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Introduction to Employee Engagement

​By Mansour Baker, SHRM-CP
16 March 2019

​What are employees looking for?

Rewards and recognition

• Acknowledgement of a 'job-well' done

Development

• Opportunity to grow and develop at all levels of the organization

Company culture and values

• Acceptance within the organization and meaningfulness of individual / collective efforts

Work-life balance

• Time and flexibility to balance work and private life / interests

How can companies meet those needs?

Rewards and recognition

• Performance driven bonuses
• Non-cash rewards (training, etc)
• Public recognition (newsletter)
• Individual recognition (thanks, written notes, praise)

Development

• Strong mentoring
• Defined career paths
• Extensive catalog of internal and external training programs
• Rotations

Company culture and values

• Non-threatening work atmosphere (openness to ask questions and learn from past mistakes)
• Weekly 'round-table' discussions

Work-life balance

• Opportunities for Leave of Absence
• Flexibility in office placements

Recognition programs should be developed to recognize specific employee efforts.

What are they?
Specific recognition programs are meant to acknowledge, motivate, and reward employees for exhibiting desired behaviors. 

Recognition programs focus organization on:

• Immediate objectives
• Behavior change
• Extra effort / significant contributions to the company 

Can be used to reinforce desired outcomes and objectives:

• Recognition programs reinforce desired behaviors and deliverable's defined by key stakeholders. Particularly useful if desired outcomes are not immediately measurable by existing performance management system.

Development & mentoring can be effective in promoting employee engagement and development. Key mentoring responsibilities of a line manager are:

Communicator

• Serve as the primary point of contact and day-to-day representative for the employee
• Provide informal advice about working environment, norms and practices

 
Listener

• Serve as a sounding board for, and address employee grievances
• Ensure confidentiality of privileged information and objective treatment of concerns
• Identify motivation drivers and changes in commitment levels

 
Facilitator

• Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) for the employees
• Play a key role in the implementation of motivation measures
• Facilitate and encourage initiative-taking and investments in training and development

 
Role Model

• Serve as a role-model for the employees
• Demonstrate strong commitment and dedication to company strategy, culture and values, and encourage employee adherence to the same

Company culture – An inclusive and 'non-threatening' work environment is key to promoting engagement.

Open discussions

• Can be facilitated by weekly 'round table' discussions

Willingness to question

• Meetings should be moderated by line managers to promote employees to ask questions

 
Non-hierarchical

• Employees should be encouraged to question and debate strategies and operational methods

 
Eagerness to learn from past failures

• Past failures should be openly discussed and debated

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