How HR can use Microsoft Teams to manage employee engagement

The Teams app has become part of daily working life for businesses across the world. With many people working remotely, for at least part of their working week, Microsoft Teams is an ideal way to connect them. It offers everything from meetings to instant messages, shared documents to integrated analysis tools. But can you really use Microsoft Teams to manage employee engagement in your business? Let’s explore:

• A summary of employee engagement and why it matters
• How to manage employee engagement in Microsoft Teams
• The benefits of regular check-ins for driving engagement
• Why IT will love it too

What employee engagement is and why it matters

What it is

Put simply, employee engagement is the measure of how committed and attached someone is to their role, the organization and the people they work with. You can track and measure it using these five key performance indicators:

1. Pride in one’s work
2. Feeling valued by others
3. Willingness to give discretionary effort
4. Brand advocacy
5. A sense of job satisfaction

Why employee engagement matters

Employee engagement brings all sorts of business benefits. It creates a productive, profitable and employee-focused culture. And organizations with high engagement see:

• Staff wellbeing soar. Engaged employees typically have higher levels of wellbeing and job satisfaction. Individuals feel able to share concerns and get support to manage any job stress they might experience.
• Increased customer loyalty: Organizations experience 10% more customer loyalty with an engaged workforce. People are more committed and so seek better answers for customers, taking extra (and often unexpected) steps to ensure clients are satisfied, every time.
• Greater innovation: Employees value being heard. Involving them in discussions about product development, or internal processes is a great way to connect them to the business. And listening to them makes you 80% more likely to introduce new, and better, ideas and systems.

So, you can see the potential in employee engagement, but how do you manage it through Microsoft Teams?

Using Microsoft Teams to manage employee engagement

You already know Microsoft Teams is a communication tool. You use it for team meetings, collaborating on projects and sending messages across the office. The key to using Teams for employee engagement, however, is not from dropping everyone theatre style into a webinar. Microsoft Teams focuses on the “when” and “how” people work together. And it’s that magic you need to understand:

Manage weekly check-ins: The most engaged employees want to know how they’re doing. They crave feedback and look for opportunities for development and growth. A weekly check-in allows you to recognize progress and flag any areas of concern, whilst also addressing barriers which might be getting in the way. Microsoft Teams boosts engagement by providing regular reminders, and offering easy access to files to share in updates and project reports.

Different communication channels: Not everyone likes drop-in video calls. Some prefer an instant message first or an agreed time to chat. And it’s the flexibility of Microsoft Teams that helps you increase employee engagement. You can flex your style based on person, task and urgency. More importantly, you can do it all within one app so you don’t need to keep logging into something new.

Provide instant recognition: Seen something good? Overheard a great idea? Tell them. Companies with high levels of engagement are great at recognition, and they celebrate achievements on a regular basis. Using Teams, you have the choice to send a direct message, leave a voice note, or even add recognition through your integrated engagement app (e.g. Engage365).

The benefits of check-ins on Microsoft Teams for employee engagement

The risk with employee engagement is it gets seen as “another initiative”. By using Microsoft Teams for employee engagement, you avoid that and instead start getting the benefits straight away.

• Introducing weekly check-ins: the ideal tool and frequency to build rapport with your people, weekly check-ins make managing employee engagement on Microsoft Teams easier than ever. They provide two-way feedback where employees can share progress and raise concerns, and managers can provide advice and support to guide their team. Employees feel heard and take pride in their work as they see the difference it makes to the overall business.
• Increased trust and timely feedback: How many managers do you know who only speak to their team members for their year-end review? Weekly check-ins stop all that. They encourage regular communication and invite both managers and employees to share their experiences, building trust across the team. It also provides a regular space for giving feedback. No more waiting for six-months that you made an error. Weekly check-ins capture the good and those areas needing improvement quickly so you can course correct.
• Better goal-tracking: Meaningful goals keep employees motivated and engaged. Using weekly check-ins helps you establish a culture of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) so employees see how they fit into the company vision. Projects become key results attached to major objectives, and frequent updates highlight the impact of their work. As a result, individuals get a greater sense of achievement.
• Easy scheduling and updates: You can use the calendar in Microsoft Teams to schedule reminders and meetings to drive engagement. You’re able to view the availability of other attendees, making it quicker to find a suitable time to chat. And you can drop tasks into your calendar to ensure you have time to follow up on them before your next check-in.
• Increased adoption through Microsoft Teams: Engage365 looks and feels familiar. It’s designed to work with Microsoft applications, so people already feel comfortable with how it works. They can focus on the quality of their updates, rather than on how to use the system.

The benefits of using Microsoft Teams for employee engagement are clear, and there is one other aspect which you may also want to look into: employee sentiment analysis. This is a predictor of engagement which, when tracked appropriately, can help you spot issues and trends proactively. Engage365 helps you to pull information from Teams and other Microsoft apps, like Perform365 or Learn365 to understand how people are feeling.

By introducing sentiment analysis as well as reviewing employee engagement, you can take proactive steps to manage retention, development plans, and longer-term commitment to the business.

The IT benefits for using Engage365

Your IT team will already be familiar with your Microsoft stack (all the Microsoft apps you currently use). They chose Teams as a communication tool because it’s easy to implement, links to Outlook, and lots of people know how to use it. So here are a few reasons they will want to introduce Engage365:

• Quick implementation: Engage365 works seamlessly with Microsoft Teams so there’s no lengthy project plan for setting everything up. You can just integrate it into your existing Microsoft stack
• Single sign on and Active Directory: There’s no new access to organize. You already have the approvals written into the organizational structure, and you can start and terminate users through your standard IT process
• Microsoft Teams is highly customizable: You can link Teams to other apps, making it easy to pull data together to track engagement. The IT team won’t have to spend hours creating reports or running macros for you to get the data you need.

Improving your employee engagement with Microsoft Teams

The first step of doing anything with employee engagement is recognizing it needs to be looked at, so you’re already heading in the right direction. The next step, like any good habit, is making it easy.

Using Microsoft Teams to introduce some quick wins around employee engagement is a great place to start.

Get managers talking to their team members more often. Use Microsoft Teams to schedule webinars and discussions on OKRs and how to get the best from them. Start using standard reports to understand your current levels of employee engagement. Then build from there.

Employee engagement won’t change overnight, but with the right tools and focus, it can change rapidly and become an advantage for you and your people.