Life at Blink | Nikita Karun

Study after study has shown the importance of collaboration at work. Companies that get collaboration right are more likely to beat competitors and have a highly motivated, engaged workforce.

But fostering collaboration can be a challenge when most of your employees don’t work from the office. If your employees work on the front lines or from their homes, they won’t have the same bonding opportunities as desk-based workers.

What can you do about this? Invest in creative ways to build effective virtual collaboration into your culture and promote teamwork.

One such way is to conduct online collaboration activities. These exercises provide remote employees the chance to socialize with peers whom they rarely get to meet in person.

So in this post, we’ll walk you through some of the best online collaboration activities we have hosted or seen working recently. But before we get to that, let’s see why virtual collaboration is so important.

Why is online collaboration important?

2500% more companies globally are investing in remote collaboration initiatives in response to Covid-19.

The media has bombarded us for years with stories of isolated, self-made geniuses. But whether you’re an individual or a business, you need to work with other people and teams successfully to get positive results.

You and your workers need opportunities to develop rapport, understand each other’s abilities, and communicate effectively as needed.

It’s teamwork that lets employees put out a collective effort and get things done — things that cannot be carried out alone.

But as we said before, remote work deprives people of the chance to interact with their coworkers beyond the scope of work. If you’re part of a dispersed team, there’s little chance that you’ll ever bump into another colleague near the water cooler, or talk about a hobby.

Because of this, virtual teams often lack the human connection that is critical to job satisfaction and employee retention. And without emotional bonds, team members are less likely to be engaged at work.

That’s where online collaboration activities fill the gap. You can use them to enhance relations between employees and boost motivation. The remote collaboration exercises below will help your workers feel closer than ever, improving their overall well-being and happiness.

Online collaboration activities for remote teams

When picking the following online collaboration activities, we have ensured they are easy to implement and effective. And that they can be adapted to remote work environments using any well-known video conferencing tools.

Plus, if an activity requires a whiteboard, you can share your screen and use any online whiteboard or note-sharing software for each person to see a live, editable page. Let’s begin.

What’s on your bucket list?

Sharing our dreams with another person is a great bonding experience. In this online collaboration example, you’ll give each employee a few minutes to think and make a list of their goals.

Specifically, these would be the things they want to do in the next 12 months, or at least once in their lifetime.

Then, every worker will share the list they created in a video conference. If some employees have the same things on their lists, they can continue the conversation offline to discuss and plan together.

Online coffee meeting

Call for a short, stand-up meeting at the start of the day. Each team member finds a coffee shop nearby, or brews a fresh cup on their own if they are home.

During the meeting, they can talk about the work they have planned for the day while enjoying their morning coffee. If mornings are not possible, you can apply the same concept to evening coffee breaks.

Be careful with this activity though. It’s very easy for it to become a strictly formal, work-related conversation. Make sure to keep the chatter light and fun.

Wall of fame

This online collaboration exercise helps employees facilitate clear communication and recognize each others’ strengths.

Divide workers into teams of two. Now ask each employee to take two minutes and share a work-related accomplishment they have had recently. You can set a particular time frame, such as last year, quarter, or week.

These could include successes such as handling a client, reducing the time it takes for a task, or gaining new insights.

After a worker is done speaking, the other person on their team will summarize to make sure they have understood the value of this achievement. Then repeat the same process for everyone in the meeting.

Photo of your life

Ask your distributed employees to take or share a snap of something meaningful from their personal life.

For example, it can be:

• A family portrait
• A picture from their recent vacation
• A shot from their daily routine
• Something they recently purchased

Whatever it is, it should shine some light on their personality and interests. Then schedule a video meeting where workers can show and talk about their pictures. They can say why they chose the image and what it means to them. 

Memory board

The memory board is an amazing way to bond over past events, and it helps immensely with virtual team building.

Create a list of some work-related subjects and post them as notes on a whiteboard. For example:

• My favorite team member
• First day at work
• Client presentation

You can then have each worker pick a topic and share a memory related to it.

Two truths and a lie

This is a great collaboration example for newly formed remote teams. Typical introductions based on “say something about yourself” can feel awkward, boring, and uncomfortable.

But with this remote team-building activity, you can give workers a fun, alternative way to introduce themselves and improve future communication.

Before calling an introduction meeting, ask employees to prepare three statements — two truths and one lie — about themselves. The lie should be conveyed as realistically as possible. It shouldn’t be easy to spot.

Each worker will then disclose their three statements in the meeting when delivering their introduction. And other team members will guess what’s the lie and what the truths are. Once they are done, the worker will tell the team members if they were right or wrong.

You can also make it more fun by awarding points to people who hid the lie successfully or who guessed it correctly. 

Guess the phrase

This team-building activity has gained so much momentum over the years that companies like Hasbro have turned it into an electronic game.

Create a list of words or phrases. These could include celebrities, expressions, objects in the office, or movie names.

Then assign one to each employee. No one should know the word apart from the worker whom it’s assigned to.

Next, ask each employee to describe the word given to them without actually mentioning the word. And other team members will guess what the word is.

Online lunch and learn

Breaking bread together is an obvious connector. And lunch and learns have been one of the classic online training activities to promote collaboration in physical workplaces. So there’s no reason they can’t be adapted to the virtual world.

Get your team members on a video call and invite a subject matter expert to teach something that everyone can use. The topics may include productivity, problem-solving, and of course, working remotely.

You can schedule the event during lunchtime, allowing workers to enjoy their meals while absorbing new knowledge. If budget is not an issue, you can also offer to pay for the food.

