Topics

1606

Employee Engagement / Elements of Employee Engagement

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:56:24 PM »

The term employee engagement has been defined by various researchers. A commonly agreed upon definition would be physical, psychological or emotional involvement of the employee while at work.

Four things are important when we talk about employee engagement; commitment, motivation, loyalty and trust. Their level determines the quality of engagement of an employee. Each one is briefly discussed in the coming paragraphs.

    Commitment: Commitment means the degree to which individuals associate themselves with the job, the responsibilities and the organisational objectives. Engaged employees are those who are fascinated by their work and committed to face every challenge to attain their goals. They are dependable and highly productive and therefore, are accountable for what they do.

    Motivation: Up till recently it was believed that the biggest motivation is achievement. The reverse is also true, which means achievement results in more motivation. If employees put in their 100 percent efforts to take their organisation to the next level, this attained status motivates them more than anything. Proper rewards and recognitions can further motivate them to achieve more and more for their organisation. Motivation and achievement go hand in hand and act as the burning fuels for the success of any organisation.
   

    Loyalty: Employees who are actively engaged in their work show more loyalty towards the organisation. The best part is that they need less focus and attention of managers to perform their task as they themselves feel accountable for their job responsibilities and results attained. However, it doesn’t take much time for actively engaged employees to turn into disengaged employees if the organisation doesn’t have a well established reward system. Recognition is a basic necessity of individuals to remain steered up towards their job.

    Trust: High levels of employee engagement can be fostered only when trust prevails in the organisation from both the sides. As they share strong emotional bond with the organisation, the latter should also show trust in their abilities. Employees must be given autonomy to perform their tasks their way. They should not be restricted to a specific rules and regulations and therefore, should be motivated to experiment to perform their task in a different and innovative manner.

Employee Engagement Elements

All these elements play a vital role in determining the fate of an organisation. Besides this, two-way communication to discuss challenges, potential consequences, vision and values and organisation’s future should be established. In fact, communication is the backbone of any organisation without which it can’t survive for long. Having an open conversation with employees can solve the problems that they are facing in executing their job.

Apart from this, organisational culture, a well established and duly followed reward system including compensation, benefits, stock exchange options and recognition and personal growth and satisfaction of employees are also important factors in improving the levels of employee engagement.

1607

Employee Engagement / Dimensions of Employee Engagement

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:55:28 PM »

The only thing that makes highly productive organisations stand apart from rest of the companies is the quality of the employees and the level of their commitment towards their work. The vice versa, the trust that an organisation shows in their employees and efforts that it makes to keep them focussed, motivated and satisfied, also is one of the many variables that distinguish between highly reputed workplaces and those that are not up to the mark.

Organisations cannot achieve their goals just by defining their mission statement nor can they foster a high performing work culture until they take substantial steps. They need people to get the jobs done and that too with excellence. For fulfilling all their goals, organisations require actively engaged employees. Employee engagement happens only in those organisations which treat their people as their biggest assets and take care of their basic necessities and other psychological needs. Workplaces that meet all these conditions of employee engagement grow much faster and sustain much longer that those who fail to meet them.
   

There are different dimensions of employee engagement that make productive organisations stand apart from the rest and determine their destiny. Things like what employees get in exchange for the efforts they put to perform the delegated tasks, if employees are able to perform their best, if they are treated as an important asset or just a means to perform the job and how they can grow if they stick to their organisation are of great importance. Actually these are emotional elements revealing the basic employee needs. They would like to contribute only when their efforts are recognised and awarded. Not only this, all they can also drive them to be more efficient while delivering their jobs.

Dimensions of Employee Engagement

What Do I Get: Employee engagement to an extent depends upon what people get in exchange for performing the job. This includes basic compensation, benefits, organisational culture and working environment. These are basic elements that motivate them to join the organisation and perform the given task with complete dedication.

What Do I Give: As it is a two way process, setting clear expectations plays an important role. This helps employees to understand what exactly they are expected to give the organisation. This includes defining their job responsibilities that they need to fulfil and tasks that they need to perform. The human resource team and immediate supervisors or managers need to tell them clearly what they are expected to do. It creates more meaningful relationships among seniors and subordinates and workgroups.

Do I Belong to the Organisation: Social association is the most basic requirement for anyone. Even employees would like to stay with the organisation that treats them as their integral part and not just the means to get the job done. ‘My opinions Count’ gives them satisfaction and motivates them to put their best to meet organisational goals.

How Can I Grow: Continuous growth including promotions, salary hikes and rewards and recognition are most essential tools to retain employees in the organisation. New challenges and opportunities to learn keep them motivated towards their work life and encourage them to give their best even during crisis.

