The Hindu Business Line : Employee engagement is key

In the toughest economy the world has faced since the Great Depression, most organisational leaders aren’t taking time to ponder the upholstery of their antique desk chairs or the size of their cars; they are trying to make it through the day. Their focus is to ensure that their businesses survive these difficult times.

And the feeling is that the economy is likely to get worse before it gets better: Most economists say US GDP will turnaround by end-2009, but the unemployment rate will continue to climb through 2010. There are, of course, those who think that this prediction is far too optimistic, believing the economy will only settle down by mid-2011. There is only one certainty here — no one really knows when!

This reality presents two discrete but significant challenges in the ‘people space,’ leadership and employee engagement. Leadership that focuses on the direction ahead and builds meaning and ownership amongst colleagues. The other and, perhaps, the more important challenge is that of “engagement”. After all, in a selfish sense, we need everyone’s energy and commitment to survive these difficult times.

No different from everyday life

Employee engagement in the organised work world is no different from what we understand it to be in our everyday life. It is about being connected and more importantly about the “quality” of that connection. The parallel I can see here is “relationships” in our lives. We are born into a family and define our relationships with our siblings, brothers or sisters, as the case may be. Then, of course, from the primary unit of the family, we enlarge relationships to our aunts, uncles, cousins and so on. While in a general sense all of them are relatives, our relationships with some of them are special, precious and close. This, to me, is “relatedness”; the emotional quality of a relationship!

Engagement, in a similar vein, is about “relatedness” with an employee — establishing a connection by which the employee feels emotionally connected and commits discretionary effort in his/her work. I am sure we have experienced several such employees in each of our working lives — “He never watched the clock”; “He worked tirelessly not minding the enormous demands on his time” — the folklore of organisations abound with stories of the heroic, almost sacrificial efforts of many of its employees.

Engagement had its beginnings almost four decades ago — the MBO school lead by John Humble et al in the late sixties/ early seventies argued very succinctly that there are five fundamental needs for every employee: these being, clarity around role and expectations; feedback on performance; rewards based on contribution; help and guidance to improve performance; and finally, seeking help to reach one’s potential.

These needs, fundamental as they are, highlighted even then, the need for employee engagement.

Over the years, we have transitioned from employee opinion to satisfaction and now to engagement. In more recent times, corporate India has often relied on Gallup’s Q12 (there are, of course, other methodologies that are also available) to understand and measure employee engagement. And, if one were to closely look at the drivers of this engagement, it comes back to clarity of expectations, regular and meaningful feedback on performance, recognition and reward, help with performance improvement and, finally, support to foster growth.

Engagement=profit

What then is the business case for this increased attention? It’s simple: engagement = profit! Research shows that engaged employees are more productive employees. They are more profitable, more customer-focused, safer, and more likely to withstand temptations to leave the organisation. In the best organisations, engagement is more than an HR initiative — it is a strategic foundation for the way they do business. Organisations that have optimised engagement have 2.6 times the earnings per share (EPS) growth rate compared to organisations with lower engagement in the same industry.

When employees join an organisation, they’re usually enthusiastic, committed, and ready to be advocates for their new employer. Simply put, they’re highly engaged. But often, that first year on the job is their best. Research reveals, in case after case, that the longer an employee stays with a company, the less engaged he or she becomes.

What can managers do to enhance employee engagement? What are the signs that employees are becoming disenchanted, and what can managers do to reverse the slide? These are the challenges and concerns in the current uncertain times.

Get to know the person

Let’s do a quick walk through of what every manager can do to address these issues: I would recommend a start with knowing the person — beyond the resources and skills that every employee brings, we need to get to know the person as a human being, making him or her feel important and valued for what he or she is. This, in my view, builds relatedness, that all important connection! I am sure we have all heard many times over, employees single out this quality of their leaders – “More than anything else, he valued me as an individual.”

Very often in life, we get stuck with roles! A good manager is able to go beyond the role and establish a connect with the person behind the role — like those inspiring mothers who go beyond understanding and relate to children not as sons or daughters but just as another human.

Having established this connection, which comes over time and with practice, the manager needs to build on three other intimately related areas.

In no particular order, I would offer them as understanding the person in terms of his or her resources and skills; paying attention to performance and how to get best standards; and inspiring, by establishing the purpose of the person’s role thus explaining his or her unique significance.

Again, all three behaviours are centred around the employee — engagement is employee-centric. It is about making the employee feel connected. And this connection is with the particular manager.

In terms of understanding, I recall an interesting experience some years ago. This person was working in the learning and development area and was doing a great job in managing the logistics and the customer support side. She was high on drive and clearly demonstrated personal commitment (effort) in her work. We met for a review of the year gone by and to discuss her development plan. I held forth on her contribution and exhorted her to move into the core of training and encouraged her to slowly develop herself as a subject specialist. She heard me patiently and said she would like to explain her future plan and her interest areas. This first got me by total surprise and I marshalled all my years of learning to be a “good listener” and patiently heard her out. She said to me that she would like to build on her strengths and sought help in finding opportunities in HR operations in one of our group companies. I reflected and said to myself, how bad I have been in shaping our conversation and failed in understanding the person’s real interest — her view of the shared destiny going forward. Surely, I was not being employee-centric!

The point about paying attention to performance is all about being “interested” in the other. Like in life, we foster growth when there is affection and interest: “someone cares for me and is interested in me” is an important psychological state to feel wanted and, therefore, engaged.

And, of course, to explore and evaluate ourselves on how well we can set personal standards that inspire others? After all, inspiration is a subtle process that starts with evocation — touched by a unique connection to a larger purpose. The one option that is readily doable is for managers to have powerful conversations with their team members that are both evocative and generative — to create a place of work that often challenges (distinct from being daunting) an employee to unfold more, both as a person and in his or her role.

I want to leave you with a throw-in from Marcus Buckingham, who has spent many years researching and helping with employee engagement in Gallup.

“The major challenge for CEOs over the next 20 years will be the effective deployment of human assets,” he declares. “But that’s not about ‘organisational development’ or ‘workplace design.’ It’s about psychology. It’s about getting one more individual to be more productive, more focused, more fulfilled than he was yesterday.”

It’s time to get on with employee engagement.

(The writer is Director, HR, Murugappa Group.)