Survival on an island

In this virtual team-building activity, give your team a hard situation. For example, let’s say they were going somewhere in a plane and it crashed on a deserted island, or a zombie apocalypse has made its way into their region.

Then share with them a list of objects that might help with their survival and eventual rescue. Next, ask them to rank each item based on its importance, first individually and then as a whole group.

It’s a great way for everyone to reflect and compare their personal decisions with collective choices. And it may give them new perspectives on collaboration.

Online recipe showcase

It’s not just eating. Cooking too can lead to an effective online collaboration exercise. With the popularity of remote work, more and more people are cooking at home.

You can start an online event where workers share their culinary favorites or experiments with food. And you can also run a challenge where employees will try each others’ recipes and take pictures of what they made.

Over to you: 10 online collaboration activities

Online team building doesn’t have to be difficult. It can be just as fun for workers to get to know each other virtually as physically.

As you can see, there are many online collaboration activities that are quick and easy to arrange. And they are essential to creating a digital employee experience fueled by teamwork and positive working relationships.

Not just that.

Online team-building exercises help you leverage the unique strengths and perspectives of each and every employee, resulting in a better output at work. So incorporate them regularly in the virtual workplace, and the harmony you’ll create is bound to help your business excel. Consider it one of the best practices for employee engagement you need to follow.

Plus, having the right technology, like one of the best employee engagement tools or an all-in-one team collaboration platform can foster collaboration to an even greater level. Request a free Blink demo today.

Employee retention is the art of holding onto your staff once you’ve hired them.

And, in 202w, it’s more important than ever.

Why?

Because companies are finally waking up to the competitive advantages of being a "people" company. A "churn and burn" approach to hiring results in poor customer service.

This is an issue, because customers are placing increasing value on good service. With smartphones, it’s easier than ever to find a competitor company to buy from. Or in the case of consumer goods, to avoid the shop altogether and order online.

Before we start.

You can hold onto employees (more or less) by treating them well. Listening to their concerns, and providing them with a few incentives to stay put.

If you’re an HR professional or a CEO, you don’t need us to tell you that.
What you might find useful is an in-depth guide to employee retention in the modern workforce.

How to maximize your employee engagement efforts. And make sure there were no stones left unturned in creating the most comprehensive guide... we asked some industry-leading experts to contribute.
We’ll cover:

• Detail on the importance of employee retention today.
• How to build effective employee retention strategies.
• The exit interview, and how to turn it into your secret employee retention weapon.

Let’s begin...

Why is employee retention important?

Employee retention means "treating your employees right"; it’s an end in itself, not just the means.

From an ethical standpoint, no company should mistreat their employees. Meeting your colleagues’ basic needs and providing them with a safe and stimulating workplace? It's the right thing to do for its own sake.

But it’s more than that.

Attracting talent to your company—and keeping it once you’ve found it—has so many advantages. According to Herzberg's famous Two-Factory Theory, employee retention and employee motivation are interdependent. You can find out more about this in the Vantage Circle HR blog. A strong employee retention strategy will:

• Reduce operating costs.
• Improve customer service levels.
• Allow you to out-compete your competitors for the best people.

The cost of high employee turnover

Hiring and firing is expensive.

Eye-wateringly expensive, to be precise. Think six to nine months salary as a conservative estimate.

Then you need to consider the impact of not having someone there to do that person’s work. That could slow down a massive project. Cause higher overtime costs as existing staff pick up their work. Or just lead to a reduction in staff morale as they struggle with increased workloads.

Companies tend to get the importance of this for salaried positions and execs. but there’s often a bit of a blind spot when it comes to their non-desk workforce and the real cost of losing an employee.

Sure, replacing a senior-level manager is more expensive than replacing a bus driver. But what happens if your bus drivers’ morale becomes so low that two or three quit per month?

It all adds up.

"Losing talented staff can also have emotional consequences on those who stay. Effectively reducing productivity by decreasing morality and motivation," says Rochelle van Rensburg of the Ezzely Blog.

"Maintaining essential talent is therefore mission-critical to organizational effectiveness for all these reasons. Staff retention puts companies ahead of their competitors, by reducing recruiting and re-skilling costs. But more importantly, by keeping the top performers, which results in all of their specialized knowledge and expertise remaining in-house."

Your mobile workforce interacts most with customers. They are the public face of your company. So, their happiness will reflect in the level of service they give your customers.

Happier, more engaged employees deliver better customer service. They also build up a bank of operational knowledge over time. This helps them respond to queries quicker and more effectively than a steady stream of new hires ever could.

The importance of employee retention in 2020

An active employee retention strategy is more important than ever.
There are two key reasons for this:

Firstly, it's never been easier for customers to look elsewhere if they feel that your levels of service don’t match their expectations. We live in an age where any information you want is available via a few taps of a smartphone screen.

Dissatisfied with a hotel stay? Booking.com can recommend thousands of others.

Bad experience in a taxi? A quick Google gets you all the phone numbers of other local firms.

Poor customer experience at a theme park? TripAdvisor lists other attractions.

You get the idea.

Despite this, customers still want to be loyal. Millennials want to stick around if your brand fits in with their personal values. Don’t throw away this loyal market.

Secondly, it's never been easier to browse jobs via online jobs boards. If your workforce isn’t happy they will move. Don’t assume that they will sit in their job miserable because there aren’t any other options.

Reasons why employees leave and reasons why managers leave aren't always the same.

Your competitors may be waking up to the benefits of being a "people company." They'll more than happily snap up the staff you can't keep.

