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all Project Coordinators across India involving
HO process owners for on the spot solution and
on the same time telling HO requirement to
all Project Coordinators on EHS, Reports and
Process Compliance.
Work assignment is one area to directly
engage an employee. I remember a case
wherein one employee told me, “Sir I am
not enjoying my work. Quality is my forte
and I have been assigned in production.”
This is the case of at least 10 percent of the
employees of any organization where a role
has been given not as per the interest of the
employee but purely on the requirement of
the organization. To solve this, there could be
mid-year surveys among employees to identity
cross-assignments and explore job rotations.
Traditional negative attitudes of bosses are
a major lacuna in any employee engagement. I
can’t recollect any single initiative where a BU
head has not confronted HR for engagements.
Bosses would come out openly on ‘work pres-
sure myth syndrome’ believing employee en-
gagements would kill their team’s productivity
time and consequently would delay achieving
quarterly targets. Fortunately, I have been
successful in convincing HODs that employee
engagement is going to give long term benefi ts
and effectiveness indeed seen by organizations.
Bosses have to buy into the idea of employee
engagement which refreshes employees, en-
hances customer satisfaction, productivity,
project delivery and reduces attrition.
Any Employee Engagement would not be
successful until top Management & Promoters
support the entire lifecycle of Employee
Engagement. Engagements include guidance,
approving the budget, motivating teams to
have all-round effect and cultural changes.
Maturity has to be shown by management once
a HOD blames HR for taking out critical time
of the team for employee engagement. Forums
like ‘Coffee with Directors’ are catalysts for
new trends of employee engagements.
AI has
played an
important
role in this
category
where
online bots
answer HR
queries,
incentive &
HR welfare
policies.
Geographical challenges are a nightmare
for HR. Take for example Telecom companies.
There are engineers who are working in
different project locations from J&K to
Nagaland in disturbed and remote locations.
The question is how to engage them while
HR is based centrally in metros. Visiting
HR in every location is a costly affair. Few
activities which gave results are Monthly ESS
calls (Employee Satisfaction Survey) wherein
HR interacts with engineers working in
harsh areas to sort their grievances and
impart a personal touch. Second is online
engagement wherein games/movies are
being provided to them with free mobiles
sponsored by the employer. AI has played
an important role in this category where
online bots answer HR queries, incentive &
HR welfare policies. Recently, I conducted an
online Quiz Competition and was amazed to
see the curiosity of employees while doing
something dif ferent from monotonous
routine work.
I have been to one software company and
was amazed to see those offi ces don’t have
staircases to get to the next fl oor; instead,
they must climb Poles. This enhances their
physical activities and brain cells faster than
being seated the entire day on a workstation.
I have observed much organizational R&R
not able to fl ourish due to too much database,
PROC & documentation, as HODs treat this
as an additional time-consuming affair.
Informal R&R is another aggressive Employee
Engagement tool – simple appreciation
ranging from certifi cates to cash prizes. So
we have asked all Project Managers to capture
simple data on a monthly basis of whosoever
they have said or texted ‘thank you’, ‘good job
done’ ‘great work’ or they have sent an e-mail
stating thank you for any good task. Numbers
of such simple appreciation examples are to be
sent to HR at the end of each month wherein
HR ensures transforming these appreciations
into certifi cates/prizes and publishing them in
monthly newsletters. P & M
Vol. 10 Issue 2 • FEBRUARY 2019, Delhi NCR |
39