Last week I had a timely reminder about the importance of maintaining and keeping employee engagement activities going.
In our office we have a jar of jelly beans, you know the ones they come with a menu card and some wild flavours! Everyday at least one member of the team (I would say all of us really) dips into the jar, cooks up a jelly bean recipe and potters away from the jar with a smile on their face.
I can say smile on their face with absolute certainty. How?
Well some weeks ago we ran out of beans! We had been discussing putting something healthier in the jar at the beginning of the new year but no decision had been made, and so when we ran out of beans, the jar remained empty and some weeks passed.
Last week the jelly bean fairy arrived and we came to work to find the jar full! Here is my certainty about the smiles, there was excited chatter, laughter and all of a sudden ideas and work galore! This didn’t just last one day, it lasted all week! Visitors to the office had jelly beans too and excitedly commented on them, muttering they must get some of these for their office as well!
It reminded me of another company who had a monthly cake day, where they provided cakes for staff to have whilst they got together over a cuppa.
The business reason – to get everyone together so, everyone knows everyone, new people are welcomed, knowledge is shared and everyone had chance to talk to people they wouldn’t normally see in their day to day work. They suddenly changed the format and had cakes as part of the team briefing and were really taken by surprise with the outcry from all staff who valued this key opportunity and who also had a real love of the cakes. It had become such an integral part of the company culture that no one really took any notice of it until it was gone. It was re-instated in it’s previous and calm was restored!
So my message here, when you start engagement activities, don’t stop! If you need to stop, talk to staff first! And last but not least, if you don’t have something which makes people smile, get something!!
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Photo credit: Hayley
Article by Hayley Oats
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