 feedback software, you can either choose a standard software which is developed by a vendor and is being used by different organizations, or you can choose a software that is flexible and supports customization based on organizational needs. With the changing pace of technology we would suggest to opt for a software which supports customization. Examples of customizable features are unique questionnaire templates for different employees, addition of unique competencies based on job roles, etc.

Also Read: Want To Measure Employee Engagement? Here’s How

Robust Security

One of the most important things to consider while selecting a 360 feedback software is its security features. Feedback received from managers, peers, customers, etc., is highly confidential and sensitive. If it leaks or falls in the wrong hands, it can cause lots of damage or can be put use to unlawful purposes. Before zeroing down on a vendor, ask them these three questions:

• How they secure their application data?
• What measures they will take if there is a data breach?
• Do they follow Information Security Laws of the respective country?

360 Feedback Software With Continuous Customer Support

In the current virtual working space where employees are working remotely from different time zones, a vendor with round-the-clock support is necessary. No matter how simple it is, the vendors of the software need to walk you through the entire process of giving and receiving 360 feedback through their software. Even employees use it regularly might face difficulty and need help and support. When there is a continuous support tech support present, it makes the job of employees easier if they face any difficulty.

Anonymous Feature

In a 360 degree feedback, not only does the employee receive feedback from the manager, but the manager receives feedback too. Employees, while sharing feedback about their managers and team leaders, might not be open and honest at times. Opting for a 360 feedback software with an anonymity option helps employees share honest feedback about their peers and managers alike. Anonymity is not only concerned with hiding one’s identity but also to prevent any unwanted altercations in the team. Additionally, they get to share their thoughts, opinions, and concerns with no hesitation.

Also Read: Signs That Your HR Department Is Overwhelmed

Insights And Analytics

Without detailed insights or analytics, a 360 degree feedback process would be of no use. It is crucial for a 360 feedback software to provide a detailed analysis of the feedback received, which makes it easier for employees to understand their strengths and weaknesses. But this is only possible when the report is comprehensive and highlights the potential blind spots, gaps, highest-rated areas, lowest rated areas, and ratings.

Are you planning to invest in a 360 feedback software? Then request for a live demo.

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