Employee Forum for building Employee Engagement - trying to know the major pulling and pushing factors of company

Dear All,

I am with one of the engineering firms whose employee size is 400. We are initiating one forum to learn about employee issues and get feedback on the current work environment. Company employees are vexed with the exit or separation process (current practices) that management follows. We are trying to know the major pulling and pushing factors of the company. Even though it is a public limited company, the legacy of old employees and management is continuing by not adapting to external competitiveness.

We are building a team of 20 employees (open forum for discussing any work-related issues, and one senior and junior HR are part of that for listening to employee issues) from various departments, and we decided to meet them formally for understanding their issues. Is it possible to know employees' grievances through this forum? Can you give some inputs on how we can build rapport with employees to understand them?

Early replies are highly appreciated.

Thanks and Regards,
Anil.

In my opinion, you need a 'Grievances & Complaints Help Desk' to enable employees to post their points, suggestions, complaints, and recommendations online. Someone has to analyze and send a reply to each input received on the Help Desk. With an automated process in place, you can consolidate and act faster.

Creating Open Forums to listen to people's grievances can be a tricky process to manage. Although it can help release pent-up emotions, there is an inherent danger of uniting people on issues that impact budgets and may therefore not be palatable to management.

HR is also a part of management, and the workers may not be freely willing to air issues in formal meetings. B.K. Bhatia has rightly pointed out the dangers of uniting people on issues when discussed in a general forum.

In a company that I worked for in the UK, we had a suggestions box into which people could put their views (anonymously if they chose to). The responses were analyzed and ranked, and feedback was given in the internal bulletin.

May we kindly know whether you have a union or unions representing the workers, or is there any move to form a union by the workers? If so, soliciting views like you intend to do may run into problems.

Dear Anil,

Can we discuss this over a phone call? There are a lot of things to be taken care of before you start. You need to identify at least 3 issues that you would want to address through these forums and then start planning towards it.

Building engagement is a long-term program. You can plan for a help desk where employees can get answers individually. You can plan for focus group meetings where you identify attendees and brainstorm on the solutions to the problems they face. The final one is the Townhall, where you invite all your employees to attend and request one of your top leaders to address the common concerns.

There are a lot of drill-downs that we need to plan. Let's take one thing at a time and plan for it.

Dear Anil,

So, your endeavor is to make your organization adapt to the changing environmental factors as well as to identify the vexing factors of your employees. Having an open forum would work, and you would be able to get valuable insights. I must caution you that as the novelty of this wears off, the employees will look back to see if it has really made any difference. If there is no perceptible improvement in the state of affairs, things will further deteriorate. This is not to be seen as a one-off experiment but a deliberate intervention strategy guided towards organizational rejuvenation.

Another important step is the commitment of top management. Such steps would lack force unless the top management is committed and seen as such. As suggested by (Cite Contribution), this is to be viewed as a long-term program.

Dear all seniors,

With respect to all your suggestions, I would like to add that the Questionnaire method, though old, is one of the best methods adopted for surveys. You can have a list of basic and normal questions. Calculate and organize based on their views. There is no need to make it complicated, just keep it simple. It will be helpful to understand their mindset, interest level, emotions, feelings, motivational level, performance efforts, and rewards.

Seniors, could you please suggest to me some surveys of this type or any related freelancer or part-time job opportunities in Dubai?

Regards,
Kalpana Raghavaprasad

Dear Sir,

Please conduct work-life balance and consider implementing quality of work-life programs, including employee assistance programs such as counseling.

Regards,

Dr. G.V. Kumar
Psychologist & Corporate Trainer since 1983
09444144510 / gvkumaar@yahoo.com

Dear Anil,

I am not able to understand the underlying motive for creating another forum when The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 already provides for the Works Committee under Section 3. The main duties of this committee include commenting on matters of common interest or concern, providing a full scope for discussing any work-related issues or grievances. Since you have mentioned that your Engineering Firm is a public limited company, I am sure you must have implemented the Joint Consultative Machinery (JCM), which is another good forum to discuss all general as well as work-related issues. Through an amendment Act of 24 of 2010, the Central Govt has also added Chapter II B for the formation of a "Grievance Redressal Machinery." As yours is an Engineering Firm, you must have a Safety Committee or Production Committee, where all work-related issues can be discussed, and feedback can be sought.

I fully support Sh. BK Bhatia for his views that creating open forums to listen to people's grievances sometimes backfires, creating unruly scenes that become difficult to control, thereby vitiating the whole objective. I am of the opinion that in open forums, more subjective issues are raised instead of common issues. The rest is left to you.

BS Kalsi
Member since Aug 2011

Dear Members,

In my opinion, weekly employee meetings are advised in order to address concerns raised by staff members with management and promote improved organizational growth. In these meetings, every grievance may be handled methodically, and the group can come up with ideas for fixes while HR is in charge. The organization's ability to communicate and solve problems together can be greatly enhanced by evaluating and quickly reacting to every piece of feedback that is received. This proactive strategy creates a more favorable work atmosphere by guaranteeing that employee complaints are swiftly handled.