The best employee retention strategies

A strong employee retention rate is crucial to remain competitive. How you go about doing this is worth examining in some depth.

Remember - you are an employee too! As you create your employee retention strategies, keep asking yourself, "would I be happy with this?" or, "does this seem reasonable to me?"

Here are a few points you’ll need to cover when creating an employee engagement plan. Remember, the employee experience starts before the first day at the interviewing stage. To set each new starter up for success, getting the onboarding right is crucial. Want to learn more? Check out the Definitive Guide to Onboarding.

Let's quickly touch on the foundation of any working relationship: trust. As Kayla Lopez from the recruitment firm Viqtory.com reminds us. "If your employees trust you and the organization they tend to embrace the workplace; this begins before the employee is even hired. Transparency is something that we need to willingly support to gain trust. A workforce that trusts you will be engaged, a workforce that is engaged will retain. Trust is the foundation of all strong partnerships."

Now for the details...

Pay well

We’ll start with the basics.

If your pay rates don’t match with your competitors’, you’re going to have a bad time keeping hold of your high achievers.

Take a quick look at what your competitors pay for equal positions. Try and build a league table of what similar companies to you pay, and where you rank. Glassdoor is a good starting point.

Aiming for the absolute top is ideal if you can afford it, but you don’t have to offer the best salary offer out there. There are plenty of other ways to encourage your staff to stay put (more on that below), as long as you can land in the middle of the table. For someone working in a frontline job, it is difficult to give your best at work knowing you could get $5.00 per hour more for the same job elsewhere. (Even if there’s free pizza every Friday).

It’s also worth noting that even a generous wage packet won’t persuade your employees to stay if you’re otherwise a nightmare to work for.
Consider this step the cornerstone of all your employee engagement efforts. Not enough by itself, but essential in building something lasting and meaningful.

Give competitive benefits

You might not be able to take it to Silicon Valley levels. (Free three-course meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, unlimited holidays, and puppy creches).

You can offer a benefits package or a performance bonus scheme tailored to the size of your business, your budget, and your business objectives. The key is to prioritize benefits that would have a tangible difference to the lives of your employees. Add the fancy stuff on if you have money to spare.

Think about:

• Childcare vouchers: we’re all aware of the struggle to find affordable childcare. Help your workforce with their work-life balance (and keep it diverse—most of the people who end up quitting jobs for childcare reasons tend to be women) by offering vouchers to help with the cost.

• Health cover for employees and dependents: an absolute must if you're US-based, although even if you live in a country which has some form of universal health care, giving employees the opportunity to go private is very appealing.

• Flexible working: if the type of work you do accommodates it, flexible working is like gold dust to your staff. A "work your hours however you want" policy helps people manage childcare commitments, fit in dentist appointments, and reduce the stress of trying to juggle work and life commitments.

• Lunch program: Most of the lunch break is spent buying, prepping or reheating food. Offering a tasty and healthy in-house solution, such as the online canteen Smunch, allows your employees to capitalize on their break time and share a meal together. Ultimately, this will improve your company culture and cross-departmental communication as well.

Once you’ve got the basics sorted, some nice-to-have options include:

• Above average PTO allowances
• Free gym memberships and cycle to work programs
• Personal development funds

Develop a feedback culture to empower employees

Your employees know their workplace better than anyone else. Make the most of it.

If your employees feel involved in shaping their workplace and consulted on major decisions then they will be reluctant to leave it.

The key to this is to carry regular, easy-to-complete employee engagement surveys so you know exactly what the mood on the ground is and how to improve it.

Employees will hold an enormous amount of goodwill towards a workplace that listens to their concerns and acts on them. Equally, they will reserve a special sort of resentment for those that send out survey after survey, only to ignore the results.

It’s essential to have a solid plan in place for your employee engagement surveys, or they will backfire spectacularly.

Key pointers

• Small, regular surveys are better than long, annual ones. Only giving your employees one chance per year to raise issues will result in bottled up frustrations spewing out come survey time. Not only does this result in surveys that skew unhelpfully negative, but it also means that your HR team will face an uphill struggle
• Another point about designing surveys that you can respond to effectively: keep it targeted. Focus each of your quick-answer surveys on a specific area—facilities onsite, for example, or about relationships with line managers.
• Use short answer questions: "yes/no" or "on a scale of 1-5" formats make it easier for people to respond immediately. Long-form feedback can be helpful, but having lots of long-answer text boxes on your survey will put people off completing it. A good compromise is to have an optional "any specific comments" box at the end of the survey.

When you’ve processed the surveys, share the results and shout about what you’re doing to act on feedback. Employees will appreciate the transparency, and it’s important to signpost what you’re doing to address the concerns they raise—or they won’t bother to participate in future surveys.

Try and create a "feedback culture" in your company by encouraging people to come forward with suggestions for improvements any time they want. Surveys highlight pain points as they are reactive; an anonymous suggestions box (either digital or real-life), on the other hand, will bring out the more innovative side of your workforce.

These suggestions might be small—a new way of organizing the break room fridge, or the introduction of free coffee Mondays—but the opportunity to improve the workplace in this way will work wonders for your wider staff’s sense of allegiance to it.

Make your workplace a fun place to work

If your coworkers are your friends, spending time at work doesn’t seem so taxing.

This is where the fun stuff comes in—the away days, lunchtime yoga, the free breakfast bar, the Christmas party...

If you have a mobile workforce, don’t forget to include them, too! They might not be in the office that often, so having regular get-togethers or breakfast clubs when shifts change is a great way to build a sense of belonging.

