Author– Prof. (Dr.) Rajni Rastogi
Prof and Head of the Management DepartmentSitapur Group of Institutions, Sitapur 3, BCM Hospital, khairabad,sitapur
ABSTRACT
Employee engagement goes beyond the employees’ intent to leave. It includes the employees’ commitment to the organization and motivation to contribute to the organization’s success. By creating a workforce that is passionately involved with the company, the organization can create a sustainable competitive advantage for itself. This article throws light on the issues to be addressed by the organizations for creating an engaged workforce.
Employee Engagement has become a growing management concern today. Engaged workers make
more money for the company and contribute towards a healthy working environment. They stay with the organization longer and are more committed to quality and growth. Engaged employees usually need the least amount of attention from managers because they're doing what they are needed to do. According to Scarlett Surveys, "Employee Engagement is a measurable degree of an employee's positive or negative emotional attachment to their job, colleagues and organization which profoundly influences their willingness to learn and perform at work".
The evidence of a significant relationship between employee engagem ent and financial performance is undeniable.-Towers Perris
An engaged employee is a person who is fully involved in and is enthusiastic about, his or her work. Such employees are attracted to, and inspired, committed and fascinated by their work. In a recent research by Hewitt Associates, it was found that engaged employees are not only intellectually committed to the organization but are also emotionally attached to it, as is measured by three primary behaviors: Say, stay and strive.
The old business dictum goes that “satisfied employees create satisfied customers” by constantly striving for the best, contributing to the bottom line of the company success by their motivation and enhanced performance. It is believed that an engaged employee always acts positively in the interest of the company and takes unconcealed pride in the success and prosperity of his employer. The engaged employees and the organizations go that extra mile for each other, thereby realizing the benefits that flow through an investment in such a relationship.
According to the former GE Chairman and CEO, Jack Welch, a company’s health is determined through its energized workforce who not only realizes the mission of the organization and has an understanding of how to achieve it; help the organization win in the long run. Engaged employees care about the future of the company and are willing to study entitled, The War for talent, reported that a shortage of skilled employees was an emerging trend and it was more so due to the fact that the organizations fail in their attempts to create a workforce that is not only cognitively vigilant but also emotionally connected to the organization.
Research has proven that wholly engaged employees tend to be more self-motivated, reliable, and have higher levels of organizational loyalty. They are capable of delivering sustained affecting the key results
areas such as employee turnover, sales, innovation and customer satisfaction, engaged employees in customer facing roles are more likely to treat customer is ways that positively influence customer satisfaction and are more than twice as likely to be company advocates. They share information with colleagues and pass on ideas that speak up for the organization. Engaged employees are much more likely to feel secure and stable in their position and are in fact the ambassadors for the company, singing its praises to everyone, and taking the best foot forward to deliver and over-deliver for customers and the colleagues alike.
To determine the level of employee engagement, the organizations should make use of a comprehensive employee feedback and to improve levels of productivity and commitment by identifying the root causes of workplace attitudes. They also help in developing an understanding of the extent to which employees are passionate about their work and emotionally committed to their company and to their co-workers.
The other ways used to measure the employee engagement levels is through tracking changes in the attrition rate and growth in productivity and business. Companies like Bharti conduct EES on an annual basis to measure employee behavior on important engagement parameters. The questions are hosted on the organizations website. The findings of the survey are analyzed and the points that need to be addressed are acted upon accordingly. The analysis results not only help gauge the level of employee engagement within the company but also help in identifying the weak areas.
The data collected from these surveys can furnish information that can help the management in the following ways:
Identifying cost-saving opportunities
Improving productivity
Reducing turnover
Curbing absenteeism
Strengthening supervision
Evaluating customer – service issues
Assessing training needs
Streamlining communication
Benchmarking the organization’s progress in relation to the industry
Gauging employees understanding of and agreement with the company mission.
The surveys must also be integrated with the culture survey s and since the culture varies within the organization, the companies must aim at measuring the engagement at work group level.
Employee Engagement Approaches
There can be more than one way to improve the level of employee engagement in a company. In fact, there are many different things that companies not only can do, but also need to do. Most organization has a range of practices to improve the engagement level of their employees. Best practice recommends starting right at the selection or recruitment stage by having the right employees working in the right jobs and having a strong induction and orientation program in place. Besides giving the employees clarity on the vision and goals of the organization, it is essential for organizations to put into place
regular technical / soft – skill training and development programs and the certification programs to drive people towards excellent performance as it so happens at HCL info systems.
Once the employees become a part of the system, efforts have to be put into place to engage employees to their highest level. Beyond initial recruitment and induction, employee engagement activities can be broken into a number of groups. These include:
Communication: A proper communication system helps employees in finding out what is going on
within the company outside their immediate team. They also help to create an environment of trust and openness within the organizations where they are able to talk openly. Employees who feel they are listened to are able to express dissatisfaction and work together to resolve their causes, without it affecting their performance.
