Agile HR Newsletter June 2022

How to Engage Your Team

Managing Employee Annual Leave Throughout the Year

Pulse Surveys and the Benefits


Table Of Contents

How to Engage Your Team

engage your team

One of the top dilemmas identified for People Managers in 2022 is People Engagement.

Are your people passionate about their jobs? Do they come to the office every day eager and enthusiastic to dig in and contribute to the company goals? If not, you may be facing a people engagement gap, with team members who don’t feel motivated or connected to their roles. This can be a serious issue. A disengaged team can have a significantly negative effect on productivity, customer service levels and retention.

Agile Top Tips to Engage your Team:

  • Keep your team connected
  • Clearly define expectations
  • Don’t sugar coat difficult/ unpleasant jobs
  • Consistency
  • Set a good example
  • Ask for input
  • Care
  • Reward creativity and don’t blame for mistakes – people need to be free to try
  • Understand people’s aspirations
  • Criticise constructively
  • Create a place where people want to work
  • Learn from exit interviews

For further detail or support contact [email protected]

Managing Employee Annual Leave Throughout the Year

annual leave 2

Mental health and the wellbeing of your employees is critical to the long-term success of your business. One of the key tools we all have in maintaining a healthy balance is our annual leave. As a manager, supporting and encouraging your employees to take their well-earned annual leave is an easy way to proactively keep on top of the challenge of having a healthy workforce. We’ve come up with some suggestions on how to do this:

  • Diarise a quarterly check of employee holiday – your HR system will have a holiday summary report you can download
  • Quarterly reminders to all staff – remind employees to book holiday and the benefits for them
  • Encourage your staff to book their annual leave in advance – make this an agenda item in your 1:1s/ weekly team meetings. Encourage employees to book holiday in advance and spaced throughout the year.
  • Have a system in place for workload cover/ handover – ensure employees are not concerned about being away from their workload by having a colleague cover/ monitor their work when they are away
  • Ensure the Management Team embodies good annual leave practices – by taking A/L, using out of office email responses, not responding to email, not contacting employees when they are on A/L
  • Embed in your company culture the importance of work-life balance

Business Benefits of Employees Taking Annual Leave

  • Improved morale
  • Improved motivation
  • Increase in productivity
  • Reduced sickness absence brought on by stress

For further information on the above, please contact [email protected]

Pulse Surveys and the Benefits

pulse surveys

‘Your employees’ feedback matters!’

What is a pulse survey?

Pulse surveys are brief and consistent questions that
are sent out to employees to understand their views on various work-related subjects such as the work
environment, career opportunities and growth, working relationships with colleagues and managers, work-life balance and company culture. Pulse Survey’s differ from your usual annual employee surveys as they are much shorter, more frequent and more specific.

You are able to get the most out of your pulse surveys if you select specific and focused questions to ask such as how are they feeling about any recent changes, how they feel different messages are communicated within the company and their thoughts on the current working environment. If you decide to introduce a pulse survey, you should communicate and inform your employees so they understand the purpose, goals and regularity of the survey. Once responses have been collected, they can be examined and the feedback can be shared with the team to address their concerns or suggestions.

What are the benefits?

Benefits of an employee pulse survey include:

  • Smooth to administer and easy to review and act upon;
  • They are focused on specific areas and allow you to receive your employees’ current thoughts and opinions which, in return, provide a more accurate picture;
  • They improve your employees’ well-being by making your team feel listened to and cared for;
  • They don’t take much time out of your employees’ day to complete, therefore it doesn’t distract them from their current workloads;
  • The learning process provides the opportunity to make constant corrections to optimise and improve areas of work;
  • Increased participation;
  • They build company culture.

If you would like more information on pulse surveys and getting started within your company, please contact [email protected]

Share This Article