Effective team-building icebreaker questions can do more than entertain – they can also increase team engagement and foster a more collaborative work environment.
WHAT ARE GOOD TEAM BUILDING QUESTIONS?
Good team-building questions encourage open communication, mutual understanding, and a sense of camaraderie among team members.
7 Qualities Of Good Team Building Questions
1. Promote Openness and Sharing: Framing questions to help encourage team members to share personal insights, experiences, and preferences can build trust and understanding among team members.
2. Be Inclusive and Respectful: The questions should be inclusive, considering team members’ diverse backgrounds and experiences. They should avoid sensitive topics that might make someone uncomfortable.
3. Foster Connection and Relatability: Effective team-building questions often relate to everyday experiences or interests, making it easier for team members to find common ground and connect on a personal level.
4. Encourage Positive Interaction: They should be light-hearted and fun, avoid contentious topics, and focus on eliciting positive responses that can lead to laughter and bonding.
5. Be Varied and Flexible: A mix of questions about personal preferences, hypothetical scenarios, and light-hearted choices keeps the activity engaging and caters to different personalities.
6. Align with Team Goals: The questions can also be tailored to align with specific team goals or themes, such as collaboration, creativity, or problem-solving.
7. Safe and Comfortable: They should create a safe space for sharing, where team members feel comfortable and not judged or put on the spot.
In essence, good team-building questions are those that not only break the ice but also lay the foundation for meaningful, more cohesive team relationships. They should be enjoyable and engaging and contribute to a better understanding and appreciation of each team member’s unique qualities.
How To Use Icebreaker Questions In Team Environments Effectively
Effective icebreakers help put people at ease and encourage open communication, making them a pivotal part of any team-building activity. Many people cringe or worry that team-building may feel awkward.
However, picking the right questions for team-building can help ensure you avoid negative reactions to the discussion. Ideally, effective icebreakers cut through social tensions as teams gather in person or in remote environments.
While leaders may feel a bit anxious the first time they incorporate icebreaker questions, these ideas for workplace improvement can help inspire more connection. And, the more a team seeks to know and understand one another, the process becomes easier and more acceptable.
Effective icebreakers can help create a positive and engaging environment for group activities, leading to better communication, collaboration, and relationships among participants.
Do you need help understanding your team’s personalities, communication styles, and work preferences? With Cloverleaf, you can access a variety of free personality tests for employees, including Enneagram, DISC, and 16-Types, to gain personalized insights into each member of your team.
6 Ways Workplace Ice Breaker Questions Can Build Stronger Teams
Carefully crafted icebreaker questions move teams beyond the basic information like personality type to inspire learning about:
Strengths
Weaknesses
Work Preferences
Communication Styles
Motivations
Conflict Triggers
Building personal connections with your team is critical for fostering collaboration and increasing emotional intelligence in the workplace. When members know each other on a deeper level, they are more likely to trust one another, communicate effectively, and work towards a common goal.
By leveraging assessment data, Cloverleaf provides personalized insights and Automated Coaching™ about every individual within a team. These insights can help inspire meaningful questions to unlock a team’s potential to communicate and collaborate effectively.
HOW TO INTRODUCE ICEBREAKER QUESTIONS
When it comes to introducing icebreaker questions to your team, it’s important to choose the right time and place. Springing these types of questions without warning can catch people off guard, resulting in awkward or flustered responses.
Alternatively, you can make these questions a regular part of your team’s routine by integrating them into daily or weekly stand-up meetings, newsletters, or even on a whiteboard in a common area.
The Best Strategies for Building Connections and Boosting Collaboration in Virtual Workplaces
Building connections within a hybrid work model has become more important as remote collaboration becomes increasingly prevalent. Adjusting to this new style of work can be challenging, and many remote workers struggle with feelings of isolation and imposter syndrome.
Incorporating questions that inspire learning about one another into your team meetings is an effective strategy for combating these feelings. Keep the exercise fresh and engaging by varying the types of questions at each meeting. This will help prevent the exercise from feeling repetitive or stale and will keep your members enthusiastic about connecting.
Ready To Empower Team Building At Work?
13 TYPES OF TEAM BUILDING QUESTIONS
Effective team building requires thoughtful consideration. Depending on factors such as your team’s timing, location, and unique dynamics, you may need to pivot to different lines of questions. To help guide this process, below are various examples of questions to draw on.
Keep in mind questions can be a powerful tool for building camaraderie and fostering collaboration in the workplace. However, it’s important to use them appropriately to avoid potential backfires. Before introducing team-building questions, ask yourself whether the question is appropriate for the situation and will contribute to building a stronger team dynamic.
17 General Questions To Learn More About Team Members
Workplace icebreaker questions can be a great way to learn more about your fellow team members in a low-pressure and light-hearted way.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be, and why?
What is a piece of advice from a mentor or family member that stuck with you?
What are some items on your bucket list?
Are you a night person or a morning person?
Do you have any hidden talents?
What would you tell your younger self?
What’s your favorite musical instrument?
What would you take with you if you were going to be stuck on a deserted island?
What was the best gift you got? Did you get it for your birthday, Christmas, or another celebration?
Do you consider yourself a dog person or a cat person?
What did you think about first when you woke up this morning?
Do you have siblings, or are you an only child?
Did you grow up in the country or the city?
Do you speak multiple languages? If so, which ones?
What’s your favorite family tradition?
Are you ever mistaken for someone else?
What’s your favorite book? Have you read it more than once?
6 Travel-Related Questions
Do you prefer to go to the mountains or the ocean?
Do you like hot weather or cold weather when you travel?
What country would you move to if you had the chance to move abroad?
What was your first vacation spot?
Have you been outside of the country?
Do you look for keepsakes when you travel to remember your trip?
10 Either-Or Questions
Marvel or DC?
Fall or spring?
iPhone or Android?
Beach or mountains?
Driving or flying?
Cold or hot weather?
Left or right-handed?
