INRODUCTION:
Studies around the world have revealed that engagement levels have a direct impact on employee's performance and consequently on the bottom line. A well established co-relation exists between employee engagement and business results.
Engagement : Some Quotes (from articles in professional journals)
- Work never kills a person; the absence of it (unemployment) has killed many.
- Remaining idle is not human nature.
-No one likes to avoid work if there is clarity on what to do & how it will be evaluated.
-Keeping work force idle produces negativity which impacts on team performance.
-Engagement comes through involvement; people deliver more if they are emotionally involved with the work.
-Delaying decisions on personal issues creates stress & diverts employee's attention from work.
-Absence of engagement is a challenge that can produce industrial unrest.
-Unless you know people intimately, you can't engage them effectively.
-To keep their teams engaged, managers have to remain super-engaged.
-An empowered manager is an incubator of employee engagement.
-Employee motivation improves engagement levels.
-Trust, developed through transparency, promotes engagement.
-Engagement is fostered by Leadership; managers who lead from the front keep their task force actively engaged.
-Occasional encouragement always improves engagement.
-Engagement comes through commitment.
-Attitudinal transformation creates a temperament for healthy engagement.
-Employee engagement has transformed many organizations.
Who is an engaged employee?
Experience reveals that engaged employees always demonstrate most of the attributes given below:
Good understanding of company's business.
Full clarity about own role & job deliverables.
Always achieve assigned goals; often exceed expectations.
Keen to put in extra-effort to accomplish a task.
De-link own performance from rewards & recognition.
Keep the work bench neat & tidy and take good care of job tools.
Always keen to learn something new.
Exhibit high energy levels at all times.
Highly information conscious if in the position of a supervisor/ manager.
Never say, “it is not my job”.
Willingly take on additional responsibility.
Have an outstanding record of personal discipline & attendance.
Self accountable & highly responsible: have no back-log of work at any time.
Always available to assist others; provide willing support to the team.
Have a consistently high record of performance.
Never come under pressure : always cool and adaptable by nature.
Not over-concerned with work-life balance.
Bubbling with new ideas: enjoy experimenting.
Seldom initiate complaints & grievances.
Consciously improve processes that impede work.
Highly allergic to slow & sluggish people.
Always lead subordinates though personal example.
What Reduces Employee Engagement:
A common problem with organizations is demanding more productivity without creating a conducive work environment which enables involvement of employees at all levels. Some of the diseases observed are as under:
Lack of awareness of the management about the use of modern HR technology to create a healthy work environment.
Lack of empowerment of the managers/ supervisors.
HR Technology for creating healthy work environment
20 to 30% of an employee's time is spent on personal issues such as:
Approval of Leave/ loans & advances/ claims & re-reimbursements.
Queries related to pay/ promotions/ increments/ tax deductions.
Searching for copies of company policies/ processes/ forms.
Chasing the concerned staff for decisions on their requests.
Tracing the misplaced/ withheld/ overlooked personal cases.
All these create heart-burns and stress, besides lack of accountability at various levels. Technology today provides a solution in terms of on line tracking of all cases initiated by an employee. Automated work-flows enable speedy processing of requests. 'Help Desks' of various types facilitate cross functional interaction and improve accountability of the decision centers. 'Employee portals' provide relevant information about company policies/ processes. An employee can view & update personal data, read his job description & get a live picture of his attendance record.
By merely spending 10 minutes daily, an employee can easily manage all his personal issues. What a colossal saving of energy and what an effective way of realizing that "Someone cares"! Technology thus improves the motivation to work.
To create a healthy work environment, which promotes emotional involvement of an employee, organizations need to review if their existing HR operations are being supported by technology that enables the following:
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