How Can We Use an Employee Forum to Truly Understand Workplace Issues and Boost Engagement?

Initiating an Employee Feedback Forum

I am with one of the engineering firms whose employee size is 400. We are initiating a 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 understand the major pulling and pushing factors of the company. Even though it is a public limited company, the legacy of old employees and management continues by not adapting to external competitiveness.

Building a Team for Employee Engagement

We are building a team of 20 employees (open forum for discussing any work-related issues, with one senior and one junior HR as part of that for listening to employee issues) from various departments. We decided to meet them formally to understand 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

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's Role in Management and Employee Communication

HR is also a part of management, and 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 suggestion 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.

Union Representation and Employee Feedback

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.

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 three issues that you would want to address through these forums and then start planning towards it.

Building Engagement

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 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.

Regards.

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.

Commitment of Top Management

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.

Regards.

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.

Regards,
BS Kalsi
Member since Aug 2011

Dear Members,

In my opinion, weekly employee meetings are advised to address concerns raised by staff members with management and promote improved organizational growth. In these meetings, every grievance can be handled methodically, and the group can come up with ideas for solutions 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 received. This proactive strategy creates a more favorable work atmosphere by ensuring that employee complaints are swiftly handled.