Obviously, base these activities on what your own workforce would like, but some ideas include:

• Regular lunchtime sports clubs (running, yoga, five-a-side, badminton are good starting points)
• Away days and team-building weekends.
• Semi-regular opportunities for free food. Depending on the size of your team, you could offer lunch on the company each Friday, pizza parties when teams hit their targets or just because
• Big events like Christmas parties and family fun days. If you run awareness weeks for things like diversity, mental health and stress, why not run some exciting events for these too?
• Recognition of key milestones. If there are particularly busy periods throughout the year (like the Christmas rush for anyone working in retail or hospitality), put on an event to recognize the hard work your employees put in. This could be a full-on party, or simply just giving your staff the nod to take off after lunch on a quiet day.

This step does, however, come with a big flashing warning sign that says: don’t bother doing any of these without doing the steps listed above first.

Because these are fun and exciting, and sound super trendy when you put them on your Careers page, people often use them in place of paying a decent wage, or offering flexible working hours, or acting on employee feedback.

The exit interview - your employee retention secret weapon

One of the best ways of figuring out what’s going wrong with your employee retention efforts is asking your colleagues when they leave.

Seems counter-intuitive, and rather frustrating, doesn’t it?

And in some ways, it is. No amount of collecting and aggregating exit interview data, tweaking your employee engagement plan and making changes in your company to reduce employee turnover will change the fact that, for that particular employee, your efforts weren’t enough. For HR people and line managers, that stings sometimes.

Still, if you can take your losses on the chin, this is a real opportunity to do better for your colleagues, and identify and fix any major issues that push people to leave.

There are three main reasons why exit interviews are so effective at flagging up things that need to change:

The employee is leaving so won't hold back

Regardless of how many times you reassure your colleagues that your pulse surveys are anonymous and that helpful suggestions are encouraged, they will still be a little suspicious.

The worry that surveys aren’t really anonymous, or that speaking out about a key workplace bugbear will get them labelled as a troublemaker, will be a constant thorn in the side of your employee retention efforts.

(As a side note, if this attitude is pervasive then it might be time to take a look at your workplace culture. A little reticence is natural. An all-encompassing dread of speaking up might indicate something a little more sinister).

The exit interview is a different kettle of fish. They’re leaving. There are no raises or opportunities for promotion in the pipeline. This is their opportunity to "tell it like it really is."

Listen, even if you think they’re being unfair and bitter.

Problems brought up during exit interviews tend to have weighed heavily on an employee’s decision to leave. In other words, they’re big issues you need to address urgently.

Get the whole picture

Multiple exit interviews help build up a better picture of life on the ground.

Of course, there’s always the chance that one particular employee just, for whatever reason, didn’t have a good time.

That’s where keeping data from previous exit interviews comes in.

For example, if an employee complains about their line manager being unbearable, it might just be a clash of personalities. Equally it could be because that line manager is difficult to work for and too demanding. It’s difficult to say without further info.

So. Run some analytics.

How many other employees from that line manager’s team have left over the past year?

Did they say anything in their exit interviews?

Have they been flagged to HR for anything previously?

If so, you might want to investigate further.

This is why it’s important to conduct an exit interview for every single person that leaves the business. If you restrict it to management positions, people based in HQ, or full-time workers, you’re missing key sets of data that could be useful in improving your employee retention strategy.

Find out what went wrong

An exit interview, conducted well, helps you identify wrong turns in your employee journey map.

You’ll probably have some sort of employee journey map already.

You might call it something different. We’re referring to the plan you make that starts at the hire phase and ends with the offboarding phase when the employee leaves. This normally includes guidelines for each stage they go through with your company. For example:

Hiring:

• Offer letter and contract sent
• Start date agreed two weeks in advance

Onboarding:

• First day: tour of premises, fire safety, welcome coffee or lunch
• First six weeks: all e-learning to be completed

You get the idea. Here's a basic template you could expand on:

(Source: Trends in Employee Journey Maps)

The exit interview provides an excellent opportunity to ask your employees about various stages in this plan, to see whether they’ve been carried out to your expectations.

Ask specifically, and don’t be afraid to go right back to the start of their employment. Whether they felt welcomed in their first weeks, for example. If they were given clear and regular feedback on their performance, and compare that to your notes on how your employee journey should pan out.

It could be that, despite your meticulous efforts in planning it, your employee journey map isn’t being adhered to by managers in the wider organisation. This could be why your employees are leaving - this map provides guidelines on how to make sure people feel safe, supported and included at work. If people don’t follow it you’re going to have problems.

Your employee journey map is important. If it isn’t being followed, you need to correct that as soon as you can. Exit interviews are the best way to do this.

How to conduct an employee retention interview

Be flexible around your employees needs

If a lot of your workforce are remote or mobile, don’t insist on a face-to-face interview at HQ.

There are several free video calling apps available, so why not make use of them? An employee is more likely to feel comfortable talking to you if you’ve made accommodations for their situation.

If they’re more comfortable talking to you, they’re more likely to be honest with you, and that’s exactly what you want.

Don’t make it overly formal

Go for a relaxed vibe. Making things too formal will only stifle conversation.

If you’re conducting a face-to-face interview, it’s a nice touch to provide some sort of refreshments; hot drinks and a pastry, maybe. The employee will appreciate the gesture, and it will encourage a more conversational feel, which is exactly what will get them to open up.

Identify the specifics to touch on

You will know, from previous exit interviews if there are any particular pain points in your employee experience.

Ask about them. You’ll then be able to establish:

• Whether these are still issues
• What progress you’ve made on them, and how effective your efforts to tackle them have been.

