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Forbes
8 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
11 Ways To Keep Your Team Energized And Motivated This Summer
The summer months can bring a dip in employee engagement, with warmer weather and vacation plans tempting even the most dedicated team members to shift their focus. However, with the right mindset and approach, employers can keep productivity high while still supporting their staff's need for flexibility and rest. From flex scheduling to culture-driven engagement strategies, a little seasonal creativity can go a long way. Below, 11 members of Forbes Human Resources Council share practical, proven ways to keep your workforce motivated, energized and productive throughout the summer season. 1. Encourage PTO By Modeling It From The Top Leaders, you must model what you preach. You should take PTO and show your teams it's not just allowed—it's expected. When people see leaders unplugging, they feel permission to recharge, too. A well-rested team is a creative, motivated and engaged one. - Jamie Aitken, Betterworks 2. Offer Flexible Summer Fridays To Boost Engagement One strategy is to introduce "Summer Flex Fridays," where employees have the option to adjust their work schedules—starting earlier, ending earlier or working compressed hours—to enjoy additional time off on Friday afternoons. This flexible approach acknowledges summer's natural disruptions and helps employees recharge, keeping them motivated, engaged and productive. - Britton Bloch, Navy Federal 3. Incorporate Fun, Connection-Focused Team Meetings You can roll out flexible Friday schedules or no-meeting Fridays. Another way to keep engagement high is to have monthly team meetings that are fun with no business conversation; it is just to connect and have a more personal meeting, whether it is to talk about summer plans or just to have that time together with no talk about work. Sometimes, the small things, even if it is just for the summer, go a long way with employees. - Heather Smith, Flimp 4. Host Offsite Gatherings To Build Midyear Camaraderie In recent years, we've had a camp-themed team get-together at an off-site location. Since we're remote and dispersed, this gives us a chance to have some face-to-face time in a more relaxed setting while still getting work done. We've found it facilitates feelings of collaboration and camaraderie at the midway point in the calendar year (and leaves plenty of opportunity for summer vacation). - Caitlin MacGregor, Plum Forbes Human Resources Council is an invitation-only organization for HR executives across all industries. Do I qualify? 5. Use Summer Downtime For Strategic Skill Building Summer is the perfect window to build workforce capability. You can introduce high-impact, skill-building initiatives aligned with evolving business needs and offer optional growth tracks during slower weeks. This enables development without overload. While others slow down, strategic HR turns summer into a runway for readiness, not just rest. - Katrina Jones 6. Blend Flexibility And Focus With A Summer Cadence Create a summer cadence that blends flexibility with focus—think summer hours, team sprints or themed goals. You should try to lighten the load where you can, but keep the purpose visible. When people feel trusted with their time and connected to progress, motivation doesn't dip—it sharpens. - Stephanie Manzelli, Employ Inc. 7. Build A Culture Where Purpose Drives Year-Round Motivation It starts way before the summer months; it is the ongoing notion that you are serving a purpose that is 24/7 and 365. Having a culture that aligns with its values and the importance of the employees' work is key. It will not matter if it is summer vacation or winter break; it is setting the expectations around why their work matters. - Jalie Cohen, Radiology Partners 8. Introduce Summer Fun Challenges One practical idea is to introduce "Summer Flex Wins"—like flexible hours, meeting-free Fridays and light challenges with fun rewards. It helps employees recharge without losing momentum. A little freedom, recognition and playfulness go a long way in keeping energy high and minds focused during the summer months. - Ankita Singh, Relevance Lab 9. Redesign Summer Workflows For Autonomy And Impact Summer is a season, not a slowdown—if you design for it. With our 'work from anywhere' model, we pair autonomy with intention: lighter meetings, rotating recharge days and async goal check-ins. One small shift can create a big impact. Productivity stays high and motivation grows because people don't need micromanagement to deliver, just a margin. - Apryl Evans, USA for UNHCR 10. Use Summer To Spark Personal And Professional Growth You can use summer as a catalyst for personal growth. Companies can offer bite-sized, personalized development, like strengths-based challenges or peer coaching, tailored to each person. This keeps energy up, deepens engagement and turns slower months into meaningful momentum for both people and the business. - Jaka Lindic, e2grow 11. Provide Flexibility That Supports Family And Life Balance The key is to provide the added flexibility employees need to enjoy the summer with their families. They may have a slightly different work format, hours of working or other modifications. Leaders who show they understand their team's family needs will indirectly encourage higher productivity. Leaders who try to contain their team's lives to the workplace will create retention issues. - Nicky Hancock, AMS
Forbes
04-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Meet Your Digital Teammates That Reason, Act And Collaborate With You