The initiative must be taken by the leaders at the top as it happens at the Sum Microsystems where the CEO interacts with Sun employees through WSUN, a forum on Sun’s intranet. He uses this to sustain an active, an ongoing dialog on the corporate goals and direction.
The organizations must work towards implementing the communication forums to provide regular feedback to all people, including team meetings and conferences. For example encourages employees to bring forward their questions or concerns through such programs as let’s talk It Over, Between Us and various internal and external help lines.
Besides using the regular employee opinion and satisfaction surveys, an update on the various organizational issues can be tracked by the organizations through the usage of in-house magazines and online communications, including discussion boards by company personnel including the senior management.
Reward Schemes: These form an important part of a company’s overall employee engagement
program. Studies have long shown that while money in itself is not a motivating factor the absence of financial reward can be a significant demotivator. Thus the role of reward schemes in boosting. Thus the roles of reward schemes in boosting employee engagement are? To remove barriers to satisfaction in the organization and provide a framework for rewarding everyone in the organization for their performance. This may be achieved through right compensation and benefit programs, stock ownership and profit sharing plans and recognition programs. People want to know if their input matters and that they are contributing to the organization’s success in a meaningful way, for which there must be performance based reward scheme in place.
In fact, organizations must have flexible benefit schemes, as Hewitt Associates does, to attract and retain their talent, which provides employees with the freedom to choose how they receive their benefits tailoring a package to suit their lifestyle.
Developing the right culture: The organizations must have clear and humane HR policies and take
initiatives to maintain the quality of work life of its employees. Opportunities must be provided for social interaction such as family gathering barbeques, and trips to the cinema or picnics.
At HCL Info systems, a balance between personal / professional lives of employees is maintained through recreational activities like festivities @ HCL, get-togethers @HCL, sport@HCL. The company also encourages an open and transparent culture to empower its people and develop entrepreneurs.
The organizations must demonstrate a commitment to employees’ well –being by providing opportunities for career advancement and be developing a safe, clean and inspiring work environment for their all-round growth. The employees must be provided with enough resources to solve their day-to-day problems or to do a job well. Culture – building activities are great for generating a feeling of belongings. Giving employees a feeling of belongingness is crucial in creating a thriving organization that people feel committed to and others want to join.
Leadership: Effective leaders who help in setting the tone for creating an engaged workforce can really
differentiate an organization from its competitors. Everyone in the organization with leadership responsibility must have the emotional intelligence and leadership skills needed to switch and employees on they must act as role models, demonstrate and set high standards to which others can aspire. Good practices include effective performance management and a fair evaluation of performance. The leaders must act as coaches and mentors and must give an honest feedback and guidance to their employees.
Ideas should be sought from all employees and the frontiline employees should be allowed to exercise a degree of discretion during service delivery E.g., allowing employees to spend up to a certain amount to correct a customers problem or handle a complaint. The success of Microsoft, for example, stems in part from Bill gates’ belief that smart people anywhere in the company should have the4 power to drive an initiative. Initiatives such as Six Sigma are dependent, in part on the active participation of employees on the shop floor.
For great managements, the path towards engaging employees and keeping them engaged beings with asking them what they want and what is important in order to be effective in their roles. Effective leaders don’t wait to get the resignation to know that an employee is dissatisfied.
An organization can always gain a competitive advantage by creating an engaged workforce. It therefore, becomes, imperative for the organizations to identify the level of engagement in their organization, strive to eliminate the reasons behind the disengaged workforce and implement strategies to make them fully engaged. Employee engagement is something that is very difficult to accomplish but if efforts are made on an ongoing basis, it can shrivel with relative ease.
Methods of increasing employee engagement,
An organization’s productivity is measured not in terms of employee satisfaction but by employee engagement. Employees are said to be engaged when they show a positive attitude toward the
organization and express a commitment to remain with the organization.
Organizations that believe in increasing employee engagement levels focus on:
Culture: It consists of a foundation of leadership, vision, values, effective communication, a strategic
plan, and HR policies that are focused on the employee
Continuous Reinforcement of People-Focused Policies: Continuous reinforcement exists when senior
Meaningful Metrics: They measure the factors that are essential to the organization’s performance.
Because so much of the organization’s performance is dependent on people, such metrics will naturally drive the people-focus of the organization and lead to beneficial change.
Organizational Performance: It ultimately leads to high levels of trust, pride, satisfaction, success, and
believe it or not, fun.
Handling non-engaged employees
Not-engaged employees tend to concentrate on tasks rather than the goals. They want to be told what to do. They have no real aspirations of their own. These employees tend to feel that their contributions are being overlooked.