McDonald’s or Burger King?
Pepsi or Coke?
Ice cream or cake?
8 “If You Could” Questions
If you could have dinner with anyone, alive or dead, who would you choose and why?
If you could cure any disease or ailment, what would you choose?
If you could earn $500,000 to give up your smartphone for 2 years, would you do it?
If you suddenly became a billionaire, would you still work?
If you could experience something again for the first time, what would it be?
If you could go back in time 10 years and retain all your current memories, would you?
If you could have the choice to be famous, would you do it?
If you could earn $20 million dollars by giving up one important thing in your life forever, what would it be?
9 Job-Related Questions
What is your morning routine?
What is your dream job?
How did you leave your worst job?
What would your perfect office space be like?
Do you like working remotely or prefer to work in an office?
What work-from-home (WFH) accessory can you not live without?
What beverage do you prefer to drink while you work?
Do you feel more productive if you work at a specific time of day? Or in a particular area of your house?
Have you ever worked in your pajamas or sweatpants?
10 Childhood Icebreaker Questions
What cartoon character did you love growing up?
What’s your earliest childhood memory?
When did you get your first job?
What subject did you enjoy the most in school?
What subject did you like the least while you were in school?
Did you play on sports teams while in school? Or were you involved in a band or theater?
Have you kept any of your childhood hobbies into adulthood?
What toy did you take with you everywhere you went?
Did you ever have an imaginary friend? What were they like? What did you call them?
What job did you want to have when you grew up? Would you still take that job if you could get it?
What was your favorite costume to wear at Halloween?
9 “Would You Rather” Team Building Questions
Would you rather land your dream job or win the lottery?
Would you rather go to a loud party or a quiet get-together?
Would you rather retire early or work an easy career?
Would you rather be indoors or outdoors?
Would you rather drive or fly somewhere?
Would you rather scuba dive or hike up a mountain?
Would you rather work alone or with a team?
Would you rather lead a team or work for a great leader?
Would you rather have one long, 3-week vacation or three 1-week vacations?
11 Favorite Food Questions
What is your favorite food?
What is your favorite breakfast food?
What food do you never want to eat again?
What’s the weirdest food you ever ate?
What culture or country makes your favorite style of food?
What toppings would you put on your ideal pizza? How do you feel about pineapple and ham?
If you could only eat one kind of ice cream for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Do you prefer sweet, spicy, or savory snacks?
What fast food restaurant do you prefer? What do you order when you go there?
Do you like the drive-thru, or would you rather walk in to place your order?
What’s your favorite cocktail or alcoholic beverage?
10 Pop-Culture and Famous Person Questions
What’s your favorite movie?
What famous individual would you like to meet?
Do you know the lyrics to your favorite song?
What cartoon character best reflects your personality?
Who is your favorite late-night talk show host?
Who is your favorite superhero?
If you could only watch one movie, what would it be?
What is your favorite video game?
What genre of music do you like to listen to when you work? Is that your favorite genre?
What movie or show do you think is completely overrated?
8 Weird and Outrageous Team Building Questions
What is your biggest fear?
If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be and why?
Would you choose to fly or teleport?
If you could be one age forever, what age would you choose?
If you could bring back any trend, what would you choose?
Have you ever pretended not to see someone in public so you didn’t have to talk to them?
What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?
If you were given $2M dollars to live in a dark room with no light for 30 days, would you do it?
If someone gave you one million dollars, what would you do with it?
9 Questions About Values And Purpose
If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?
What’s your biggest addiction?
If you were a teacher, what would you teach?
Who is your personal hero?
What’s the best gift you’ve ever received?
What’s the most important quality of a friend?
What product do you refuse to use or promote?
Do you do any volunteer work?
What personal traits do you dislike the most about yourself?
9 Music, Movie, And Book Questions
What is your favorite music genre?
What’s your favorite movie?
What’s your favorite book?
What’s your favorite TV show?
Have you ever acted? What was your role?
What’s your favorite song to listen to when you’re feeling down?
What was your favorite band in high school?
What’s the worst movie you’ve ever seen?
What’s your favorite childhood movie?
19 Funny Icebreaker Questions
Do you brush your teeth before or after breakfast?
What fashion trend from the 90s do you miss?
What embarrassing thing happened at your last job?
If you went on a talk show, what would you say?
Do you have a funny skill?
What do you have as the background on your phone or computer?
What was your worst haircut? Do you ever have bad hair days?
Have you named your car or vehicle? If so, what do you call it, and why did you pick the name?
What’s your favorite slang phrase or word?
Would you like to add a word to the dictionary? If so, what and why?
What color crayon do you think would taste the best?
Who gave you the worst advice you ever received, and what was the advice? Did you listen to it?
If a genie gave you three wishes, what would you wish for and why?
If the day suddenly had 25 hours instead of 24, what would you do with the extra hour?
What is your favorite emoji, and why?
What name would you pick if you were a professional wrestler?
Do you consider a hotdog to be a sandwich? What about a taco?
What is the weirdest dream you ever had? Do you ever have recurring dreams?
What would you do if aliens landed in your backyard?
5 Affordable Activities to Cultivate Camaraderie and Improve Performance
After you ask team-building questions, you can move on to team-building activities to further strengthen the bond between your fellow team members. We recommend activities like:
#1: Trivia
Team trivia nights give you a chance to put the information you’ve learned about your teammates into action. Ask co-workers to send in ideas for questions about themselves, like “What is my favorite candy?” or “How many pets do I have?”
You may make these questions multiple-choice if your team is still getting to know one another. For example, you could have a question like:
What is the name of Linda’s cat?
A: Beatrice
B: Sweetpea
C: Marigold
D: Linda doesn’t have a cat
Make sure that you keep track of all the answers provided by your team members. The team member who gets the most correct answers should receive a small prize at the end of the game!