1608

Employee Engagement / Phases of Employee Engagement

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:54:03 PM »

Employee engagement is a concept that has begun to grab the attention of the corporate world for past few years. When put simply higher levels of employee engagement mean higher profitability of the organisation.

Employee engagement is critical. Highly productive organisations have understood this fact a long ago where mediocre and low performing organisations have just started taking it seriously. It makes sense to engage employees and make them find a meaning in what they do.

Those employees who do not understand what they contribute towards the success of their organisation will not stick to it for long. They would rather consider leaving in a few months or years as and when they are offered a high-paying job.

Employee engagement is a long term process and goes through various phases describing the level of the engagement, involvement, attachment and belongingness between employee and employer. These phases of employee engagement make a continuous cycle that each organisation aiming to achieve increased profitability must undertake.
   
Phases of Employee Engagement

    Attract

    The first phase of the employee engagement cycle is attracting the best talent from the industry. This phase involves creating a positive impression about the work culture and employee career as a potential employer. It is all about carefully creating an authentic, genuine and crafted image as an employer. This is although an indirect yet the first impression that attracts a big pool of candidates to apply for the job vacancies in an organisation. The first phase is the most important phase of the employee engagement cycle.

    Another aspect spreading the reputation of an organisation is its employees. They are not only the employees but also are regarded as internal customers. Their job and career satisfaction speaks about their workplace. Therefore, they should not be taken for granted. Besides attracting the talent from the outside, it is important to keep the existing employees attracted towards the organisation.

    Acquire

    The acquire image involves more than one thing. It includes (1) the way the potential candidates are interacted while advertising a position; (2) keeping the promises that were made while hiring them and (3) providing the new joiners a right kind of work culture.

    When an organisation advertises a position, interested candidates apply. The way their applications are created, the reaction of the organisation and the manner in which they are approached speak a lot about the image and work culture of an organisation.

    Hiring the best talent not only serves the purpose. During their honeymoon or initial period with the organisation, the company must try to keep all the promises that were made during the selection process.

    Besides this, they should feel happy and satisfied when their expectations are tested against the reality. Providing the right kind of culture also plays an important role in keeping them engaged.

    The whole idea is to prepare them to perform their best by giving them challenging tasks right from the beginning. It’s like developing a habit or culture right from the time they decide to work with the organisation.

    Advance

    Continuous moving the talent is the last but an unending phase. It not only involves promoting the employees to a higher designation along with salary increments but also growing them in other tangible and intangible ways. Job rotation can help them grow in experience, responsibility and belongingness but only when it is done right. Advancing the employees in every aspect, be it monetary or non-monetary, is the key to retain people and develop their overall personality.

These above are the main phases of an employee engagement cycle where preparation is done much before an employee joins the organisation. As mentioned earlier, it is not only about attracting, acquiring and retaining the best talent but also deals in advancing their experience and personality.

1609

Employee Engagement / Characteristics of Engaged Workforce

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:52:48 PM »

The level of employee engagement can be measured by the willingness and ability of employees to contribute to the success of their organisation. It is their discretionary effort which is an essential element for the good health and well being of a company.

A highly engaged workforce shows the high level of engagement in their work and is always keen to take up new challenges in order to bring a positive change or establish a highly conducive work environment. Various studies have shown that higher level of employee engagement is directly linked to high satisfaction among them, productivity and profitability of organisation and satisfied and loyal customers.

The model below illustrates a few characteristics of an engaged workforce that play an essential role in the success of any organisation.

   
Characteristics of an Engaged Workforce

Mutual Trust: Trust is the base of any organisation. Letting people do their work without telling them how to perform it is one of the best ways to engage staff. Employees welcome each other’s opinions and find out a wide variety of ways to accomplish a particular task. A highly engaged workforce doesn’t need directions at each step. They can perform their jobs with mutual help and trust.

Job and Career Satisfaction: Job satisfaction is one of the main characteristics of an engaged workforce. The individual who is satisfied with their career and the way their career graph is raising prefers to stick to the organisation for a very long period of time. Switching the organisations frequently is not a characteristic of satisfied employee.

Credible Leadership: As mentioned earlier, an engaged workforce doesn’t need directions for performing a specific job from time to time. Employees know how to do it in the best possible manner. They not only exhibit credible leadership qualities in routine tasks but also come up with innovative ways to deal with crisis or emergencies.

Focused and Keen to Take up Challenges: An engaged workforce is entirely focused and knows what to do and when. They are always keen to take up new challenges in order to solve the existing problems in the organisation as well as acquire new skills. Not only this, they are always keen to learn new things and widening their horizon.

Better Performance: Employee engagement is directly related to better performance. Employee performance is the only way to measure the engagement, involvement and dedication of employees towards their jobs. If all these factors cannot be interlinked, there is no meaning of anything. It can be said that the workforce is not engaged or actively disengaged.

