Employee Engagement at Workplace

Don’t worry, I am not going to ‘define’ it and I will not try to state its ‘importance’ and many ‘could-be’ possible impacts on ‘employee satisfaction & business results’. There is far too much literature out there which tries to explain that, so we will leave that to those ‘experts’, who apparently neither play any real on-the-floor role in such events nor in their planning & design. Let’s talk about: those who do; what to do; how to do and other execution matters.

A disclaimer: No matter what we say or hear/read about employee engagement in HBR, HR conclaves, meetings and discussions, in current Indian context, in the majority of organizations, it is largely ‘entertainment’ than ‘engagement’, which is not that bad at this stage. We do need to fill in some metrics where we are asked how any engagement activity results in some direct or indirect business results. Good intentions, irrelevant context. The HR function needs to be at some minimum maturity level (e.g. CMMI 2 or 3) before getting and analyzing metrics makes sense. And often that’s not the case, but it’s like an elephant in the room, no one wants to see it.

Moving focus to the actual employees, we don’t need to run a survey to know that too few ‘engagement’ activities are being done in a quarter/year. Because survey’s purpose is to uncover something which is not apparent. Employees are dying to have some fun activities, they are more than happy if something decent is conducted. They are not specifically looking for some ‘learning points’ from such activities, and they won’t refuse to participate in an activity if it has no apparent ‘teaching’. But we as HRs are unable to deliver even that. They form their fun committees amongst themselves and try conducting something. And we don’t even attend those, but conveniently use those activities and metrics in our quarterly reports and broadcast emails with event photographs.

There is a discord between the leadership team and execution team as to what shall be done and why. Leadership though talks big stuff about engagement, but generally cares only about metrics, and any tangible business results or outcomes from the activity are added benefits. Floor HRs cares about giving employees a different experience, something out of routine and something which they can’t do by themselves within their authority. So, to satisfy everyone, floor HRs basically need to get creative with the activities & its metrics.

Common activities like rangoli competition, drawing competition, tambola etc. are found in every organization. Though they are thoroughly enjoyed by many employees, such activities are suitable for school children and not working professionals. We also observe the employee’s childlike expressions and behaviors during such activities. It only serves the purpose of a break from the routine. Any HR trying to justify the benefits of such activities by terms like ‘team-bonding’, ‘creativity’ etc. is just trying to fill his/her metrics for the activity.

let’s get more creative with the activities and its metrics. We may try and do one or two actual ‘serious engagement’ activity in the quarter to satisfy leadership’s lust for metrics (and our annual appraisal objectives) however, more and more ‘light engagement’ activities shall also be done with equally creative metrics. We are better than organizing rangoli on the floor. I am trying to create some of these light engagement activities which are relevant in the Indian context and can be copy-pasted by anyone HR in his/her employee span. Click here to check out these activities.