21 Team Engagement Ideas, Perfect for 2024!

When it comes to motivating your team, a motivational list with team engagement ideas (like this one:) can be super helpful.

In this article, we dive into how to engage your team, and also how to use modern tools like Vouch to stay connected, all while building your invaluable employer brand.

Let's dive in and start getting your team more engaged!
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1. Develop an engaging onboarding process

From your initial recruitment process to onboarding, your employees will form their own workplace perceptions in the first few weeks. Great team engagement is a must during this initial onboarding time.

It also helps your current team to get to know your new team member, and this can also aid employee retention as you are being transparent with new employees, not making your current ones feel like their jobs are at stake. Your employee engagement strategy really needs to start well before team members even come on board!
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2. Manage to inspire, not to manage

While the boss mentality is required in some industries, especially where employee safety and well-being are concerned, in general, it's an outdated approach to management in most industries. Employees prefer advice, coaching, and nurturing over being bossed and told what to do - and this is also critical to building your employer brand so you can attract top talent in the first place.

Coaching your team also greatly improves employee engagement and performance, similar to a sports team with a bit of a Ted Lasso mindset. Put your employees first and help them succeed, and you will be rewarded with a high-performance team.

Note: If you are managing a remote team, you don't always need to host live videos to inspire. In fact, a simple weekly update with a video tool like Vouch can inform and inspire your employees, no matter where they are!
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3. Celebrate your people, not just their work

Your employees are more than their work. Celebrate your employees' and teammates' achievements outside of their work whenever possible. Genuinely celebrate an employee's birthday, help them promote their outside community work, celebrate their wedding anniversary, help them promote their band or their kid's cookie drive, throw a lunch for them finishing a race or event, and just celebrate their achievement in and out of the office.

The investment in your people will be returned, and this is the key to employee advocacy, which can be a game-changer for lots of companies.
 

4. Liven up the workplace

The 9-to-5 grind for most employees is "what work is," and it can wear even the best workers. Breaking up this routine once a week or more is key. Schedule a walking meeting instead of an office one to recharge and get outside, have team pow-wows at a local coffee shop, and even ask your employees what they would like to do - that will take your team engagement up another notch altogether.
 

5. Leave the office and have fun!

Like point four, socializing outside of work, like through a wellness program, also boosts employee engagement. Team-building when not working on clients or the usual workload is key to improving communication, working relationships, and overall job satisfaction.

The trick is to get the entire team involved in deciding on what to do, and not make it mandatory. You need to make the event fun and remember you are doing it for them. They are not doing it for you or to keep their jobs.
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6. Give new hires a buddy

Being a new employee can be daunting. There's not only all of the systems, but the team to get to know. Give new hires a buddy from another department or team to help them learn and take the stress out of onboarding. This not only lets workers meet coworkers outside their immediate group, but it can also open up cross-team communication later on, which can be invaluable. 

7. Celebrate the failures too!

Celebrating wins is easy. Celebrating failures, however, is key to building a deeper level of trust and responsibility. Being honest and vulnerable shows your team that "we can't always win, but we won't give up". On the flip side, if you ignore failures, your team will too, and that is not a good habit. Build team engagement by looking at the failure and working out what you could do differently next time - and do it over some lunch or a low-stress situation to help build employee morale.

8. Offer flexible work hours and locations

Your employees are adults, and when you hire good people, you can absolutely trust them to do their jobs. Research shows that this trust can increase productivity and engagement, as employees feel trusted when they can work where and how they want.

Be sure to give your employees the tools and support they need to work remotely and also to help them manage their outside-of-work chores, like school pickup. The goal is to build an ideal workplace where your team feels empowered to deliver their best work, foster a sense of community amongst the team, while also avoiding burnout.

9. Create feedback-safe spaces

Workers should always feel safe and know that their feedback isn't going to hurt their immediate jobs or career progression.

Building a trusting relationship is vital, and the employee feedback you get from this could be a game-changer for your entire team. Use emotional intelligence to determine if someone is ready to provide feedback on your workplace, and make sure they are entirely comfortable and confident that their feedback is going to help the wider team.

10. Form team feedback habits

Like point nine above (for individual feedback), getting your wider team's feedback is vital too! Every culture is made up of shared traditions, habits, artifacts, and a unique language, and when you have a process for gathering team feedback, your team becomes more united.

Consider starting a project sunrise and sunset process, where you have team feedback during the start and end of a project, or even daily in a stand-up to better understand what went right, and what can be improved on the next project or day's work. This agile process is really easy to implement, no matter how big or small your team is!

11. Ask employees about how they like to be recognized

Employee engagement is remarkably higher when they know they will be recognized for their hard work. But every person likes to be recognized in different ways. Some people like attention, others prefer a thank-you card or private message to avoid attention. You can give the most effective recognition by learning each of your team's preferred methods.

Note: Asking "How do you like to be recognized for your work?" is also an excellent question for your hiring process to get to know your employee's personalities even before they come on board.