...But allow them to express their opinion too

If the structure of the interview is entirely created by you, you could miss something important.

By allowing employees space to expand on their own concerns, you give yourself the opportunity to pick up on potential issues that aren’t on your radar. Sure, a lot of this could be specific to that particular individual, but you should investigate nonetheless—otherwise you’ll never know whether it’s the iceberg tip of something bigger.

Remember: your relationship with the employee isn't over

People leave for all sorts of reasons—not all of them negative.

You might want to leave the door open for talented employees, in case they want to return at some point. Also consider that talented former employees can be great source of referrals.

These can be your company’s cheerleaders, even after they’ve left. A good exit interview can make this relationship. A poor one can ruin it.

Of course, there’s also the possibility that the employee leaving has been less than stellar. In this case you should see the exit interview as a chance to smooth things over, and divert potentially negative Glassdoor reviews or social media mentions.

Final thoughts

To summarize:

• An employee retention strategy is important because it makes your employees happier. Happier, more engaged employees perform better in general, and deliver better customer service.
• The cost of employee turnover is measured in increased operational costs and decreased institutional knowledge.

Bearing this in mind, the question you should be asking yourself isn’t "can we afford to expand our employee retention efforts?"

It’s "can we afford not to?"

An engaged, happy workforce with a low churn rate isn’t just a nice thing to have.

It’s not just something you can boast about on your Careers page.

It’s a competitive advantage—and people are only just waking up to this fact. Because now more than ever, people value good customer service. If you can provide that, you’ll have a serious head start on your competitors.

Blink is an internal communications tool that’s does everything your intranet does, but better. Try it out today! Request a free demo to get started.

Collaboration starts at the top

Picture an orchestra. The musicians are world-class. The music is tried and tested. The venue is sold out. But the conductor?

If the conductor doesn’t show up and lead the way, each musician does their own thing. The strings speed up. The brass drags. Percussion is having its own little party in the back.

The same thing happens in the workplace.

You can hire the best people, invest in the smartest collaboration tools, and launch a jam-packed schedule of team-building activities. But without a leader actively bringing people together — and modelling the kind of team collaboration you want to see — you fail to see the desired results.

Collaboration is a by-product of consistent leadership behaviors — along with the right systems and practices. Find out what you can do to encourage your people to work together and stop going it alone.

Leaders are a catalyst for collaboration

There’s a strong link between internal communication and collaboration. When workplace communication is open and effective, collaboration comes much easier.

The right comms tools take you part of the way. But it’s leaders who decide the style and tone of communication. They set the stage for how information is shared, decisions made, and conflicts resolved.

Most importantly, they shape psychological safety within your organization. This is the belief that it’s safe to speak up, challenge ideas, and share new perspectives — all of which are vital to effective collaboration.

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Common collaboration blockers: Where leaders are going wrong

Collaboration brings many benefits — including increased efficiency, productivity, and employee engagement. But you may be missing out on all the above if leadership is displaying the following collaboration-blocking behaviors.

Playing favorites

When leaders give certain people or teams special treatment, everyone sees it. Opportunities, information, and recognition flow toward the chosen few. Other employees stop bothering to contribute. Over time, trust erodes and people assume collaboration is shorthand for helping someone else to shine. 

A closed leadership style

When leaders are reluctant to share information or delegate tasks, when they struggle to admit mistakes or ask for help, they model a non-collaborative style of leadership and communication. Employees are likely to follow suit, gatekeeping workplace knowledge and keeping their guard up.

Siloing teams

Failing to encourage cross-department collaboration creates silos. Projects are contained within one team. This limits the sharing of ideas, causes duplicate work, and prevents teams from seeing the bigger picture. Collaboration becomes the exception, not the rule.

Leading only through email or announcements

Relying solely on email or one-way announcements leads to poor comms engagement. It’s then hard for leaders to convey information — on corporate strategy, common goals, and company culture — and to encourage the two-way communication you need for effective collaboration.  

Not inviting feedback from all levels

Leaders who only hear from their inner circle miss out on well-rounded insights. If you don’t proactively seek perspectives from every level, you risk building strategies in an echo chamber — and making it clear to certain groups of workers that their contribution isn’t valued.

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Leadership behaviors that encourage collaboration

We’ve looked at what could be going wrong. Now, let’s look at what leaders can do to get it right. To improve teamwork in the workplace, good leaders consistently demonstrate these collaborative behaviors.

Modelling open communication

Collaboration thrives when leaders share information openly and honestly — and when they create opportunities for employees to respond, ask questions, and contribute ideas. Acting on feedback is also important. It shows that employee input is valued. And that leadership isn’t afraid to adapt and admit mistakes.

Consistently demonstrate this style of communication and employees will adopt these behaviors as their own, helping you pave the way for effective collaboration across the organization.

Recognizing and celebrating cross-team wins

If a joint project succeeds, shout about it. Not just in the quarterly meeting, but in the moment. Share teamwork achievements in real time, and allow employees to add their congratulations, too.

When praise comes from the highest levels of your organization and is amplified across the organization, employees see that working together is valued and celebrated.

Showing up regularly and authentically

Only picking up the microphone when there’s big news to share? Then you’re missing out on opportunities to engage and align your workforce.

Show up regularly on the communication channels your employees like to use and — once you’re there — be yourself. Share an unpolished video message. Tell stories about real people.

By going beyond formal emails and announcements, you make yourself visible, approachable, and aligned with the day-to-day work of employees. Again, this is great for building psychological safety and setting norms around workplace communication.

