Brain-board

Employee Engagement – An Overrated Myth! (Super Myth. Super Sham)

“Employee Engagement” seems to have been a favourite word amongst the HR community for a very long time now. I have attended many HR summits and conferences, interacted with plenty of industry stalwarts over years and heard about many excellent initiatives that their companies take to improve employee engagement – The extra miles that they walk to make sure their people “their true assets” as they call them are a bunch of happy, productive individuals thoroughly “engaged” to be better by the day!

Having been exposed to so much HR work, HR jargons and HR talks for over 15 years, I have been thinking about this whole bubble of ‘engagement’ on more serious terms. To the surprise of most of my friends and colleagues from the community, each time, I have emerged as a non- believer of this whole concept of doing extra activities in the name of employee engagement.

Hold On! Don’t get me wrong. My non- believer status isn’t about not believing employees as assets for company or doesn’t stem from a dictatorial mindset. It stems from a lot deeper understanding of the true concepts of engagement; something much beyond the frivolous show of “we care for you; take these goodies”

To set the tone straight, let’s look at some statistics:

·      86% of employees say they're at least somewhat happy with their jobs, 43% are very happy, just 4% very unhappy

·      44% of Millennials say, if given the choice, they expect to leave their current employers in the next two years

·      45% of employees reported that they would be likely or very likely to look for other jobs outside their current organization within the next year

·      50% of employees who say they love their current jobs would still leave for a new opportunity if given the chance

·      Each year the average company loses 20-50% of its employee base

·      Only 13% of employees are engaged worldwide

·      83% of employers believe attracting and retaining talent is a growing challenge

·      Belief in senior leadership is the strongest engagement driver, growth & development is the second

So, is all this hullaboo in the name of employee engagement really helping? Is it really required to spend extra hours and extra money on trying to make work place a fun place?

In my opinion, No. And definitely, not the way it is currently being done at most places. If an individual is performing and achieving his/her aspirations, fulfilling his/her dreams, then they are already engaged. Why overdo it?

If you truly wish to derive positive results from your employees, it is important that your organization’s environment is conducive of their holistic growth and focuses on becoming something that I call a “FACInated Workplace” – Fulfilment, Achievement, Contribution and Individuality.

FACInation is a state where employees are truly connected to the organization. A state or an environment where every individual in the organization has a sense of fulfilment, a feeling of achievement and contribution towards self and organization yet has ample opportunities to maintain one’s individuality – an individuality that is appreciated by the organization. Having achieved this, there would be no need to put in extra efforts for employee engagement or for that matter the success of the organization. FACInation will be a state beyond Success and Engagement.

Success – Engagement and FACI are 3 different things. Success may come to an organization even overnight but reaching a state where employees are properly engaged will take some time. Not just time but engagement also requires external intervention. However, achieving a state of FACInation for your employees is a longer journey which requires patience, hard work and an intent to achieve it. As a bunch of intellectuals, owning and leading organizations, we, should focus on the intent of making the workplace a FACInated workplace for our employees and should constantly look at more ways to achieve that state. It is only then that we will achieve a much larger outcome beyond numbers and tangibles and ensure a ‘true’ growth story for our organizations.  

Having said that, it is not easy for organizations to provide this FACInated environment to their people. Let’s look at a few baby steps that we can take towards this direction:

1.    Let Them Understand “The Why”

The first step towards positively engaged employees and FACInated work environment is to make sure your employees understand why do they do what they do. It is important to recognize why they are doing the piece of work they are doing, how it is important on a bigger picture, what benefits their work brings to the organization and to them and what difference their contribution is making to the whole story. A clear picture of this will add more meaning to their work specially when they see themselves a part of something bigger than just their individual work. This gives them a sense of fulfilment in their jobs and improves their satisfaction levels.

2.    Creating an environment to enhance sense of achievement

Achievement is in itself the biggest motivator and motivated employees are thoroughly engaged, totally productive and a true asset to any organization. Providing employees an environment which helps them improve their sense of achievement is a key task for management and managers and not a difficult one at all.  Working with your employees or team to set up attainable and realistic goals is the first step. Heling them develop new skills through training and then creating opportunities to let them utilize their newly acquired skill set is a great way to ensure employee growth. All this, however, also requires management to keep reviewing their existing policies and procedures and have an innovative team bring out creative ways to improve environment without the burden of extra costs.

 3.    No One Ever Hated Appreciation

Remember, appreciation always works. Be it on a toddler or on a retired person. Across ages and across genders, appreciation is what everybody looks up to and is the next best motivator for most. However, this is where most employee engagement activities falter. They believe that by having award ceremonies and taking people out on excursions is the only way to show appreciation towards their efforts. While this is true in one sense, this is not the whole truth. Recognitions and rewards are important to encourage people but what is more important is a personal touch of maybe an immediate supervisor or a senior member. Sometime, a gentle pat on the back does more than the gift voucher. Sometimes, a patient and keen listening to your employee’s concerns or suggestions can do far better than taking them for those team outings. What is important to ensure is that employees have a sense of belonging towards the organization. The appreciation should be such that it improves their connection with organization and with its people. Be Genuine in your appreciation and do not do it as a tick-in-the-box task. Most people recognize honesty. Further, do remember that appreciation could be for the team or for the individual. While it is important to appreciate team performances, it is equally important to recognize individuals for their individual contribution. This is a great motivation for the one receiving it as well as a motivating aim for others to perform better.

These are basic small steps that most organizations can take to initiate a change in their current employee engagement methodology. However, it is worth noting that most of these require a top-down approach of implementation. Though any responsible manager can start these small things to bring positive change, establishing FACInation as a culture is a much slower process and requires a push from all ends.

Should you have any queries, concerns or suggestions on the article, do reach out to me at: [email protected]

Sarang Kamalakar

Founder & CEO

ESSKAE Management Solutions Private Limited

(StatisticsSource:https://blog.accessperks.com/employee-engagement-loyalty-statistics-the-ultimate-collection)

Disclaimer: All the views represented in the blog except for the analytical data pointers are my own views and are not intended towards deamaning, if I have done that unintetionally I sincerely appologies, my intents are purely to put across my thoughts.