Takeaways from Employee Engage Summit 2024

Last week, we were thrilled to attend 2024's Employee Engagement Summit in London, an event that celebrates putting employees at the heart of organisations helping to harness the power of people.

The event showed us just how prevalent digital platforms are in the employee experience world which involved a myriad of speakers from key industry players.

During the Summit, Ruby Wax took centre stage as keynote speaker, and talked to us about the importance of prioritising good mental health in the workplace, which was in-keeping with her international bestselling book ‘Frazzled’:

• She revealed that mental illness costs 180 billion a year
• She also discussed how there’s a purpose in stress and some stress is good, it keeps us safe. However, stress upon stress can be damaging - that’s when we’re frazzled and it’s important to recognise the difference: “Burnout: the chase is better than the kill, it’s not about what you get.”

We also heard from Alshaya – brand franchise operator who works with Starbucks, Disney, and Victoria Secret. They talked about how they use a platform to connect with a wide range of people and how they reach them. This includes 'cross-cultural campaigns’, such as stories about Saudi Arabia’s first forklift driver to the Dubai Floods, and how they use them to learn, inform, engage, and connect with people wherever they are.

We then spent the afternoon by splitting into smaller groups for a range of talks. I chose the ‘Strategy and Leadership’ session, where we heard from Treatwell about their merger & acquisition (M&A) in March 2020. We also attended an engaging talk about the importance of refreshing values to help bring people together, which ended on this quote: “when it comes to M&A it’s like a rollercoaster – some people are loving it, others not so much.”

Next, we visited the Wellbeing and DE&I room, where Uber for Business told us about their approach to benefits for Gen Z. They discussed what they’re looking for, which included:

• Increased transparency
• Greater inclusion
• More flexibility
• A business who is aligned with their values

With these in mind, they found that subsidising travel to work (shared Ubers of course) and food helps bring a sense of community and belonging to Gen Z.

Meanwhile, millennials are all about the “bleisure” – business and leisure travel (holidays bolted onto work trips), and 29% of UK ‘travel managers’ are updating their travel policies to reflect this (findings sourced from a study by Uber).

Uber has also nailed the tech and expenses are a breeze as they are auto-generated. ?The compère shared a great link back to DE&I and noted that expenses are particularly hard to for those with ADHD. “Making them this easy is a game-changer” she said. A great, unexpected way to include and support people by simple auto-generating expenses.

In summary, our three main take-outs of the event were:

• Know your audience: Shadowing is under-rated, moments that matter, matter.
• Don’t just survey, use the analytics to benchmark and get the tech to do the work.
• Communities of employees are hugely helping engagement.

If you’re interested in finding out how McCann Synergy can help you transform your employee experience, get in touch with the team.