The Covid-19 pandemic forced many companies to embrace the work-from-home lifestyle where employees were (suddenly) thrust into a work culture that was alien to many.
In these difficult times, it’s more important than ever to keep sales teams motivated and ensure their morale doesn’t dip.
Apart from dealing with operational issues, managers must come up with creative ideas to boost employee engagement. This is easier said than done for many organizations that have very little experience managing remote workers.
Communication and collaboration can be taken care of by using tools that enable video conferencing, group calling, messaging, and screen sharing.
But how do you go about employee engagement when your entire workforce is operating remotely?
How can you keep their sales skills sharp when you don’t get to see them in person?
How to motivate sales teams and keep them united when they are scattered across different cities or even countries?
These are some of the many questions that haunt the sales industry leaders of today.
Before we tread any further, let’s find out what employee engagement is all about.
What exactly is employee engagement?
Kevin Kruse, the author of ‘Employee Engagement For Everyone’ has defined employee engagement as the emotional commitment that an employee has towards their organization and its goals.
Why is it important for your employees to be emotionally invested in their jobs?
It’s crucial because engaged employees do not work for their paychecks alone but they show up every single day at work, ready and excited to go the extra mile and make every day count.
Let’s take a look at some alarming numbers on employee engagement.
According to Gallup’s report, only 20% of employees are engaged in their workplaces.
A study conducted by Glint shows that disengaged employees are 12 times more likely to leave their jobs over a 1 year period than their counterparts.
One of the easiest ways to achieve higher levels of employee engagement is to introduce games in their work schedule. Games can liven up their workday. The fun activities will keep your sales reps sharp, it will help new reps sell better and in due course, boost the morale of your whole team.
Online Games for Employee Engagement
In this blog post, we have compiled a list of 6 online games for employee engagement which are a sure-fire way to enhance productivity and motivate sales.
Let’s get down to it.
1) Gamified cold calling
First up, we have ‘cold calling’ which is a task that a lot of sales reps don’t otherwise look forward to. Turn it into a fun activity for your entire team by scoring points. Assign points to actions or events that take place during a call such as getting an email address or scheduling a follow-up and keep track of your team’s scores. The rep who scores the most points – wins!
This is a game that can be played often with your team. It helps new reps improve their cold calling skills and the task becomes less of a burden and more of an engaging activity for your reps.
2) Sales Jeopardy!
You can create your own ‘sales Jeopardy!’ It’s one of the best ways to train junior reps on your company’s sales process, product range, customers, competitors, and much more.
Create 5 different categories with 5 questions each.
For example, if you have a category on the products you sell, you may include a question like ‘What’s the price of ‘X’ product?’
Assign points to these questions ranging from 100 to 500. Questions with 100 points are the easiest and those with 500 points are the toughest to crack.
Prepare a ‘Jeopardy!’ board in PowerPoint or use a ‘Jeopardy!’ template that’s available online.
Now divide your sales team into smaller groups. Each group has to pick a category and a point value. The team has a time limit to discuss and answer the question.
If their answer is right, they get those points. If they are wrong, the other teams have a chance to steal the question and attempt to answer it. Keep a track of each team’s score. Once all the questions are picked, the team with the most points wins.
3) A personal facts guessing game
Another fun way to engage your sales team is to have a ‘personal facts guessing game’.
Before you start with the virtual meeting, ask each of your teammates to share some personal facts with you. Compile these facts into a document and share it with each team member. Besides each personal fact, leave a column empty for your sales reps to guess which team member the fact belongs to!
Once all the guesses are submitted, share an answer key so that your team members can see how well they have fared. This is a great way to build team cohesion and camaraderie, it can also turn out to be a hilarious activity.
4) Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger Hunt is a game that’s usually played out in a public area where a group of players approaches strangers to obtain items on a predetermined list of goals. For example “take a selfie with a stranger” could be one of the items on the list.
However, with Covid-19 and social distancing norms in play, these types of games cannot be played outdoors. Instead, it can be modified into an interesting online game for employee engagement. The game can be played on Slack. Set a time limit, of say 10 minutes where everyone has to fill up their social scavenger checklist after discussing with other teams via messages or video call.
Here are a few interesting questions to include in your virtual scavenger hunt:
a) Find a teammate whose parents reside in a different country than them.
b) Find a teammate who has never seen the Harry Potter series.
c) Collect a team member’s favorite meme.
d) Get a video of a team member trying to beatbox.
e) Get a screenshot of a team member dressed up in a costume.
This is not only a great way to get your team to be more social and persuasive but it also increases esprit de corps among your teammates.
5) Match game
The Match game is a fun online game for employee engagement that can help improve your team’s consultative selling skills.
Start by making 2 lists. The first list will include the products you sell along with their features and pricing plans. The second list must have one-line descriptions where potential clients would benefit from it. Now share the 2 lists with your teammates and ask them to match the products to the right prospect.
This online game will help new reps to listen keenly to the needs of prospective customers and offer the right product to match their needs.
6) Virtual multiplayer games
Your online games for employee engagement need not be confined to work alone. Invite your team to multiplayer games and give them a chance to relax and unwind.
Here are our top favorites (All you need is a mobile device to play these)
- Words with Friends
- Crossy road
- Minecraft
Also, check with your employees if there are any specific games that they would like to play. If it gets enough votes from the rest of your team, add them to your list.
Make sales fun and engaging
Go ahead and prep up some fun and exciting games to enhance your team’s engagement and productivity.
Want to take it up a notch and keep your team motivated with sales incentives gamification? Get started with Unomok today!