Analysis & Recommendation -Employee Engagement


Analysis & Recommendation  -Employee Engagement


Analyzing the present scenario of in my organization of commercial banking sector and revealed the following reasons for the employee dissatisfaction and de motivation.

1.      Lack of opportunities for staff job rotations and barriers to specialize subject knowledge concern,
2.      Ineffective frequent internal policy changes ,unrealistic targets
3.      Not identifying skilled and capability employees for the proper departments/units
4.      Existing mechanism used for annual staff performance appraisal ,not capturing the real engaged employees due to the limitations & low percentage allocation for the highest grade and score
5.      Inability of utilizing staff benefits extended, on time and long internal procedures where the turn around time is high
6.      Job should be designed to maximum skill variety, task significance, autonomy, and feedback and they should provide opportunities for learning and growth.
7.      Employees can be de-motivated if they are unclear about their responsibilities or performance standards and uniformed about how well they are doing or feel that their performance assessments are unfair.
8.      Dissatisfaction with career prospect is major cause of turnover. Specially, in today’s flatter organization where promotion prospects are more limited.
9.      Employees can feel isolated and unhappy if they are not part of a cohesive team or if they are be deviled by disruptive power politics. It can be enhanced by team work and team building activities

Critical recommendations on how to resolve the above issues & improve the employee engagement of  the bank that i worked

Implement  effective transparent  mechanism for the performance appraisal procedure and review & monitor  on quarterly basis and consolidate at the year end by an online web based system. The extracted  data will give an pragmatic update to the employee concern for a  self evaluation and adjust for the parameters 
Knowledge  sharing sessions and capacity building training to be further strengthen by selecting multi skilled employees on regional level and originate a team providing the authority to visit island wide branches to conduct competency development programs under supervision of  head quarters
      Process simplification and acceleration of  employee benefits relevant to the facilities
Curtailing the existing manual procedures and transform to a technological atmosphere to sustain the competitive advantage in the market 

 

In addition to the above, recommend most important ten strategies to overcome the employee disengagement facts as follows (Markos & Sridevi, 2010,)

1.     Start it from Day one  -

Most organizations do have clear new talent acquisition strategies. However, they lack employee retention strategies. Effective recruitment and orientation programs are the first building blocks to be laid on the first day of the new employee. Managers should be careful in pooling out the potential talent of the new employee through effective recruitment


2.     Start it from the top-

Employee engagement requires leadership commitment through establishing clear mission, vision and values. Employee engagement does not need lip-service rather dedicated heart and action-oriented service from top management. It requires “Leading by Being example”

3.     Enhance employee engagement through two-way communication

Managers should promote two-way communication. Employees are not sets of pots to which you pour out your ideas without giving them a chance to have a say on issues that matter to their job and life. Clear and consistent communication of what is expected of them paves the way for engaged workforce. Involve your people and always show respect to their input. Share power with your employees through participative decision making so that they would feel sense of belongingness thereby increasing their engagement in realizing it.

4.     Give satisfactory opportunities for development and advancement-

Encourage independent thinking through giving them more job autonomy so that employees will have a chance to make their own freedom of choosing their own best way of doing their job so long as they are producing the expected result. Manage through results rather than trying to manage all the processes by which that result is achieved.


5.     Ensure that employees have everything they need to do their jobs-

Managers are expected to make sure that employees have all the resources such as physical or material, financial and information resources in order to effectively do their job.

  
6.     Give employees appropriate training-

Help employees update themselves increasing their knowledge and skills through giving appropriate training's. Generally it is understood that when employees get to know more about their job, their confidence increases there by being able to work without much supervision from their immediate managers which in turn builds their self-efficacy and commitment.

7.     Have strong feedback system-

Companies should develop a performance management system which holds managers and employees accountable for the level of engagement they have shown. Conducting regular survey of employee engagement level helps make out factors that make employees engaged. After finalizing the survey, it is advisable to determine all the factors that driving engagement in the organization, then narrow down the list of factors to focus on two or three areas. It is important that organizations begin with a concentration on the factors that will make the most difference to the employees and put energy around improving these areas as it may be difficult to address all factors at once. Managers should be behind such survey results and develop action-oriented plans that are specific, measurable, and accountable and time- bound.

8.     Incentives have a part to play

Managers should work out both financial and non-financial benefits for employees who show more engagement in their jobs. Several management theories have indicated that when employees get more pay, recognition and praise, they tend to exert more effort into their job. There should be a clear link between performance and incentives given to the employees.


9.     Build a distinctive corporate culture-

Companies should promote a strong work culture in which the goals and values of managers are aligned across all work sections. Companies that build a culture of mutual respect by keeping success stories alive will not only keep their existing employees engaged but also they baptize the new incoming employees with this contagious spirit of work culture.

10.            Focus on top-performing employees-

A study conducted by Watson Wyatt Worldwide in 2004/05 on HR practices of 50 large USA firms shows that high-performing organizations are focusing on engaging their top-performing employees. According to the finding of the same research, what high-performing firms are doing is what top-performing employees are asking for and this reduces the turnover of high-performing employees and as a result leads to top business performance.


