Most enterprise social networks (ESNs) have many groups related to a company’s different business functions and departments. While many of these are necessary to business operation, such as HR for employee docs or All Company for company-wide announcements, include some lighter groups for employees to participate in and browse through on occasion. These engaging groups can be especially useful for global teams to feel even more connected to their colleagues in other countries and cities. Here are four groups you could add to your ESN to bring some fun into the workplace.
Fort Walton Beach, Fla.
Post travel photos
Employees may need to travel for work on occasion, or just for vacation, and sharing pictures from different cities and countries can be a fun way to connect. People can also offer tips about cool sites to see and the best restaurants in the area if they have visited before, too. Browsing all of the different photos and learning more about places you might not have visited before allows the opportunity to take a quick break when you need one and to learn more about your fellow colleagues.
Encourage / praise employees
Recognizing and praising co-workers does wonders for employee engagement and happiness, and also helps others to see all of the good that employees do for each other (for example, say one of your colleagues completed a day of service with your company, or your boss organized meals for a lady in your department who was on maternity leave). This can also give people in other departments ideas for nice ways to recognize and celebrate their colleagues – and can even be as simple as taking turns bringing in desserts for each month’s birthdays and posting about it in the group.
Promote events
Creative Mornings talk in Indianapolis, Ind.
Sharing both internal and external events keeps employees informed. Even if your team is geographically dispersed, conferences and events in major cities can still be shared – this could even spark an interest in others to find similar events in cities near them. Additionally, sharing conferences or events where employees could attend as speakers or exhibitors informs the entire company and allows global colleagues to meet up.
Share relevant media
With the amount of media that is published every day, taking in all content that is interesting and relevant to you is impossible. Creating a group for everyone to share interesting articles, videos, graphics, etc. is a great way to get people talking and sharing. These could range from a Ted Talk about the best way to relieve stress after a long workweek to a new report with statistics about your job function.
Adding these groups to your ESN connects employees in every department of the company with work-related information that is still enjoyable. Consider adding a new group to your ESN, and promote it with posts of your own. Have an idea for a cool group that we didn’t share? Let us know on Twitter or comment below!
