Employer-Employee Relationship

Employer-Employee Relation refer to the relationship shared among the employees in an organization. It is an art which effectively monitors and manages the relation between individuals either of the same team or from different teams at workplace.

Right Communication is not only important in our daily lives but also plays a crucial role at workplace. It is one of the most important factors which either improves or spoils the relationship amongst employees or between the employer and employees. The employees must be comfortable with each other and the management to build a healthy and productive environment at work.

HR department is the key source of information flow to employees and setting up right expectations from the day 1 of association. HR also monitors the inflow-outflow of information between departments, employees and keep close check on the inter personal behavior of every single individual at every single level in the organization which further helps them to build healthy PMS to set growth of employees within the organization.

Strong & Smooth Employer-Employee Relationship Leads To:

? Improves Productivity: Strong employment relations create a pleasant atmosphere within the work environment; it increases the employee motivation and can also be increased through improved employee morale.

? Increase Employee Loyalty: Creating the productive and pleasant work environment has a drastic effect on an employee’s loyalty to the business, it encourages a loyal workforce. Having such a workforce improves employee retention, in doing so the cost of recruitment, hiring and training is cut drastically.

? Reduces Conflicts: When a work environment is efficient and friendly the extent of conflict within the workplace is reduced. Less conflict results in the employees being able to concentrate on the tasks at hand and they are therefore more productive.

? Increased Morale: One feels secure and confident and thus delivers his best. It is okay if you share your secrets with your colleagues but you should know where to draw the line. A sense of trust is important.

? Easy Delegation: This also allows you and the employees to acknowledge and understand their strengths and weaknesses. These are a few points to consider when delegating tasks;

·        Assign tasks that challenge your employees

·        Assume responsibility for your employees mistakes

·        Do not take credit for your employees achievements

·        Accept your own personal mistakes

Here are few employee engagement best practices that can do miracle in your organization.

1.     Begin with Yourself: Lead and motivate your employees from the front to ensure they are well motivated. Employees look up to their bosses for inspiration almost every time. Until the top brasses adopt to healthy work ethics expecting the same from your subordinates is absurd.

2.     Extend the Helping Hand: Being a manager don’t confine yourselves to your desk or your cabin. Always reach out to the employees by yourself from time to time. This will give you an accurate idea of the issues your employees might face at the workplace or in their personal lives that adversely affects their productivity.

3.     Exercise On-Spot Recognition: Employees like it when their work is acknowledged and their efforts are appreciated. The effect of recognition is the most when it’s done immediately after the successful completion of the work.

4.     Maintain Transparency: It is the trust between the employer and the employees that keep things running smoothly within the organisation. Not disclosing certain things which are important for the employees to know is enough to them feel demotivated. Hence, it is always advisable to articulate all the happenings and situations arising within the company to your employees. Doing so, will gain you your employees' trust and reflect back as increased employee morale and satisfaction.

5.     Freedom to Make Choices: There’s no growth where there’s no space. Remember, the growth of an organisation is directly related to the amount of freedom enjoyed by the employees at work. Here, I don’t mean to say that as an employer you must leave your employees to do whatever they want. However, letting your employees curate their own plan for getting the work is much appreciable rather than imposing them with orders from the top. As a manager, when you do this you are also putting the employees in a responsible position. Also, it’ll help the employees explore their capabilities and aid them in their growth as a professional.

6.     Make Recognition a Daily Affair: Every day comes with its own lessons and set of challenges that even your employees to learn and solve. Being an employer or a manager you’ll agree with this fact. Though the amount of tasks handled and completed efficiently may vary based on the nature of work different teams do within an organisation, it shouldn’t be a treated as a reason for not putting out the “GOOD WORD” daily and the Daily Score Card Chart will later help you decide salary raise/promotions etc. 

7.     Good Internal Communication is the Key: Internal communication plays a pivotal role in ensuring that there is a good amount of mutual understanding and cooperation within the workforce. It clearly depicts the graph of employee satisfaction that depends on an employee’s ability to express themselves. Thus, you must always ensure a good flow of internal communication amongst the employees.

8.     Practice Engagement from Day One: Engagement should begin right from the moment an employee joins your organization. It gives employers an edge for keeping the workers accustomed to their engagement best practices. It also makes the new employees feel less stressed when they join at work and adds more to their motivation level.

9.     One Size Doesn’t Fit All: When designing your employee engagement program refrain from adopting the “One Size Fits All” policy. Employee engagement programs work the best when they are created based on the requirements of the organization. These requirements may vary based on the size of the workforce, work environment and other such factors.

10. Emphasize on Employee Health and Wellness: Healthy employees are the true assets of an organization. The reason that makes them special is these employees have higher productivity compared to others. Employee health and wellness is one of the forefronts of an employee engagement program. In today’s work environment, a large number of employees fall prey to chronic health diseases due to the sedentary lifestyle. Employees now stay bonded to their work desk without much physical movement which has led to the rise of these diseases. However, this can be dealt with very efficiently by creating a good workplace health and wellness program. Such a program will have two benefits:

? First, it’ll encourage the employees to adopt a healthy lifestyle and bring a change to their existing work habits.

? Secondly, employers will enjoy the benefits of a healthier workforce in the form of lower absenteeism and highly engaged employees.

11. Define Goals and Acknowledge Achievements: The best way to keep your employees engaged at work is to let them know what they are working for. Similarly, make announcements about the achievements of your organization to your employees. Knowing the Goals and been Acknowledged for the Achievements will create a healthy work environment.

12. Thrive for a Healthy Work environment: The work environment matters a lot for efficient implementation of employee engagement best practices. Having a positive work environment gets 80% of the work done that ensures an engaged workforce.  

13. Team Building Activities: Teamwork is an essential aspect of any organization. Thus, team building activities should be an essential part of your engagement practices in the workplace. These activities help employers to foster strong workplace relationships. It also contributes to the professional development of an employee. Thus, ensuring that your employees stay well motivated and also, develop the skills required to work together as a team all at the same time.

14. Diversify Your Rewards Scheme: Giving your employees the freedom to choose their own rewards from an array of items will be like hitting the bull’s-eye. You can make a team building program, asking your employees, what rewards they would like to receive and then select a list out of them to offer.

15. Amplify Engagement Efforts through Social Media: If you’re truly appreciating someone than don’t let your words of appreciation stay confined between you and the receiver. We humans, like it the most when we are applauded amidst the mass. It gives us a sense of gratification and fills us with pride for doing the right thing. Similarly, recognizing your employees for the good work done and acknowledging their efforts is nothing different here. In fact, employee recognition is the root of all employee engagement best practices. Social media is a very powerful tool to get your word out to a huge set of relevant audience. And taking your employee recognition to everyone over social media will make the employees feel good and also add plus points to their overall employee experience in the organization.

16. Support Career Growth and Personal Development: Employee engagement is not only about making your employees love their job in the workplace. It’s also about supporting them on the grounds of their own career growth and development. The present-day job seekers look forward to having the avenue for their career growth when joining an organization. It’s one of the employee engagement best practices employers can commit to without any hassle. And for the same, you can support your employees by providing them with study materials and access to professional counsellors.

17. Conduct Timely Surveys: It is very important to keep a check on where your employee engagement practices are heading towards. Conducting surveys from time to time gives you a clear picture about the pros and cons that might be present in your existing engagement practices. Moreover, it enables you to take swift action against anything that may lower down the organizations level of engagement. Overall, these employee engagement surveys ensure that the culture of engagement remain robust and improve over time.