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We’re excited to share about our Epoch Live Webinar Series! This is a monthly online event where Keith Choy, COO of Epoch talks about the latest trends in Employee Experience and demonstrates an overview of the Epoch platform.
In case you missed this one, read more below!
In today's work environment, cultivating a culture of connection is crucial for fostering engagement and building a strong sense of belonging. However, several challenges can arise when creating a connected workplace. Keith talked about key challenges faced by organizations and how they can be addressed:
Processes: Manual processes make event planning, promotion, and feedback time-consuming for small teams. Implementing digital tools and automated workflows can streamline these processes, making them more efficient and effective.
Engagement: It can be difficult to drive healthy employee attendance as teams scale. People are busy, and event promotion is hard. However, leveraging targeted communication strategies and offering diverse and engaging activities can help increase participation and foster a sense of community.
Hybrid Work: Driving in-office attendance takes time and concerted effort and raising awareness for in-office events is a constant workflow. You can Employ a mix of virtual and in-person activities to accommodate remote and onsite employees, ensuring that everyone feels included and connected.
Reporting: Low feedback rates and manual data tracking processes make it difficult to measure success and drive improvements. Implementing regular feedback mechanisms and utilizing data analytics tools can provide valuable insights into employee engagement and help optimize connection-building initiatives.
By addressing these challenges proactively and implementing effective strategies, organizations can cultivate a culture of connection that enhances employee experience and drives organizational success.
Fostering a sense of connection among employees is more important now than ever. A strong culture of connection not only improves employee satisfaction and retention but also enhances collaboration, productivity, and profits. Here are some tips Keith talked about to create a culture of connection:
Transparent Communication: Share information openly, keeping employees informed about organizational changes, challenges, and successes. Transparency builds trust and helps employees feel more connected to the company's mission and vision.
Leadership Commitment: Make it known to your workforce that leadership wants them to socialize, connect, and enjoy events. Show this commitment in some way, such as through leadership attendance at events or through personal messages from leadership to encourage participation.
Employee Appreciation: Foster a culture of gratitude through a digital or physical space where employees can recognize and appreciate each other. Host events that allow employees to get to know each other outside of work, to foster stronger connections.
Post-event Engagement: Maintain communication after events with follow-up initiatives. Share resources, content, materials, and surveys to keep the momentum going and ensure that connections made during events are nurtured and strengthened over time.
By implementing these tips, you can create a culture where employees feel connected, valued, and motivated, ultimately leading to a more engaged and productive workforce.
In exploring the preferred types of events for fostering connection, Keith found a shift in preferences over recent years. During the pandemic in 2020-2021, virtual events were the clear favorite, with 100% of people preferring them over in-person events. However, as the situation evolved and a calibration emerged from 2021-2022, the preference for virtual events decreased to 60%, while in-person events gained popularity, accounting for 40% of preferences. Now, in the current period of normalcy from 2022 onwards, there has been a significant shift, with virtual events preferred by only 15% of people, while the majority, 85%, now prefer in-person events as the preferred way to connect and engage. Knowing this is crucial to cater your events to the needs of your employees.
Keith shared that he finds engagement reports such as engagement metrics and event breakdowns to be critical tools in understanding the sentiment and impact of hybrid events. These reports provide valuable insights that shape future strategies and enhance the attendee experiences. Keith believes that it's essential for leadership and the overall company to recognize the importance of these reports, as they offer a window into the effectiveness of your events and can drive meaningful improvements in engagement and connection.
Many organizations have small or stretched Employee Experience teams. Epoch is here to help make internal event planning easy.
Use Epoch to plan your employee events and programs, then track analytics on how the events went! Epoch is an employee engagement platform used by people teams at companies like Reddit, Asana, and more. Epoch supports any internal event through email, Slack announcements and reminders, calendaring, and reporting. On top of impactful engagement and feedback analytics, Epoch provides a simple way to communicate and promote events to your workforce, helping events reach employees where they prefer to receive messages.
Increase productivity and connection among employees through company culture with Epoch. Curious to learn more? Book a demo today!
One email, every month.
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