Virtual Event Engagement: 3 Technologies Corporates are Using to Motivate Employees Amidst Social Distancing

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced millions of people around the world to work from home. And while a significant part of the workforce was already working from home before it even happened, many companies are still unsure about how to keep remote employees happy, motivated, and productive.

Luckily, technology tends to quickly offer solutions when such challenges are faced, so it’s not surprising that you can also leverage technology to make sure that your remote employees have all the tools necessary to succeed.

But what types of technologies should you look into? And how can they help boost employee productivity and motivation?

Let’s go through some of the most useful options below.

Make Communications Simple

One of the biggest advantages of working in a physical workspace is the ability to communicate. If you have a problem, your colleague or superior is always just a few steps away, ready to answer questions, offer guidance, or share experiences.

When working from home, walking to someone’s office to discuss an issue is obviously not an option. However, with the range of virtual communication tools that are available today, you could even ask if live interaction is even necessary.

Today’s workers have a plethora of solutions how to monitor work from home employees that all ultimately share a single purpose: help teams communicate as seamlessly and effectively as possible.

Whether you want a convenient way to share tidbits of information and updates, a platform to send and receive files, or even a way to talk in person-to-person or in groups, various tools can make that happen.

Using software solutions like Zoom, you can bring your entire team together for video conferencing, where people can quickly go over the main topics, discuss issues, and come up with the best plan of action.

For continuous communication, you can’t go wrong with tools such as Slack or Skype for Business. They can provide a secure and convenient environment where people can chat, exchange files, and communicate both individually, and as various groups and teams.

Project tracking tools like Asana ensure that everyone knows exactly what needs to be done and what their role is, making it very easy to build teams, assign roles, and track the progress of various projects.

Making the remote work environment more productive should be a top priority for any business, but it’s actually crucial for keeping employees motivated and happy as well.

People want to be clear about what they need to do at any given time and want to be able to ask for feedback when they need it. Without these tools, it would be easy to become discouraged and lose motivation, especially when faced with tough challenges.

An event company will have plenty of challenges trying to recover from the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, so providing your team with all the tools that they’ll need is absolutely essential.

Provide Growth Opportunities

In the light of a slowing economy, man companies are seeing a reduction in their employee workload as well. Event management companies have had most of their live events cancelled or postponed, which means that projects that were supposed to keep the staff busy are suddenly out of the picture.

Having objectives fall through and be put on hold can be disheartening, and employees can often lose focus and start drifting through the motions if they don’t have a clear goal to strive for. Add in the fact that most people are working from home, and you may end up with a team that doesn’t get much done throughout the day.

That’s why in the current economic climate, learning and growth opportunities are more important than ever.

Instead of having your employees sit around without a clear purpose or having to cut their working hours, you could offer them an opportunity to better themselves and advance their careers by broadening knowledge or learning new skills.

Today, there are countless online courses and learning materials that are designed specifically for people in various industries. And as a company, you have a lot of options in terms of how you could approach setting up employee education.

One option is to use the resources and platforms that are available right now – you could gain access to an abundance of learning materials from third-party sources, providing your employees with the opportunities to choose the areas that they want to focus on and allowing the service providers to take over the process.

An alternative route used by many corporate event companies is to develop your in-house education system, getting the senior staff to develop courses, share knowledge, and mentor their subordinates using remote learning tools that are available.

You could use virtual events as the perfect platform for executing company-wide or department-wide courses or masterclasses, building the skills and knowledge base of your team while also helping everyone stay connected.

By providing your team with learning tools and resources that can help advance their careers, you can plant the seeds for the future, when you can rely on your employees to do more and spend their time more productively.

What’s more, since you will show that you care about putting your staff in a position to succeed, that will help improve employee loyalty and will inevitably contribute to a positive reputation of your company when recruiting leading candidates in the future.

Gamify Productivity

Two of the most powerful driving forces of employees are recognition of their hard work and tangible results that they can be proud of.

Unfortunately, when working remotely, sometimes these elements can be harder to appreciate because there are fewer opportunities to compare yourself with others or to be recognised for achievements.

Luckily, with gamification platforms such as Bonusly, you can provide these same advantages to remote workers as well.

It’s very easy to set up a point or badge system where employees get rewarded for various achievements or goals that they can reach. Many event management companies have had great success with implementing gamification elements for their clients, so it was a growing trend even before remote working became an unavoidable necessity.

You can even set up tangible rewards such as bonuses for those that consistently excel among the team, providing extra motivation for everyone involved and ensuring that people will remain focused and determined, even when not being able to be in the office or at the event site in person.

Author Bio

Sarah Hill is a content writer at Seven Events Ltd – leading professional conference organisers in Birmingham offering event production, venue finding and team building services in the UK. She started her career in the events industry almost a decade ago as time progressed she became an avid event blogger sharing her insight on corporate event planning.