Not all the employees are engaged in an organization. There are those who are not engaged and tend to concentrate on tasks other than the goals and outcomes they are expected to accomplish. Efforts are to be made to raise levels of engagement for those who fall in the not-engaged range. These non engaged employees want themselves to be spoon fed in terms of work targets and are rarely seen to take initiatives. They focus on accomplishing a task rather than achieving an outcome. Managers tend to believe giving targets to employees keeps them engaged.
The way to get people to become a part of an organization is through relationships. Employees who feel disconnected emotionally from their coworkers and supervisor do not feel committed to their work. They hang back and do the minimum because they believe their contribution hardly counts. These employees lower the bar for themselves by doing the least amount of work necessary. Managers should try to interact with these non engaged employees so as to identify the improvement areas. Providing consistent and positive feedback to the subordinates can help in boosting the morale of non engaged employees. By exhibiting a caring nature, manager can show his employees of what importance they are to him.
Benefits To The Organization
Employee engagement builds passion, commitment and alignment with the organization’s strategies
and goals
Attracts more people like existing employees Increases employees’ trust in the organisation
Creates a sense of loyalty in a competitive environment
Lowers attrition rate
Increases productivity and improves morale
Provides a high-energy working environment
Improves overall organizational effectiveness
Boosts business growth
Makes the employees effective brand ambassadors for the company.
Employee engagement can be revealed in several ways, including ‘pulse’ to annual surveys, tracking changes in the attrition rate, increase in the number of employee referrals, and growth in productivity and business.
In many organizations, the age-old Employee Satisfaction Surveys were considered the most popular method for measuring how happy an employee was in the organisation. This is slowly being replaced by surveys that can effectively measure employee engagement. Conducting a survey without planning how to handle the result can lead employees to disengage. It is therefore not enough to feel the pulse—the action plan is just as essential.
Conclusion
Employee engagement is a concept that is generally viewed as managing discretionary effort, that is, when employees have choices, they will act in a way that furthers their organization's interests. An engaged employee is a person who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about, his or her work. Engaged employees care about the future of the company and are willing to invest the discretionary effort. Engaged employees feel a strong emotional bond to the organization that employs them.
Most organizations today realize that a ‘satisfied’ employee is not necessarily the ‘best’ employee in terms of loyalty and productivity. It is only an ‘engaged employee’ who is intellectually and emotionally bound with the organisation, feels passionately about its goals and is committed towards its values who can be termed thus. He goes the extra mile beyond the basic job responsibility and is associated with the actions that drive the business. Moreover, in times of diminishing loyalty, employee engagement is a powerful retention strategy. The fact that it has a strong impact on the bottom-line adds to its significance.
Engagement is about motivating employees to do their best. An engaged employee gives his company his 100 percent. This is what makes the difference in an industry where the most valuable resource of a company walks out of the door every evening. “This is of particular importance in a knowledge industry. The quality of output and competitive advantage of a company depend on the quality of its people It has been proved that there is an intrinsic link between employee engagement, customer loyalty, and profitability. When employees are effectively and positively engaged with their organisation, they form an emotional connection with the company. This impacts their attitude towards the company’s clients, and thereby improves customer satisfaction and service levels. A successful employee engagement helps create a community at the workplace and not just a workforce.
Employee Engagement
A positive attitude held by the employee towards the organisation and its values. An engaged employee works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organisation. The organisation must work to develop and nurture engagement, which requires a two-way relationship between employer and employee.
Employee engagement is a partnership between a company and its employees
Most organizations today realize that a satisfied employee is not necessarily the best employee in terms of loyalty and productivity. It is only an ENGAGED EMPLOYEE who is intellectually and emotionally
bound with the organization who feels passionate about its goals and is committed towards its values thus he goes the extra mile beyond the basic job. Employee engagement is a powerful retention strategy. An engaged employee gives his company his 100 percent. When employees are effectively and positively engaged with their organization, they form an emotional connection with the company. Employee engagement is a barometer that determines the association of a person with the organisation. It is about creating the passion among associates to do things beyond what is expected from him.
EMPLOYEE ENGEGEMENT starts right at the selection stage: Choosing the right fit, giving a realistic job preview Strong induction and orientation programme
To keep up the morale of people and drive them towards excellent performance through recognition letters, profit sharing schemes, long performance awards etc.
Regular feedback to all people
Communication forums like the in-house magazine, and regular surveys and conferences By helping to maintain the quality of work-life and a balance between personal/professional
lives, there are recreational activities like festivities, get-togethers, sports etc. An open and transparent culture to empower its people.
The result of these practices can be evident through the regular feedback from our employees collected through surveys,
Diagnostic tool for employee engagement include the following - training - development - career - performance appraisals - performance management - communication - equal opportunity - fair treatment - pay - benefits - health - safety - cooperation - family orientation - friendliness - job satisfaction
which helps to create - feeling valued and involved which is