Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Hay Group defines enagaged performance as a result that is achieved by stimulating employees enthusiasm for their work and directing it toward organization success. This result can only be achieved when employers offer an implicit contract to their employees that elicits specific positive behaviours aligned with organizations goals... Lanphear defines EE as the bond employees have with their organization Lanphear further espouses that when employees really care about the business, they are more likely to go the extra mile.
Prepare and Design: The first step in the process is about discovering the specific
requirements of your organisation and deciding the priorities. After that a customised design of carrying the whole process can be designed. It is recommended to seek advice of expert management consultant in order to increase the chances of getting it done right at the first attempt.
Employee Engagement Survey: Design the questions of the employee engagement survey and deploy it with the help of an appropriate media. It can be either in printed form or set online depending upon the comfort level of the employees and your questionnaire evaluation process. Result Analysis: It is the most important step in the entire process. It is time when reports are to be analysed to find out what exactly motivates employees to perform their best and what actually disengages them and finally compels them to leave the organisation. The results and information can then be delivered through presentations. Action Planning: How to turn the results of the survey in to an action is a challenging question that organisations need to deal with the utmost care. Coaching of line managers as well as HR professionals is very important in order to tell them how to take appropriate actions to engage employees. They should also be told about dos and donts so that they can successfully implement the changes. Action Follow-up: Action follow up is necessary in order to find out if the action has been taken in the right direction or not and if it is producing the desired results.
3. Effect on Customers - Every employee, whether an organization likes it or not, becomes its ambassador. And a disengaged employee either by actively de-selling the organization, or by complete apathy towards their work, product, process, organization help create disengaged customers. 4. Effects on Productivity - Disengaged employees seldom push themselves to meet organizational goals let alone contribute to innovative practices at workplace. Since, they do not believe that their work contributes to the organization; they evade completing tasks thereby affecting team productivity. 5. Effect on Company Performance - In the corporate world, time is money and organizations must innovate to stay relevant. A disengaged workforce by virtue of delayed completion of tasks and inability to improvise and innovate cost the company dollars which ultimately affects bottom line. This has been validated by a Gallup Study whose research showed that costs of disengaged workforce in the United States was upwards of $300bn annually. 6. Effect on Personal Life of Employee - A disengaged employee is seldom able to shake off the lethargy and perform in the current organization or land a job of preference. This leads to pent up frustration which may ultimately affect his personal and family life.
autonomy to perform their tasks their way. They should not be restricted to a specific rules and regulations and therefore, should be motivated to experiment to perform their task in a different and innovative manner.
All these elements play a vital role in determining the fate of an organisation. Besides this, twoway communication to discuss challenges, potential consequences, vision and values and organisations future should be established. In fact, communication is the backbone of any organisation without which it cant survive for long. Having an open conversation with employees can solve the problems that they are facing in executing their job. Apart from this, organisational culture, a well established and duly followed reward system including compensation, benefits, stock exchange options and recognition and personal growth and satisfaction of employees are also important factors in improving the levels of employee engagement.
What Do I Get: Employee engagement to an extent depends upon what people get in exchange for performing the job. This includes basic compensation, benefits, organisational culture and working environment. These are basic elements that motivate them to join the organisation and perform the given task with complete dedication. What Do I Give: As it is a two way process, setting clear expectations plays an important role. This helps employees to understand what exactly they are expected to give the organisation. This includes defining their job responsibilities that they need to fulfill and tasks that they need to perform. The human resource team and immediate supervisors or managers need to tell them clearly what they are expected to do. It creates more meaningful relationships among seniors and subordinates and workgroups. Do I Belong to the Organisation: Social association is the most basic requirement for anyone. Even employees would like to stay with the organisation that treats them as their integral part and not just the means to get the job done. My opinions Count gives them satisfaction and motivates them to put their best to meet organisational goals. How Can I Grow: Continuous growth including promotions, salary hikes and rewards and recognition are most essential tools to retain employees in the organisation. New challenges and opportunities to learn keep them motivated towards their work life and encourage them to give their best even during crisis.
