Ping-pong tournaments, pet-friendly offices, beer on tap, unlimited vacations, performance-based bonuses, social causes, fitness classes, trips and perks… tech companies have no shortage of ideas to engage their employees and to provide a cool and flexible work environment that supports the “work hard play hard” demand of the tech industry.

But what truly keeps your employees engaged? Is it money? Benefits? Flexibility? Culture? People? Office space? Titles? Learning? Growth? Do these engagement drivers vary from company to company or team to team? How do you identify, measure, and improve them in your organization? What are the tools and initiatives you can implement to better engage with your employees? And finally, how do you measure – and celebrate – progress and success?

These were the key questions asked during BC Tech’s Grub in the Hub on December 2nd. Our expert panel, including Kathy Enros from ACL, Monika Mascitti from BuildDirect, Alysia MacInnes from A Thinking Ape, and Adam DiPaula from Sentis Market Research, shared their experiences and thoughts on what truly engages, motivates and retains talent to a highly engaged crowd of tech leaders and talent professionals.

If you missed it, here are a few key takeaways:

•Measuring is key to better understanding and improving your employee engagement;
•Whether you build your own survey, or pay for a solution like STARFiiSH, you must benchmark and continually measure team member engagement;
•Share results with the entire company – whether you score well or not, transparency is a must;
•Everyone in the company ‘owns’ engagement, not just leadership or the talent team;
•Ping pong tables and beer taps do not improve engagement;
•Make sure to measure and consider other data points as well as indicators of engagement, such as attrition, referral rates and absenteeism.

Stay tuned for future talent panels and workshops through our Events Calendar, or find out more about BC Tech’s talent programs here.