Various studies have shown that actively engaged employees are almost 50 percent more productive than their not-engaged or disengaged colleagues. The employee engagement cannot be improved only by designing and implementing effective human resource strategies but their involvement and quality of output produced by them also depends on their relationships with their colleagues, subordinates and seniors. It is a basic need of human beings to belong and to be belonged. Such collaborations can be a major contributor to the success of a company.
Until recently, solutions facilitating two-way communication including top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top were given much important but nothing has been done to foster the open communication and collaborations among employees. The way they interact with each other determines the health of any organisation. A perfect balance of respect, care and competitiveness should be prevailed in the organisation to keep them actively engaged in their jobs. Mutual support and healthy relationships contribute majorly to the organisation’s success.
Besides this, empowering employees by delegating them responsibilities and giving them autonomy to take decisions regarding their job on their own can also increase their productivity. It is worth going beyond the traditional management tools of connectivity to help employees remain motivated and dedicated to perform their tasks. To achieve this, the organisations can design effective employee engagement strategies on the basis of the model explained below.
- Unify the Experiences: Conduct an employee engagement survey in order to find the factors responsible for engaging and disengaging employees. Unify the common experiences and problems and design employee engagement strategies accordingly. Sharing of feedback in written is one way of communicating the experiences and problems.
- Evolving Through Open Communication: Open communication or face to face communication in the form of discussions can really help in bringing the various issues and identifying the main problems in the organisation. It is very essential to establish a proper communication where everyone can put their views and suggest a solution too. Most of the top organisations ask for suggestions and new ideas from their employees and then offer rewards on giving the best proposal.
- Providing Proper Communication Channels: Some employees are comfortable with open face-to-face communication styles whereas there are some who want to give feedbacks and suggestions in written. Discovering the best channel of communication and establishing a proper route to share feedbacks and views plays a vital role.
- Enabling Conversation Fluidity: Whichever way of communication you choose, ensure that it has required fluidity. There should not be any hindrance in the established method of communication. Not being able to provide feedback or share problems and experiences can lead to frustration and distress among employees. Therefore, ensure that there are no barriers to communication. This can also result in disengaging the engaged employees.
- Manage Communication: Managing communication is the last but the most important step in the entire process. Managers should keep a check on the entire process in order to ensure that it is not adversely affecting the health of the organisation. They must make sure that it serves the desired purpose and is not being used negatively.