1. Attract The first phase of the employee engagement cycle is attracting the best talent from the industry. This phase involves creating a positive impression about the work culture and employee career as a potential employer. It is all about carefully creating an authentic, genuine and crafted image as an employer. This is although an indirect yet the first impression that attracts a big pool of candidates to apply for the job vacancies in an organisation. The first phase is the most important phase of the employee engagement cycle. Another aspect spreading the reputation of an organisation is its employees. They are not only the employees but also are regarded as internal customers. Their job and career satisfaction speaks about their workplace. Therefore, they should not be taken for granted. Besides attracting the talent from the outside, it is important to keep the existing employees attracted towards the organisation. 2. Acquire The acquire image involves more than one thing. It includes (1) the way the potential candidates are interacted while advertising a position; (2) keeping the promises that were made while hiring them and (3) providing the new joiners a right kind of work culture.
When an organisation advertises a position, interested candidates apply. The way their applications are created, the reaction of the organisation and the manner in which they are approached speak a lot about the image and work culture of an organisation. Hiring the best talent not only serves the purpose. During their honeymoon or initial period with the organisation, the company must try to keep all the promises that were made during the selection process. Besides this, they should feel happy and satisfied when their expectations are tested against the reality. Providing the right kind of culture also plays an important role in keeping them engaged. The whole idea is to prepare them to perform their best by giving them challenging tasks right from the beginning. Its like developing a habit or culture right from the time they decide to work with the organisation. 3. Advance Continuous moving the talent is the last but an unending phase. It not only involves promoting the employees to a higher designation along with salary increments but also growing them in other tangible and intangible ways. Job rotation can help them grow in experience, responsibility and belongingness but only when it is done right. Advancing the employees in every aspect, be it monetary or non-monetary, is the key to retain people and develop their overall personality. These above are the main phases of an employee engagement cycle where preparation is done much before an employee joins the organisation. As mentioned earlier, it is not only about attracting, acquiring and retaining the best talent but also deals in advancing their experience and personality.
Mutual Trust: Trust is the base of any organisation. Letting people do their work without telling them how to perform it is one of the best ways to engage staff. Employees welcome each others opinions and find out a wide variety of ways to accomplish a particular task. A highly engaged workforce doesnt need directions at each step. They can perform their jobs with mutual help and trust. Job and Career Satisfaction: Job satisfaction is one of the main characteristics of an engaged workforce. The individual who is satisfied with their career and the way their career graph is raising prefers to stick to the organisation for a very long period of time. Switching the organisations frequently is not a characteristic of satisfied employee. Credible Leadership: As mentioned earlier, an engaged workforce doesnt need directions for performing a specific job from time to time. Employees know how to do it in the best possible manner. They not only exhibit credible leadership qualities in routine tasks but also come up with innovative ways to deal with crisis or emergencies.
Focused and Keen to Take up Challenges: An engaged workforce is entirely focused and knows what to do and when. They are always keen to take up new challenges in order to solve the existing problems in the organisation as well as acquire new skills. Not only this, they are always keen to learn new things and widening their horizon. Better Performance: Employee engagement is directly related to better performance. Employee performance is the only way to measure the engagement, involvement and dedication of employees towards their jobs. If all these factors cannot be interlinked, there is no meaning of anything. It can be said that the workforce is not engaged or actively disengaged. Problem Solving Attitude: Engaged workforce not only delivers its job responsibilities but also keeps a problem solving attitude always. A highly engaged employee displays a sense of belongingness towards the organisation and makes every effort to solve the problems that pose a hindrance in the organisations way of success. The above mentioned are the essential characteristics of an engaged workforce. However, mutual respect, commitment, enthusiasm, optimism and discretionary efforts to serve customers better are add-on characteristics that an engaged employee generally exhibits.
3 Cs of Employee Engagement
Competence: Competence is all about the ability to grow. Regular workshops and training sessions must be held in order to help employees acquire a higher level of skills and competencies. The focus should be on developing for marketable skills. Most employees after spending a few months look for competence-boosting opportunities with the organisation so that they can grow and move to the next level of their careers. While the career focuses on the actual growth in terms of designation, wages and perks and authority, competence is the ability to grow utilizing the opportunities. Care: Sitting at the topmost, care is regarded the finest art of the managers by which they can make employees feel an indispensable part of their organisation. The managers need to be empathetic and sensitive towards people and understand their personal problems. Showing small day-to-day caring gestures towards employees make them feel that they belong to the organisation and organisation belongs to them.