References

(Markos ,S & Sridevi,S.M.(2010) Employee Engagement: The Key to Improving Performance. International Journal of Business and Management,5 (12) 89-96. [Online] Available: www.accordsyst.com/papers/engagement_wp.pdf.[Accessed 29 Sep 2018] 

Comments

  1. In employee engagement you have mentioned the point that, self-directed learning, participation, empowerment, employee education and skill development clearly play a significant role in employee engagement. I agree with you in that. The reason is that, without developing the person/employee, the organization cannot expect a positive employee engagement. According to Aktar (2016) states, that to enhance the employee performance is to focus on fostering employee engagement. Employee performance can be increased by the development of each and every individual employee. Therefore we can come to a conclusion that developing the skills of an employee will improve the employee engagement positively.

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  2. Focus on individual & constant monitoring & guidance will enhance confidence ,respect,loyalty to the firm & the active engagement

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  3. Hi,Shantha . Well descriptive Blog on EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT .Drawbacks of engagement and how to tackle such situation has clearly and descriptively stated . Further I would like to add the major importance of EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT as well .Employee engagement improves Safety level of the organization (Vance , 2006 ) . Further high levels of engagement results in lower absenteeism and higher employee retention , increases in employee effort and productivity , improvement of quality and reduction of error rates , increase of sales, higher profitability, earnings per share and shareholder returns, enhancement of customer satisfaction and loyalty , faster business growth and higher likelihood of business success (Stairs and Galpin , 2010) .

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    Replies
    1. thanks for the comment .Most often employee engagement has been defined as emotional and intellectual commitment to the organization (Baumruk 2004, Richman 2006 and Shaw 2005)

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  4. Hi Shantha, your blog on employee engagement is really wonderful and especially the ten strategies which you have mentioned in overcoming the employee disengagement is really impactful and useful. Employee engagement is something which goes beyond mere job satisfaction with the employment arrangement or basic loyalty to the employer. Having engaged employees for an organization can be considered as a key to competitive advantage and eventhough the price and the product of a business organization can be changed easily, creating a behaviorally engaged workforce is really challenging for any organization (Macey and Schneider, 2008).

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    Replies
    1. Agreed for your point and as a further addition ,The employee commitment towards change to a innovative thing beyond their Job Description .also a positive impact for the organization ."Employees’ innovative and creative work will be important for the organization Aktar (2016)

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  5. Especially for banking sector, employee engagement is much needed theme. Banking employees jobs have become very challenging due to the continuous changes in Technology, Markets, regulations and products pertaining to the bank sector. To avoid high employee turnover resulted from above pressures organizations must ensure employee engagement. Because Engaged employees will stay with the company longer and continually find smarter, more effective ways to add value to the organization(Catteeuw et al., 2007).

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    Replies
    1. Of course indeed ,due to the prevailing situation of high turnover of employees banking industry, the organization should apply strong & effective methods to enhance the engagement in order to be in a sustainable position

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  6. Hi, Shantha, your blog is clearly identified the importance of Employee Engagement. However, leaders may sometimes fight to adapt their organization in response to change if they limit their focus to existing products and processes (Hill & Birkinshaw, 2012). Understanding how to manage the balance between worker relations, implementing innovation, and maximizing short-term profits is critical to business leaders ensuring a viable future for their corporations (Hill & Birkinshaw, 2012).

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    Replies
    1. Agreed and its true the leaders struggle for a better change beyond existing process ,but real time change is enhance the productivity in future

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  7. Employee engagement goes beyond activities, games, and events.They have a higher earning per share (EPS) and recover more quickly after recessions and financial setbacks.
    Engaged employees look at the whole of the company and understand their purpose, where, and how they fit in.Engagement is a key differentiator when it comes to growth and innovation.
    Employee engagement drives performance.Employee engagement is a vast construct that touches almost all parts of human resource management facets we know hitherto. If every part of human resources is not addressed in appropriate manner, employees fail to fully engage themselves in their job in the response to such kind of mismanagement. The construct employee engagement is built on the foundation of earlier concepts like job satisfaction, employee commitment and Organizational citizenship behavior. Though it is related to and encompasses these concepts, employee engagement is broader in scope(Markos and Sridevi,2010).

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    1. Agreed and further addition to your view organization in the pattern of optimization the productivity by enhancing the engagement .
      Engagement is not about driving employees to work harder but about providing the conditions in which they will work more effectively – it is about releasing employees’ discretionary behavior. (CIPD, 2012)

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  8. Unlock all the team building activities to motivate your remote employees, boost their morale and increase their productivity with our virtual employee engagement platform.

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  9. Employee engagement plays an important role in the team-building process in the organization, it is more crucial when employees are working remotely. Virtual team building company in US help organizations and companies to create positive and meaningful employee engagement events to boost employees bonding.

    ReplyDelete

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