Yes, you read it right. Though the pun was unintended, all we wanted to do was to make you rethink Employee Engagement from an Employer’s or Manager’s perspective. The 2012 Global Workforce Study conducted on 32,000 workers around the world by Towers Watson revealed that at least one in four employees (26%) were completely disengaged from their job roles & responsibilities.
Some managers might look at the other side of the report’s findings. They may say that employees are always reluctant to work and thus one in four may be under-motivated or unwilling to give his/her 101% to work; but there are three others who compensate for the disengaged ones.
However, if we delve deeper to understand the real meaning of Employee Engagement we discover an inverse relation between Return on Investment (RoI) and Employee Engagement Indices across various market segments and geographies.
De-mystifying Employee Engagement
The most simplified definition of Employee Engagement by Robert J. Vance, reads – “Employee engagement is the extent to which employees put discretionary effort into their work, beyond the required minimum to get the job done, in the form of extra time, brainpower, or energy.”
How Employee Engagement affects RoI
As you can see from the definition of it, if voluntary or discretionary effort decreases, the employee would no longer feel the urge to add any value to his/her job. All that they would be doing is under a compulsion to earn their living.
Any human cannot work for long under any kind of compulsion. Consequently when employees become disengaged they start their covert job-search. The current employer faces problems of absenteeism on an individual basis. If the engagement indices fall across the enterprise, slowly more and more employees lack the motivation to work, it leads to sky-rocketing attrition statistics. However, all research on Employee Engagement reveals Compensation to be the primary reason behind reduced job satisfaction, which is the key factor of Employee Engagement.
So besides implementing Pay-for-Performance Appraisal to satisfy the employee’s compensation related woes, what else can the HR Manager or the employer do to actively engage all employees in their workforce?
The PeopleWorks Solution
Compiling several research studies on Employee Engagement we feel that besides yielding to compensation related issues the following practices would ensure an actively engaged workforce:
- Hire better managers who cooperate, encourage and lead rather than delegate, discourage and blame.
- Have at least two to three different engagement strategies for the workforce based on age, type of work, seniority, employee psychology, educational qualification, and the like.
- Ensure that managers discuss employee engagement elements at weekly meetings, impact planning sessions, and in one-on-one sessions with employees to weave engagement into daily interactions and activities.
- Increments & perks or an encouraging word & appreciation mails might not be enough. Implement periodic Rewards & Recognition events which demonstrate the company’s commitment to rewarding excellence and fostering a positive work environment. Tailor the program to your company’s goals and allow for nominations by colleagues or managers.
- Periodically survey the Employee Engagement Index of your enterprise with rating based questions like –
- How much does your opinion count at work?
- How often were you encouraged by a colleague or superior in your role?
- How far does your company’s goal and the purpose of your job make you feel important & proud?
About PeopleWorks
PeopleWorks is a cloud-based employee lifecycle management solution with interlinked modules to manage all aspects of an employee’s life from hire to retire. With 12+ years of HR domain expertise behind the designers of this solution and inputs from Subject matter experts, we know what exactly works and what tall claims mean.
All of the solutions suggested above are either directly or indirectly achievable through strategic planning and careful implementation of our cloud solution. To know how or to request a demo, visit us at www.peopleworks.in or connect through Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
