Almost every manager asks themselves how they can engage their employees in this fast-paced world and how they can implement something that shows immediate results.

In this blog, we'll share three ideas for leaders on how to engage their employees in this fast-paced world. So if you're a team leader or a business leader facing the challenge of disengaged employees and a drop in productivity and sentiment, this blog article is for you.

With Moodtalk, we support more than 130 teams on their journey to outstanding employee engagement with full clarity and team direction. In over 50,000 minutes of mood talks and based on over 300 expert interviews, we found that there are three initiatives that increase your employee engagement and are easy to implement. So let's dive into the details.

Idea #1: The Clarity Compass: How to Lead Your Team to Strategic Success

In the world of team dynamics and corporate strategy, one word stands out as a lighthouse that leads us to success — clarity. Our latest Moodtalk data underscores the critical importance of clarity for team collaboration and behavior. Astonishingly, more than 85% of teams say they lack clarity in these crucial areas. And as we know, clarity — or rather, understanding how we must work together and conduct ourselves to achieve our strategic goals — is at the heart of employee engagement.

As Simon Sinek, one of the most influential developers of leadership skills, often points out: “Leadership is not about taking responsibility. It's about taking care of the people you're responsible for.” Clarity is a management task and a fundamental aspect of caring for your team.

So how can a manager cultivate this important clarity? Let's break that down into actionable steps.

Step 1: Involve the team in understanding strategic goals

First, discuss strategic goals with your team. The first step to clarity is understanding. Ask your team for input and interpretation. This process not only deepens their understanding but also helps them connect their goals with their daily tasks. Remember that strategic goals are not just the “what” but also the “why” behind every task and project.

Step 2: Define and discuss key principles

Once you've created a common understanding of strategic goals, the next step is to define the behaviors that help achieve those goals. Open a dialogue with your team about what behaviors they think will help achieve goals. What does the collaboration look like for them? What actions or attitudes could hinder progress? This discussion should go both ways, meaning you're not just leading the way, you're also getting insights from your team.

Step 3: Defining and reflecting on the principles

Once you've identified key behaviors, you should turn them into clear, actionable principles. These principles should be realistic and consistent with the team's values. But remember that setting the rules isn't the end of the journey. Regular reflection is key. Take time to review these principles, evaluate their effectiveness, and make necessary adjustments.

Creating a culture of clarity: The key to employee engagement

Creating clarity is more than just a one-time exercise. It is about creating a culture in which clarity is valued and sought after. This culture encourages employee engagement as team members feel more connected to their work and understand how their efforts contribute to overall strategic goals.

Simon Sinek sums up this idea perfectly: “When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to make a contribution.” Clarity makes this emotional investment possible.

As a manager, it is your job to promote this culture of clarity. Keep communication channels open, engage your team in meaningful discussions, and remember that clarity is a journey, not a destination. Encourage your team to strive for clarity in their work, collaborate effectively, and behave in a way that aligns with strategic goals.

By integrating clarity into your management approach, you're not just kicking your team towards strategic success. They also create an environment where team members are engaged, motivated and ready to do their best for the shared vision.

After all, clarity is not just about understanding our actions, but also about aligning our actions with our goal. And when a team works in a goal-oriented manner, strategic success is not just a goal, but a reality. Clarity is what transforms work from a source of stress into work of passion and thus promotes strategic success.

Idea #2: Set clear expectations for optimal team collaboration

In many of my introductory interviews, managers ask me the same questions:

• How can we as a team deal with the high pressure and fast pace in today's work environment?
• How can we create an open and honest feedback culture?
• How can I help my team stay healthy and resilient?

In today's rapidly changing business world, executives are in a sandwich position accompanied by a perfect economic storm. On the one hand, they are faced with the challenge of promoting employee engagement in a situation of talent shortage.

This means that the hurdle of quitting if employee requirements are not met is lower than it was a few years ago. On the other hand, managers feel more pressure from the top management level to achieve more performance with higher quality with fewer resources.

With the increasing pace of collaboration, it is essential to adapt and create sustainable work practices so as not to fall into the acceleration trap. This blog post presents three innovative employee retention ideas that can be easily implemented by any team leader to increase productivity, improve quality, and maintain customer satisfaction while reducing the risk of burnout and turnover.

Foster team prosperity and resilience with these effective employee retention strategies

Studies showthat we are dealing with a pandemic of dissatisfied employees and a decline in employee engagement. This not only affects employee productivity and wellbeing, but also their loyalty to the employer. Turnover and absenteeism rates are therefore exploding.

One of the most effective ways to engage and motivate employees is to provide full transparency and clarity about what the team's job is and what all team members expect to work together in the best possible way. In our data, we see that more and more companies are dictating from above how many days employees must come to the office, and now managers must implement this as a team. If you do it right, it can even increase employee engagement.

How can you implement this?

We recommend using the concept of a team charter to set clear goals and expectations within your team. A team charter is a document that outlines the purpose, goals, roles, and expectations of team members and creates a shared understanding of how the team will work together effectively, efficiently, and sustainably. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to create a team charter and get your team members to participate.