Problem Solving Attitude: Engaged workforce not only delivers its job responsibilities but also keeps a problem solving attitude always. A highly engaged employee displays a sense of belongingness towards the organisation and makes every effort to solve the problems that pose a hindrance in the organisation’s way of success.

The above mentioned are the essential characteristics of an engaged workforce. However, mutual respect, commitment, enthusiasm, optimism and discretionary efforts to serve customers better are add-on characteristics that an engaged employee generally exhibits.

1610

Employee Engagement / 3 C’s of Employee Engagement

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:50:49 PM »

A major percentage of employees find their work boring. Ask HR managers about employee engagement and they have only one answer: it is the biggest challenge that we are facing today.

Days of huge increase in wages or salaries even in highly productive organisations have gone. It is unable to retain employees within the organisation for long. Due to this, the HR managers had to come up with other motivators such as offsite parties and picnics, cricket or football matches on anniversaries and birthdays, cultural festivals, painting and quiz competitions, crèches for the children of employees, Friday bashes, movie tickets and discount shopping coupons and many more.

Google, the most famous and successful technology firm provide free, healthy and well prepared food to their employees. The company appoints well qualified and experienced chefs so that their employees can relish awesome food at work. This is one of the strategies to make employees feel happy at work; however, it alone can’t retain employees for long. There have to be something else that can motivate people to being involved enthusiastically in their work. They must have an emotional attachment with their job and company.
   

Beyond all the above mentioned popular techniques, there are other things that play an important role in enhancing the engagement levels of employees. The proposed 3 C’s of employee engagement are career, competence and care.

The 3 C’s of Employee Engagement

Career: When individuals join an organisation, they expect to build a career with it. If the top management and immediate managers spend dedicated time in carving out the careers of its employees, they will feel that they belong to the organisation. They feel engaged when they receive support from the management in growing their careers.

An organisation can provide its employees with opportunities to grow professionally through job rotations, indulging them in significant tasks, challenging assignments and promotions. They should also be given a specific level of authority and autonomy to take their decisions on their own. The organisations prepare an entirely new breed of employees if they genuinely invest in developing the careers of their people.

Competence: Competence is all about the ability to grow. Regular workshops and training sessions must be held in order to help employees acquire a higher level of skills and competencies. The focus should be on developing for marketable skills. Most employees after spending a few months look for competence-boosting opportunities with the organisation so that they can grow and move to the next level of their careers. While the career focuses on the actual growth in terms of designation, wages and perks and authority, competence is the ability to grow utilizing the opportunities.

Care: Sitting at the topmost, care is regarded the finest art of the managers by which they can make employees feel an indispensable part of their organisation. The managers need to be empathetic and sensitive towards people and understand their personal problems. Showing small day-to-day caring gestures towards employees make them feel that they belong to the organisation and organisation belongs to them.

1611

Employee Engagement / Key Players in enhancing Employee Engagement

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:49:04 PM »

Most companies think that it is their performance management system and appraisal and reward strategies that enhance the levels of employee engagement. True but partially!

Most companies do not realize that human interaction is perhaps one of the most important elements in keeping the employees geared up to perform their best and enhance their competency levels. It is not only a basic need but the sole of an organisation that keeps it going.

Everyone who interacts with employees including top management, senior leaders, immediate supervisors and human resource team members play a vital role in shaping the mentality of an individual.

Though it is the fact that they need well designed policies and practices to support business functions and other programmes for enhancing the morale and improving the performance of an employee by enhancing their engagement level but the importance of human interaction cannot be denied. After all the process of employee engagement involves behaviour management.

It is no surprise that disengaged employees have an adverse effect on your standing in the business world. The world’s most admired companies have attained this status only by keeping their employees engaged by assigning them more challenging tasks according to their abilities. Employee development is high on their agenda.

But the question is who will find out why they’re not able to perform their best. What will keep them focussed towards their aims? How can you have the impact on their as well as business performance?

It is obvious that all this can be known through their interaction with their immediate superiors and the members of Human resource Department. Once the data is collected, the top management can support the entire process of employee engagement by deciding the priorities, making investments and designing and implementing various processes.

Key Players in Enhancing Employee Engagement

    Immediate Supervisors and Managers

    Lying on the bottom of the pyramid, immediate supervisors and managers play the most important role in enhancing the levels of employees. As they spend more time with them as compared to the HR people and senior leadership, they can easily determine their actions and find out what will keep them motivated.

    Although the directions come either from top management or HRD but they are the one who execute the process and determine the satisfaction level of their workforce. They can interact with the employees and fill scorecards with columns such as actions of employees, what motivates them and job satisfaction level. This is the initial as well the most important step in the entire process.