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Embedding collaboration into company culture: 6 practical tips

Beyond individual leader behavior, the right systems, policies, and practices can bake collaboration into company culture. Here’s what leaders can do to make teamworking an expected and celebrated part of the workplace.

#1. Make cross-functional projects the norm

Cross-functional collaboration helps you solve problems faster and more effectively. When launching a new project, consider which teams should get a seat at the table. Then, give these teams the time, support, and tools they need to work together.  

#2. Providing tools and spaces (digital + physical) for collaboration

The right supportive environment makes all the difference. Breakout spaces encourage collaboration within your physical workplace. But you need digital collaboration tools too. That might mean creating a central hub of resources and information — where everyone, from remote teams to frontline crews, is kept in the loop.

#3. Set collaboration as a performance metric for managers

What gets measured gets managed. You can encourage managers to develop teamwork skills by evaluating them on collaboration outcomes. Recognize the joint projects and information sharing that goes on under their watch, and they’re more likely to encourage collaborative behaviors.

#4. Provide training

Collaboration relies on soft skills, like open communication, active listening, empathy, and negotiation. These skills don’t always come naturally, so it pays to provide training. With the right support, employees have a better understanding of collaborative behaviors, and managers know how to encourage them.

#5. Ask for employee feedback

Regularly seek feedback from employees and you show them that their opinions and ideas matter. To build trust and psychological safety even further, close the feedback loop. Whether you’re surveying employees on the state of internal communication, their engagement levels, or the latest shift swap policy, share survey results and the action you plan to take.

#6. Regularly revisit and refine collaboration rituals

The needs of your teams are liable to change. The collaboration tools that worked two years ago might feel clunky now. The teamwork strategies you put into play may no longer feel relevant to the makeup of your teams. Leaders should make it a habit to review and refresh the collaboration rituals they’ve established to ensure that teamwork remains effective.

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How the right collaboration tools can help

Leaders have a huge impact on workplace collaboration. They set the tone. But with all the will in the world, dispersed teams will find it hard to collaborate without the right digital communication tools. You need collaboration software for remote teams, frontline workers, and office-based staff to facilitate knowledge sharing and project management. Here’s what to look for.   

Centralized communication platforms

Updates, files, and conversations scattered across multiple apps? Then you’re creating friction and encouraging siloed working. A tool like Blink puts all internal communications and essential files in one centralized hub. As a mobile-first tool, these resources are available to any employee with a smartphone. So everyone is kept in the loop.

Real-time feeds, stories, and live updates

Leaders can use digital channels to reinforce collaborative behaviors daily, not just at once-in-a-blue-moon meetings. You can use a Story, a live update, or a recognition post to highlight teamwork lessons and wins. In doing so, you show that collaboration is happening — and that it’s valued.

Integration with existing systems

The best collaboration tools don’t expect people to drop what’s working. Instead, they connect the dots. Blink integrates with your other workplace software — so employee communications, collaboration, and project management can all live in one place. Teams don’t have to hop between apps — instead, they can focus on tackling the task at hand together.

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Lead the way: Make collaboration part of your day-to-day

If you’re committed to improving collaboration in the workplace, you can’t be the conductor who hides in the wings.

Leaders have to be visible and present. They need to use every update, recognition post, and meeting as a chance to model the teamwork strategies they want their workforce to follow.

Because collaboration is built by leaders who demonstrate collaborative behaviors themselves. By leaders who listen as much as they speak, who establish a culture of psychological safety, and who welcome the input of employees from all levels of the organization.

Combine a collaborative leadership style and the right teamworking tools and you give employees everything they need to achieve more, together.  

‍Blink. And use leadership comms to supercharge collaboration.

Old intranets all sound the same.

Out of date, out of sync, out of tune. A corporate soundtrack of forgotten logins, stale pages, and “Is anyone actually using this?”

This year, Blink is changing the track. We’ve been recognized in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Intranet Packaged Solutions — not just anywhere in the grid, but as a Challenger.

For us, this isn’t just a placement. It’s a remix. For the industry. For the intranet. For every employee who’s ever thought, “Why is this so hard to use?”

Why the Gartner Magic Quadrant matters

If you’re in HR, comms, IT, or procurement, you already know the Gartner Magic Quadrant™ - to us, it’s one of the most influential industry reports in technology.

Every year, Gartner independently evaluates vendors on Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision - then categorizes them as Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, or Niche Players.

This Quadrant has become the go-to reference for organizations choosing their next digital workplace partner.

We’re proud to debut as a Challenger. But more than that, we see it as a validation that the world is ready for a more human way to work.

Why Blink? Why now?

We built Blink on a simple belief: Work should feel connected.

In a world overflowing with tools but starved of real connection, we’re creating an intranet that people actually want to use. One that unites the CEO’s town hall with the shop floor shift briefing. One that gets frontline and office workers on the same wavelength.

Why we believe Blink was recognized

🎧 Sales and customer alignment: We deeply understand buyer pain points, backed by strategic partnerships with industry leaders like Workday.

🎧 Financial and product strength: Robust growth, an agile roadmap with continuous innovation, and a reliable product strategy built for the future keep Blink ahead of the curve.

🎧 We go beyond software: With specialized onboarding teams, strategic rollout support, and a dedication to long-term success, we’re not just a platform — we’re a true partner.

🎧 From mobile to total experience: Our platform empowers every kind of worker with personalized microapps, powerful social features, and communications that actually cut through.

Challenger energy: More than a position - a mindset

For us, being a Challenger isn’t just about where we land on the grid. It’s about how we move through the world.