#2: Bingo
Set up a bingo game for a great way to indulge your team’s competitive impulses. You can find online bingo cards that allow you to send out sheets to everyone. Use a bingo set to roll for numbers or an online random alphanumeric generator.
Consider alternating the ” caller ” role to allow everyone to fill out a bingo card. Bring rewards for the winner to keep everyone engaged and excited!
#3: Charades
Charades represent a great way to get everyone moving and laughing. Assign teams to work together. Charades can even work for remote meetings, though you may need to give your teammates time to make space in their office.
Re-arrange teams throughout the game to allow different people to work together or let pairs of your employees bond as they strive to gather the most points during the game.
#4: Community Service
Consider giving back to the community as part of your team-building activities. Select a charity or organization that means a lot to you, and set up a time for your team to participate in a day of service.
Community service activities give you a way to get out of the office, but be sure to consider team member who works remotely.
#5: Team Coffee
Why not get out of the office for a while as part of a team-building activity? Take your team to a favorite coffee shop and find out what everyone prefers to drink. If you have a virtual team, everyone can get their own coffee and meet up for a Zoom meeting.
For an after-hours meet-up, consider a virtual happy-hour gathering. Everyone can mix their own drinks – or open a bottle of wine – and relax while focusing on something besides work.
Asking the Right Questions: Learning to Build Trust and Collaboration With Teammates
Ultimately, the decision on what questions to ask should be based on your unique team and situation. Consider factors such as team dynamics, individual personalities, and goals when selecting the most appropriate questions.
Think about teammates’ personalities, communication styles, and interests. Are they known for their sense of humor, or are they more reserved? Do they prefer to keep to themselves, or do they enjoy discussing their personal lives outside of work?
By considering these factors, you can select team-building questions that are more likely to resonate with your team members and encourage open communication and connection.
By tailoring your questions to individual preferences and characteristics, you can create a more personalized and engaging experience that encourages open communication and builds trust.
At Cloverleaf, we understand the importance of personalization and development in building high-performing teams. We turn assessment data into Automated Coaching™ to helps teams improve performance, increase collaboration, and build stronger relationships. To learn more about the unique insights and coaching, click the button above.
For organizations striving to improve their workplace experience, it’s critical to first evaluate the effectiveness of their leaders. According to Gallup®, managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across business units. What does this mean? To explore ideas for workplace improvement, one might first consider ideas for improving management skills within their leaders.
An employee’s experience with their manager will outweigh their overall workplace experience.
Organizations must know by now about the importance of incorporating an employee engagement strategy and how it impacts the work environment team members experience.
Leaders responsible for people strategy must prioritize leadership effectiveness. To do so, they must raise expectations for all who lead within the organization.
A Healthy Workplace Environment Requires More Than Technical Management Skills
Managing is about organizing, transacting, sorting, and problem-solving. It’s the tactical side of leading. Effective leadership comes from honed relationship-building and communication skills.
It would be great for work cultures if people were born with innate leadership skills; however, this is not the case (which is still up for debate amongst many scholars!).
Technical expertise or subject matter knowledge often lands individuals in leadership roles, but these skills do not guarantee effective leadership. Leading, motivating, and developing others require distinct abilities beyond managing.
Successfully navigating uncertainty and the modern challenges of management requires a more emotionally intelligent workplace and leader. Leaders at every level need to engage in professional development consistently. Those who do stand to improve company culture, build relationships, and experience retention.
3 Central Ideas For Workplace Improvement
Evaluate Leadership Effectiveness Within Your Organization
Leaders must determine their effectiveness to improve workplace experience, job satisfaction among team members, and employee performance. This means evaluating leadership effectiveness across functions and at every level of leadership.
Establishing a baseline allows organizations to identify growth areas and develop ideas for workplace improvement. By taking action to support leaders in reaching their potential, organizations can create a culture of open communication and personal development.
The following survey questions can help your team assess leadership effectiveness throughout your organization: (It is best to use a Likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree) to gauge critical areas like well-being, teamwork, and workplace culture.
14 Questions To Measure Leadership Effectiveness
My manager articulates clear and consistent expectations to me in a timely fashion.
I feel comfortable approaching my manager with questions or challenges.
My manager effectively communicates with our team as a whole.
I feel respected and valued by my manager.
My manager takes my ideas and feedback into consideration about work-related matters.
My manager is open to feedback from me.
When warranted, my manager gives me specific and relevant recognition.
My manager provides opportunities for me to grow and develop in my role.
I feel comfortable respectfully disagreeing with my manager.
Senior leaders clearly articulate company goals and values.
My manager gives me positive or constructive feedback in a timely manner.
Senior leaders are open to ideas and feedback.
I feel heard and respected by senior leaders.
(Open response). If there was one thing you wish you could change about your relationship with your current manager, what would it be and why?
Creating a feedback loop can help organizations demonstrate company values, share ideas, and support a positive work environment. Giving employees consistent opportunities to share their input openly and acting upon the data gathered is a surefire to engage your team.
After an organization establishes a baseline for leadership effectiveness, people strategy leaders can make informed decisions around initiatives to leverage leadership strengths and fill identified gaps.
Prioritize Coaching In The Workplace
Supporting leaders in their development will often require educating them on the importance of adopting a coach approach to leadership. Practicing a coaching approach to leading implores people managers to shift their focus from telling and directing to asking and developing others.
Mutual trust is essential in coaching relationships, but it takes time and consistency to build. When feedback or coaching is given without mutual trust, it can be difficult for employees to receive. Leaders must cultivate a psychologically safe and supportive relationship to foster a coaching environment.
Leaders Who Listen Create Engaging Workplaces
At the heart of coaching lies a simple yet powerful act: listening. Too often, leaders talk too much! It’s easier for them to tell, instruct, train, or share stories from their experiences. These management styles are sometimes valuable, but without applying a coach approach too, leaders create workplaces where people report feeling undervalued. Employees feeling undervalued and unrecognized can result in disengagement, a significant driver of the dreaded “T-word” – turnover.
