Employee Engagement

I have been to attend an interview days back and was given an opportunity to elucidate about employee engagement.

I actually see short term and long term goals pertaining to this subject. I have discussed a lot, but are very few to detail as per my knowledge.

I request all of you to add valid points covering under this subject to meet long term objectives.

Increasing employee engagement is among the top three items of the to do list of many Human Resources Managers.  An engaged employee is defined as a person who is heartily involved in, and enthusiastic about his/her work. Employee engagement is the responsibility of business leader’s at all organizational levels. Organizations must invest on HRIS to hold high quality data to know the level of satisfaction in the organization and deploy new policies.

What will turn employee engagement into another short lived fad is if it is used by employers as a method to get people to work harder. My understanding of employee engagement is not that to treat it as just a duty, but practicing every day in every action, by front line leaders/Managers. There are many tools we are practicing, but some of my views pertaining to the subject are the below:

1. Offer volunteering opportunities to the employees to participate in CSR activities

Employee volunteering is the best employee engagement tool which is less conventional and often overlooked. During Employee volunteering activities like Tree planting, school renovation etc, lot of emotional bonding will develop between employees. We can also invite our customers to strengthening the relationship with our company and customers.

2. Servant leadership

Researches indicate that front line leaders play an important role in instilling a sense of engagement in co-workers. The quality of the connection between leaders and co-workers at all levels is crucial and touches the heart of each and every organization: relationships and the way people deal with each other.

Servant leaders’ statements like the following:

a)      The team member is the expert and he has done excellent job.

b)      Focus on the problem, not the individual.

c)       Mistakes are okay if they do not repeat and learn from them.

d)      You work for your team members, not for me.

3. Emergency Response

Personal assistance/presence in some of the emergency incidents such as accidents and serious sickness will always triumph employee's heart.

4. People Supporting Processes such as Clean & Safe Workplace, Problem Solving Teams/Groups, Visual/Transparent Management & Communication.

a)      Problem solving teams/groups will have two roles, one is to support individuals as they do their work and the other is to solve problems to improve how the work is done.

b)      Maintaining work environment safe Physically, Psychologically and Personal Health.

c)       "I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant", a statement by Robert McCloskey. Develop channels like Formal Communications (Information sharing from the company to the employees, from the employees back to the management, and between the employees), Human Resources activities to keep the communication channels open and effective and Informal activities that are designed to facilitate and improve communication.

Please add you comments.

Regards
Ram