HR apps for Microsoft Teams that boost employee engagement

Engaged workforce, great culture, successful business. For HR Directors, that’s the dream. You want to create somewhere people love to work, where support and development are at the centre. And where the business consistently grows as a result. But getting there won’t be easy. So you’ll need three things. Microsoft Teams to facilitate collaboration and communication. Fantastic managers who value their people and understand employee engagement. And HR apps for Microsoft Teams that make driving engagement simple.

Employee engagement doesn’t need to be complicated. It’s based on great communication. And that comes from effective managers, supported by simple technology. You already use Microsoft Teams, so it makes sense to implement an HR app that integrates with it. And at the same time, you can create a culture where engagement's part of the day-to-day, not just a one-off annual event. So, to make your employee engagement dream a reality, you need to review:

• Why great managers are essential for employee engagement
• Moving away from traditional employee engagement surveys
• Why HR apps that integrate with Microsoft Teams are critical

The manager role in employee engagement

Managers can make or break employee engagement. Great managers drive support and success. Employees feel valued and go the extra mile. They're proud of their work and advocate for your business wherever they are. But bad managers spark disaster. Productivity drops, morale slumps, and turnover rises as employees lose commitment to the company.

So you need managers who recognise the links between performance and engagement. And focus on communication and building strong connections with their teams. That's where HR apps for Microsoft Teams can help. They provide feedback and direction so when opportunities arise, their employees develop and grow. And that creates increased commitment to the business.

You need a process of weekly check-ins. Two-way interactions where both employee and manager provide input. Employees highlight progress against OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and raise concerns. And managers actively move obstacles and provide recognition and feedback. They support and direct with genuine interest. In employee career goals. Motivations. And they understand how to get the best from their people.

So employee engagement doesn't just happen when a survey comes out. You need managers working on it all the time. They need consistency and must act when things take a turn for the worse. So commitment remains, even on the bad days.

Better than annual engagement surveys

Hundreds of HR Directors recognise annual appraisals are a terrible way to track performance. Yet many still rely on an annual or quarterly pulse survey to assess employee engagement. But it's a moving target. Employee engagement waxes and wanes every hour, let alone every year.

Using one-off or infrequent pulse surveys only offers a snapshot of engagement. And successes are forgotten before results are issued. So you need a proactive tool that helps you spot excellence as it happens, and support issues as they develop.

You need to look for HR apps for Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Viva that record check-in progress and track employee engagement over time. It's true, that data isn't anonymous  like it would be in an annual survey. But that's actually one of the benefits. Employee engagement isn't the same everywhere. So you need to be able to see the trends, celebrate role models, and provide support where it's needed most.

CReports on check-in completion offer a great start point. Gaps highlight managers who aren’t bought in to the process. And employees without regular feedback rarely demonstrate high levels of commitment. Weekly10 excels on check-ins, but it also goes one step further. And provides sentiment insights by analysing the language employees use. So you can spot downward trends in commitment as soon as they start to happen and take action before it's too late.

Why integration with Microsoft Teams is critical

Microsoft Teams supports a great employee experience. It's one of the reasons you use it. Different channels (video, phone, direct messaging) provide flexibility, so communication works no matter who’s involved. Formal and informal groups let people connect through shared interests as well as business needs. And desktop and mobile options mean employees can be in the office, at home, or sat out enjoying the sunshine.

So, if you have Microsoft Teams in place, there's an argument you could pick any HR engagement tool. But to make employee engagement successful, you need fully integrated HR apps for Microsoft Teams, like Weekly10. Not only do you get the functionality and reporting you need, but you also get these benefits:

• Increased adoption. Employees are more likely to use a system that looks and feels familiar. And it keeps everything in one place. They're already in Microsoft Teams so jumping to the weekly check-in element feels easy and soon becomes second nature.
• Easier roll-out. Employees and managers already know how to use Microsoft Teams so it doesn't feel like a whole new system. And you have the team structure created already. So the roll-out becomes focused on using check-in templates and running reports. And you don't lose hours creating organisational structures that also need to be kept up to date.
• Single Sign On. Weekly10 is linked to your Microsoft Teams login so you don't need to remember yet another password.
• Better security. IT already use Active Directory to manage access to Microsoft Teams, so starters and leavers are automatically processed.

Employee engagement isn't rocket science. But you need the right tools and processes for success. So your start point is introducing weekly check-ins. And you can use our Guide to employee engagement in a remote working world to plan your next steps, while managers get used to the new approach.