Human Resource Department Human Resource Department works on the data collected by the managers and determine the trend among the employees. They identify the most common factors that decrease the engagement levels among employees and the most common opportunities that can enhance it. They study all the cases thoroughly to identify the loopholes in the system and bring it to the notice of top management.
Senior Leadership or Top Management They review the entire report and the process designed by the HRD or a management consulting firm to enhance the employee engagement levels. They support the process by deciding the priorities and making investments.
In a research conducted by Gallup, it was found out that 16% of the people working in organisations are actively disengaged, 28% are engaged and almost 56% are not engaged. Although these statistics cannot be generalised, but they hold true for majority of the cases and there may be deviation of 5% here and there for each category and not more.
1. Unify the Experiences: Conduct an employee engagement survey in order to find the factors responsible for engaging and disengaging employees. Unify the common experiences and problems and design employee engagement strategies accordingly. Sharing of feedback in written is one way of communicating the experiences and problems. 2. Evolving Through Open Communication: Open communication or face to face communication in the form of discussions can really help in bringing the various issues and identifying the main problems in the organisation. It is very essential to establish a proper communication where everyone can put their views and suggest a solution too. Most of the top organisations ask for suggestions and new ideas from their employees and then offer rewards on giving the best proposal. 3. Providing Proper Communication Channels: Some employees are comfortable with open face-to-face communication styles whereas there are some who want to give feedbacks and suggestions in written. Discovering the best channel of communication and establishing a proper route to share feedbacks and views plays a vital role.
4. Enabling Conversation Fluidity: Whichever way of communication you choose, ensure that it has required fluidity. There should not be any hindrance in the established method of communication. Not being able to provide feedback or share problems and experiences can lead to frustration and distress among employees. Therefore, ensure that there are no barriers to communication. This can also result in disengaging the engaged employees. 5. Manage Communication: Managing communication is the last but the most important step in the entire process. Managers should keep a check on the entire process in order to ensure that it is not adversely affecting the health of the organisation. They must make sure that it serves the desired purpose and is not being used negatively.
Performance Management - An effective performance management system contributes positively to employee engagement. Goal setting lies at the root of any performance management system. Clearly articulated goals, a fair and just means to judge performance and timely, rational feedback are critical elements in creating a bond between the employee and his/her organization. Leadership - It is a well recorded fact that most resignations happen because the employee is not satisfied with his/her boss. An organization that spends time and effort in grooming leaders who are aligned to its goals, culture and people invests well. New age industries have a young and dynamic workforce that looks for autonomy in decision making, increased responsibility and accountabilities. Other Factors - Clear and open communication, quality of interaction with peers, collaboration, organization policy, organization performance are all contributing factors to employee engagement.
The model provides organisations with 12 keys that a manager must follow to achieve significant results.
1. Achieve Results: Achieving the desired results, i.e., higher levels of employee engagement is the ultimate aim of the Zinger model; however, the process is well supported by various other steps. The managers need to work on self as well as the employees of the company through well crafted strategies.
2. Craft Strategies: Crafting appropriate strategies to achieve higher levels of employee engagement is the first and foremost task. It involves a lot of planning and considerations of employee as well as organisational requirements. Managers can seek helps from professional management consultants in order to craft effective strategies. 3. Enliven Roles: Employees will love their work when it seems interesting to them. Managers should work on redefining their tasks and responsibilities in a manner that eliminates the element of boredom from their job to keep them interested in their work. 4. Excel at Work: Motivating employees to perform work certainly pays off. An organisation must have a system for recognising and rewarding employees for their efforts so that they remain stimulated to perform better and better. 5. Get Connected: Managers must remain connected to their subordinates so that they can share their problems and ask for advice to perform their tasks. Communication is the backbone of every managerial process. 6. Be Authentic: Being real and genuine is what is expected from a leader. Top management, HR people as well as immediate managers should show genuine concern towards the problems of employees and make dedicate efforts to help them get rid of it. 7. Live Recognition: Recognising the efforts of employees in front of everyone not only boost their moral but also encourages them to stay with the organisation and perform their best always. 8. Fully Engage: The desired results can be achieved in the fastest possible way only if employees are fully engage. A comprehensive study about what actually engages or disengages the employees must be conducted. Designing and implementing appropriate strategies is the next step. 9. Identify with Organisation: Employees stay in organisation for long years if they feel connected to their organisation. Management should understand that they are their most important assets without which nothing can be achieved.
