Employee Engagement Activities [Thread 448874]

Hi Friends,
I am planning to conduct a session on employee engagement with some games and bonding activities with 12 employees in each session.
How do I go about it....what kind of games can I conduct...please guide me with respect to some game options.
Looking forward towards some valuable contribution.
-Pratiti

Hi
I am sharing a link sourced from Citehr which should give you some inputs that could be relevant to your current requirements.
https://www.citehr.com/430086-employ...ml#post1945546
You are also welcome to go through the contents of the following blogs for some additional inputs that could possibly be utilized by you during your session
www.actspot.wordpress.com
www.poweract.blogspot.com
Best Wishes

Pratiti,
If your goal is to increase engagement games are not the answer. For employees to choose to become engaged, executives and managers must treat them with great respect as if they are valued employees. The only way to do that is to first stop controlling them with commands/orders and then start listening to their complaints, suggestions, and questions and responding to those to their satisfaction.
For an overview of how to create a fully engaged workforce, look at this short video.
Leadership Skills: How to Create Engaged Employees
If you want more help or details, just ask.
Best regards, Ben
Leadership is a science and so is engagement

I am sure you have a clear goal to be achieved from your employee engagement initiatives. Employee engagement is a key element of organizational climate and relates to bonding between the employee and the organization. A high level of engagement drives employees to better identify with, own up organizational goals as one own goals to be pursued, show higher level of solidarity in meeting organizational challenges, and demonstrate cohesion, team work, involvement and passion to achieve results. Well engaged employees are passionate to see results of their efforts, and therefore cross all barriers in a missionary mode, to achieve positive results for the organization. They need less of supervision, are self motivated, preempt conflicts and resolve any conflicts internally, innovate to achieve end results and impose minimal organizational costs, such as of supervision, while operating under formal structures. Such behavior is dissociated from their direct relationships with expected monetary rewards. Engagement derives from feelings of being cared for by the organization, through measures such as; policies to maintain healthy work life balance, job content, sharing, recognition and rewards, relations with management, openness and pooled coordination, career advancement opportunities, welfare facilities and also monetary rewards. The term employee engagement did not exist in the industrial era which was dominated by manufacturing, where formal rigid command and control organizational structures were the norm ; but is a term evolved with the evolution of the knowledge industry, to reflect expectations of KWs and new paradigms of managing productivity.

Engagement encompasses a variety of elements and forms of the organizational context that leads to commitment to the organization and its values, and a willingness to help colleagues , loyalty to and pride in being part of the organization. The objective of engagement is to create the right organizational climate unobtrusively, by touching on the softer elements of unstated but perceived human needs. The level of engagement is reflected in how far people value, enjoy and believe in what they do and contribute to positive outcomes.

I am no sure just knee jerk actions like a few sporadic games would yield really engaged employees for the long term. Engagement is a process and not just an event. I am conducting a research on behalf of a UK university on perceptions on employee productivity among knowledge workers in the Indian context

You can each me on [Login to view]

Friends,
The response was over whelming ....... it has made me look at a broader aspect.
We are a small organization and I will be conducting such a session for the first time.
Hence I would like to make it a fun session where I can involve the employees.
It would be glad if you all could post some ice breaking games or activities.
Thanks a lot once again.
Regards,
Pratiti

Dear Pratiti,
Please listen to what Ben is saying. I agree 100% with him. Its not about ice breaking games or games. Its about what kind of systems and processes do you have. We are trying to take a shot at it in Srijan Technologies by creating a different kind of work environment and culture.
Rajneesh

Dear Mr.Pratiti
It is good decission. You may conduct Indoor games like Chess, Carrom and Table Tennis. Defenetly it will create team building and good relation ship with others.
Regards
T.B.Srinivasulu

Well said Rajneesh,

Unfortunately, there are a lot of opinions about how to create engagement but very very few who have actually done it. I know of only two other persons besides myself who have done it. The possible performance gain stated by none other than Stephen Covey as 500% is what I achieved and I believe anyone can achieve it.

The process is to listen to the concerns of employees, both one-on-one and in groups, and resolve those concerns to their satisfaction. The purpose is always to receive the complaints, suggestions and questions of employees and resolve those mostly with their help, by them using their brains.

Assuming this is an ongoing process affording each person the time to put in their two cents, they soon realize that they can influence everything. As that happens, they take more and more ownership of their work and the more ownership, the more commitment to doing a better job. Without ownership, no commitment! Have you ever seen anyone washing a rental car?

As this process proceeds and people come to trust that it will continue, they become more engaged, some at a faster rate and some slower. This process will be most effective if led by the CEO with management present to see firsthand how people should be treated.

The last time I did it I was a VP of a 1300 person unionized group so I was the one setting the standard for all my subordinate managers and supervisors. They got the message over a period of a few months by watching me in action. Then I had senior managers conduct the meetings and later lower levels. I sat in on many of these so as to be able to coach them in post-meeting sessions.

One of the keys is to get the people to develop solutions to problems with management merely helping with resources, etc to implement solutions. The same is true for suggestions and questions.

Besides providing resources, management's main functions are to protect everyone's rights to be heard and respected, and to ensure that the highest standards are met in every endeavor. The highest standard for a particular endeavor is not generally held by management but by one or more of the employees. So management must get everyone involved and always pose of the question of whether there is a higher standard we should meet for any value such as honesty, integrity, quality, respect, or whatever.

Hope this helps. Much of this information is available at my website

Leadership skills, methods and science for exceptional management of people.

Best regards, Ben

Hi
I totally understand and agree with what Ben is trying to say.....we really have a good working environment here...I just want to enhance it with some light sessions...
We do have a one-on -one session and communication and leadership survey at regular intervals..
This time I want t make it a bit playful.
Would be glad to get some inputs regards some activities that I can conduct.
-Mrs. Pratiti K.V