Remember when a celebratory bell used to ring in the office when a goal was accomplished? It may have felt both annoying and loud, but it was great for building team camaraderie. A lot of these bells are now decorated with cobwebs, as most businesses have transitioned to remote operations. Many businesses are struggling to create the same level of employee engagement they once had in the “in-person” office setting.
DemandZEN has been cracking the “remote employee engagement” code since 2014. We’ve made every mistake in the book, but these days we’ve got this down to a science. Here are 4 ways DemandZEN is using Slack integrations to promote employee engagement.
Team Work
At DemandZEN, we believe in “owning your results” and encourage problem-solving. But on Slack, there is always someone there to help in real-time. To get quick answers, you can send an instant message. We often use Slack video if there’s something complicated and have created a company policy asking everyone to turn on cameras.
There is no replacement for seeing your coworkers face-to-face. Our goal is to replicate the office environment and make it feel like someone’s right around the corner. This kind of open communication and quick response time makes our team feel a strong sense of support.
Honest Team Feedback
DemandZEN has experienced significant growth over the last 6+ years, and with its growth comes intense pressure. We knew we needed a simple way to truly understand how our employees feel. We chose OfficeVibe, which is an anonymous employee engagement platform. Every week, OfficeVibe sends surveys to our entire team with random questions and these are sent to our managers in Slack in real-time. One of the best ways to build team engagement is to first understand your team. Managers can respond directly to feedback or talk about it at their next team meeting. This can help promote a safe space on Slack and make sure the company is serving its employees in the right way. OfficeVibe looks at key metrics that measure overall team engagement, such as: wellness, satisfaction, relationship with manager and peers.
Friendly Competition
Competition can be a great motivator. When working remotely, a motivator is very much needed, especially when you are making cold calls during a pandemic. DemandZEN solved this problem with a Slack/Salesforce integration. When SDRs schedule meetings, Salesforce automatically “zaps” the meeting to the Slack “Meetings Scheduled” channel. It notifies the team that “Sarah Smith” scheduled a meeting with “ABC Company”. What happens next is an onslaught of congratulatory emojis (even though we know sometimes people would like to send an angry face emoji when someone moves into that #1 spot for the day or week)!
Encouragement
On average, DemandZEN employees are connected to at least 8 different Slack channels. Each SDR at DemandZEN belongs to a “Team” channel run by their manager. All teams have unique names. A typical workday for an SDR in our team starts with opening up their “Team” Slack channel and their screen instantly getting flooded with “good morning!” and/or appointment setting tips from their fellow team members.
Bonusly Incentives
Our team at DemandZEN loves to recognize its team, so we integrated Slack with an employee recognition platform called Bonusly. Bonusly is a platform that allows employees to feel recognized through a cashable point system. Each employee is given Bonusly points at the beginning of each month to give to other employees (it’s our version of an “office kudos”). When one employee recognizes one of their teammates for hard work or helping out, these recognitions are pushed to the “Bonusly” channel we created on Slack so the whole company can see. It’s a public way to say “Job well done – thank you”. Employees can cash in their Bonusly points for gift cards or donate to their favorite charity!
As you can see, there are a lot of creative ways to use Slack for employee engagement, which is super important whether you are in an office or working from home. Victoria Mikita, DemandZEN’s Lead Program Manager, says, “I think recognition is so important and to have something tied to it means a little bit more. People love to be seen and heard.” I suspect we’ve just scratched the surface, so if you are using Slack for employee engagement in ways we haven’t thought of, we’d love to hear from you in the comments section!
