Key to Employee Engagement
Immense efforts are put in by companies today to hire and retain talent. The benefits of these efforts are immense. Silicon Valley is famous for creating new standards of pampering their staff to retain employees. However, it may not always be the best option for all the companies to copy these benefits blindly. A free spa and massage in the Google model will be highly misplaced in companies which do not provide high value services. Does it mean that companies should not look for unique and innovative methods of hiring and retaining employees? By all means they should and many are already doing it.
So what do companies seek to achieve by rolling out these perks and benefits to employees?
If we take a peek in the past, there are a few common elements of employee engagement. Organizations are like a huge family and treating their people fairly can be the most effective engagement model. Best innovations did not happen in the best of the places, but in the most challenging environments. Organizations empowering their employees and providing a clear path and vision, for the employees to walk upon, coupled with good leadership, will do the same wonders a leading company can achieve by spending several times the resources.
Most employee’s today are looking for a mentor to guide them and advise them on how to traverse the professional ladder. Keeping the door open for a conversation goes a long way in building a valuable bond between the employees and the organization.
Few things employees always look for are job stability, growth, quality of life, brand they work for and finally the money. Good managers and leaders add to this party. However, whenever employee retention is talked about, most of it boils down to hard benefits like money, spa, facilities which will be expensive for employees to avail outside. Such things will certainly do the trick, but will cease to sustain its lure for long.
Soft and humane elements like building great relationships, transparency and empowering employees would be more impactful.
So those companies who cannot afford the hard benefits beyond a reasonable limit, should embark upon the softer part of employee engagement. It will certainly have a great and lasting effect on employee happiness and stickiness.
Good post. Certainly money is not in the top when it comes to employee engagement. Continuously engaging with honest conversations and caring for their growth will go a long way in happy and long serving employees.
Hi Alok.
Your blog on employee engagement is very well on target.
As you have mentioned, organizations especially HR units are working on a lot of initiatives for employee engagement that include perks and benefits. An important aspect to it is the communication of these initiatives to the employees and getting their feedback.
Employees also want to see that the employer cares about their health and safety. Employers should have effective solutions in place to inform employees of a safety hazard and reach out to them if they are in trouble. This is more important in countries like India, where there is a lack of infrastructure when it comes to safety and security. Ultimately, It is the employees that are the biggest assets in an industry like ours.
I look forward to reading more of your posts.
Thanks,
Mo