Enhancing employee engagement

Employers always try to engage their employees to the work they do. Engaging employee can be done in many ways. Engagement can be seen as job engagement and organizational engagement. Job engagement and organizational engagement works together when considering enhancing engagement, which will support each other (Armstrong, 2010).  Employee engagement can be enhancing through effective performance management flexibility, volunteer as a team, always be authentic, promote rake breaks, asking for feedback, hold regular social gatherings, clarify goals, provide a nice environment, develop a people-focused culture, mentor employees, encourage collaboration, show gratitude regularly, build authentic relationships and promote honesty (Clarke, 2020).

From (Armstrong, 2010), ‘CEO of Sainsbury’s, has stressed that ‘In the business with almost 150,000 people, engagement is a key concern. In businesses of our scale, you don’t even get started without engagement.’ For anyone working in Sainsbury’s engagement was only possible if three conditions were met:

                        ·          they were clear about what they were expected to do;

                        ·        they had the skills to do it;

  ·         they understood why they had to do it’.

Satisfying the conditions mentioned in above are key to enhancing employee engagement and it can be done by good job design, learning and development programs, performance management, and improving the quality of leadership provided by line managers. To improve employee engagement, employer can give rewards to employee which can be either financial or non- financial. Awarding rewards can be important when enhancing employee engagement (Armstrong, 2010).     

Enhancing employee engagement is key to any organization, to enhance engagement managers have to do (ARMSTRONG & TAYLOR, 2014):

 ·         make employee aware of employee individual strengths;

 ·         Provide continues feedback on how strengths are being used;

 ·         clear the path’ so that employees can do what employee do best without unnecessary distractions;

 ·         build trust by showing commitment to the employee’s success;

 ·         challenge people within areas of employee distinctive strengths;

 ·         focus upon particular skills and knowledge in order to build talent into strength;

 ·         give employee ownership and creation of employee’s outcomes (ARMSTRONG & TAYLOR, 2014).  

Employee engagement is crustal for improving productivity of an organization. Disengage team is burden for the organization and performance of such team is poor (Wilson, 2017). When enhancing employee engagement, employers have to address job engagement as well as organizational engagement, which both are important (ARMSTRONG & TAYLOR, 2014). Fully engaged team is an asset for the organization and the performances are very high. As a leader of an organization most important factor is high employee engagement and high-performance of employees working under the team leader (Wilson, 2017). Engagement is a positive, two-way, relationship between an employee and the organization. (Armstrong, 2010) Employee and organization are aware of own and the other’s needs, and the way employee and organization support each other to fulfil the needs. Engaged employees and organizations will go the extra mile, because employee and organization see the mutual benefit of investing in relationship/s.  Mentioning about higher engagement is easier but practically exercising it is much harder. Having good plan or strategy is very important to achieve high engaged and high performing team of employees (Wilson, 2017).  

When considering on employee engagement, the steps that can take to increase employee engagement are very important. The factors such as organizational culture, continues reinforcement of employee-focused policies, meaningful metrices, organizational performance, increased job involvement and job satisfaction, encouraging teamwork and handling employees mental & physical health and morale need to be improve to see increasing of an employee engagement (Siddhanta & Roy, 2010).
According to (Siddhanta & Roy, 2010) ‘at Bharti Airtel Ltd, the new joiners & the best performers for the month are rewarded with a special dinner / lunch with their Chief Operations Officer’. From (Siddhanta & Roy, 2010) ‘Indian Hotels, which operates the Taj chain of hotels, has been able to create a culture where the performance of employees is measured on customer Orientation efforts and the guidance given by senior leaders’.

Taken from (Siddhanta & Roy, 2010) ‘a prime example of employee engagement in Tata Motors is Tata club at Jamshedpur, which serves as a gathering point for employees and their families as they come together, network and have fun. The Community Development Centres (CDCs) have also been established across India to merge family values into Tata Motors organizational culture. To promote the value of education and to highlight the achievements of employee’s children, merit awards are given in academics, sports & extracurricular activities. The artistic talent of the employees is nurtured through Kalasagar and Kalasangam – Tata Motors Cultural group. They arrange various cultural events on music, drama, dance and other activities to promote the creativity among the employees and their families’.

All above paragraphs had prove that enhancing employee engagement is important to any organization. Above showed that performance and productivity getting stronger by enhancing employee engagement.

References

Armstrong, M., 2010. Employee engagement. In: ARMSTRONG’S ESSENTIAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE - A GUIDE TO PEOPLE MANAGEMENT. London: Kogan Page Limited, pp. 159-160.

Armstrong, M., 2010. Employee Engagement. In: ARMSTRONG'S ESSENTIAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE AGUIDE TO PEOPLE MANAGEMENT. London: Kogan Page Limited, p. 272.

ARMSTRONG, M. & TAYLOR, S., 2014. Employee engagement. In: ARMSTRONG’S HANDBOOK OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE. London: Kogan Page Limited, p. 198.

ARMSTRONG, M. & TAYLOR, S., 2014. Employee Engagement. In: ARMSTRONG’S HANDBOOK OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE. lONDON: Kogan Page Limited, p. 197.

Clarke, L., 2020. Proven Methods to Increase Employee Engagement in the Workplace. [Online]
Available at: https://inside.6q.io/increase-employee-engagement-in-the-workplace/
[Accessed 4 06 2020].

Siddhanta, A. & Roy, D., 2010. Employee engagement - Engaging the 21st century workforce. ASIAN JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT RESEARCH, p. 177.

Wilson, G., 2017. 6 Strategies For Enhancing Employee Engagement. [Online]
Available at: https://www.thesuccessfactory.co.uk/blog/6-strategies-for-enhancing-employee-engagement
[Accessed 04 06 2020].