HUMAN SKILL PROGRAMS ARE HITTING LIMITATIONS...
- Close the widening gap between learning and on-the-job application
- Overcome the tension of pausing productivity for development opportunities
- Integrate learning so it is actually in the flow of work
- The evolution of human skill development
- What Automated Coaching™ is and how it works.
Leverage Automated Coaching To Fast-Track Leadership Development
If organizations want to experience the benefits of coaching, they must provide their leaders and team members with the necessary tools to develop self-awareness. Doing so will also empower self-management and inspire collaboration throughout their teams.
Associating coaching with human resources, team-building activities, or training program initiatives is normal. And yes, training programs can help, but they often require a lot of planning, resources, and mindshare to get off the ground.
Automated Coaching is a faster, more effective way to develop the coaching muscles of the leaders, teams, and individuals inside an organization.
It’s no secret that leaders are busy and need efficient ways to help their teams strengthen communication, increase collaboration, and resolve conflicts quickly.
Daily coaching moments relevant to their schedule and interactions can help team members authentically connect. Experiencing in-the-moment coaching concerning themselves and how to manage their teams effectively can provide quick and subtle shifts to help leaders develop high-performing teams and engaged employees.
Every conscious decision to consider one’s leadership approach and the unique individuals one works alongside creates can add up to a positive work environment. The workplace will significantly improve as leaders and team members build mutual trust.
Encourage Work-Life Balance
Promoting work-life balance for employees is essential for improving the workplace and encouraging your team’s well-being. Employees with a healthy balance between their personal and work lives feel a greater sense of purpose and more willingly engage in their work.
It isn’t just about attracting talent. It’s retaining them. And that’s more important than ever… When employers support their employees’ work-life balance, they can enhance employees’ healthy lifestyles and keep them on board. – entrepreneur.com
By giving employees more control over their schedules, they can balance their personal and work life, resulting in greater job satisfaction and lower stress levels.
Many employers are also exploring hybrid work models that allow employees to work from home or other locations. This flexibility significantly benefits employees by cutting commuting costs, allowing them to lean into their work style and saving time.
Final Thoughts
People want to work and be part of a healthy workplace culture where they can contribute and grow. Leaders who practice coaching, understand the workforce’s desire for flexible work schedules, and recognize and appreciate employees’ unique talents will likely create a positive culture. Organizations that invest in workplace improvement focusing on leadership effectiveness foster environments where employees desire a future within the company.
The hybrid work model has become increasingly popular as it offers a unique blend of benefits, including increased engagement, autonomy, and collaboration. It represents a new work era where employees can choose where and when they work best, and organizations can foster a culture of trust, creativity, and productivity.
Although some employers may require a set number of days for hybrid employees to be in the office, a recent Gallup® poll shows that only 43% of employees reported having such a requirement.
Recently, Tuesday through Thursday appear to be the days that hybrid employees often choose to work in-office and are also the days that most employers require employees to work in-office.
Hybrid work has been around for a long time, but it’s evolved with new standards, challenges, and best practices. Companies are wisely exploring the best ways to balance in-office and remote work to meet the needs of their employees and the organization.
What Is Different About The Workplace Compared To Previous Years?
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the work landscape experienced a transformation, with hybrid work models emerging as a new demand for employers to figure out. Below are significant factors that influence the meaning and significance of hybrid workplaces.
Rapid-Changing Technology
The widespread adoption of cloud computing, collaboration tools, and virtual communication platforms has made remote work more accessible and efficient. This has enabled organizations to adopt hybrid work models, providing employees with increased flexibility in where they work.
Changing Employees Attitude
COVID-19 accelerated the change in employees’ perspectives on work, with many now placing greater importance on work-life balance. This shift in attitudes has led to a growing demand for hybrid work arrangements.
What people are looking for isn’t flexibility of location. It’s the flexibility of time. The pandemic has shown everybody that we’re whole humans. All this hybrid talk misses the fact that it’s not the geography, the location. It’s the flexibility of being a whole human. – Marcus Buckingham
Employees care about balancing in-person and remote because it enables them to prioritize life outside work, leading to a more well-rounded and fulfilling life.
New Management Approaches
Bridging the gap between remote and in-person teams and facilitating seamless collaboration requires different thinking, new tools, streamlined processes, and transparent communication to ensure they have the resources to manage and support a hybrid workforce effectively.
Increasing Focus on Employee Wellbeing
Exploring how to motivate employees is driven by recognizing that happy and healthy employees are more productive, engaged, and likely to stay with the organization for longer.
It’s imperative for employers to understand and facilitate hybrid work models that acknowledge individuals’ humanity. If not, leaders will retain top talent and high-potential employees.
HUMAN SKILL PROGRAMS ARE HITTING LIMITATIONS...
- Close the widening gap between learning and on-the-job application
- Overcome the tension of pausing productivity for development opportunities
- Integrate learning so it is actually in the flow of work
- The evolution of human skill development
- What Automated Coaching™ is and how it works.
Applying The Hybrid Work Model
The hybrid work model blends remote and in-person work for flexibility and better work-life balance. It is designed to accommodate flexibility within two primary dimensions; time and place, or in other words, when and where.
The Time Factor (When)
The time factor in a hybrid work model transitions employees from working synchronously with others to working asynchronously whenever they choose.
The Location Factor (Where)
This component allows employees to choose where they work. The options for a work location expand outside the office, including working from home or wherever the employee sees fit.
It’s best to envision both dimensions upon a quadrant because there is room for variation in how organizations exercise these two elements.
Office-Centric: Employees are expected to work in-office the majority of the time according to a mostly fixed schedule.
Remote-Centric: WFA is the only option for all employees and during times that are best for their schedule.
Time-Friendly: Employees can mostly choose their working hours but still require most of their time to be spent in the office.
Location-Friendly: Team members can work from anywhere but generally during the same times as others on the team.
