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
