Hi All,
I have been given the responsiblity of creating an employee engagment committe in my organisation. The committe will have 4-5 representatives from business, HR. The committe will be responsible for creating emplyee engagemnet activities like parties , outings, celebrating festivals. There will be a budget associated with the same. I would really apprecaite if somebody could share with me there thoughts on the same. Or someone who has done something like this in there organisation.This will help me in creating a frameowrk as well as a policy around the same.
Regards,
Neel
From India, Delhi
I have been given the responsiblity of creating an employee engagment committe in my organisation. The committe will have 4-5 representatives from business, HR. The committe will be responsible for creating emplyee engagemnet activities like parties , outings, celebrating festivals. There will be a budget associated with the same. I would really apprecaite if somebody could share with me there thoughts on the same. Or someone who has done something like this in there organisation.This will help me in creating a frameowrk as well as a policy around the same.
Regards,
Neel
From India, Delhi
Hi
Employee engagement, as I understand it is not just keeping them happy with picnics and parties...
It's more than that.
When people are tired after work, to show that you care for their entertainment and relaxation can help you gain their loyalty for some time.
This approach may not work in the long run, as the employees will feel that with the same budget, they could have been much happier taking their kids out for picnics etc.
What is more useful is to show that you care for employees' constant development and growth. If you challenge them to grow - which is not usually happening, since people rather "settle down" than learn and grow - it will help the employee and the company in the long run.
However challenging to the employee, he or she will be happy to learn, for instance, how to avoid BP, Diabetes, or Heart Attacks by learning and DOING things to improve health?
Similarly, they (particularly employees of non IT Companies, specially the less educated ones) will like to know about computers, Internet etc from knowledgeable people, and feel they are up-to-date, and they can guide their children who are growing faster than them.
Even an entrepreneurship training for their spouses might help grow loyalty.
Employee engagement is all about loyalty and long term relationship with the company.
For more information do write to me:
or 
I attach a training module on Employee Engagement which you might find innovative and holisitc?
Also visit my website Raja's NLP: Corporate Training for information on these topics related to employee development, growth and engagement!
I'm placed in Bangalore. Where are you?
Warm regards,
Arulraja
From India, Bangalore
4Employee engagement, as I understand it is not just keeping them happy with picnics and parties...
It's more than that.
When people are tired after work, to show that you care for their entertainment and relaxation can help you gain their loyalty for some time.
This approach may not work in the long run, as the employees will feel that with the same budget, they could have been much happier taking their kids out for picnics etc.
What is more useful is to show that you care for employees' constant development and growth. If you challenge them to grow - which is not usually happening, since people rather "settle down" than learn and grow - it will help the employee and the company in the long run.
However challenging to the employee, he or she will be happy to learn, for instance, how to avoid BP, Diabetes, or Heart Attacks by learning and DOING things to improve health?
Similarly, they (particularly employees of non IT Companies, specially the less educated ones) will like to know about computers, Internet etc from knowledgeable people, and feel they are up-to-date, and they can guide their children who are growing faster than them.
Even an entrepreneurship training for their spouses might help grow loyalty.
Employee engagement is all about loyalty and long term relationship with the company.
For more information do write to me:
I attach a training module on Employee Engagement which you might find innovative and holisitc?
Also visit my website Raja's NLP: Corporate Training for information on these topics related to employee development, growth and engagement!
I'm placed in Bangalore. Where are you?
Warm regards,
Arulraja
From India, Bangalore
Hi Neel,
To add to Arul's thoughts, I feel that Employee engagement also involves motivating the employees. You may want to do initiatives to recognise their potent talent. They may be good at some skill which you may want them to teach the others. Also if more experienced employees are made to mentor the new joiners, the morale of both categories increase.
Like you said picnics and parties do relax people, but making them plan and coordinate would definitely help them hone their management skills.
You can also split the employees into logical groups and assign responsibility to each group, to conduct games as stress busters on a particular day.