Hybrid Work Model: A truly hybrid work model exists with fluidity for teams to shift within the quadrant according to the team and individual needs. Doing so gives team members autonomy and trust while expressing expectations for remote collaboration and teamwork.
Hybrid workers view their work as a “flow.” Hybrid workers are willing to work outside traditional work hours to balance their personal needs during the day.
As you can imagine, this flexibility is especially beneficial for individuals with unique situations, parents with children, or who prefer to manage their time and responsibilities with deeper trust.
How To Determine Which Model Is Best For Your Team
There are several questions to ask to help decide how your team can start implementing or improving your hybrid work model:
Based on the Hybrid Work Model, what extremes exist within our team, and how can we move them closer toward the center?
Which areas of our organization are suited for hybrid work?
What processes and workflows are necessary to support this environment within our organization?
What tools can we implement to support efficient, timely, and collaborative communication?
What values must our leaders adopt or model to influence supportive behavior within this environment?
Organizations can ensure that their hybrid work model is effective and sustainable in the long term by prioritizing communication and collaboration and investing in the right tools and workflows.
Adapting To A Hybrid Work Model Could Help Improve Your Culture
Hybrid work offers several advantages, such as improved work-life balance, reduced burnout, higher productivity, and less commuting time.
Hybrid work environments promote a sense of ownership and accountability among employees. With the ability to work in remote and in-person settings, employees naturally experience more autonomy and trust to manage their workloads and schedules, fostering transparency and open communication.
Additionally, the increased flexibility and focus on work-life balance can result in higher employee morale and well-being, contributing to a more positive and supportive work environment. Moreover, remote work can help reduce turnover and attract new talent who value flexibility and independence.
Adapting to remote work options is one of the strategies for increasing employee engagement. When employees can choose where and when they work, they feel more in control and can tailor their schedules to meet their personal needs. For more on this, visit the post: Creating An Employee Engagement Strategy For A Human-Centered Workplace.
Who Wants To Work From Home Or At Office Or Both?
The desire for remote work or a hybrid work model varies depending on the individual and their personal preferences, work style, and job responsibilities. Some people may prefer the structure and routine of working in an office, while others may enjoy the freedom and flexibility of working from home. Others may find that the ideal solution is a hybrid model that allows them to split their time between working from home and the office.
Many companies are now finding that not all of their employees don’t want to come back to the office; their older employees don’t want to come back to the office. Younger employees actually do because, for people in their twenties in particular, the office is a source of social connection. –Jason Feifer, entrepreneur.com
The success of remote and hybrid work models has led to a greater emphasis on results-based performance rather than the number of hours spent in the office.
It could be that people don’t want to be back in an office all day, every day. Because the problem is that nobody has thought about what happens next when somebody returns to the office. People don’t want to just be in a room. Nobody cares about that. People want connection. Maybe there’s a different way to do that. –Jason Feifer, entrepreneur.com
Clearly, the workforce desires more from their work and employer; they want meaning and fulfillment. People want their life and work to matter and to flow seamlessly together as much as possible. Hybrid work models could be a way to achieve greater levels of flexibility, collaboration, and fulfillment.
Best Practices for Hybrid Work Environments
While hybrid work models offer several benefits, they also come with their own set of challenges. Hybrid employees may face difficulties accessing work resources and equipment or experience feelings of disconnection from the company’s culture and their colleagues.
Maintaining work relationships with teammates can also be more challenging for hybrid workers, affecting team dynamics and collaboration. Additionally, it can be difficult for hybrid workers to develop their careers within an organization if there is a decrease in personal and professional familiarity with their colleagues and managers.
To overcome these challenges, companies must proactively strategize to ensure that hybrid workers fully integrate into the company culture by providing resources, tools, and support to facilitate their success.
To capitalize on the benefits of hybrid work while steering clear of the potential detriments, leaders, and employees should consider the following three suggestions.
Define Work-Home Boundaries
Working remotely can lead to increased productivity, providing best practices are implemented to set up a conducive work environment to minimize distractions.
Set boundaries with family members
Block off non-negotiable times or days to work
Create a workspace conducive to productivity
Individuals can minimize distractions and maintain focus during work by defining these boundaries and communicating them when necessary. For tips, visit the post: How to Stay Happy and Productive While Working Remotely.
Prioritize Team Building
Hybrid work arrangements can lead to less in-person interaction with teammates. This limitation is potentially problematic, affecting trust and information sharing. Therefore, it is essential to incorporate team-building activities into hybrid work environments to create opportunities for employees to interact with each other, share common interests, and build camaraderie.
Here is a list of virtual ideas to help your team get started:
Coffee breaks
Designated lunch hour where remote and in-office workers can chat over lunch in break-out rooms
Trivia
Book clubs
Fitness challenges
Happy hours
Collaborative music playlists
Designated communication channels to share non-work updates or life events
With some creativity and intentionality, hybrid teams can build strong relationships and collaborate effectively, regardless of their physical location.
Practice Consistent Communication
Virtual leadership can be complex in a hybrid work model. Regular check-ins are a great way to establish a time for communication between leaders, teams, and teammates.
Establishing a cadence for check-ins within a hybrid work model should happen in several contexts that primarily include:
All-Team (think once a quarter)
Leadership Team (think once a week)
Manager and Team Member (think once a week)
Peer To Peer: (think project-based, as frequently as necessary)
Finding a cadence to ensure productivity without micromanaging is crucial to maintaining trust. Technology like Calendar Sharing, Zoom, Slack, or 15Five facilitates efficient information sharing among team members.
Conclusion
Hybrid work models are no longer a trend but a new standard in the modern work environment. As hybrid work becomes the new standard, companies must be prepared to embrace this new way of working and create a supportive and inclusive environment for their employees. Although there are many ways teams can experiment with hybrid work, organizations must understand that a successful model requires a shift in mindset and an intentional strategy.
Research suggests that a dismal 15% of employees worldwide actively engage in their place of work. This is unfortunate, as findings suggest that engagement is related to a host of beneficial outcomes, including performance, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment.