We don’t believe “good enough” intranets should do the trick. We don’t do stale or static. We remix the intranet into something dynamic, modern, and centered on people.

Because what good is an intranet that no one uses?

We’re obsessed with adoption: ensuring employees actually engage, communicate, and thrive on the platform. That’s why Blink is designed with every kind of worker at heart, driven by a people-first approach to innovation.

That’s what it means to challenge the status quo. That’s what it means to Blink.

What’s the rest of the market saying?

The intranet packaged solutions (IPS) market is evolving rapidly, moving from static, web-only sites to dynamic, multichannel platforms that are central to the digital workplace.

What used to be dusty web-only portals are now vibrant, multi-channel hubs that power communication, engagement, knowledge, and culture. Today’s IPS offerings go far beyond document repositories - they’re incorporating AI assistants and supporting integrations with Workday, ServiceNow, Microsoft 365, and other leading business systems.

As Gartner puts it, intranets are once again a priority investment as organizations transform their digital workplace, reduce IT complexity, and seek consistent, people-first employee experiences.

Intranets are no longer just “nice to have” - they’re necessary parts of a modern business infrastructure. They’re becoming critical hubs for productivity, connection, and culture across both office-based and deskless workforces.

This isn’t evolution - it’s inflection. And Blink is leading the remix.

Spinning the future of work

For us, being named a Challenger is a milestone. But it’s also just the intro track.

We’re already dropping new hits:

• Broadcast-quality live streaming that gives every employee a front row seat

• Blink Assist, our AI-powered copilot for content creation and communication

• Analytics that actually matter, surfacing predictive insights into how people engage
• “Save for later” offline access, so work doesn’t have to stop when the WiFi does
• Modern social features like Stories that drive adoption and give Instagram a run for its money

Our vision is simple: The future of work should feel intuitive, inspiring, and essential - not invisible. Blink exists to unlock that.

This isn’t just recognition - it’s our statement

We’re not here to play quietly. We’re here to remix the intranet.

Named top Challenger by Gartner, chosen every day by the world’s most ambitious organizations, and powered by a people-first mission - this is only the beginning.

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We’ve rounded up the seven top training programs that will help boost morale, foster collaboration, and increase productivity for your staff. From interactive workshops to online employee engagement courses, these programs offer something for everyone.

Whether your team is new or experienced, office-based or deskless, there are plenty of options available to help create an engaged workforce.

So let's dive into what the best employee engagement training programs are, what they offer, and how they can benefit your organization.

Choosing the best employee engagement training courses

A great employee engagement course should provide teams with a comprehensive understanding of how to create an engaged workplace environment. 

It may include a range of topics covering effective communication practices, problem-solving strategies, team-building exercises (that don’t make employees squirm), and more strategies that create highly engaged employees.

They may also offer special features such as a dedicated tutor support service, unlimited online email support, certification upon completion, real-time feedback on learning, resources to help employees create tangible goals and objectives, and interactive tools that can be used in the workplace.

To choose the right employee engagement program for your organization, you should assess and compare who the course is made for and what the content of the course is, alongside the:

• Cost
• Length
• Location
• Credit awarded

By assessing these four elements, you can make a more informed decision about which program is best suited to your team’s needs.

What to look for in employee engagement training for managers

Before you can select a training program for managers, it’s important to know what factors to consider for your leadership team. Employee engagement training is essential for even the most high-performing managers, especially frontline managers, as their impact has the unique advantage of cascading effects throughout their entire team. 

Cost varies greatly, especially given the number of remote learning and development options available. While eLearning courses are typically more affordable and easily worked into a manager’s schedule, in-person courses offer the benefit of interaction, personalized feedback, and, often, more in-depth practice.

It’s also important to consider whether you, your C-suite, management teams, and HR professionals value certification or credit hours for the time undertaken. The accreditation may add value and incentive for course engagement, as well as the name of the institution offering the training. 

Two common HR management organizations that accept credit hours for professional certification are SHRM and HRCI. 

You should also consider whether your managers will feel more compelled to complete the learning experience offered by a big name like Harvard to make up for the additional expense.

Additional considerations for choosing an employee engagement program

If you have a frontline workforce, be sure to look for a program that can be easily accessed on mobile devices or through an app with audio lessons available. This will ensure employees can access the course anytime, anywhere, helping you bridge the frontline connection gap.

Additionally, consider the size of your organization and budget. If you have a large team, you may want to look into programs with bulk discounts or offering free training resources. On the other hand, if you’re a smaller business without many resources, eLearning courses may be more cost-effective due to their convenience and lower investment needs.

With digital inclusion now crucial to the modern workplace, it's important to assess the ease of use and accessibility of any courses you choose. Are they easy for team members to access and navigate, or do they require any specific software?

Now that you know what to consider before selecting a program for management let’s go over some of the best employee engagement training programs available today.

The 7 best employee engagement training programs

1. Gallup engagement champions

Workplace advisory and polling group Gallup offers a Creating an Engaging Workplace for Engagement Champions course to help anyone in a leadership position foster a more engaging workplace and support higher productivity. 

The course's primary focus is educating higher-level leadership on how to best help their mid-management increase team engagement. There are also practical takeaways for HR professionals or managers themselves.

Cost: $3,000. 

Length: Two days.

Location: In-person and virtual.

Credit: The in-person course earns professional credit hours from HRCI (14.5) and SHRM (14.5).

2. Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie is a well-known continuing education provider that offers several management courses, including a virtual course called A Manager’s Guide to Sustainable Employee Engagement. 