10. Serve Customers: Only engaged employees can serve their customers in the best possible manner. Maintain a tradition and culture to offer the best services to the customers. Making employees aware of this tradition of the organisation from time to time can help a great deal. 11. Develop Personally: Organisation should not only focus on attaining its goal but also on the overall development of an employee. Employees who grow with the organisation are deeply connected to their workplace and always ready to walk that extra mile to achieve success for it. 12. Attain Happiness: Happy and satisfied employees are the most important assets of an organisation. The secret behind the success of highly productive businesses is their happy employees. David Zinger Model on Employee Engagement considers all important aspects that could impact the involvement, engagement and dedication of employees.
One, they are not interested in doing what is assigned to them and two, they are not happy with the organisation. But when they like their workplace, they stay with it and grow as it grows. This decreases the cost of finding new employees and training them from the beginning to perform a specific task. Without spending much time on training new employees, an organisation can continue to move forward with its existing employees without affecting the pace of business operations. Improved Customer Satisfaction When employees love their job, they will make every effort and go extra mile to offer complete assistance to the customers. The studies conducted by consulting firms and universities have shown the link between the employee engagement and customer satisfaction. This means when employees are satisfied, they happily serve customers resolving all their queries and doubts. They offer them genuine consultation and guidance. This helps in establishing long term relationships with the customers. It in turn, increases the number of loyal customers which is again a good sign for the organisation as a whole. Besides this, there are many other factors that go into the productivity and profitability of an organisation. But like the above mentioned, they lack evidence for establishing a cause and effect or direct relationship between employee engagement and companys financial performance. Besides this, there are numerous other factors apart from employee engagement level that have a strong impact on the financial status of a company. This is not the only one but is one of the most important ones.
and Palaces, Cisco Systems, ITC Welcome Group, Eureka Forbes, LG Electronics India, Dominos Pizza India and Marriott Hotels India. Infosys in year 2011 plans to have its own radio in establishing a healthy and quick interaction and communication amongst employees. The company also plans to host talk shows where top management would interact with the employees. Besides this, the company also has a social networking portal like Facebook. Named as Bubble, it helps employees connect to their colleagues, seniors, subordinates and top management. Infosys had also created Infosys Television. Indian giants like Mahindra & Mahindra, Mercer, KPMG and Wipro offer democracy to choose their wages and perks depending upon their lifestyles. It is done to decrease as well as prevent dissatisfaction amongst employees. It has worked out very well and companies are successful in drawing and retaining the best talent. The trend began in these IT giants can now be seen in FMCG, banking and other industries.
3. Job Rotation - The grass on the other side is always greener. While the revenue generating/client facing entities believe that the support staff (like admin, human resources, finance) has a cushy job, the support staff often complains of a vendor like treatment at the hands of the former. An employee can contribute his best if he/she can see how his/her role ties in with the larger organization goals or explore linkages of his/her role with other teams in the organization. For this purpose, tools such as jobrotation, multi team projects, best practice sharing by teams can be leveraged effectively by organizations. Such interactions help create an informal and seamless source of information across teams which helps employees to perform effectively and efficiently. 4. Goal Setting - A realistic and time bound goal that clearly mentions linkage to the organization goal is an important aspect in building an engaged workforce. This will be dealt with in greater depth in the following chapter which deals with Performance Management as a driver of engagement. 5. Job Loading - Organizations can effectively use both vertical-loading i.e. job enrichment and horizontal-loading i.e. job enlargement to motivate employees. Both these approaches allow an employee to explore and use their strengths and also beat work monotony. These also help skill development and enhancement which in turn helps employee output, team output and eventually organization output. In conclusion, engaged employees create quality output not because they have to or are forced to but because they want to, because they see a clear linkage between their work and the organization vision and results.