Most HR professionals, if asked, would argue employee engagement is important. For HR the goal should always be happy and satisfied employees who do a good job and feel comfortable at work. In reality there seems to be a lack of true commitment to implementation of ongoing employee engagement strategies.
There is much more to employee engagement than the actual surveys and practical process. Employee engagement is not achieved by conducting a survey once or twice a year. This is of course a core part of the practical implementation of employee engagement, but it does not automatically engage your employees and improve the working environment and productivity, satisfaction and well-being.Having a process in place is just a practical element. The actual outcome and usefulness of employee engagement strategies depend on much more than just creating the survey.
It is about an organisation’s willingness and mindset toward continuous listening, feedback and improvement. Finding the survey that looks the nicest or has the most impressive features is not what employee engagement is all about. It is first of all about starting a conversation within HR, which brings up some fundamental questions about what employee engagement is and what it could look like in your company.
Employee engagement looks different and is done differently across different companies. It is about understanding your company and why you need employee engagement. It is understanding what kind of questions you need to ask, what you want to achieve with these questions and how you want to use the information you collect. It is about ensuring you develop and embrace the right culture and environment where people seriously engage with these questions and feel comfortable giving honest and real feedback, with the trust that this feedback will be taken into consideration. It is about taking the time and creating a common feeling of commitment toward engaging with this feedback and having conversations in various teams and departments, as well as with middle and top management, across all levels of the organisation. These conversations should provide real ideas and initiatives on how to deal with this feedback and take action.
So these structures, the right mindset and a willingness to engage must transcend the entire organisation; these aspects need to be in place and HR needs to understand its role. Employee engagement is an ongoing strategy and conversation. You need to understand why you are doing it. You need to be able to convince all the important stakeholders and actors involved why it is important and what their role is. You need to be constantly willing to stand up for it and continuously convince and remind people why this is important to them, their teams, the employees and the company.
To really commit your company to employee engagement and continuous feedback, conversations and growth take a lot of work. It is not an easy path, and it takes commitment and a deep understanding for why you believe this is important for your company. It is not a one-time thing, but instead an ongoing project.
So the question is: are you and your company ready to really commit to employee engagement?
Not sure where to start? Book a free consultation and we’ll help you figure out the first steps.