    Human Resource Department

    Human Resource Department works on the data collected by the managers and determine the trend among the employees. They identify the most common factors that decrease the engagement levels among employees and the most common opportunities that can enhance it. They study all the cases thoroughly to identify the loopholes in the system and bring it to the notice of top management.

    Senior Leadership or Top Management

    They review the entire report and the process designed by the HRD or a management consulting firm to enhance the employee engagement levels. They support the process by deciding the priorities and making investments.

1612

Employee Engagement / Employee Engagement Initiatives

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:47:17 PM »

The highly productive and the most reputed companies across the world have understood the fact that it was employee engagement that made them stand apart from all other companies. Different companies had taken different initiatives to enhance the level of engagement among employees towards their jobs and the organisation. Some offer custom-made incentives while some stick to provide extra facilities like crèche for kids, schools for children of employees, pick and drop, provision of food, movie tickets and many other things.

Each company has its own reasons to establish a specific type of reward-motivation programme depending upon their financial status, region in which they are operating and level which they function at and the backgrounds of the employees. In the year 201, an annual study conducted by the research arm of Kenexa, a leading global HR solution provider, revealed that Indian giants rank highest as compared to their peers in other countries when it comes to employee engagement and effective leadership.

When compared on the national level, India with 71 percent employee engagement ratio secured the topmost rank while Japan was at the lowest position with 38 percent ratio. This was a surprising fact as it is believed that Indian companies have miles to cover in order to achieve what global companies have done already. Factors that made India stand apart from rest of the countries were employee recognition, emphasis of improvement of quality, show of genuine responsibility of organisation towards employees and opportunities to grow.

The research conducted by Kenexa included India, US, UK, Brazil, Australia, Canada, Denmark, China, France, Finland, Germany, Japan, Spain, Russia, Sweden, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Mexico and Gulf countries. The most surprising fact is that the Indian companies took creative and unique initiatives to enhance the level of engagement and involvement of their employees.

According to a study conducted by Hewitt Associates in 2009, the software giant HCL Technologies was ranked as the best Indian employer in that year. The reasons being, creation of a positive work culture and its long term approach in the midst of challenging conditions. The other companies who made to the list of top employers were Hindustan Zinc, Taj Hotels, Resorts and Palaces, Cisco Systems, ITC Welcome Group, Eureka Forbes, LG Electronics India, Domino’s Pizza India and Marriott Hotels India.

Infosys in year 2011 plans to have its own radio in establishing a healthy and quick interaction and communication amongst employees. The company also plans to host talk shows where top management would interact with the employees. Besides this, the company also has a social networking portal like Facebook. Named as Bubble, it helps employees connect to their colleagues, seniors, subordinates and top management. Infosys had also created Infosys Television.

Indian giants like Mahindra & Mahindra, Mercer, KPMG and Wipro offer democracy to choose their wages and perks depending upon their lifestyles. It is done to decrease as well as prevent dissatisfaction amongst employees. It has worked out very well and companies are successful in drawing and retaining the best talent. The trend began in these IT giants can now be seen in FMCG, banking and other industries.

1613

Employee Engagement / Types of Employees based on Level of Engagement

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:42:02 PM »

An organisation is a collection of individuals who come together and work towards the realisation of a common objective. Larger the number of people working together, larger is the size of the organisation and vice-versa. However, for an organisation to flourish it is important for the employees to operate at their full potential, which unfortunately is not the case in most of the organisations.

Not all employees in the organisation work utilising their full potential. There may be many reasons responsible for the same. They may not associate with the goal of the company, they may have problem with their team, the boss or the subordinate or it may be a general problem of attitude. This fact necessitated the classification of the people into three categories – engaged, not engaged and actively disengaged.

Although there are other classifications also, but this one is based upon the level of commitment or engagement of employees. A brief description about the three is given below:

    Actively Disengaged: This is the first category of people who are unhappy and they spread unhappiness in the organisation. They are the disease centres in the company and spread the negative word, provoking and convincing people to leave their jobs. However they are the ones who stay the longest and removing the perceived people competition is their thought of getting to the top or next level in the job.

    Engaged: The second category of people are those who are can be identified with words like passion, alignment and innovation; which means that they are passionate, connected to the company and are innovative. They contribute new ideas and turn ideas into reality. These employees are positive in their outlook and they spread positivity. They are proactive; can anticipate the future market conditions are prepare well in advance.

    Not Engaged: The third type of employees is the large majority present in organisations almost 50% in number. These do what is told only and they like only one instruction at a time. They put in time but not energy and passion. They may be either positive or negative in their outlook and opinion about the organisation. They are not proactive and fail to anticipate what might be required next or what the next step is? They wait for instruction from their superiors.

