Employee engagement is a lot of work today

Employee engagement for millennials takes constant motivation, feedback and training.

Sudakshina Ghosh, team manager at SAP India in Gurugram, is happy with her 12-year-old job. The 39-year-old has been with the company since 2006. She has worked on assignments that range from sales and customer account management to building customer relationships, sales strategies and go-to-market strategies. “To deliver my best, I have to be engaged and encouraged,” says Ghosh. She credits SAP’s numerous programmes for professional development with ensuring she grows personally and professionally.

Shraddhanjali Rao, who works in HR at SAP India in Bengaluru, says her job is to cater to the personal and professional needs of employees like Gurugram-based Sudakshina Ghosh by helping them to access courses and other development tools at work. Photo: Jithendra M/Mint
Shraddhanjali Rao, who works in HR at SAP India in Bengaluru, says her job is to cater to the personal and professional needs of employees like Gurugram-based Sudakshina Ghosh by helping them to access courses and other development tools at work. Photo: Jithendra M/Mint

Ghosh is an exception, part of a mere 13% of Indians, whether employed in the organized sector or otherwise, who feel engaged with their jobs, according to the extensive “State Of The Global Workplace” report, 2017, published by Gallup, a global analytics company. “The biggest reason (for employee attrition) in Indian companies is that employees do not identify or feel psychologically attached with the company they are likely to invest their energies in,” says Manish Gupta, assistant professor, ICFAI Business School, Hyderabad, who has researched work engagement.

Employee engagement is a core company activity

Companies need to think of employee engagement as the strategic core or central agenda of the company rather than as something that is part of the operational human resources department, hidden in a calendar of activities.

Leaders and managers need to see engagement as an organizational strategy rather than a series of events, retreats or metrics for employees to find meaning in their work, explains Sapna Popli, professor of marketing at the Institute of Management and Technology, Ghaziabad, who published a paper in the Journal Of Service Theory And Practice in May 2017 on employee engagement in India’s services sector. “Listen to them, help them find meaning in their work, coach, develop and genuinely care and create an environment of feedback, trust and transparent HR practices,” she says.

Ghosh believes inter-departmental rotations have helped her develop as a professional and aim for future leadership positions. They have also allowed her to pursue her passion for travel photography and writing. “I find this organizational vision and people-focused culture very motivating,” she says.

Just team-building won’t do

Old-style employee engagement, which was about team-building events like parties and family get-togethers, aren’t enough for the younger workforce. “Millennials need to be appreciated, encouraged, given enough opportunities and training for their career growth to be kept engaged,” says Gupta.

It’s essential to build engagement through the entire employee life cycle and experience within the company, including redesigning the workplace, encouraging well-being, flexibility of work, diverse experience and work productivity systems instead of treating engagement as a buzzword for an HR noticeboard. Very few Indian companies, however, are working towards it. While multinational companies are a little more aware, Ghosh believes family-owned businesses, responsible for two-thirds of India’s GDP, could improve their employee engagement to increase productivity in newer ways.

An engaged workforce has a direct impact on company performance. The Gallup report states that it makes a company 17% more productive and 21% more profitable than companies where employees are just clocking time. Rao agrees: “Just a 1% increase in SAP’s employee engagement globally has resulted in an increase of €40-50 million (around ₹350-440 crore) in our operating profit,” she claims.

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