Hope these suggestions help you.
Thanks.
From India, Madras
To add to Arul's thoughts, I feel that Employee engagement also involves motivating the employees. You may want to do initiatives to recognise their potent talent. They may be good at some skill which you may want them to teach the others. Also if more experienced employees are made to mentor the new joiners, the morale of both categories increase.
Like you said picnics and parties do relax people, but making them plan and coordinate would definitely help them hone their management skills.
You can also split the employees into logical groups and assign responsibility to each group, to conduct games as stress busters on a particular day.
Hope these suggestions help you.
Thanks.
From India, Madras
thanks Arul and Radhika .. I have taken a note of your points..I still need a framework or guidelines around how to create a employee engagement committe or welfare committe..anyone else who has a similar commitee in there organisation...
From India, Delhi
From India, Delhi
Glad to be of use Neel.
In IT companies, typically, people are organized into Business Units, for which a budget is assigned for each fiscal year. There is a team that does the planning and coordination. This cross functional team comprises the account's HR, a couple of senior leads and many team members. This cross functional team creates a calendar of activities for the entire year and publishes it at the beginning of the financial year.
Activities like mentoring happen throughout the month. A target number is decided that needs to be met up by the HR person. Birthday bashes, and fun hour can be conducted once a month on a particular day, when all employees are available. Activities like picnics, fun hour, training sessions by employees, sessions by SMEs etc. can be conducted one per month. This will ensure that there is a good spread of activities throughout the month and also that this initiative can be sustained throughout the year. One team can be made responsible per month, and the HR person can oversee the activities everymonth.
Please let me know if you need any other ideas. I used to lead the Associate Engagement initiative from the HR front for 3000 people. I would love to be of help to you.
From India, Madras
In IT companies, typically, people are organized into Business Units, for which a budget is assigned for each fiscal year. There is a team that does the planning and coordination. This cross functional team comprises the account's HR, a couple of senior leads and many team members. This cross functional team creates a calendar of activities for the entire year and publishes it at the beginning of the financial year.
Activities like mentoring happen throughout the month. A target number is decided that needs to be met up by the HR person. Birthday bashes, and fun hour can be conducted once a month on a particular day, when all employees are available. Activities like picnics, fun hour, training sessions by employees, sessions by SMEs etc. can be conducted one per month. This will ensure that there is a good spread of activities throughout the month and also that this initiative can be sustained throughout the year. One team can be made responsible per month, and the HR person can oversee the activities everymonth.
Please let me know if you need any other ideas. I used to lead the Associate Engagement initiative from the HR front for 3000 people. I would love to be of help to you.
From India, Madras
Hi Neel,
If you want to go by the prevalent practices of companies to establish an Employment Engagement Committee, certainly the guidance given by Radhika should suffice. That's what most modern companies do in the area you are looking into.
Yet, I invite your attention to some grave failures of Employee Engagement that came to light post 2008-09 depression - caused by the failure of Lehman Brothers and others - which were in turn caused by disengaged employees!
Even the recall of millions of vehicles by quality conscious Toyota is indication of what bad results employee disengagement could bring to business, even in reputed, well established companies!
Whether at Lehman Brother or at Toyota, these 21st century employees certainly knew of the failure of their products, services or their companies much before anyone else, but they were not feeling sufficiently engaged/involved in safeguarding the company.
We realize more and more that existing practices of Employee Engagement are not sufficient and they are no guarantee to safeguard business today!
What is worse, the business is so complex that we can't leave it to a few at the top management to safeguard Organizations!
If you have powers to include whatever is needed for Employee Engagement, you may find these following reflections useful.
My Reflections for Employee Engagement of Futuristic Organizations:
That is, an ideal and hence the most useful approach to promote Employee Engagement in 21st Century Business Contexts is not in what activities the Company does for its employees, but what the company does to enable and qualitatively enhance their ability to interact with the rest of the organization!
