Tasty ways to improve employee engagement with chocolate, cheese, and wine!
Our Employee Engagement Specialist, Andrew Gordon, offers some tasty ideas for engaging with your employees over the Summer.
Organisations with high employee engagement are said to outperform those with low employee engagement by a huge 202%. And the benefits of employee engagement - staff retention, productivity, profitability, and good mental wellness are well documented.
Employee engagement is largely driven by the employee experience within their workplace. A quick trip to the Gallup website shows that when measuring global employee engagement only 21% of employees are engaged, with 19% being actively disengaged. While the Engagement Multiplier website shows a quick guide to some statistics and gives examples of 10% increase in customer ratings and 20% increase in sales.
So, in theory, we all know what we want to achieve – happy, productive people, but the how is not always easy. To achieve a high level of employee engagement you need knowledge, strategies, and tactics. We often focus on the knowledge and strategies part of the solution yet some of the real fun parts come from the tactics.
So, we thought we’d push out a few ideas as we hit the Summer and in July you have some opportunities to enjoy the fruits of your labours – accompanied by chocolate, wine, and cheese!
July 7th is World Chocolate Day
The event is dedicated to all things cocoa-based, and it’s certainly not time to discriminate. Indulge yourself, share with others, make something of this day within your team/s. Here are a few ideas:
1. What about mindful chocolate eating?
Have team events where you all enjoy your chocolate mindfully. Take things slow, concentrate on each bite and savour the moment as you take in the aroma, taste and texture. Consider good quality dark chocolate, less of a problem for people with diabetes, and vegan chocolate too. With pure water to cleanse the palette and refresh, and fruit for those that want to add variety to the event a good balance can be achieved.
2. Enjoy a chocolate quiz.
Test the chocolate products knowledge with your teams with a prize for the winner or winning teams. When was the Kit Kat first sold? Which is older Nestlé Quality Street or Cadbury Roses? What is the worlds largest Easter egg? (The largest chocolate Easter egg weighs an impressive 7,200 kg, measures 10.39 metres in height, and has a circumference of 19.6 metres as of 2nd June 2023.) You get the idea – a quick internet search should educate and entertain.
3. Bring chocolate related gifts for staff or colleagues.
Maybe use a ‘Secret Santa’ style theme. For people that won’t want to eat chocolate offer a related gift such as a note pad,or mug decorated with chocolate images.
July 25th is National Wine & Cheese Day
A day that celebrates the ultimate pairing of cheese and wine. It could be expanded to think about other great pairings and teamwork too. Any of the ideas we suggested for chocolate could apply but here’s a couple more, although for both we would suggest an after work/end of the day or end of the week time slot as it may be best to avoid mindful drinking at work!
1. A cheese & wine quiz with prizes
An easy one to create and manage in-house as an informal team building activity. And everyone could bring along their own favourite cheese which could be great to introduce some real variety. Include non-alcoholic wines and alternatives to wine such as flavoured waters too.
2. A cheese & wine tasting
Meet at a local venue for a wine and cheese tasting – also great to support those small, local artisan businesses who may have struggled over the last couple of pandemic related years. Think about different varieties of cheese such as goats’ cheese and include some vegan substitutes.
Be Inclusive
We firmly believe that employee engagement activities should be inclusive events so it’s an opportunity to explore what works well for different cultures and beliefs with the people who work for you. Ask them what they enjoy if chocolate, cheese, or wine is not their thing. This can broaden the teams understanding of each other and introduce people to new ideas that they can enjoy as well as be educated on too.
So, lots to think about when it comes to employee engagement initiatives as we head into Summer, but we hope these ideas support you in increasing engagement with your people, as well as your taste buds tingling!!
For more ideas on how to introduce regular employee engagement initiatives within your organisation, our Awareness Days Calendar can help.