Over the last decade, we’ve come a long way in figuring out how to measure engagement. We’ve also made great strides in figuring out how actually to increase employee engagement. The challenge, however, lies in the execution. Organizations that do it well will experience the greatest return on their investment.
Concerning this, outlined below are several aspects of implementing a successful employee engagement strategy. You’ll also find the nuanced difference between engagement and motivation, along with evidence-based recommendations of the specific metrics and drivers of engagement to ensure you get it right with your team.
What Does Employee Engagement Mean?
The most widely-cited academic definition of engagement is a positive, fulfilling work-related state of mind characterized by three dimensions:
Vigor – high energy and mental resilience
Dedication – a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge
Absorption – being fully concentrated and deeply engrossed in one’s work.
Interestingly, organizational settings often provide a broader conceptualization for understanding engagement factors. Feeling energized at work through vigor, dedication, and absorption is one of four formative engagement indicators.
The other three are: feeling a commitment to the organization, identifying with the organization, and feeling satisfaction from their job.
With this conceptualization, engagement is not just how the employee feels while working but also their relationship with their job and organization.
This broader context helps explain why engagement surveys ask about much more than just energy at work.
SIDE-BAR: Is engagement the same thing as motivation?
Many people confuse engagement with motivation. Technically, engagement is one form of motivation, assuming that engagement leads to some change in behavior (e.g., more effort, more prosocial behavior, etc.). However, more clearly understood, motivation considers a process whereby the intensity and persistence of a targeted effort are observed.
Therefore, when organizations refer to engagement, energy, job satisfaction, organizational identity, and organizational commitment, it is a combination of factors representative of heightened motivation.
HUMAN SKILL PROGRAMS ARE HITTING LIMITATIONS...
- Close the widening gap between learning and on-the-job application
- Overcome the tension of pausing productivity for development opportunities
- Integrate learning so it is actually in the flow of work
- The evolution of human skill development
- What Automated Coaching™ is and how it works.
Which Engagement Metrics Are Most Important?
When implementing engagement surveys, you need to consider two metrics: dimensions and drivers.
The first and most apparent set of metrics entails measures of the four dimensions of engagement.
The 4 Dimensions Of Engagement
Energization: the amount of inspiration, enthusiasm, and intensity an individual draws from immersing their self in their work
Commitment: the amount of care and dedication an individual feels toward the organization
Identification: the amount an individual believes their work organization aligns with their values and things they deem to be meaningful
Satisfaction: the amount of contentment and fulfillment an individual experiences as a result of their work.
This baseline for measuring engagement helps increase understanding so that you can track whether certain engagement metrics are increasing or decreasing across time.
The second set of metrics entails the predictors (also called drivers) of engagement. Or, in other words, the actual levers that are causing engagement to increase or decrease.
Across an assortment of organizations that offer employee engagement tools, their internal research suggests that some of the most critical drivers of engagement include excellent leadership, career-growth opportunities, non-toxic work environments, and collaborative teams.
11 Effective Drivers Of Engagement In The Workplace
High-Quality Leadership
Leadership & Career Development Opportunities
Meaningful Work
Work-Life Balance
Inclusion & Belonging
Healthy Work Cultures
Recognition
Feedback
Autonomy & Empowerment
Supportive Team Members
Equitable & Competitive Compensation
SIDE-BAR: Any guesses on which predictor is consistently one of the most impactful drivers of engagement? Supportive leadership.
Employees that have leaders or managers that are respectful, transparent, and supportive is the clear winner.
Additionally, a recent predictor is a significant consideration concerning an employee engagement strategy: time affluence.
Post-pandemic, employees are beginning to express that they want more than work-life balance but also tools (e.g., high-quality virtual meeting tools) and systems (e.g., work-from-anywhere or work-anytime) that facilitate employees’ ownership of when and where they’ll work.
7 Ideas To Create An Employee Engagement Plan
1. Provide a leadership development program for managers and supervisors to assist with upskilling leadership within your organization.
2. Implement opportunities for personal development in the workplace to strengthen leadership and career skills by supporting training unique to team members’ roles.
3. Provide coaching opportunities for employees to help them grow personally and professionally.
Cloverleaf serves daily Automated Coaching™ tips that help employees increase self-awareness and emotional intelligence, fostering a physiologically safe workplace and team effectiveness.
4. Offer remote work options, including the ability to work from home or other remote locations and flexible schedule options, to empower employees to manage their work and personal commitments better while still achieving their job responsibilities.
5. Facilitate open communication among employees by implementing the following strategies:
Encourage two-way communication between management and leadership and among teammates.
Practice transparency by sharing information about the organization’s goals, plans, and performance to build trust and understanding.
Encourage collaboration by creating opportunities for cross-functional teams, project-based work, or group problem-solving.
Use technology like Slack and 15Five to facilitate faster and easier communication.
Celebrate teamwork by recognizing and rewarding teams and individuals who work together, support one another, and model your organization’s values.
Work hard to clearly communicate the organization’s mission and values to employees and ensure that their work aligns with these goals.
Facilitate regular, timely, and constructive feedback.
6. Recognize and reward employees for their contributions to the organization. Use a tool like Bonusly that includes both formal and informal ways to acknowledge and appreciate team members.
7. Provide employees with equitable and competitive compensation packages aligned with their skills and experience. Regularly review and adjust compensation packages to ensure they remain competitive in the marketplace.
These characteristics of the future workplace experience represent trends changing employee expectations of their leader and teammates. Employers can prevent toxicity and promote an effective employee engagement strategy by actively implementing a plan that values teamwork and collaboration.
Critical Components For A Successful Employee Engagement Strategy
Implementing an employee engagement strategy is crucial for organizations; however, there are three key components to ensure it is effective and successful:
Surveying Employees
Interpreting The Results
Acting On Results
This process should be ongoing, focusing on identifying positive and negative contributors affecting engagement and the measurable next steps based on the results. Doing so can better ensure that the organization continuously improves its engagement strategy and fosters a human-centered workplace.