As AI transforms how we work, the American workforce is worried that it will replace them, taking over decision-making and eliminating jobs. According to Gartner, 'Agentic AI offers the promise of a virtual workforce that can offload and augment human work.' And you might soon meet your digital teammates as agentic AI systems move from promise to practice this year. The Pew Research Center finds that 52% Of U.S. employees fear AI could take their jobs. But recent studies show that AI is helping, not hindering productivity. Even in situations where it's eliminating jobs, it's simultaneously creating new ones. In January 2025, AI eliminated over seven thousand jobs from 31 major tech companies, but it was good news in disguise. Laid-off tech workers pivoted careers amid ongoing AI-driven layoffs and found six-figure salaries, flourishing in careers in unexpected sectors. A recent study shows that 61% of business leaders say AI's automated tasks have improved their work-life balance, doing their busywork and freeing their time to focus on more important tasks. The Betterworks 2025 Global HR Research Report also reveals that 75% of employees want to use AI to support their career growth, while 96% insist it can help them advance internally. Jamie Aitken, vice president of HR transformation at Betterworks argues that AI helps managers be more human. This is where AI-powered performance management makes a real impact," Aitken states. 'By enabling the kinds of conversations that lead to skill and career development, AI tools can help managers deliver more timely and personalized conversations, as well as more actionable feedback, making it easier to talk about growth and not just performance.' I wanted to know more about the new technology called agentic AI systems or what experts describe as 'your digital teammates.' I spoke with Kevin Frechette, co-founder and CEO at Fairmarkit, who is at the forefront of applying agentic AI. He tells me that 2025 is the year HR will evolve from autonomous AI that simply assists to agentic AI systems that act independently as teammates to help organizations operate on a global scale. Frechette explains that autonomous AI usually focuses on completing a single task without human involvement, unaware of how that task fits into the bigger picture, whereas Agentic AI is workflow-aware and business-aware. 'You've got a network of agents that collaborate, adapt and pass tasks to one another, all while aligning with broader business objectives' he clarifies. 'It's not just about automating a single step. It's about automating the whole job, with people involved when and where they're needed. That's a huge shift. Autonomous and agentic AI both improve efficiency, but agentic AI brings a deeper level of context, coordination and scale.' He describes how agentic AI systems are made up of multiple AI agents--all working together independently reasoning, acting and collaborating. 'At its core, it's a system of autonomous AI agents designed to handle complex, multi-step workflows, not just single tasks,' he points out. 'These agents can make decisions, coordinate with one another, adapt to real-time inputs and escalate to a supervisor agent when needed. Think of it as a digital team built to move faster, scale smarter and work alongside your human workforce, with people still in control.' To describe how your digital teammates might function, Frechette gives the example of procurement where one agent handles sourcing, another manages vendor compliance and another negotiates pricing. He describes how they're all syncing with each other in real time. 'The real value shows up when these systems operate seamlessly behind the scenes, reducing the manual lift for teams and speeding up execution without sacrificing control or transparency. At Fairmarkit, we're seeing this play out in sourcing, where agents are actually handling work that used to take days in just minutes.' Predictions are that by 2028, your agentic AI digital teammates will make at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions autonomously. Frechette believes HR leaders will be one of the earliest winners with less time spent on manual, administrative tasks and more focus on strategic, people-first workplace initiatives. He lists four major advantages that your digital teammates bring. 1. Speed execution. 'AI agents can complete tasks in seconds that would otherwise take hours, from processing requests to generating reports to triggering follow-ups. This helps teams move faster, clear backlogs and boost performance. AI agents can sift through thousands of resumes, conduct initial interviews and synthesize feedback so hiring teams can handle second-round interviews and onward.' 2. Improve coordination. Agentic AI improves coordination across systems and functions. 'Instead of relying on people to move information from tool to tool, agents talk to each other, hand off tasks and keep workflows moving without delays or dropped steps. On-boarding, for example, usually involves multiple workflows and hand-offs. Agentic AI can autonomously manage each step and ensure all the agents involved are communicating, so nothing gets lost in translation.' 3. Allow autonomy. Agentic AI introduces true autonomy, according to Frechette, 'not just automating tasks but understanding context, making decisions and escalating when needed. That's a game-changer for businesses looking to scale without losing control. AI agents that 'talk' to each other can guide employees across their entire lifecycle--from training to benefits to internal mobility--without added lift from HR teams.' 4. Lengthen human bandwidth. 'Now, even small teams can mobilize a large number of agents to tackle work in parallel, turning a team of five into the output of fifty. That opens up entirely new possibilities for innovation, responsiveness and scale.' Frechette predicts that looking ahead, your digital teammates of agentic AI will shift how companies operate across the board. 'It makes advanced automation accessible to teams that don't have big IT budgets or technical expertise,' he explains. 'But it also raises new questions about ethics, oversight and accountability. That's why the companies that invest in thoughtful design, transparency and human-in-the-loop controls will be the ones that lead the way when it comes to agentic AI.' With AI agents working in sync, Frechette concludes that in a world where one employee can have 20 or 100 AI agents working in sync, you're unlocking an entirely new level of productivity and execution. He insists that your digital teammates are more than automation--they're your digital workforce.