In a research conducted by Gallup, it was found out that 16% of the people working in organisations are actively disengaged, 28% are engaged and almost 56% are not engaged. Although these statistics cannot be generalised, but they hold true for majority of the cases and there may be deviation of 5% here and there for each category and not more.

The research therefore points out that people who are engaged are more efficient and deliver results optimally. They have a better understanding of the business, more client focussed and committed to make it big with the organisation they work for.

Within an organisation the percentage of people in these three brackets can help determine the health of the company. For example, greater percentage of actively disengaged employees connotes into even greater losses in productivity, erosion of employee morale and reduction in the bottom line.

1614

Employee Engagement / Employee Engagement Strategies

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:34:54 PM »

   

Various studies have shown that actively engaged employees are almost 50 percent more productive than their not-engaged or disengaged colleagues. The employee engagement cannot be improved only by designing and implementing effective human resource strategies but their involvement and quality of output produced by them also depends on their relationships with their colleagues, subordinates and seniors. It is a basic need of human beings to belong and to be belonged. Such collaborations can be a major contributor to the success of a company.

Until recently, solutions facilitating two-way communication including top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top were given much important but nothing has been done to foster the open communication and collaborations among employees. The way they interact with each other determines the health of any organisation. A perfect balance of respect, care and competitiveness should be prevailed in the organisation to keep them actively engaged in their jobs. Mutual support and healthy relationships contribute majorly to the organisation’s success.

Besides this, empowering employees by delegating them responsibilities and giving them autonomy to take decisions regarding their job on their own can also increase their productivity. It is worth going beyond the traditional management tools of connectivity to help employees remain motivated and dedicated to perform their tasks. To achieve this, the organisations can design effective employee engagement strategies on the basis of the model explained below.

Employee Engagement Strategies

    Unify the Experiences: Conduct an employee engagement survey in order to find the factors responsible for engaging and disengaging employees. Unify the common experiences and problems and design employee engagement strategies accordingly. Sharing of feedback in written is one way of communicating the experiences and problems.

    Evolving Through Open Communication: Open communication or face to face communication in the form of discussions can really help in bringing the various issues and identifying the main problems in the organisation. It is very essential to establish a proper communication where everyone can put their views and suggest a solution too. Most of the top organisations ask for suggestions and new ideas from their employees and then offer rewards on giving the best proposal.

    Providing Proper Communication Channels: Some employees are comfortable with open face-to-face communication styles whereas there are some who want to give feedbacks and suggestions in written. Discovering the best channel of communication and establishing a proper route to share feedbacks and views plays a vital role.

    Enabling Conversation Fluidity: Whichever way of communication you choose, ensure that it has required fluidity. There should not be any hindrance in the established method of communication. Not being able to provide feedback or share problems and experiences can lead to frustration and distress among employees. Therefore, ensure that there are no barriers to communication. This can also result in disengaging the engaged employees.

    Manage Communication: Managing communication is the last but the most important step in the entire process. Managers should keep a check on the entire process in order to ensure that it is not adversely affecting the health of the organisation. They must make sure that it serves the desired purpose and is not being used negatively.

1615

Employee Engagement / Drivers of Employee Engagement

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:31:11 PM »

Employee Engagement has transcended from being the latest business buzzword to being recognized by organizations as a tool that positively influences business performance. This linkage between organization performance and employee engagement was researched by ISR in 2006 by means of world-wide survey.

The ISR study reveals that companies with high engagement scores saw an increase of more than 25% in EPS (Earnings per Share), while companies with low engagement scores saw a decrease of 11% in EPS. The results confirm the belief of many that engagement positively influences business performance.

Hence, it is vital for companies to understand what “causes” employee engagement if they want to influence the “effect” i.e. Employee Engagement. By understanding these drivers and leveraging them, organizations can try and manage engagement levels of their employees.

So what drives employee engagement? Several theories have been propounded that focus on the rational and emotional aspects of engagement. Some even focus on the tangible and intangible aspects of engagement. Mercer’s ‘What’s Working’ studies reveal that engagement drivers differ by geography, by industry and even by time.

While there is no one panacea for leveraging employee engagement, there are some broad drivers which are presented below:

    Work/Job Role - Employees must see a link between their role and the larger organization goal. Understanding this linkage provides an intrinsic motivation and increased engagement. Most employees will come to work on time without possessing a sense of belonging and will try and complete assigned tasks even without possessing that sense achievement on completion of task. However, an employee that sees a clear linkage on how his/her role contributes to the organization will go the extra mile and help create organization wealth.

