Employee Engagement- Challenging the established belief.

This article should start with no prologue as a lot has been written, spoken and practiced about these days in the organizations. Today I want to touch upon answering 2 questions and these throw a different perspective to employee engagement.

An alternate view- When does employee engagement starts?

There is a start time for employee engagement but there is no end to it. Whom do you want to engage? A person who has already joined and is ‘legally’ an employee? I tend to disagree to it, for me an employee is that person who in future may end up joining your organization. Let me share some perspectives:

The very first instance your prospective employee looks at your organization, your opportunity of engagement starts! You may choose not to engage at that point of time, but your chance & opportunity starts right from this point.

1. When someone emails their CV to the [email protected] how and what do you do with that is as critical as any employee working for your organization.
2. When you visit the campus to hire young talent from universities, how you give them an interview experience to how you manage who did not fair well, it all matters!
3. Are you engaging the prospective employer only or are you engaging their ecosystem too? Here are few points to consider & think:
4. Take a moment to congratulate the family of the person who is selected to work in your organization.
5. After the reference check with the given referees are done, did you go back to tell them that you are happy to hire the ones they referred?
6. The day a new joiners comes along many organizations have a hamper to welcome them, but did you welcome his family into the larger family of your organization?
7. There are relocation policy, do you map a person who could be a buddy to their family?
8. Have you communicate clearly the values of your organization not in words but in experience?

The next step is till when employee engagement goes on? Do you end it once the person puts down his paper? Absolutely NOT. Once you work for an organization you continue to be its alumni for your life! Organization needs to maintain its alumni base and make the right investments towards its employee engagements, I see only few organizations doing it well.

Summary- employee engagement starts way before a person is your prospective employee and it becomes a continues lifelong engagement.

What should you think of when speaking about employee engagement?

Here are few points you can consider which is beyond the conventional employee engagement canvas but have immense potential.

The power of collective ambition

Can you get your entire employee base ambitious with the value they contribute to the organization?

Are people excited to be in your organization and be a part of the collective ambition?

Can you engage employees with their intrinsic levers?

Focus on your ‘x’ Value Proposition (xVP)

Here the ‘x’ could be either employee, prospective employees, environment, geography, business or the belief system.

Establish and be ascertain of the fact why an prospective employee chooses to join the employer, its purely by virtue of the value proposition they see in it. The core of the organization and its strategic intent needs to be aligned with the ‘x’ value proposition it has to offer. Once the value proposition is communicated and felt clearly, they form the integral part of employee engagement.

Employee engagement should be business agenda & not only HR’s

It’s not celebrating birthday or making employees play engagement games, employee engagement is serious business and it has to be driven alike by organization leaders across functions.