That will require that we think of workers and Managers as integrated part of the system, and that employees have more than physical labour to contribute to business. And, to think in such systems perspective, we need to break some assumptions on which business operates today, as indicated in the article cited above:
To expand on these assumptions, this is not the right place.
But, those who are heading HR and Operations that relate to the human side of business will do well to imbibe this systems thinking and organizational learning process so there will be true, visionary engagement by Managers and the managed in any organization, ensuring the safety and growth of the organization, and the welfare of the nation.
From India, Bangalore
If you want to go by the prevalent practices of companies to establish an Employment Engagement Committee, certainly the guidance given by Radhika should suffice. That's what most modern companies do in the area you are looking into.
Yet, I invite your attention to some grave failures of Employee Engagement that came to light post 2008-09 depression - caused by the failure of Lehman Brothers and others - which were in turn caused by disengaged employees!
Even the recall of millions of vehicles by quality conscious Toyota is indication of what bad results employee disengagement could bring to business, even in reputed, well established companies!
Whether at Lehman Brother or at Toyota, these 21st century employees certainly knew of the failure of their products, services or their companies much before anyone else, but they were not feeling sufficiently engaged/involved in safeguarding the company.
We realize more and more that existing practices of Employee Engagement are not sufficient and they are no guarantee to safeguard business today!
What is worse, the business is so complex that we can't leave it to a few at the top management to safeguard Organizations!
If you have powers to include whatever is needed for Employee Engagement, you may find these following reflections useful.
My Reflections for Employee Engagement of Futuristic Organizations:
- Every business starts as a result of the intense involvement of a few. A business by definition is the end result of the involvement of an individual or a group of people to realize his/her/their dreams. And, as business grows and inducts more people in, it is crucial to keep everyone aligned to the original purpose of business, so all are engaged in taking the business to desired goals.
- With business tasks divided/fragmented between separate managers and teams like the HR, Admin, Material Management and other divisions, there is the risk of missing the common goals by its constituent elements... the lower level employees as well as top level managers!
- See what the dean of Harvard Business School has said:
Managers have lost legitimacy over the past decade in the face of a widespread institutional breakdown of trust and self-policing in business. To regain society's trust, we believe that business leaders must embrace a way of looking at their role...
- This widespread institutional breakdown results from the managers and the managed, together, not relating themselves to the long term interests of the Company. That is because, for too long, we have believed that any integrated reality (say, a business) can be broken down into their constituent parts, and by managing isolated parts well, the integrity of the whole will be enhanced! In the complex world today, this assumption is proving false! Take a look at this quote below and the article about Peter Senge' Theory of Management from which the quote is borrowed:
The defining characteristic of a system is that it cannot be understood as a function of its isolated components. First, the behavior of the system doesn't depend on what each part is doing but on how each part is interacting with the rest ... Second, to understand a system we need to understand how it fits into the larger system of which it is a part ... Third, and most important, what we call the parts need not be taken as primary. In fact, how we define the parts is fundamentally a matter of perspective and purpose, not intrinsic in the nature of the 'real thing' we are looking at.
That is, an ideal and hence the most useful approach to promote Employee Engagement in 21st Century Business Contexts is not in what activities the Company does for its employees, but what the company does to enable and qualitatively enhance their ability to interact with the rest of the organization!
That will require that we think of workers and Managers as integrated part of the system, and that employees have more than physical labour to contribute to business. And, to think in such systems perspective, we need to break some assumptions on which business operates today, as indicated in the article cited above:
- "I am my position"
- "The enemy is out there"
- "The illusion of taking charge"
- "The fixation on events"
- "The parable of the boiled frog"
- "The delusion of learning from experience" (1990, pp. 17 - 26)
To expand on these assumptions, this is not the right place.
But, those who are heading HR and Operations that relate to the human side of business will do well to imbibe this systems thinking and organizational learning process so there will be true, visionary engagement by Managers and the managed in any organization, ensuring the safety and growth of the organization, and the welfare of the nation.
From India, Bangalore
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