How to do employee engagement on demand
This is not least because it poses key questions critical to the business’ success like: Is it working the way we want? Is it accessible? Is it relevant? Is this achieving the desired outcome and value uplift for the amount of money and time invested? The list goes on.
Connecting people to the busiess
The sole purpose of an employee engagement programme is to connect people to their business, but to achieve that, programmes must be able to bend and flex to the needs of individual employees. As with any business process that has numerous variables, employee engagement can – and will – go awry if not managed well.
In years gone by, the ‘annual review’ was always the standard means of measuring engagement, but shifts in employee working patterns have changed that. The days of the ‘job for life’ have disappeared and we now find ourselves at the opposite end of the spectrum.
As millennials become the predominant force in the workplace, all of whom are prepared to move jobs at any time in order to get what they want, a move to ongoing assessment is now the only realistic option for HR departments.
The move to ongoing feedback
This ongoing feedback is essential to assessing employees’ engagement, satisfaction, and wellness – all critical to maximising happiness and productivity. The fact is that employee reward packages now need to cater to the millennial’s desire for everything ‘on-demand’.
If you do not review and update employee engagement programmes on a continuing basis, you risk becoming irrelevant, alienating your employees, and driving them straight into the arms of your competitors.
There are many ways companies can keep their reward programmes fresh - aptly brought to life in a recent ‘Best Places to Work in IT’ listing by Computerworld.
Other examples of recent ‘Best Places to Work’ include Live Nation and Pets at Home, and wine merchant Majestic Wine, which last week announced it is giving all of its employees a stake in the business in order to ‘reward and incentivise staff, and boost talent retention’.
Whether it is financial, emotive, mental or physical reward, most important is to ensure these are tailored to meet the needs and wants of their intended audience. Research studies the world over demonstrate that people will stick around and be loyal if their employer provides relevant, timely and personalised rewards, recognition and feedback. So, keep your employees at the heart of what you do by regularly reviewing your rewards – the investment will pay dividends.
This article was provided by Lifeworks.
