Employee Engagement In the Workplace

Employee Engagement In the Workplace – How To Ensure It

Employee engagement in the workplace is the first requirement of a successful business. This is what all HRM policies, Personnel Management and Employee management policies are meant to achieve but succeed seldom. There are often three types of employees in an organization. First those are fully committed to the organization, its values, ethics and culture. These employees are fully satisfied of their jobs and spread same energy around. They are fully engaged in improving not only their own performance but also of the whole organization and spread a good word about it around. Second those who are neither in nor out. They are working in the company only because they have to work somewhere. They come, keep looking at watch and go home. They are not really engaged in the company or its affair, not even in their own responsibilities. Third those who are one step ahead of those non-engaged. Spoil-sports, you can say. Most of their day at work passes in negative conversations about the company and encourage other workers to follow the suite. They are never satisfied themselves neither let others be so. They are out-of-order.

Organizations which have got fully engaged personnel at work grow faster with a greater pace. No company can expect to survive without earnest efforts of its employees. There is a systematic process that you need to comply with to achieve success on this front.

Here are some tips on How To Engage Employee In The Workplace:

Recruitment: While recruiting employees companies need to know the exact nature of work requirement and that of required person. You need to know what calibre, qualification and attitude of person would suite most to it. Person’s attitude also matters most. S/he should be earnest, honest, hardworking and willing to learn. In fact attitude matters more than skills and qualification.

Training – Proper job related training to the employees plays an important role to ensure employee engagement in workplace. Some times lack of skills or knowledge results in lower confidence and poor performance and further discourages employees from work. Many companies have realized the requirement of this fact and provide on job training to employees at work so that they can perform their duties confidently without any distraction.

Payment – ‘Who pays well is served well’ goes the saying. Companies who pay their employees full value of their time and money give them a great reason to be engaged in workplace. If they are unable to earn their expenses from one source, they are sure to find another or more to match it. If they do so, they will not be able to apply all their time and efforts to one job then.

Performance Appraisal – If you think that you are paying them salary and that is all that they deserve, your employees also adopt same attitude. They limit their efforts and actions to the level of their pay scale. They wouldn’t ever perform above those limits if there is nothing more to achieve. A fair performance appraisal and acknowledge is a must to encourage them for better performance. Many companies offer shares to the employees as performance bonus or at the time of appointment only to link their performance with the growth of the company.

Service Support – Companies must remember that their employees have their own families and responsibilities to fulfil. There household responsibilities do require their time and attention. Sometimes their house-hold chores take over best of their time and distract their mind from work, even when they are physically at work. This results in poor performance and higher absenteeism. A fair work-life balance should be established. For example: Satyam Computer Services, an MNC, has implemented help-desk system at all its centres where they provide various house-hold services to their employees like utility bill payment, school admissions, etc, without any additional cost. The move has resulted into higher employee engagement in workplace. Now many companies are implementing the same system.

Motivation – This is the key of all trade, the most important element to keep employees engaged in the workplace. Motivation doesn’t always mean money. Employees should be provided sufficient recreational, health, stress remover facilities at workplace to help them get over fatigue, exhaustion, boredom, and other similar factors which pull them away from the work.

There are many similar factors that can be implemented to ensure employee engagement in the workplace. The only logic behind successful implementation of this process has been well elaborated by Clarence Francis, who led the General Food Corporation in 1930s and 40s. Francis says “You can buy a man’s time; you can buy his physical presence at a given place; you can even buy a measured number of his skilled muscular motions per hour… but you can not buy devotion of hearts, mind or souls, you must earn those things.”

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