    Work Environment/Organization Culture - The bond between an employee and the organization is cemented when the employee identifies with the culture of the organization. An employee is engaged and motivated to stretch beyond the call of duty if he/she finds the work environment enabling and supportive.

    Rewards and Recognition - The bottom line is that people work to earn which helps fulfil ambitions. Equitable pay coupled with rewards and recognition programs enhances motivation and leads to commitment and engagement.

    Learning and Training Oppurtunities - As Lawyer (2006) put it - “People Enjoy Learning.” This is especially true in the case of today’s millennial workforce that constantly looks at enhancing knowledge and skill. Skill and Knowledge enhancement is not just important for the employees but providing a learning culture is essential for organizations to remain relevant in the constantly changing business landscape.

    Performance Management - An effective performance management system contributes positively to employee engagement. Goal setting lies at the root of any performance management system. Clearly articulated goals, a fair and just means to judge performance and timely, rational feedback are critical elements in creating a bond between the employee and his/her organization.

    Leadership - It is a well recorded fact that most resignations happen because the employee is not satisfied with his/her ‘boss.’ An organization that spends time and effort in grooming leaders who are aligned to its goals, culture and people invests well. New age industries have a young and dynamic workforce that looks for autonomy in decision making, increased responsibility and accountabilities.

    Other Factors - Clear and open communication, quality of interaction with peers, collaboration, organization policy, organization performance are all contributing factors to employee engagement.

We shall explore in each of the above mentioned drivers of engagement in the following chapters.

1616

Employee Engagement / Job Role as a Driver of Employee Engagement

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:29:57 PM »

All of us have heard the story of 3 brick-layers who were working side by side when a passer-by asked them what they were doing.

The first said - “I am laying bricks”

The second said - “I am feeding my family”

The third said - “I am building a cathedral”

This simple story conveys the essence of an engaged employee. The last brick-layer identified his job with the larger goal and hence was able to bring that something extra that served as an inspiration to many.

Most of the employees will land up for work and try and fulfil their role requirements irrespective of their perception of the organization, its policy, pay etc. This is because the fundamental driver for most of us is (1) to utilize our time gainfully and (2) to earn a livelihood. But this does not help organizations in the long term. So, what should organizations do? How can they build an engaged workforce that will help create long term competitiveness?

Many of us become prescriptive when trying to implement employee engagement initiatives without understanding that the first step towards creating an engaged workforce is to help employees see a clear linkage between their job role and organization goal.

The following are some measures that organizations can take w.r.t (with respect to) the “job/role of employee” that will help improve engagement.

    Clear Role Definition - Engagement begins even before the employee joins work. Carving out a clear job description will actively engage a potential hire and help convert him/her into an enthusiastic joiner and then engaged employee.

    Paint the Larger Picture - During the peak of hiring activity, my team and I were given a tough time about new joiner renege and attrition of existing employees. Most of the time, we oscillated between bearing the brunt and/or retaliating by throwing our hands up, buying time or throwing industry data points as reference but never did we understand the true impact till one of the business leads sat us down and connected the dots for us and articulated the $(dollar) impact of each of our activity. That day, we graduated to truly becoming business partners.

    Job Rotation - The grass on the other side is always greener. While the revenue generating/client facing entities believe that the support staff (like admin, human resources, finance) has a cushy job, the support staff often complains of a vendor like treatment at the hands of the former. An employee can contribute his best if he/she can see how his/her role ties in with the larger organization goals or explore linkages of his/her role with other teams in the organization. For this purpose, tools such as job-rotation, multi team projects, best practice sharing by teams can be leveraged effectively by organizations. Such interactions help create an informal and seamless source of information across teams which helps employees to perform effectively and efficiently.

    Goal Setting - A realistic and time bound goal that clearly mentions linkage to the organization goal is an important aspect in building an engaged workforce. This will be dealt with in greater depth in the following chapter which deals with Performance Management as a driver of engagement.

    Job Loading - Organizations can effectively use both ‘vertical-loading’ i.e. job enrichment and ‘horizontal-loading’ i.e. job enlargement to motivate employees. Both these approaches allow an employee to explore and use their strengths and also beat work monotony. These also help skill development and enhancement which in turn helps employee output, team output and eventually organization output.

In conclusion, engaged employees create quality output not because they have to or are forced to but because they want to, because they see a clear linkage between their work and the organization vision and results.

1617

Employee Engagement / How to Engage Women Employees ?

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:28:58 PM »

   

There has been a flurry of conferences, studies and researching on why women employees are likely to leave their companies earlier as compared to men employees. Why is the number of unhappy female employees growing? Why great leaders are unsuccessful in retaining women employees even after spending a lot of money, time and effort?

