The Essentials Of Employee Engagement

We see and hear about so many organizations investing in increasing the engagement of their employees. However, the general question that kept popping up everywhere is, Why is engagement important? Are employees generally not engaged? I mean, I have a normal 9–6 job and I do the work I am allocated. What else is required?

Researches across different time periods tell us that more engaged employees have a higher service quality and higher productivity. Productivity and attrition hold a direct correlation to the employee engagement in an organization. Even though employee engagement holds such an important position for an organization, as per Gallup, across the globe around 71% of employees are yet not fully engaged. Which in turn leads to a loss of around $11 billion in employee turnover!! On the other hand companies with engaged employees outperform their counterparts by 202%!! (Source: Dale Carnegie, Engaged Employee Infographic). These numbers look tempting, but before you can actually start working towards these numbers, it is important to understand the difference between — “It’s my work and I have to do it — I am satisfied with my work” and “I love to do my work and then contribute and learn more in the organization — I feel engaged and involved”. Most people think job satisfaction and employee satisfaction are identical, which is not the case. Job satisfaction is actually a subset of employee engagement and engagement is a measure of how personal goals of an employee connect and align to their job goals.

People at every level of the organization are looking for a workplace that fits their unique needs and supports them in bringing out their best work. By focusing on creating a culture that appeals to and supports a multi-generational workforce, companies can drive meaningful engagement that attracts and retains the best talent. The best way to understand employee engagement is to consider 6 universal needs of every employee to thrive at their work:-

1. Respect
2. Recognition
3. Personal growth
4. Belongingness
5. Autonomy
6. Meaning

Also, let us look at the 4 traits engaged employees exhibit

1. Enthusiasm
2. Inspired
3. Confident
4. Empowered

Let’s look at how we can bridge the two ends and make it a mutual benefit for the organizations and the employees

Give your employees a casual, democratic atmosphere — Afternoon volleyball matches are one of the best parts of Google’s culture. Google is a “flat” company and has smaller teams and hence lacks a strict top-down hierarchy. Giving its employees a much better platform to voice out their opinions and ideas in ways such as employee engagement surveys. This helps in avoiding the “monkey effect” and providing opportunities for thoughtful discussions about decisions for the company.

A gentle pat on the back — Sherly Sandberg, as the vice president of Google made a mistake, that cost Google several million dollars. When she confessed the mistake to the co-founder, Larry Page, his response to it was — “I’m so glad you made this mistake,” he said. “Because I want to run a company where we are moving too quickly and doing too much, not being too cautious and doing too little. If we don’t have any of these mistakes, we’re just not taking enough risk.”

Employee appreciation leads to a culture which is fearless and which encourages people to take more risks, as it better to take risks and fail than to stay stagnant and not take risks.

To foster meaningful and tranquil environment words of appreciation take an employee and the work environment long way. For an achievement, be it a small one or large one appreciations should run across teams and individuals. And fulfilling the Maslow’s theory of needs to be recognized and to fulfill the needs of self-esteem.

Create a sense of belonging — It is very important for organizations to establish a sense of the difference between work and workplace. An employee should feel at home if you are to improve their mental health and foster a sense of belonging in their them. To achieve this, it is very important to give them a freedom to experiment, inviting people to come up with their own unique set of ideas to solve various challenges. Even Einstein said — “ The definition of Insanity is: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

There should be “Open for All” forums where people can post toned and untoned ideas and give a fresh perspective to things. This would inculcate in them a sense of belongingness to the place and the work.

Ensure that the employees are growing personally — An employee growing personally is a sign of an engaged employee, which means that the workgroup is a good fit and is providing enough for you to feel good and it helps you in solving various challenges. Thus, making the individual feel that he/she is in the right role. Also, companies need to include more learning opportunities. However, you need to understand that giving promotions is not the same as giving the employee an opportunity to learn or to grow personally. For that matter, for most employees, the sense of opportunity lies in contributing to the organization’s goals and learning along the way. What employees want more than anything else is a ‘seat at the table’, and the opportunity to influence major decisions at their workplace.

Practicing Transparency And Open-Door Environment — In Google sharing information through weekly meeting called TGIF helps establish transparency in the office and helps in creating an environment where everything is open and up for debate. All the product roadmaps and launch plans are discussed openly, keeping the employees updated on where the company is headed and why. This helps the employees feel like a part of something greater than just a conglomerate of anonymous individuals.

Companies that value and encourage such transparency develop a positive atmosphere in the office that can only make its people more productive.

Let’s hit the road to employee engagement

Using Tech for engagement can make processes and activities faster, better and also provide more data for insights. With right clarity and use cases, AI and machine learning can be used to take the pulse on employees sentiment and help in identification of factors that have the biggest positive and negative impact on your organization. The data that can be collected form such tools can possibly empower organizations with insights to adjust and update their policies for creating a more engaged workforce. Hence, a single tool that can help unify workforces that are placed in different cities and time zones and also increase collaboration is essential for organizations to easily uplift their employees and work culture.

One such tool that helps you engage your employees, even before joining the organization is www.peoplehum.com. The tool gives you an easy start to implement employee engagement in your organization, be it in form of exchanging ideas, recognizing employees or managing performance appraisals or even engaging applicants before they join the organization.