Engagement Technique: The Inspiration Session

 

Sometimes the simplest employee engagement exercise creates the biggest impact. One of my favourites is what I call the Inspiration Session.

 

In a previous company, I was asked to create a session around one of our Values. I’ll admit it, I was running out of ideas. For this one, I went by department, and ask everyone to prep two answers in advance:

1. Who inspires you inside work?

2. Who inspires you outside work?

 

I was expecting light answers. Maybe “my colleague sitting next to me” or “Taylor Swift.” But during the sessions there were tears, laughter, and powerful, heartfelt stories.

• A colleague who was inspired by her sisters move across the world, that brought her to where she was today – and missing her dearly!

• Someone in Finance talking about how much they admired a colleague in Marketing.

• One of the team getting 10 nods!

• Stories of mentors, family members, and colleagues who had shaped careers and lives.

We captured these inspirations in a shared spreadsheet so people could revisit them later, and even introduced a fun award for “The People’s Most Inspiring Person.”

Although the simplicity was an accident, it was a cost-free, and unforgettable series of workshops. People were still talking about it months afterwards, and the session created connections across departments that hadn’t existed before.

Having that visual with the shared spreadsheet people could access after made it all the better. It encouraged converssations people simply hadn’t had before.

Why this engagement exercise works:

• It builds understanding and connection between teams.

• It surfaces values and stories that usually stay hidden.

• It reinforces appreciation for colleagues in an authentic way.

The Inspiration Session proves that an employee engagement exercise doesn’t need a big budget, just the right questions.

This blog kicks off our Engagement Techniques series: practical, low-cost ideas you can use to bring people closer together at work.

Want to explore techniques like this in more depth? I run interactive workshops on employee engagement that you can check out here.