Although women show more stability than men when it comes to their job but recent studies have shown that the number of unhappy and unsatisfied women is on a continuous increase. Unlike men, women prefer to explore multiples work areas and different jobs instead of going up vertically. They desire for widening their horizons and perspectives rather than going up on mere designations. Despite this strange characteristic of theirs, organisations these days are finding a lot of difficulties in retaining their women employees.

Most women when decide to move, the most common reason is their family. They mostly engage their families while making a decision to move whereas the matter with the men is absolutely different. According to various independent surveys, men associate their leaving of company with the imbalance and unrest in their families. They tend to think that their low or no income would upset their family dynamics.

The women when decide to quit, the chances of their resuming the work are extremely low. Economic instability or crisis may compel them to work again but under normal circumstances, it is almost negligible.

While the number of women employees is continuously on increase, organisations can not afford to keep employee retention on the back burner. They should actively involve them in finding what really disengages women employees and make them quit and even if it is their family behind their decision, organisations should come up with something that can motivate them to resume work.

“How to engage women employees and retain them” is the question that most organisations are facing today. The question points out the need of keeping the women employees engaged and fulfilling all their specific needs and requirements to keep them motivated to pursue their career and take it to the next level no matter what.

Companies that do not make effort in retaining their women employees have already lost some of their business or will certainly lose out in the coming years. The reason being, the women employees nowadays are also a part of top and middle management. Their one decision to quit the organisation can have a severe impact on the working as well as business of the organisation.

Providing them more meaningful tasks depending upon their comfort level, affirming their contribution, giving them an open, collaborative and innovative environment, engaging them in challenging tasks, keeping the doors open when they feel the need to work after delivering the baby or raising their kids and coming up with the options to help them take care of their family, especially kids can keep them motivated to work and perform their best.

Moreover, women prefer working in the environment where there are least hierarchies. Therefore, designing the work that engages everyone equally can help a great deal in engaging and retaining women employees.

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Employee Engagement / Enhancing Employee Engagement - Getting Beyond Money

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:28:37 PM »

   

Why companies around the world are cutting back on their financial-incentive or reward programmes? Why they have been looking out for some other techniques to inspire and motivate their employees? Is it economic slump or something else?

Well, it has been revealed that employees who have achieved a financial stability to some extent require non-financial motivators that can offer them freedom to take their work-related decision, let them feel accountable for whatever they do, inspire them to take up challenges and enhance their overall personality.

People with satisfactory salaries along with few perks look for non-monetary initiatives from the organisation that can help them acquire new skills in professional contexts. Indeed, organisations need to focus more on balancing the financial and nonfinancial motivators. Short-term rewards can boost their energy and motivate them to perform their jobs in the best possible manner whereas long-term benefits help them retain in the organisation for long.

The various studies conducted by global management consulting firms have revealed that after financial incentives, the second biggest motivators are praise from the immediate supervisors and managers, an opportunity to lead a particular task or responsibility and attention from top management.

Non-financial motivators can be more effective for a certain set of employees but the importance of financial incentives cannot be understated. They are equally important. In such a scenario, management should try and establish custom made perks and motivators to enhance employee engagement.

As there are different types of individuals working in the organisation who have different needs and ways to weigh their motivators. Some look for more and more money while some for other things related to their professional and personal development. Motivating employees in the short run is not a big deal what is more challenging is to make them to stay in the organisation.

Strong talent management and establishing a balanced incentive programme are required to retain people and enhance their involvement, engagement and satisfaction level. According to a McKinsey Survey, employee motivation and engagement is sagging tremendously in companies around the globe. They make frequent job switches. This has compelled more than 70 percent of the organisations to adjust their motivation and reward programmes. They have cited that dropping employee motivation is the main reason behind the alteration and modification of their reward and motivation strategies.

In this economic slump, when it is hard to find cash, organisations need to rework on their strategies to cut back on financial-incentives. Understanding the needs of employees can also help them restructure their policies. In order to win commitment from the managers, companies need to have non-financial motivators such as delegating the responsibility, autonomy to make decisions and support from management in case they are going through a bad phase in their personal life.

For low level managers and bottom-line employees, financial incentives certainly matter a lot. The HR people should design such a system that they can make the best of the incentives they receive from the company. Besides this, several other programs to help them in financial crisis can be a great idea. Opening a school for their children supporting free or subsidised education can be one of the initiatives to make them stay with the organisation.

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Employee Engagement / Employee Engagement Trends Across the World

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:27:45 PM »

It has always been a challenge to hire, retain and reward the best talent. Even in 2012, the conditions are almost similar. Although the economy is showing a few signs of recovery but it will not be possible for employers to go back to their usual way of operating business. They still have a long way to go to achieve that kind of liberty again but now till then their biggest concern should be to improve and enhance the levels of employee engagement in order to sustain and grow in today’s highly volatile business environment.