When And How To Survey Employees
Organizations typically use engagement surveys in one of three ways:
Annual Benchmarks
Ongoing Pulse
Initiative-Based
1. Annual Engagement Surveys
These surveys tend to be lengthy, in-depth, and have a mix of quantitative (e.g., 1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) and qualitative (e.g., open-ended text response) questions. These surveys give organizations a broad annual benchmark for how they’re doing.
2. Pulse Surveys
These are typically around five questions and are pushed out to participants from weekly to monthly. These shorter surveys tend to have higher participation when the questions are quantitative and straightforward.
The benefit of the pulse survey approach is that it ensures organizations know what’s happening throughout the entire year, in the moment. This allows organizations to make adjustments promptly. Tools like Officevibe can assist leaders in making this process easier.
3. Initiative-Specific Engagement Surveys
These use customized questions relevant to the initiative to ensure immediate and targeted feedback.
Organizations will inevitably change as their industry evolves or objectives are rolled out as strategies. Planning a well-timed engagement survey in coordination with this effort can help keep things on track.
How To Interpret Employee Engagement Survey Results
Analyze the data to figure out which predictors are changeable or worth changing. The goal should be to understand the most influential predictors of low engagement scores. Some engagement tools automatically conduct these analyses.
When interpreting these results, it’s best to only focus on one or a few key metrics at a time. Changing too much too quickly will make it challenging to understand what is working or not and how best to apply the findings within your employee engagement strategy.
What To Do With The Results
One of the quickest ways to see employee engagement survey participation drop is to fail to act on the results. It’s best to be transparent about the results, show how the results compare to similar organizations, and communicate a clear action plan on what they will do to improve specific metrics.
These communications tend to work best when leaders add a narrative that can help interpret the results at the organizational level. Then managers can use the results at the team level or during one-on-ones’ with direct reports.
Perhaps, one of the biggest challenges with engagement tools is that they are heavily weighted towards diagnosis but not prognosis.
Engagement tools are great at understanding what’s wrong, but they aren’t built to help organizations understand what to do about it. Typically, these solutions must be customized to address the organization’s specific context.
By understanding when and how to conduct employee engagement surveys, interpreting the results, and taking action based on those results, organizations can gain valuable insights to improve the plan continuously.
3 Common Questions and Concerns About Employee Engagement
Should we use an engagement tool service or do it ourselves?
Although engagement tools can be expensive, the key benefit is that they ensure the engagement responses are anonymous. If an organization sends out a survey to employees, the employees will inevitably assume that their responses can be tracked back to them individually.
No matter how much an organization promises that the responses will be confidential, it isn’t likely to land with employees. Relatedly, engagement tool services typically set a threshold for which there must be a certain amount of responses before data are revealed. This policy can increase employee response rates since they know they won’t be exposed if they make a qualitative comment in a survey that could be traced back to them individually.
Another critical consideration is whether the engagement tool service will allow you to view data at the individual level or not. Sometimes engagement tools only give access to the aggregated reports, which makes it hard for organizations to understand the nuances of their findings. For example, aggregated findings can hide outlier data that could be the source of a brewing issue or accidentally cover up the fact that the data distribution is bi-modal, with half the employees rating low and the other half rating high on a particular metric.
What should we do if the employee participation rate is low?
One of the most important things organizations can do is have senior leadership express why surveys are being implemented and how they will be used to make employee-friendly changes.
Also, as previously mentioned, organizational leaders must act on the data. If they don’t, employees will perceive that their participation is not worth the time.
Additionally, organizations should dial in the length and cadence of the surveys. The longer and more often, the lower the participation.
Low participation rates are problematic. Without a complete sample representation, the results might be inaccurate or directly signal that the employees are disengaged.
How are machine learning and artificial intelligence being used in engagement surveys?
Although some organizations are starting to implement sophisticated algorithms that help deliver suggestions to users of engagement tools, it’s not quite reached the threshold of being considered machine learning.
Machine learning would entail outputs from the system being automatically reintegrated into the algorithm so that it updates (i.e., “learns”) in real-time, generating better and more tarted results on the next iteration.
Along those lines, organizations should not assume technology can solve engagement issues.
The recommendation here is to take a “tech-first approach,” which recognizes that people can’t process data with the same accuracy and efficiency as machines, so using technology to be the front line that helps direct people’s attention is worthwhile. Nonetheless, people and social systems are complicated, and it takes people capable of critical thinking and intuition to ensure the direction is ideal.
Conclusion
Employee engagement is a crucial aspect that organizations cannot afford to neglect. Ignoring engagement can lead to unhappy and unproductive employees, resulting in a detrimental impact on the overall performance of the organization. But why settle for mediocre results when it’s possible to achieve greatness? By understanding the importance of employee engagement, organizations can create a roadmap for success by identifying what to measure, how to measure it, and a plan for taking action on the results.
Without a strategy to engage your team, it will probably never happen. Using a plan while measuring what is effective will help prevent guesswork and provide clarity for your team.
In short, investing in an employee engagement strategy is not a luxury but a necessity for organizations that want to achieve their full potential and stay competitive in today’s market.
When I talk about the importance of teamwork or collaboration I often refer to it as a math equation where 1+1 should equal more than 2. It’s not uncommon for 1+1 to equal 3, but for the best teams that equation could be 1+1 equals 8 or 10 or possibly even 20 and beyond.
Organizations that figure out how to promote, equip, and support this type of collaboration and teamwork could multiply this impact across hundreds or thousands of teams and the impact can be game-changing innovations and breakthroughs.
That is the growth side of the argument for investing in teamwork and collaboration. However, there is also another argument to be made for investing in team cohesion in order to minimize lows.
