New to HR: Can Someone Explain Employee Engagement and Common Activities Simply?

Respected Seniors, as I am very new to the HR profession, I am quite confused about Employee Engagement. Could you please describe to me what Employee Engagement is in a simple way and what activities are generally used for the same?

It's simple to engage employees not just in terms of work but in terms of Organizational Development. Here are some suggestions:

1. Prepare a list of employees' birth dates and start celebrating them. It's up to the management whether to celebrate individually or on a monthly basis.
2. Implement rewards and recognition schemes.
3. Organize general training programs on behavioral traits, leadership, etc.
4. Arrange outings, picnics, etc.
5. Conduct game competitions.
6. Have a weekly lunch with all staff, with a special lunch provided by the company.
7. Provide indoor games like table tennis, snooker, etc., where employees can play.

Hope you got the basic idea.

Regards,
Karthik

As the name suggests, the purpose is to keep employees engaged, as an idle mind is the devil's workshop. When an employee feels stressed at work, lacks learning opportunities, growth prospects, recognition, or relaxation, they tend to consider leaving the company.

Employee Engagement as an Attrition Control Tool

Employee engagement is an attrition control tool used to foster enthusiasm and motivation among employees, encouraging them to stay longer, perform well, and work towards organizational goals. Employee engagement activities should be conducted in a manner that deeply impacts employees' hearts, strengthening the bond between employees and the organization.

Employee Engagement Activities

The following employee engagement activities can be implemented:

• Birthday celebrations.
• Celebrations for events like childbirth or marriage.
• Rewards and recognition programs such as Best Employee of the Month/Year, Best Department, Mr. Perfect/Ms. Perfect (for grooming).
• Outings/picnics (without restrictions).
• Group discussions/role plays.
• Cultural activities like singing, dancing, rangoli, food preparation, fashion shows, etc.
• Family get-togethers.
• Self-development training programs, Train the Trainer.
• Games/tournaments between departments in cricket, carrom/chess, sports meets.
• Implementation of a newsletter with employee contributions.

Each employee has their own strengths and weaknesses. They may be happy at work but not at home due to family or financial issues, and vice versa. Various internal and external factors can contribute to employee unhappiness. The company, primarily the HR department, needs to identify potentially dissatisfied employees and provide counseling sessions to help them overcome their problems.

Employee engagement will only be successful if employees feel happy; otherwise, all efforts would be in vain.

Understanding Employee Engagement

An engaged employee goes beyond the call of duty and does not just stick to their job description. An engaged employee is someone who looks forward to Mondays more and is generally more productive at work than disengaged employees.

It is simply about getting work done from the employees and keeping them motivated. The key to keeping employees motivated is to understand what makes them tick. This may be different for each member of the team. "It's about finding out their personal triggers," spending time with employees informally, say over coffee or lunch, or on other occasions.

For instance, if you notice that one of the employees gets a kick when given importance, make this employee a mentor to a new recruit when a freshman joins the office. Also, look for other things like how an individual takes orders—does the employee prefer to be told what needs to be done, or does he or she prefer to be part of the decision-making conversation? Understanding these little things helps personalize the management style for all employees.

Cheer with Awards & Recognitions

We all like it when our hard work is recognized. This will motivate them to do a better job next time. But beware of praising too much also.

Vaibhav, most of these responses have misled you, except for the last.

The Goal of Managing People

The goal of managing people is to create an environment that causes employees to become highly motivated, highly committed, and fully engaged, with very high morale and innovation. They should literally love coming to work and be at least 300% more productive than if poorly engaged. Guru Stephen Covey stated the performance difference as 500%, and my own experience in several turnarounds makes me agree with Covey.

Achieving Employee Engagement

Engagement is the word we use to describe that, but how do we achieve it? Simple and easy!

Management is responsible for supporting work by providing training, tools, parts, materials, information, direction, discipline, planning, and the like to employees. How well management achieves employee engagement is dictated by the quality of this support, with poor support causing disengagement and very high-quality support causing very high levels of engagement. So all management has to do is ensure that support is of the very highest quality.

Listening to Employees

The only way management can achieve high-quality support is to listen to the users of that support—employees. Listen to their complaints, suggestions, and questions just as you do to customers of your products and services to make them more acceptable and pleasing to customers. Listen face-to-face and respond face-to-face to the satisfaction of employees, the customers of your support.

If you don't want to listen to them, insist on giving them orders about doing their work, or don't share every bit of information you have that they want, you will convince them you don't respect them, and they will become disengaged. Would you treat an external customer that way? In short, if you insist on using the traditional top-down command and control approach to managing your people, you will fail miserably at creating a fully engaged workforce.

Meeting Responsibilities

But meet your responsibilities to the very highest standards, and your people will be so thankful for being treated so well, far better than they had ever expected or hoped, that they will eagerly unleash everything they have on their work: all their creativity, innovation, productivity, enthusiasm, knowledge, experience, skills, etc.

I know because that is what I experienced as an executive.

Mr. Bensimo has brought out the very correct facts about employee engagement. Thanks, Mr. Bensimo.

I just want to add my views to it. Until work is a profession, we work with a professional attitude. When work becomes a passion, then the profession turns into a passion, and anything done out of passion does miracles. Then, no motivation is required. Employee engagement is a mere trend/tool that has been devised to bring out/extract the maximum possible talent, interest, skill, creativity, etc. But remember, all these traits are manifestations of what we call passion, an eagerness, a desire to be something.

Organizations and HR, on behalf of the organization, must ensure and facilitate through various resource supports and media to bring about this interest in the employees. They should be able to feel that "Yes, this is the place where we work, and where our passions get wings to fly and explore."

Employee engagement is not a simple term. A lot of organizational resources, energy, and expenses go into it to bring about employee engagement in its true sense.

Last but not the least, a humane and emotional touch with all the employees should never be forgotten, as this is the driving force of HRM.

Thanks,

Bijay

Understanding Employee Engagement

Employee engagement refers to how we help our employees stay with our company—in short, how we retain our employees for as long as possible through mutual satisfaction. It depends on the company's strategies such as salary, benefits, work environment, and peer support. All activities that contribute to retaining our employees in our organization and reducing labor turnover are part of employee engagement.