You don't need Engagement Initiatives? A lesson to learn from Army.

I have spent my childhood living with Army families ,growing up in lush green cantonment areas and going to school in that olive green Tata shaktiman are the memories which still gives me goosebumps. I have very high inclination towards personnel serving in defense forces, born in a defense family gave me an opportunity of looking at their life from different perspective.

Few questions have always pushed my curiosity to know more about them " How can a soldier gets ready to give his life on one order of his officer " & "why this can't be done in corporate culture?"

So, I asked this question to few officers and soldiers from other rank category. The reason why soldier gets ready to give up his life on single order of his commanding officer is the sheer trust which these people have on each other.The pride to give whatever it takes for the respect of its battalion is what matters to them . The confidence in their training , trust on their weapons and high spirit of camaraderie ship is what their belief system carries. The golden values "SERVICE BEFORE SELF" .These are the values which are en grained deeply into each soldiers in training .

What makes these organization different from any corporate setup is the core idea behind its formation , profit making versus Service are the two extreme forms of domain.Starting from the Values,cultures,beliefs,kind of people selected, their hiring process, training structure and Leadership is what creates a huge difference .

Situation when one life is at stake and he is willingly volunteers to take risk of his life , no HR in this world can design an engagement plan for make this happen . Sending birthday wishes cutting cakes , celebrating festivals and planning trip is never an Engagement which drives a committed workforce.

There are organization who are unable to pay their employees during pandemic phase ,when I asked them why don't you leave this organization , the reply they gave was "This organization was there when I was doing well now its my responsibility to stick with them " . These kind of organizations and people exist. They are the result of culture formation over the years.

With Millennial joining the workforce and leading the organization in coming years , its high time Human resource practices needs a drastic change . The leadership need is more transformational then transactional.

The leaders need to come out of their office and spent time with their employees. Make them feel safe , valuable , empowered and you "DON'T NEED ANY OTHER ENGAGEMENT INITIATIVE TO KEEP THEM MOTIVATED".