Step 1: When will we find time to create our Team Charter 1.0?

Invite all team members to attend a special team charter creation session. This meeting should focus exclusively on developing the Charter to ensure that everyone has sufficient time to contribute and collaborate. Moodtalk users plan an average of 1h 30min for this meeting. Remember that it's a dynamic framework and the rules will change over time. Set the basis in this meeting and then start working with it.

Would you like a detailed framework for creating your first team charter? Sign up here and get a comprehensive guide for your first team charter.

Step 2: What is the overall purpose of our team within the organization?

Start by discussing and defining the team's mission. This should be a clear and concise statement that outlines the team's primary purpose and how it contributes to the company's overall goals. For example: “Our team's job is to develop innovative marketing strategies that increase brand awareness and drive revenue growth.”

Step 3: What are the most important collaboration rules that we must follow as a team?

Companies define corporate values and management principles, but often forget to let employees and teams interpret them and define what this means for their day-to-day work and the type of collaboration. So it's important to discuss exactly that and set clear, practical rules for your team on how to best work together.

It is important that every employee follows these rules and feels comfortable with them. Make sure these rules are clear and practice-oriented. Teams often end up with rules like “We trust each other.” This is on the same level as the corporate level. How can we feel that we trust each other? What are activities in our daily work that show that we trust each other? “We don't control each other because we trust each other” would be a clearer rule.

Step 4: How do we follow our team charter and what do we need to adjust?

Attention! The first three steps are useless without the last step. So if you're not ready to host a regular meeting (once a month, for example) to reflect and talk about how you're complying with the team charter rules as a team, then you shouldn't even start the process. Because then the whole process is useless and only ends in frustration. That's like getting a gym membership, going to an introductory event with the gym owner to use the equipment, and then never going to the gym again.

Review the team charter regularly to ensure that it remains relevant and in line with the team's evolving needs and goals. Therefore, use an existing team meeting or set up a special meeting with the aim of reviewing the team charter.

It is very important that all team members prepare for this meeting for 3-5 minutes by going through all the team charter rules and evaluating whether we are following them as a team. Then discuss in the team meeting which rules we follow well and why, and which rules still have potential and what prevents us from following them. Update the charter as needed to reflect any changes in goals, roles, or team dynamics.

We recommend that you hold this meeting at least once a month, as the working world is very dynamic. Another advantage is that new team members integrate into the team much more quickly because they have a clear framework for what is important for the team to work together as a team.

With rapid change and increasing demands, leaders must focus on employee engagement to ensure their teams remain productive and resilient. By introducing a team charter, you can promote a thriving working environment that not only increases employee satisfaction, but also contributes to long-term corporate success.

Idea #3: Prioritize key organizational issues

Managing workload, pressure, and ever-increasing volumes of work is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges facing modern organizations and teams today. Our data at Moodtalk shows that more than 85% of organizations are at risk of being overloaded by transformation, which has a major negative impact on employee engagement.

As a team leader, you may have experienced the overwhelming feeling of having to tackle a variety of tasks and projects at the same time. The truth is that in their eagerness to optimize productivity and get results, many companies tend to bite off more than they can chew. This is one of the biggest threats to employee engagement.

This is where setting strategic priorities comes into play. Prioritizing tasks and projects is a fundamental task not just for an individual team, but for the entire organization. No matter how much we want it, not everything can be done at once. It is about distinguishing what is really important from what is urgent but not necessarily important.

Here are a few steps to help you effectively prioritize critical organizational issues to drive employee engagement:

Step 1: Identify what's most important

A successful team is a team that is focused and knows what it wants to achieve. From the very first idea, you know which strategic goals you are pursuing and what is important for you as a team in order to achieve the best performance. Keep that in mind as you take the following steps.

Step 2: Categorize by impact

List all tasks and projects and categorize them according to their impact on the organization's strategic goals. Some tasks may be urgent, but their overall impact may be minimal. With the help of categorization, it is possible to determine which tasks are really important. It's important to involve your team in this process and discuss with them which projects you categorize, how and why. In this way, everyone has responsibility and a say.

Step 3: Implementing the Eisenhower Matrix

The Eisenhower Matrix is an excellent tool for effectively prioritizing tasks. It divides the tasks into four quadrants according to their urgency and importance. Complete, decide, delegate or cancel — you certainly know the game. The goal is to spend most of your time on important but not urgent tasks to enable proactive planning and execution. It's magical to discuss with the team what tasks you're going to eliminate, and it's a popular mood talk session that many teams are already doing to increase employee engagement.

Step 4: Regular review

Priorities can change over time. Regular reviews are necessary to ensure that your priorities are still in line with the goals of your team and organization. This can also help identify bottlenecks or tasks that may need to be reprioritized.

Finally, remember that your team is not a machine that can get more and more work done regardless of the consequences. Setting priorities is critical to sustainability, engagement, and productivity. In the long run, a clear sense of purpose and direction will foster a healthy work environment and a resilient team. As team leaders, it's our responsibility to find a balance that ensures our teams are productive without being overwhelmed.