A guide to Employee Engagement amidst a global pandemic.

With the pandemic at rage, our work life has undergone the biggest transition of this decade: the Work From Home culture.

Like every other organizational change, good or bad, our HRs are in the front line finding innovative ways to help us manoeuvre this change. Be it onboarding new recruits or keeping the team together at such testing times, our HRs are on their A game.

Thanks to the contribution of Kahn, Attridge, Shuck and Wollard, the world today is well aware of the importance of having engaged employees (Dagher, Chapa, & Junaid, 2015).

True Indeed! An engaged employee is one who feels passionately about their work and believes they make a difference. At a time like this, we need those people with us putting their all to keep us in business. So, Kudos! You’ve done a great job this far. More so, because you’re here finding more ways to show your employees how much they Matter! You’ll find incredible content on ideas for employee engagement on Google. But if you think, this is another drop in the same pool, you’re far from right. We have handpicked a few things you can do for your employees from the safety of your own homes and also keeping them at their homes.

1. Send a Care Package to their doorstep:

Put together a gift box, simple yet exquisite, with a list of items that could bring a smile to the face of your employees. Customize it with a card that says it all. You can add themes to your boxes. Put in some summer essentials and you have got a tropical summer package. Put in some munchies, a few Knick knacks and you have the Netflix and Chill Box. Pack it with healthy trail mix, Powdered health drinks and a few gym gears and you have already won over the health-freaks in your team. If you’re thinking, that’s a good idea but it’s a lot of work to select the best products from all the options out there, assembling them for the entire team and getting them shipped, you could simply pick a vendor who does it for you with all their professional expertise. Visit www.mattergifts.in for a Package that they made with care to be shipped to your beloved team with your company’s customization. The Covid Care Essential Kadha Mix, Masks and Sanitizers that come with every package is just the perfect way to wrap a care package up, we think. Scroll through https://snacknation.com/blog/care-package-ideas/, https://swag.com/blog/work-from-home-care-package-ideas for more ideas on themes of care packages.

2.Award an Experience:

Bring a cool twist to your good old Pizza Fridays from when we were back at office. Send them a pizza perfectly timed with a mail containing a list of movies to pick and binge on. You could browse https://www.tinggly.com/ or https://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/fashion/g34565548/best-experiences-to-gift/ for ideas on gifting experiences. But if they don’t seem feasible with the pandemic, MATTER has a couple of these up their sleeves that don’t seem to get in the way of social distancing. Here’s two for free: A DIY Pasta kit. Or you could gift a coupon to online cooking course. These gifts stand out and you can rest assured that engaging in these activities will make them feel more rejuvenated than ever. The world is everybody’s oyster. Put them in touch with that.

3.One on One Lunch:

Invite a fellow colleague to share a meal with you over video chat. A heartly and homely meal, good conversations and laughter will go a long way in keeping your team engaged. Best, when coupled with a timely delivery of care package or experience kit. If you want to take it up a notch, invite them to play something online post lunch and keep the quality time going. Scout https://teambuilding.com/blog/online-team-building-games, https://www.actitime.com/remote-work-guide/online-team-building-activities/ for a few ideas of fun games that make your bonds strong and makes your asset feel valued.

4.Face to face Meetings (Duh, through the screen ofcourse):

Meetings Matter, but have you tried Turning on the video once in a while? And if you want to create a special event all around it, by all means go ahead. Maybe even celebrate the unboxing of their gifts.

5.Health Challenges:

A gamified workout routine could be extremely helpful to ensure your valued assets value their health. Just ask them to grab the first conducive location they see and get started with their daily targets. Keep rewards in the end. MatterGifts might come up handy with that too. You could gift them online classes from CultFit, https://bit.ly/3fuJ6aQ. And to get them started you could send something like this:

It gets very easy and comfortable to reduce your work interactions to bare minimum weekly meetings, necessary phone calls and endless hours looking at a laptop screen. But use these ideas to give them a reason to want to work. We hope you find these ideas worth giving a try. They are easy to execute, doesn’t burn a hole in your pockets and are super impactful. To top it all, you get to bring a smile on someone’s face. And we can’t put a price on that.