I have been a service industry professional for over a decade and a half and during this time period I have worked with some pretty talented human resources teams and pretty interesting approaches to employee engagement. I had come across the concept and subject of employee engagement during my early years as a fresh hotel graduate when I had started my career as an associate in hotel operations. Little did I know that years later, I would be driving a lot of such initiatives for my own teams at different levels and in different units while taking care of various human resources as well as learning and development assignments
Employee Engagement
Some of the best managers and leaders that I have worked with have directly or indirectly taught me that employee engagement is an art, just like customer engagement.
The only rule is that there is no rule as long as these engagement initiatives are organized mindfully , with deep passion and an intent which is relevant , most importantly it should keep the teams interested so as to make them keep coming back craving for more and participate more . By the way, isn’t this the same for our customers too?
Freshness of Ideas
Freshness of ideas is as important as relevance of ideas – This is not only the customer engagement mantra but also the employee engagement mantra .
Method Employee Engagement
There are different ways in which the mythical art of employee engagement is practiced in different companies . If we care to take a closer look at some of those wide variety of engagement activities , most of them turn out to be high energy ‘once a week’ – feel good initiatives or once a month ‘regular’ events or even quarterly and yearly interventions organized like a clockwork. Sometimes , these activities become so mundane that they lose their essence and just become , well , “activities” to be ticked on our list of things -to-do.
Myths of Employee Engagement Philosophy
So , while we can go on and debate and discuss and brainstorm on the subject of what truly employee engagement is , let’s take a quick look at five myths which do not, perhaps, qualify as under modern day employee engagement philosophy :
Myth #1 Employee Engagement is driven by Human Resources
It’s always assumed that one of the critical responsibilities of Human Resources function is to organize and drive employee engagement initiatives. I respectfully disagree. In fact, this is every leader’s responsibility who leads a team of people. Whether, the number of people in your team is in single digit or double digits or more , the first person who is responsible to keep their people engaged is the leader who leads them on the shop floor.
Myth #2 Employee Engagement is all about ‘Joy at Work’ activities
Actually, ‘Joy at Work’ activities are just a small part of employee engagement philosophy . A high energy tea time activity organized regularly on a weekly basis is a great way to inject energy and enthusiasm to break the monotony of a busy day , still , it would take a lot more to keep your teams motivated and interested to inject passion in their day to day tasks with customers.
Myth #3 Employee Engagement is giving pep talk to employees randomly, every now and then
I have seen managers breaking into a soliloquy and indulging in a pep talk with their teams which perhaps leads them into thinking that it’s a great way to engage with their people. While, sometimes it is appreciated by their teams but most of the times the relevance of such random speeches is silently questioned by same teams too.
So even though they may ‘seem’ to be listening intently to the pep talk , they are perhaps simultaneously more worried about the work that they were supposed to complete until you caught them by surprise and decided to ‘engage’ with them randomly when in fact they should attending to the customers.
Myth #4 Employee Engagement initiatives are best communicated through colorful posters
This is a classic. Posters and notices are just a small part of driving employee engagement activities. Don’t just assume that posters alone would attract employees to participate in activities and events. Also, let’s not assume that just because you have sent an email marked to “All”, your people would show up and participate. If you care for your teams, go where they are and talk to them about the initiatives and activities which have been planned for them and encourage them to participate.
Myth #5 Employee Engagement drives are for associates, not for managers and leaders
Nothing delights a team more when their leaders themselves show up and participate in the engagement event or activity. Be it tea time activities, departmental birthday celebrations, special huddles or any larger events, when leaders show up, that in itself , adds a whole new dimension of confidence and feeling of belonging in your teams. So, as leaders your job is not only to encourage your people to participate but also be a part of that plan. If you want an engaged workforce, then show up and participate with them!
Require Mindful Leaders
The art of employee engagement requires the leaders to be mindful. Before such initiatives are planned and rolled out, be mindful of things – How diverse are your teams in terms of generation gap and generation mix, age, gender mix, interests and personalities.
Employee engagement drives when planned hurriedly without putting much thought into them either end up becoming just ‘another’ activity with little or no participation or end up in our yearly engagement calendars in the form of a senseless photo album with lots of pretty pictures but no real memorable moments .
The mythical art of employee engagement needs to be practiced with mindfulness, commitment and with same passion which we want our teams to demonstrate and deliver on the shop floor to our customers, because if we cannot keep our ‘internal customers’ happy and engaged then we cannot expect them to keep our ‘external customers’ happy and engaged.