Human Resources, or your employees are the key differentiating factor in your organization. After all, they are often the ones who are instrumental in giving your organization an edge over your competitors. Therefore, it is essential for your HR departments to ensure employees stay fully committed and motivated while performing their responsibilities. In other words, they must use effective ‘Employee Engagement’ strategies.
Employee Engagement is a measure of how emotional employees engage with their organization. How passionate they are regarding their position and responsibilities. According to HR Anexi’s survey employees tend to fall into one of the following five categories in terms of their engagement.
Five Categories of Engagement
Fully Engaged
This kind of employee engagement shows thru those who have a high level of enthusiasm towards their job, are keen to put in their best efforts and use their full potential at their job. The professional goals of these individuals are in sync with those of the organization.
Nearly Engaged
These employees focus on delivering while not really caring about the larger picture (overall organizational growth). ‘Nearly Engaged’ employees are usually ambitious but feel a sense of disconnect from the organization. If their career goals align with the overall organizational growth, then they can easily become ‘Fully Engaged.’
Hamsters and Honeymooners
Hamsters possess the zeal but put their efforts in the wrong direction. Thus resulting in no concrete results. Honeymooners, on the other hand, are new to the job or organization and are excited to make a difference. With the right guidance and policies, these employees can move into the ‘Fully engaged’ category.
Crash and Burn
Such employees are individuals who feel overworked or underutilized. They tend to feel dissatisfied with their job and therefore are unable to contribute to the best of their abilities.
Disengaged
As is obvious from the word this is a group that feels completely disconnected from the organization.
Human Resources Factors
Employee engagement depends on various factors such as designation held, age and gender, employee’s personal aspirations and cultural values and industry in which the employee is working. Human Resources manager need to therefore keep all these points in mind while designing employee engagement policies. In addition to it would be a good idea to make note the following points as well.
- Career development opportunities as well as training and development efforts go a long way in building employee loyalty and attachment.
- Assigning tasks to employees that challenge their skill levels is essential to avoid monotony and keep them interested.
- Having open channels of communication that allow for constructive feedback from employees are essential to keep their frustration and dissatisfaction levels in check.
- It is important to ensure that employees understand the organizational goals and how they are related to their own personal growth.
At the end of the day an employee’s goal is to grow in his career and gain satisfaction from his job, an organization’s goal is growth and profit. Both sets of goals are interrelated; however, employees can forget as they move into the mundane reality of going through the motions. It is the job of the HR department of an organization to ensure this fact remains on the forefront of the employees’ minds.