Employee engagement isn’t a one-time activity but a continuous feeling of involvement in one’s job.
So let me start with what are not the examples of employee engagement –
1. Employee of the year
2. Rangoli/Painting/Poster-Making competition
3. Abstract Team Building activities – Dumb-Charades, Antakshri, etc
Then what are some good examples of employee engagement?
Well, I’m not sure. Each employee is different and so it’s not only difficult but unfair to arrive at a generalized employee engagement strategy. We need to take a more personalized approach.
How do we go about it?
Before getting there, I would like you to answer something.
When do you find yourself most engaged? I bet it’s when you are doing something you enjoy thoroughly.(or you are with someone you deeply admire).
The same applies to employees in an organization. For an employee to be engaged at his/her workplace, we need to make sure that he/she enjoys the nature of work. Hence, competency mapping is very important so they can be in that zone. We need to make sure that the work they are doing is neither too easy nor too challenging so they can be in that state of flow.
Once we have achieved that, we must maintain that state, and that can be achieved by having a proper growth path in place. And the employee should be able to define it. That’s where L&D Interventions become very crucial to support them and provide them with necessary aid as they take that growth journey. Again, goal setting is also very important. If they are good at stuff but they don’t know what exactly to do, they will be lost.
So, right competency mapping, goal setting, and relevant L&D initiatives will make sure that they enjoy their work and perform well.
Now, this performance needs to be rewarded to keep them motivated. For motivation, I’ll take the reference of the two-factor theory by Herzberg. According to this theory, some factors define how dissatisfied an employee is and then the one that defines how satisfied he/she is – Hygiene factors and motivators. While hygiene factors are more generic, motivators are unique to individuals and more dynamic.
Now I understand it would be difficult to come with individual R& R strategies but if we were to generalize it to some extent, we can take the help of some behavioral science tools and frameworks. For eg- we know about Maslow’s hierarchy. A certain set of employees would prioritize more of physiological needs, mostly entry-level, for them monetary remuneration would be the best motivator.
Certain others would value the feeling of love, trust, and belongingness, for the promotion or assigning higher responsibility would work best while for others, esteem and self-actualization are more important, so recognition in front of other colleagues, on social media, providing the leadership.
Bottom-line is if we can get the employees to enjoy their work and motivate them as per their drivers, engagement would be pretty much sorted.
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Author / Educator – Shweta Tanwar, Product Manager, DoSelect
A curious soul, loving every bit of the journey. I work alongside organizations across industries and help them build effective learning strategies using technology as an enabler. Technology and behavioral science are my muse, which I love reading and talking about. Open to do any collab projects in the domain.
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