Top trends and tips for engaging and motivating your people in 2023 and beyond
Building depth and connections is the key to success
Stepping into the new year is a good time to share the top trends and tips for engaging and motivating your people to drive forward business success in 2023 and beyond.
Before we jump in, let’s pause to consider: why should engaging and motivating your people be a top priority?
With work teams
Fact: many of us are disengaged at work with research from Gallup showing only 20% of Australians are engaged at work, yet highly engaged workforces outperform their peers by 147%.
With customers
Fact: your clients, customers, channel partners WANT you to connect with them – research from Sprout Social shows 64% of Australians want brands to connect with them, while Qualtrics research reveals 52% of Australians would buy more from a company if it treated them better, and Statista research highlighting that branded events and activations have a larger influence on consumers than TV ads.
These dismal engagement figures with teams and customers can and should be flipped. One of the best ways to engage your people – whether they be staff, partners, stakeholders, customers, media, influencers – is through educational and rewarding conferences, events, activations and incentives.
Many principals for delivering strategy, product engagement or people development programs, remain the same but the way we can engage speakers with audiences, and plan event programs has evolved. The time is ripe to capitalise on this to increase business momentum.
With this in mind, we want to provide you with our top tips to engage and motivate your people:
1. Power your strategy with engagement experiences
More than ever people are seeking enrichment opportunities and experiences – at work and from leisure. People want to feel they are supported by their workplace and by the brands they buy from. Holding regular events to share your company’s vision and providing development opportunities is key to aligning, inspiring and motivating your people.
2. Location, location, location: an enticing destination (physical or online)
Location plays a powerful role in our mindset. A sense of place contributes to our sense of belonging. A desirable destination – either physical or delivered online via a virtual set – can immediately spark a connection and ignite passion.
Future forward your events and conferences by planning national or international simultaneous multi-site events held in the cities where your people are, connected by an immersive, branded online venue through our unique and fully customisable solution, e:volve. Inclusion is key, so consider the impact when you can engage with the larger audience at much less cost than in person events.
For incentives trips, look to off-the-beaten track locations that provide certainty, inspiration and unique experiences – we love Australia’s Northern Territory, as well as Queenstown and Rotorua in New Zealand. We have also organised showstopping business travel group programs to locations all around the world, from Fiji and Thailand to South Africa, Europe, USA and Alaska, just to name a few.
3. Provide the certainty and flexibility your people need and deserve
Make in-person events hybrid and ensure your delegates are provided high-quality smaller group, or online experiences. This has never been more important for both guests and presenters, plus deliver smart, sustainable solutions. This will allow you to include more people than traditional event methods – be inclusive rather than exclusive.
The crux here is ensuring an engaging online event experience. Zoom fatigue is real, however, online and hybrid work when you get it right. We built our e:volve online events platform to be an immersive digital world that can be tailored to your brand and message. We were thrilled to see the experience it provides recognised with our win at the 2022 Australian Event Awards for Best National Live or Hybrid Brand Event.
4. Craft a captivating program and focus on two-way communication and interactivity
Well crafted, enriching presentations packed with relevant content and delivered in a high-energy interactive way combined with fun are key elements in the recipe for a captivating program..
Include live polling or quizzes during presentations to keep guests engaged and gauge real time insights from your people, no matter their location, it’s a real boost for culture and feedback. Invite guests to upload their photos to a building inclusion wall displayed at each event and online and submit brainstorming ideas shown as real-time word clouds to enhance the impact of interaction. Live Q&A’s allow guests to interact with presenters, while chat streams build networking and connections within your community.
5. Focus on sustainability
Sustainability matters and at Synergy Effect we are committed to creating experiences based around enhanced sustainability – which is why we have been awarded a Gold Medal by Ecovadis – ranking us in the top three per cent of similar event management companies globally for sustainability – encompassing environmental, labour and human rights, ethics and culture.
Hybrid simultaneous multi-site events can reduce the carbon footprint of an event or conference by over 90%.
With these trends and tips in mind, what are your planned strategies for engaging and motivating your people in the new year?
We would love to talk to you about your needs and vision and how we can help!
By Ruth Hirst,
Director
Synergy Effect
