Gamify every aspect of employee engagement
In this new normal, companies of all sizes are scrambling to do everything – everything – they can do to remain successful and relevant to their clients and prospects. And that struggle gets significantly more difficult as a company with more than 50,000 employees worldwide suddenly goes distributed and remote.
In this use-case, we’ll discuss how this financial institution needed to deliver cultural cohesion and while unifying their culture during a global pandemic on a single platform.
Catching up? Read Wellbeing and Mindfulness in the New Normal Part One
Problem
There’s a point in a company’s evolution where culture can lose its identity based on not being able to deliver community, wellbeing, and recognition to employees in a way that doesn’t cost thousands of people hours just to manage it. And that’s precisely what this company was experiencing.
For example, they had designed their intranet to integrate with multiple individual point-solutions for challenges, achievements, and rewards.
When the crisis occured, they attempted to use their existing technology to their cultural advantage. But, it turned out, everyone across the board was quickly frustrated by the user experience. Lack of adoption, cost of implementation, and management became impossible. Also, employees’ needs in the moment were dramatically altered.
Additionally – they were still looking for talent around the globe.
Solution
The company started looking for an all-in-one attraction and engagement solution and ended up with a complete end-to-end culture benefits platform.
Reverse-engineering the discussion from the extreme evolving engagement challenges HR was facing day-to-day, the conversation quickly ignited to challenges and achievements. This became a primary focus area for the HR team, as they could immediately see the value of engaging employees at scale with activities that directly impacted employee happiness and mindfulness through gamification.
While it seems counterintuitive, people needed breaks in their daily mayhem to connect with their workplace culture and human connection. HR and appointed administrators could quickly launch engagement challenges on anything and everything – where they previously were focused on new-hire onboarding, learning and development, and team cohesion, now they were saddled with all that and everything virtual. Total wellbeing became the ultimate – from mental health and community to volunteering, meditation, virtual happy and coffee hours, affinity-group-to-affinity group challenges, this program became the connectivity point for culture.
With rewards and achievements fulfillment capability built-in, HR and managers also had a fast way to reward employees, for example, via virtual experiences or home comforts for winning first place in the company culture challenge.
Prior to the crisis, they were on a mission to bottom-up their culture so as not to be too big or seemingly lacking in innovation to retain and attract talent. When the pandemic hit and during major societal upheaval and political strife, they solved a multitude of challenges, actionable analytics, and a better grasp on their company ethos. Additionally, while layoffs were sweeping, they were able to find the right talent to fit roles remotely. In the “war on talent,” culture and fortitude won.
Finally, with challenges and achievements as a platform, this company was able to discover their true internal culture champions, unify their people in community, and in ways that were gamified and rewarding.
Here are some examples of virtual challenges that support the new normal.
- Employee onboarding and culture immersion and training
- Learning and development participation both live and recorded
- Invitation to launch or join an employee resource group, affinity, or community group
- Give a peer-to-peer award
- Volunteer in your local community
- Participate in peaceful protest
- Join a virtual fitness, meditation, gardening, or cooking class, and virtual talent show
- Volunteer to be a bi-directional mentor for multi-generational employees
Your challenge champions
Once your culture challenge is complete, then what? There is a multitude of ways HR can reward challenge champions. For example, providing company-branded swag or access to a rewards marketplace. You can also reward according to the level achieved. Some companies add winners into a raffle for higher value prizes. There are also opportunities to pay for an annual contribution to an HSA. For example, your top tier champions could receive $500 additional for the year and your second-tier winners could receive $200. For self-insured companies, healthier and more active employees cost less in terms of sick days and even injuries. So why not reward them accordingly? It’s a win-win for all.
Be a culture magnet
Your culture is your company’s greatest asset. Learn of to leverage culture challenges to strengthen cultural cohesion in the new normal! the greatest asset you have because your people define it. This is the time for companies to create a great virtual place to work while integrating play into everyday activities.
Your culture is the greatest asset you have because your people define it. This is the time for companies to create a great virtual place to work while integrating play into everyday activities.
Espresa is doing our part to help our employees, clients, partners, and companies out there that need help. “We launch these challenges monthly for our own company and clients,” discussed Espresa CEO, Alex Shubat. “Our Espresa Free Rangers team is now fully remote and are remaining actively connected as peers and as a culture.”
Espresa is offering free live virtual yoga, Zumba, HIIT, and other classes twice per week, app-based employee engagement challenges, and our communities’ platform to keep your culture intact and thriving.
