Insider's View

Employee Engagement: It’s Not Just What You Do. But About What You Say As Well.
By Subhasis B, Head - Product Management

Organizations always create strategies that tilt towards employee friendliness and creating best working environments. One good example is Google's Core Values that starts with the statement- "We want to work with great people". Another one that comes to mind is The Blue Box philosophy of American Express that articulates the link between Leadership, Employee Experience, Employee Engagement and Business outcomes. It is needless to say that Employee Focus plays a critical role in an organization’s growth.

As the recession deepens, it’s obvious why enterprises are trying to adapt and improvise. While some are looking for lifelines, others are searching for smarter ways to take advantage of the present market scenario. And to lead in these times, quicker turnaround time and better performance together hold the key. One easy way to get closer to achieve that is through Effective Internal Collaboration.

Organizations can announce policies on various employee engagement initiatives. But the success depends on how those have been communicated to the audience. And the most important aspect is collecting feedback that helps realign the policies with employees’ expectations.

I have been working closely with HR professionals as a solution provider for a while now. And of the many incidents that I can recall, there is one that stands out. I call it the case of many cabs and no passengers.

One of our clients had some excellent HR policies that aimed to make life easier for their employees. Among them was a policy that addressed availability of a cab for transportation in case an employee stayed on beyond working hours. While this was intended to ensure employees did not go through hardships in terms of finding their transportation when they worked beyond the working hours, there was a slight drawback. And that was this- every employee who needed this service had to take prior approval from their Reporting Manager and book the cab through the Administration Department.

In most cases, the approval process that seems so simple and straightforward actually turned out to be a nightmare. Employees just could not get the necessary approvals for two simple reasons:

1-The decision to work late would often be taken at the fag end of the day, and not during the day. 2- Therefore, in most instances, the employees’ Reporting Managers would not be physically available to approve their cab requisitions that the Administration Department needed to ensure the employees got their cabs.

The result- employees were unable to make use of a facility that was meant to make their life easier. But thanks to implementation issues and absence of a communication channel between employees and their Reporting Managers, there was a lot of unhappiness among the employees. In fact, this issue was cited as one of the reasons to resign by many employees. All in all, to my mind, this is a perfect case of an Employee Engagement activity that defeated its very reason for existence. Instead of acting as a weapon against attrition, it turned sour and actually led to attrition.

Well, a key lesson from this incident is this- it’s important to have employee friendly policies. But it is even more important to ensure that employees are aware of these policies and processes. That to my mind will ensure greater participation, smooth implementation and the ideal outcome.
Little wonder why when it comes to using Employee Engagement to handle retention and attrition challenges it pays to walk the talk. But it pays even better when you talk about the walk.

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About the author

Subhasis has more than 15 years’ experience in Sales & Marketing. He has played key roles in various organizations in Corporate Sales, Account Management and Profit Centre Operations.
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