Enhancing Monday Motivation: Employee Engagement Strategies and Initiatives

Dear all,

Any suggestions on how to make Mondays more interesting? What can HR do for 15 to 20 minutes every Monday that will make employees look forward to coming to the office on Monday?

Hello Sunayna,

Try this: On arrival at the office, let all employees recite the anthem of the organization and spend about 15 minutes sharing the plans they have for the ensuing week. I have done this in all the 5 organizations I have worked (including the current one).

Let the chief of HR be the first to arrive and set an example for others on a Monday. To drive away the "Monday morning blues," you may introduce awards for "early birds."

Best regards,
Padmanaban
98400 29805

Well, I am wondering as to what HR is up to nowadays.

To drive away Monday blues, consider doing activities that take care not to make work interesting. Be cautious that these 15-20 minutes may spoil your employees' day, who are the most important assets of the organization.

To drive away the "Monday morning blues," you may introduce awards for "early birds."

This early bird idea sounds good. I will work around this.

To drive away Monday blues, doing this that. Just take care that instead of making the work interesting, those 15-20 minutes may spoil your employees' day, who are the most important assets of the organization.

I understand that HR needs to be subtle and careful while doing something like this. For all we know, people who don't face blues might end up experiencing them. Any suggestions on doing something subtle then?

I have tried this very successfully in my organization. I do have over 200 staff here. The reason for being successful with this is that I am convinced and I do think laterally, and not 'conservatively.'

Thanks for your 'comment'.

Hi,

Some more ideas:

1. No bullshitting by bosses until 1 pm.
2. Everybody should put on big smiles until 10 am.
3. Everybody should dress up in their best clothes on Monday.
... etc...

I hope these suggestions are helpful. Let me know if you need more ideas!

Friday... yay yay yay... :)

Did you hear that bubbly sound, Sunayna? :)

Some of the things that could be done are:
- Whoever is feeling grumpy:
- Put a smiley on his/her desk
- Tell him/her a joke
- Ask him/her to tell a joke
- Since you cannot have a laughter group in the office, at least have your coffee/tea in a group together - the team that eats/drinks together stays together like a family. Being together brings transparency and eliminates misgivings, sullenness, untoward gossip. Talk about something other than work. Everybody could take a turn at something humorous.
- Celebrate birthdays, successes, and other small events together. Being together takes out the loneliness from people's lives. Being together fosters a sense of joy and life within the company. Otherwise, people will be scheming to leave for fatter paychecks and a better ambiance/environment because please remember, in employee surveys, ambiance and environment are factors that are given due attention by a major percentage of employees.
- Start a topic and invite ideas, thoughts, etc. Get people involved. That will bring the shy people to the forefront.
- And for goodness' sake, never ever send forwards using company email. Company email is strictly for business purposes. Please encourage this thought. If anyone wishes to send forwards, use personal email and send it across to everybody in your group, not singling out a few individuals.
- Work is after all 'plug and play'. 'Play' means work and vice versa. That brings us to realize how serious is the business of staying fun, fit, and sporty, not only professionally but also personally.

Sunayna, this is a very interesting topic and discussion that you have brought to this forum. Thank you for giving me a chance to bring forth my views.

Have a great fun-filled day.

Cheers!

Mohan
Bangalore

Hi,

I just have a cutting from The Week dated 10th June 2007.

In that they have mentioned about Monday's blues and thought of sharing with all of you.

iGators from Bangalore have mentioned as follows:

Around 12:30 pm every Monday at iGate's Bangalore campus, iGators, as the employees are called, flock together at the amphitheatre for an afternoon of music performed by a group of music-minded colleagues. Begun about 8 months ago, this initiative has received a tremendous response, and employees vie with one another to display their talent.

Explaining the rationale behind conducting this program on Monday afternoon, Hemant Bhardwaj of iGate said, "We wanted to have some excitement on the first day of the week, which many consider to be a day of drudgery and blues. We want our employees to say 'Thank God, it is Monday'." The company also uses this event to connect the new entrants with other employees.

I guess antakshari would suffice if the above is not possible during lunchtime.

The early bird is also a good idea.

We came up with something interesting. We have decided to give out awards every Monday. The awards include:

1. Coming on time
2. Best dressed
3. Best shoes
4. Best hairstyle
5. Best smile

We will keep the awards a secret to maintain the element of surprise. Hopefully, this will keep all employees curious and looking forward to the Monday 10-minute session.

Your suggestions for improvement are always welcome.

No awards, no rewards can make Mondays interesting forever. Except for a few things like when your colleague is very humorous, or when you left some gossip incomplete on the weekend, or by any chance if it's a salary day.