The six-hour course focuses on actions managers can undertake that inspire workers to put forth their greater discretionary effort. The emphasis is on practicing emotional empathy that delivers a long-lasting culture of engagement.

Cost: $699.

Length: Three two-hour sessions.

Location: Virtual.

Credit: It offers professional credit hours — 5.5 HRCI (5.5) and SHRM (5.5).

3. LSA Global

LSA Global’s employee engagement training personalized course focuses on accountability, change-readiness, and engaging purpose (ACE) as the foundation for a greater level of engagement and business clarity. 

Cost: Available upon request.

Length: Two-day workshop.

Location: In-person.

Credit: None.

4. DecisionWise

Engagement technology provider Decision Wise offers an online engagement training program called Engagement Magic. 

The training covers the importance of employee meaning, autonomy, growth, impact, and connection for engagement and educates learners on fostering these attributes through various employee engagement strategies. 

Cost: $150.

Length: One day.

Location: In-person and virtual.

Credit: None.

5. Harvard Professional Development 

Harvard’s The Positive Workplace: Building Employee Engagement and Satisfaction course focuses on giving managers the tools to help workers through times of stress. 

There is a large emphasis on building positive company culture through effective communication and conflict resolution. 

Cost: $2,895.

Length: Two consecutive days.

Location: In-person.

Credit: Credit towards Harvard’s Certificate of Leadership Excellence in Leading Teams.

6. eCornell

Cornell’s online educational division strategic engagement course is ideal for managers looking for more training in the quantifiable aspects of employee engagement. 

The course teaches methods of measuring employee engagement, like employee engagement surveys, and guides managers through building engagement initiatives to combat disengagement based on organizational data.

Cost: Available upon request.

Length: Two weeks, two-to-five hours per week.

Location: Virtual.

Credit: Credit towards Cornell’s Strategic Human Resources Leadership Certificate.

7. LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning offers various employee engagement training courses for managers through its catalog of user-generated lessons. 

Self-paced pre-recorded lessons like this one on Employee Engagement are a highly accessible training resource for organizations of all sizes. 

Cost: $34.99 for a single course or $19.99/month.

Length: Varies.

Location: Virtual.

Credit: Online certification and continuing education credit to SHRM (1.25) and HRCI (1.25).

The value of employee engagement training for managers

According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2023 Report, just 31% of employees in the US and Canada are engaged – and that's the second-highest in the world! As such, it makes sense for implementing engagement strategies to be one of your organization’s largest retention priorities. 

Typically, most think of across-the-board engagement tactics like benefits, salary, and advancement opportunities. But when it actually comes down to increasing everyday engagement and profitability, as Gallup explains, the best bet is focusing on some of the most critical players in your team: your managers. 

They understand each employee’s career goals, strengths, and opportunities for improvement. Managers help shape the culture that can make or break an employee’s experience. 

Despite their essential role in increasing the number of engaged employees, few managers are naturally good at navigating the nuances of managing people. 

Why? Well, we know that many managers make their way to a management role because of experience in their industry (as practitioners) rather than their experience leading people. 

They might be a very experienced warehouse manager, but if they haven't got years of experience managing other warehouse managers, then this kind of training can add a huge amount of value in increasing team-wide employee engagement.

With nearly 70% of frontline leaders expressing interest in developing their leadership skills, a lack of this training can cause growing leadership development gaps in your organization. 

On top of this, without training to improve the specific leadership skills required to be a strong manager, there can be potentially disastrous consequences when it comes to engagement and overall employee retention. 

In fact, after surveying 3,000 American workers, GoodHire found that 82% of them said they would potentially quit their job because of a bad manager. For that reason alone you may want to consider management employee engagement training as part of your wider L&D efforts.

After all, if you can train managers to increase employee engagement, then you can unlock all the key business benefits that come from having a more engaged workforce, making employee engagement training for managers well worth the investment.

What’s next for frontline managers? 

Choosing the right employee training method and investing in the right technology are crucial actions for business leaders wanting to boost engagement.

Hopefully, this guide gave you a better understanding of the considerations to keep in mind when selecting an employee engagement training program and highlighted some of the best ones available today.

After equipping your employees with the right training programs, the next step is to seek the best tools in the industry. Blink’s mobile-first frontline engagement super-app is the perfect all-through tool for any organization wanting to boost employee engagement.

With a suite of features designed to connect your entire workforce, Blink can help your business drive optimal performance and engagement from every member of your team.

With Blink’s Content Hub, employees and managers can access any training documents and company procedures from the palm of their hands, making any employee engagement training initiatives more effective and accessible for you in the long-run. 

Get started today with a free demo.

Hi I am Fabien, I moved to London in 2012 from my home country France. I studied Business Management and prior to joining Blink in June 2021, I spent 8 years at Estée Lauder Companies as a Business Analyst.

In 2020, I took on a Software Engineering Bootcamp at General Assembly to start a new career as a Developer. 🚀

At Blink, I am a Full Stack Developer within the Solutions Engineering Team. Day to day, my job is to help our customers getting extra value out of Blink. ⭐️

Some of the projects I work on include building integrations with third party systems our customers use or creating digital forms within the app to replace existing paper processes our customers might have. ✅

I love working at Blink because we enable frontline workers from key sectors, such as healthcare or transport, to feel better connected to their organisation and we help them streamline some of the tasks they have to do on a day to day basis so they can focus on making the world a better a place.

If you want to make a difference, if you like to be challenged, if you are eager to learn and want to be part of an awesome team, Blink is the right place for you! 💙