12. Create social spaces

There's a reason tech companies love showing photos of their lunch rooms, ping pong tables, basketball hoops, and couches are good places to recharge. The reason is, people love to feel comfortable and have fun, even at work - and this goes a long way to attracting the best talent and building your employer brand and EVPs.

And not that we would promote it, but when you create these spaces, people will have no problems putting in longer hours when it's needed. Consider creating virtual rooms for remote workers to interact at the "coffee station" or "Tea bar" throughout the day. Create areas for employees to take breaks and socialize to create more engaged employees. 

13. Improve communications with simple software

Employee engagement tools like Vouch can make a huge impact in your workplace and lift communication and engagement. Vouch video is used by companies like Canva, Shopify, Amazon, Dropbox, HubSpot, and more, and there's a reason - to help build better communications.

The knock-on of having excellent communication tools is that you can build a more transparent and productive company culture, especially with remote employees. Remember the days of sending off an email to a colleague on an urgent project or client need and waiting 4 hours for a reply? No thanks. Tools like Slack and Vouch help your team to connect and engage.

14. Develop your staff

Retaining employees really does require professional development, no matter how big or small your company is, and no matter what industry you are in. Few people want to work for even 5 years in the same role anymore without feeling like they are making progress. 

Of course, in 2024, we are also seeing huge increases in living costs, so even if you can't afford to adjust wages to cater to inflation, offering training and development can help make your entire team feel like they are progressing and growing - and that matters.

Note: Training can also be done internally, and you can use video tools like Vouch to record your own training videos that your team can access at any time!

15. Make information and education highly accessible

Even if you have the world's best employee benefits and training videos already in place, they may not be the easiest to get to or find. Make benefits and career development information uber easy to find and access, and mention it on monthly team catch-ups so that your employees know that they have everything they need at their fingertips. This is also where Vouch video shines.

16. Start new traditions

If culture is shared traditions, habits, artifacts, and language, then creating new traditions is a great way to build your team engagement and strengthen long-term commitment amongst the team. These traditions could be as simple as a weekly Friday lunch session, where one of your team shares the biggest inspiration from the week, a monthly bring your dog to work day, all the way to annual company events, or trips where your team goes on a retreat.

There is no limit to making traditions, and tradition is a powerful tool, especially for employee retention. You can also ask your team to come up with their own traditions!

You can learn more about workplace culture in 2024 and why these traditions matter so much in this article.

17. Keeping in touch

Team engagement activities aside, simply "checking in" randomly can do wonders. This does not have to be on a daily basis, or even a weekly basis, but we are all so busy these days and with special projects or long-term projects, it can be easy to fall out of touch.

We also need to use emotional intelligence here, as lots of people around the world are feeling the economic pressures in 2024, so checking in and making sure your employees are okay really does matter, especially with a virtual team who you are not bumping into around the office.

18. Be reachable, always

Traditionally, managers sat in an office, and employees would have to schedule time to see them. This alone puts a massive wall in between employees and managers and can lead to decreased team engagement. By being easily reachable, you can show your team that you are one of the team too, and that you are all working in the same direction with the same mission.

19. Start moving more

Fitness challenges, gym memberships, etc, are great ways to get your team engaged. BUT, they are not for everyone. Whatever you do for your team should be inclusive for everyone. We know exercise is a must for every human's physical and mental well-being, so assess and ask your team about any fitness program they would like to have in the workplace.

This could be as simple as a weekly walk around the block, all the way to morning jogs or yoga and even yearly marathon challenges. There really is no limit. Just make sure that every employee is comfortable and excited about any initiative you implement.

20. Brainstorming sessions

We've saved some of the best for last! It amazes us how many companies fail to take advantage of brainstorming sessions, as they are key to employees feeling valued and employee satisfaction. You just need to approach them the right way (and not demotivate top talent).

The beauty of brainstorming sessions is that you don't have to have tangible outcomes. Just make sure you make that clear, as sometimes you will have a team member who has remarkable ideas, but they just might not be able to be implemented - and this could demotivate instead of motivate.

Keep your brainstorming session light and fun, and try to use reference points like a competitor's product or service, such as "How could we make a better product than X competitor?" and let your team inspire. 

21. Use video whenever possible

For our last tip, we need to mention video and Vouch, as teams like Canva, Shopify, Amazon, Dropbox, HubSpot, and more use these kinds of video tools to keep employees highly engaged. The beauty of one-way video is that you don't always need to get caught in live sessions; you can simply record a short video that updates and inspires your team - or even throw a question out to your team as you would on email, just with video as it is soo much more personal and engaging. 

Conclusion

Incorporating these kinds of team engagement ideas can have remarkable effects on your team morale and productivity, further enhancing the impact of your management efforts, company culture, and employer brand.

Tools like Vouch make team engagement remarkably easy, too, helping you create video content that connects and inspires, no matter where your team is or what time zones you may be in.
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Like to try Vouch?

Loved by companies like Canva, Nike, Cisco, Stryker, HubSpot, Amazon and more, tools like Vouch make leveraging video in your business remarkably easy.

Be sure to book a Vouch demo today and chat with a video content expert.