Employee Engagement Boost in January
Fight low morale and motivation in the workplace with Bodet's Time & Attendance Solutions
As we head into January and leave Christmas behind, it’s important to keep your staff motivated through what can be the lowest ebb of the year for morale and motivation in the workplace.
The third Monday of January has become known as Blue Monday, since its creation in 2005. Although the term has dubious scientific merit (and was actually coined in collaboration with Sky Travel to boost holiday sales), it’s hard to dispute that the factors in the formula to discover the most depressing day of the year have a big effect in January. These include the end of the Christmas period, failed New Year’s resolutions, poor weather conditions and debt levels.
With advanced knowledge of this however, there are a number of ways organisations can turn this situation around and bolster employee engagement to push their staff into positive morale and motivation.
January is traditionally a time when sickness leave is high. This makes it an ideal time to focus on wellness within your organisation. A wellbeing strategy should be something continuous, using absence management to monitor KPIs such as the Bradford Factor and acting on the analysis. However, for a focused boost, you could offer benefits to staff such as free exercises classes or subsidised gym memberships. This will support staff with any New Year’s resolutions linked to fitness levels. Remember to communicate any new perks you are offering your staff to maximise uptake and effect; we’ve spoken before about the dangers of failing to communicate employee engagement benefits. Our Kelio Visio Terminals can be used to display staff bulletins as employees clock in every day, reminding them of any schemes they can take advantage of.
Training can also be a useful engagement factor to focus on early in the year, reinforcing the idea that you are investing in your employees and wish them to develop. As well as a timely boost to low morale, January is the perfect time to inform your staff of all the training options available to them over the year, ensuring good uptake. Again, modern Time & Attendance Terminals can be used to communicate training opportunities, and with the Kelio Visio X7, you can even allow employees to select which training options they’d like to pursue on the terminal screen.
Another practice to increase engagement in January is flexible working. Traffic can be very bad at the beginning of the year with everyone returning to work, public transport often suffering from engineering works, and poor weather adding an additional risk. Why not remove the additional stresses associated with the January commute by allowing employees to work at home for part of the week, or offset their work hours. Bodet’s Time & Attendance Systems allow you to offer a whole range of flexible working practices, whether remote working or flexible hours, without any additional strain on administration.
It’s important to ensure you’re investing company resources in perks that are relevant to your employees. If you’re unsure of this, it’s worthwhile conducting a staff survey before going any further. With the Kelio Visio X7, this can be conducted directly at the terminal, with availability and ease of return allowing a greater uptake without additional hardware.
If you would like more information on how our Time & Attendance Systems and Kelio Visio Clocking In Terminals can boost employee engagement, alongside increasing workforce management and reducing HR administration, please contact us. We would be happy to visit your organisation to demonstrate our solutions in person.