With the beginning of the year 2012, both organisations and individuals continue to be challenged. Since the economy has not recovered to a considerable extent, the organisations will face immense pressure to hold down their operating costs. But on the other hand, they will have to make investment on all possible ways to attract, recruit and retain the best industry talent.

While companies will have to manage their operations ensuring the optimum utilisation of resources, the individuals will need to try to associate them with an organisation where all their monetary and career requirements are fulfilled. Even if they face a slight cut back in their perks and other facilities, they will have to perform their best in order to help top people improve the financial standing of the company.

Over the past few years, both organisations and individuals have faced the aftermaths of economic crisis. Started in 2008, it had its impact on almost everyone in every corner of the world. Even highly productive organisations offering excellent facilities and employees reward programmes had to struggle to maintain their established trends. Even they had to cut back a few things in order to create a balance. In 2012 also, it will continue to challenge the organisations.

Employee Engagement Trends

Usually, there are a few main employee engagement drivers that motivate employees to work harder and perform better. These include quality of life, people such as senior managers, peers, colleagues and subordinates, career and personal development opportunities, company policies and practices, company reputation and total rewards including, pay, additional benefits and perks.

Different employees rank these factors at different levels. This means that for some career opportunities may be the biggest factor of being associated with the company while for some money is the driving factor. Many people want to work for a reputed organisation whereas some prefer a better working environment over anything else. Preferences differ. They depend upon the regions and backgrounds they belong to and of course, their personal thought process and mind setup.

In Asia Pacific region, career opportunities are ranked first. It is followed by brand alignment, recognition, pay and HR practices respectively. In European countries, of course career opportunities rank first but their second preference is good HR practices. These two are followed by brand alignment, pay and recognition respectively.

In North America, again the career opportunities are ranked first by the employees followed by performance management, organisation reputation, brand alignment and then recognition. Overall, people prefer career opportunities over any other thing no matter where companies are operating. Regardless of their backgrounds and regions, this is something that every working professional looks for. Therefore, organisations will have to create excellent opportunities for their employees to make them stay and grow with it.

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Employee Engagement / How can Employee Engagement help increase Customer Satisfaction ? i

« on: April 25, 2012, 04:26:58 PM »

Numerous management studies and researches support the proposal that there exists a relationship between employee engagement and customer satisfaction. It has been observed that the actively engaged employees are extremely loyal towards their organisation and are always ready to walk that extra mile to ensure success for their company.

The studies such as ‘Loyalty Effects’ show that when people have a sense of belongingness towards their workplace and feel great about being associated with it, they provide better customer service. They treat them as a company and therefore, strive to achieve excellence in whatever they do to serve customers better. Employee engagement correlates positively with customer satisfaction and increased productivity of the organisation as a whole.

As employees are considered the internal customers of an organisation, their satisfaction level plays an important role in keeping the company in good health. When they are satisfied, it is obvious that they will treat the external customers including buyers and end users in the best possible manner.

It is guaranteed that customers keep coming back when they are treated well. Not only this, it also helps in growing the loyalty level of customers towards the company.

Experts say that every company that is looking to sustain in this ever changing business world must try to enhance the engagement level of their employees and those who want to take their business to the level must make a dedicated effort and figure out the way of engaging almost every employee of the organisation. Employee commitment towards their job keeps them engaged and results in high levels of satisfaction.

The productivity of an organisation not only depends on the time the employees spend in the company but it also takes into account the effort they put in executing their jobs ensuring the optimal use of resources. This in turn helps them grow and acquire more skills.

Organisation must have a proper system of building the careers of its highly engaged employees to their spirits up and motivate them to perform their best always. Employee engagement depends upon how effectively and efficiently the systems and procedures of the organisation are followed. Just having well defined procedures is not enough; in fact, they need to be duly followed and upgraded from time to time.

When companies make efforts to enhance the employee engagement levels, they automatically work towards improving customer satisfaction. The studies have revealed that organisations working on this aspect have experienced a significant decrease in the rate of employee turnover.

Companies like Born experienced a downfall of 48 percent in employee turnover rate. Earlier it was 50 percent which has now reduced up to 2 percent. Monsanto found out in a survey that the strongest factors that can influence customer satisfaction dramatically include employee satisfaction and employee work-life balance.

Sun Microsystems has also found out that their actively engaged employees recommend the company as the best place to work. This has resulted in increased employee satisfaction, low employee turnover rate, increased customer loyalty and increased pool of potential employees.

The studies conducted by all these and other Fortune 500 companies have put a stamp on the idea that there is a positive link between the employee engagement and customer satisfaction.