What Are The Innovative Ways Of Ensuring Effective Employee Engagement?

Apart from the techniques like Management Games, Outbound Trips, Sponsoring Paid Family Trips, etc, what are the new effective employee engagement techniques that are in store now?

In my view, employee engagement means the way you can make an employee committed to the organisation and contribute value to the business and thus stay in the organisation.Therefore it is an engagement of both heart and head of the employees. The above initiatives are welcome.You can add wellness initiatives also to them.However, the real challenge is engaging star performers.They are creative and fast thinking and eager to leave their mark on their work.They look for learning opportunities and recognition.While games and fun activities engage the hearts of the employees, you need to look for initiatives that engage the heads of the employees also more so in case of star performers.You can start AN initiative like "Idea labs" etc encouraging the employees to come out with ideas that add value to the business and reward them all in one way or other as per the value quotient of the ideas, of course excluding ideas that are already tried or in vogue.For. ex. if you are a food retailer, you can ask them to design a food wrap that makes the mouths of customers watering. Just an example.The innovative idea in ice cream selling which I found, is to mix natural fruit in it. It seems,it captured the taste buds of the ice cream fans.As there is no one medical kit that cures all ills, there is no one universal employee engagement formula that fits all organisations. You need to design your engagement activities that suits your business goals and culture

B.Saikumar

HR & IR Advisor

Navi Mubai

Hello Archana,

In my experience, solid engagement comes through Career Management, Learning & Development Activities and Strong Performance and Leadership Culture.

People join organizations to grow financially, career-wise and add to their skills and capabilities.

If this core is taken care well,then a large part of engagement is taken care.

Some visionary Companies have been allowing people to work on their dream projects to enhance engagement

Psychologists and Behavioral Scientists discovered that people are at their best when they work on their strengths, dreams and passions. Visionary companies put these insights with courage – here are some examples-

• 3M’s technical staff spends 15% of their time on the project of their choosing

• Atlassian, an Australian software company allows its employees to work on projects of their liking for 20% of their time.

• Googlers, as Google employees refer themselves to as, spend 20% of their time in projects of their own calling.

• Semco, Brazilian company, radically re-engineered workplace norms – at Semco, employees appoint their managers, targets and projects are chosen and delivered by the autonomous groups and many more.

Companies have their own titles for such policies…’Bootlegging’, ‘Experimental Doodling’, ‘Workplace Democracy’. They are in different continents- Americas, Australia, Asia… however underline beliefs are the same. “People are at their best while working on their own dreams and passions”

Activities mentioned by you are like icing on the cake- I would keep focusing on core activities pertaining to career enhancement, capability building, coaching, innovation and rewards and use family gathering, outbounds etc. as feel-good programs

regards,

Rajesh

Hi Rajesh and Saikumar,
I must appreciate your inputs on this topic.
Hi Archana,
I must say to innovate new techniques and tools for employee engagement, you actually needs to understand the key area of engagement that majority of the employees are looking for. I have gone through an article few days back on "How to retain your star performers" by HBR and that i can connect to Rajesh's comment. Activity and encouragement towards "Career planning" "Effective training and development plans" "Creating a cohesive atmosphere" are those areas which engage and motivate the employees the most.
Apart form that, regular activities like events, family trips etc also helps. I believe once the key areas are identified it will be very easy to come up with new engagement plans.
Good Luck!!

Hi,
Employee engagement is a complex subject and is very relative.
However, I can jot down some of the tools to this effect.
1) Strong goal setting (Purpose)
2) Try to sync the goal with the vision of the company. (Link purpose)
3) Regular interventions like trainings, reviews, workshops, forums etc. (periodic revisit to Purpose)
4) Make the company dashboard in such a way that an emloyee would want to be flashed on it. (Immediate amplification)
5) Make PMS more responsive and transparent.
Regards,
Hemant

As rightly pointed out in one of the responses above, employees engagement techniques are industry-specific. There may, no doubt, be some techniques which have universal application. But one must be cautious in trying out what suits one's organisation only. For example what is a good technique for a knowledge industry such as a software development industry or an essentially research-oriented industry may not be suitable for a, say, service industry or manufacturing industry. Therefore, if you give what type of industry you are engaged in and what type of target employees you are thinking about, it would be easier to give pertinent suggestions.

Hi Seniors / Friends,
I have one innovative thing in my mind quite long time. that is, hire some agricultural fields take the employees and make them work in the agricultural fields(should not spoil the fields). it would be great to the corporate peoples to understand the problems that farmers facing and the respect against eatables will increase.
I am having this thought since when i was in MBA(2011), I was searching the place to explore. and treating this is my ground to share.
Kindly try it, really works. since i am from agricultural family and working in a corporate i feel that this really have its own weight.
Kindly do correct me if i am wrong.
Regards,
Manikkavasagan R
08553666424