Yes, we all have bad days or from time to time are drowning in the work that is in front of us. Teams are a critical mechanism for helping us get back on our feet and building relational and emotional equity for when we return to full strength and can produce at a high level as individuals.
Y Combinator, the wildly successful startup accelerator, has always required startup cofounders – not solo startup founders for this very reason. It is lonely building something big and different and there are so many days of self-doubt and negative thoughts that can sabotage success unless you have an awesome co-founder that you can lean on, get different perspectives, and move past roadblocks.
My experience building Cloverleaf with Kirsten Moorefield is a testament to this critical aspect of teamwork. We have had so many lows and setbacks and times that we should have quit moving forward but we have always been there with encouragement and new thoughts just when it was needed.
When we hire new team members we talk about those moments and the important role that trust in your teammates plays in having personal and team success.
Work teams can often produce as individuals working asynchronously on cross-functional teams. There is a constant rhythm of coming together to connect, communicate, and align. Then each individual goes off and completes tasks independently according to individual strengths and skill sets.
And in short to intermediate bursts there can be high levels of productivity even when the key ingredients of high-performing teams are absent.
That’s right, in the short term people and teams can still be productive when a team has a dysfunctional culture, mistrust, and even sabotaging behaviors. But over time it is this intangible element of teamwork where people genuinely care and sacrifice for each other in a way that picks individual team members up when they are down that allows teams to thrive over the long term.
It’s the accelerant in my formula that allows 1+1 to equal 20, 50, or even 100.
Bad days and difficult challenges will happen (and if you are doing something great it will happen frequently), and teaming up with people who understand this often overlooked element of teamwork can be the rocket fuel for sustained, long-term and outsized team performance.
Facilitating a diverse workforce very important. The problem, however, is that it doesn’t always work because companies fail to facilitate inclusion. If diversity is the beautiful colored puzzle pieces, all unique and different, inclusion is when they come together to create that beautiful picture. If you really want diversity to work, you have to focus on one of the four different types of inclusion.
1. SOCIAL INCLUSION
The first type of inclusion is called social inclusion. At its core, inclusion is really about feeling socially accepted. When individuals feel like they’re left out from participating in initiatives and projects, they report lower levels of social inclusion. For better or for worse, it’s human nature for people to feel more comfortable with those that seem to be similar to them. Organizations must be proactive in counteracting these tendencies and try to orchestrate opportunities for everyone to feel socially involved. There is no “out-group” versus “in-group”. Everybody’s part of the group.
2. Relatedness Needs Fulfillment
Human beings have three underlying needs: self-determination, competence, and relatedness. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, we’ve been conditioned to seek out the satisfaction of these needs because doing so helps us survive and thrive in our work environment. In the second type of inclusion, relatedness needs fulfillment, human beings instinctively understand that they’ll have a higher likelihood of success when they work cooperatively with others. In the workplace, we need to feel as if our colleagues genuinely care about us and will support us when needed. We need to make meaningful connections, and the degree that organizations create these opportunities for colleagues to build those authentic relationships, they can reverse the negative impact of unfulfilled relatedness.
3. Belongingness
The third topic to consider is belongingness. Inclusion is more specific to the behaviors that can improve the situation, such as dismantling the in-group versus out-group mentality. Belonging, on the other hand, is more emotion-focused. It’s about making people feel like they’re a part of a community. Affective commitment is representative of belonging because it represents an emotional attachment to the organization. Affective commitment goes beyond a cost benefit analysis (which is called continuance commitment). Affective commitment entails finding a sense of meaning from being a part of the organization. There are several predictors of affective commitment, but they don’t come easy. Organizations that create supportive and fair cultures are more likely to see an emotionally attached employee. Organizations can also increase employees’ affective commitment by investing in their employees’ growth and development. Said simply, organizations that invest in people can cultivate a sense of belonging through affective commitment.
4. Organizational Identification
The fourth topic of interest is organizational identification. This is another belonging-related concept that entails the extent to which employees self-identify with their organization’s, values, mission, and brand. When employees see themselves as stewards of the organization’s purpose, they’re more likely to exhibit proactive performance and citizenship behaviors. But when employees don’t identify, these pro-social behaviors are much less likely. Organizations seeking to connect their employees to the company culture should not only focus on pinpointing and articulating their values and goals, but they should also be attracting and recruiting employees who align with these values and goals. In effect, organizational identification is about finding the right people on deep level characteristics, not just checking the box in terms of demographics and skills.
Most of the time we talk about surface-level diversity. We need to shift our focus to also include deep-level diversity. There’s an important difference. Deep level diversity is about our psychographics. It’s who we are as people. It’s about our personality, values, strengths – all of those important phenomena that are beneath the surface. Organizations must pay attention to demographics to ensure that they have surface-level diversity. But it is also critical to start highlighting the unique qualities of our colleagues from a deep-level diversity perspective. These differences really matter. People get to know each other better as colleagues and contributors, which in turn, facilitates an inclusive workplace.
So what can we do about increasing and building an inclusive culture? One of the most common inclusion initiatives is through cognitive bias training. This training is helpful and can move the needle to some degree, but actually, it’s not quite enough. Cognitive biases are innate and deeply rooted. To overcome this challenge, organizations really need to focus on mechanisms that regularly and repeatedly reinforce inclusion over long periods of time and at the right time. One-and-done approaches are subject to what we would call cognitive overload. It’s too much information to embrace and put into practice. Organizations should consider supplementing their cognitive bias training with what we call micro-nudges: smaller, specific, aptly timed interventions across a long period of time.
Check out Cloverleaf to see if we can help you with this micro-nudge approach to help make real change on feelings of inclusion. In our view, diversity without inclusion is worthless. Diversity is a starting point. Inclusion is the ultimate goal. You really need to focus on ensuring that you understand these different types of inclusion, as well as the micro-nudge approach, to build upon existing initiatives such as training, assessments, and team-building initiatives. Doing so will make sure that everybody knows each other from at a deeper level so they can work better together and understand who they are as people.