Employee engagement – a challenge to HR

“The best companies now know, without a doubt, where productivity—real and limitless productivity—comes from. It comes from challenged, empowered, excited, rewarded teams of people. It comes from engaging every single mind in the organization, making everyone part of the action, and allowing everyone to have a voice—a role—in the success of the enterprise. Doing so raises productivity not incrementally, but by multiples.”-Jack Welch Former Chairman and CEO of General Electric

It is the need of the hour that, Organizations should increasingly convert from traditionalism to the contemporary learning and individualized corporations. With growing opportunity and greater flow of information, employees today want to be in the best workplaces handling the best suited responsibilities and enjoy greater autonomy. Therefore, engaging the employees to the work as per their competency level must occupy the centre stage not only for the HR department but also for the immediate bosses.

The extent that an employee believes in the mission, purpose and values of an organization and demonstrates that commitment through their actions and their attitude towards the employer (both internal & external) will determine the employee satisfaction towards his/her work. Employee engagement is high when the statements and conversations held reflect a natural enthusiasm for the company, its employees and the products or services provided.

Employee engagement does not mean employee happiness. Someone might be happy at work, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are working hard, productively on behalf of the organization. While company game rooms, free massages and Friday keg parties are fun–and may be beneficial for other reasons–making employees happy is different from making them engaged.

Employee engagement doesn’t mean employee satisfaction. Many companies have “employee satisfaction” surveys and executives talk about “employee satisfaction”, but the bar is set too low. A satisfied employee might show up for her daily 9-to-5 without complaint. But that same “satisfied” employee might not go the extra effort on her own, and she’ll probably take the headhunter’s call luring her away with a 10% bump in pay. Satisfied isn’t enough.

This emotional commitment means engaged employees actually care about their work and their company. They don’t work just for a paycheck, or just for the next promotion, but work on behalf of the organization’s goals.

When employees care—when they are engaged—they use discretionary effort.

This means the engaged computer programmer works overtime when needed, without being asked. This means the engaged retail clerk picks up the trash on the store floor, even if the boss isn’t watching. This means the TSA agent will pull a bag suspicious bag to be searched, even if it’s the last bag on their shift.

Engaged employees lead to better business outcomes. In fact, according to Towers Perrin research companies with engaged workers have 6% higher net profit margins, and according to Kenexa research engaged companies have five times higher shareholder returns over five years.

How does employee engagement lead to higher stock prices? The ROI of engagement comes from what is called as Engagement-Profit Chain:

Engaged Employees lead to… higher service, quality, and productivity, which leads to… higher customer satisfaction, which leads to… increased sales (repeat business and referrals), which leads to… higher levels of profit, which leads to… higher shareholder returns (i.e., stock price).

Employee engagement is the level of commitment and involvement an employee has towards their organization and its values. An engaged employee is aware of business context, and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization.

The degree to which an employee is emotionally bonded to his/her organisation and is passionate about the work that really matters”. The organization must work to develop and nurture engagement, which requires a two-way relationship between employer and employee. Thus Employee engagement is a barometer that determines the association of a person within the organization.

As former Campbell’s Soup CEO, Doug Conant, once said, “To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace.” Employee engagement is the key to activating a high performing workforce.

Thus the responsibility of engaging an employee is not only mere task for the HR Manager, but it should equally shared by all the line managers.

Pl.Note: The above expressed views are absolutely personal views of the author.

N.V.Ravindra
Dy.Manager HR
Hyderabad