10 ways to measure employee enagagement...

With changing times as Personnel Management became Talent Management, employee wellness has becomes the focus for any HR Manager. Organizations too have realized that though employees are governed my labor laws but ultimately they are major stakeholders in its organic growth. This paradigm shift has brought a major challenge of keeping employee motivated and engaged within the organizations. More opportunities and technologies have resulted in competitive strategies to have more happy faces around.

However like physicists say ‘ No machine can have perfect efficiency’ likewise hitting a perfect 10/10 can be a  farfetched dream but still there are ways to measure your engagement quotient and timely action can make just turn around stuff.

Best and the most well known is to analyze your exit reports and keep a tab on that deadly attrition factor. Resignations not only adds to ones blood pressure but replacement too come with added cost .So why not channelize the energy and finances on more productive side which can help keep the      attrition counts stay low and engagement high.

Remember what made college better than school? Well college didn’t have any uniform. Truly burden of strict policies such as reporting time sometimes can be highly annoying. Employee are truly engaged if they come on time because they love being at office not because they have late marks counter on.

Do your employees doze off or try to bunk those open forums addressed by the CEO or founder? So next time make sure it’s more interactive. They deserve to know where the organization is heading and let them feel like a family only then they would give their best to you.

How about the last appraisal process? How many reminders did you send to the managers? Do they believe in the appraisal process or is it just another formality for them. Processes can give us some very critical information’s about the employee motivation.

Once somebody suggested about having a ‘Smilometer’ , which can help us tracks smiles in day. Indeed more laughter and friendly behavior on floor suggests that it a happy place to work and smiles are always infectious J

My personal experience says an engaged and motivated employee will always. The feeling of pride to be associated with one’s dream company is too good a motivator and also helps spreading the feeling around.A happy employee would love to refer more of his friends to join the gang.  So you know when employee referrals are low what needs to be done.

Mostly HR faces challenge of maintaining salary confidentiality and more employees are stressed and frustrated every discussion boils around their favorite topic. If they are monetarily satisfied and happily engaged there are no reasons for you to worry on your strict and confidential information to go public.

Have you noticed who all regularly miss annual day celebrations or office parties? It’s similar to avoiding a dinner because your don’t like the host. Do I need to say more?

Trust in management and feeling of belonginess plays a great role too. If an employees is participative and know that his ideas and efforts will be well appreciated and acknowledged, he would be well bounded with the organization values and philosophy .However this comes with due course and here timely and right communication channel is very important.

 Keep a tab on informal and ‘online and social media’ discussions. Technology has opened many avenues for official gossips. Understanding employee psychology and behavior helps to understand their needs and leads to timely actions and further improvements.

Employee Engagement is need of the hour. Today keeping talent motivated and happy is important so that focus on organizational growth is undeterred. Important is to understand that every organization and individual is unique. What works with one might not click with others .But the beauty is to manage complex human brains in the most simplified manner.
However we all know that nobody is married to an organization but being engaged is no less than that !!

Wish you Happy Engagement J

 

Work from home in 10

“ Yahoo Employees Can’t Work From Home Anymore”

When I read this tweet last week, was taken aback and yes not to miss thanked my stars for not being in Yahoo at least ;)

So the topic has been hot for a while now and it being very close to my heart and needless to say invariably my favorite pick I thought to pen down my thoughts as well. Again without taking any sides I quote, Sairee Chahal, Founder Fleximoms, ‘work from home is one of the many formats of work flex’ and honestly require lot of ‘MATURITY’ from both employees as well as employers. Only when both are in sync with the model will it work otherwise without arguments its failure is inevitable.

I have personally been practicing it for couple of months now but again my employer plugHR has been successfully doing it for many years. Still recall meeting Prashant Bhaskar, Founder plugHR saying he started on his own enterprise for wanted more flexibility and now loves the providing the same to others. Here both parties have a very clear picture of what’s happening around on the other side, the reason is ‘CONNECT’. We make sure the all work flex professional are connected on all possible ways. So my day starts with a ‘Sabse Bolo’ call meeting @ 9:15 am with all status update on the day and if I really need to speak to somebody I am rest assured that they are just a call/watsapp/BBM/gtalk away. Trust me sometimes these apps are more effective than face to face follow ups…try it to believe it!!

‘SOCIAL MEDIA’ definitely has been a boon for such set ups, it not just keeps me informed about latest happening but also is a good way for a team connect. I know my virtual colleagues as much as I knew mine with last employer. Also meeting physically once in a week helps a lot in rapport building, taking over gotomeeting or Skype with webcams on trust me works wonders. Why not... you can always show off your latest wardrobe addition!!

Having a ‘SCHEDULE’ and work space like the one you have in office would always help you focus on the job. Pursuing personal chores while at work should be avoided, though you can have breaks. Working from home need lot of ‘SELF DISCIPLINE’ and is mostly suited for people who are self motivated and for jobs which requires more concentrations.

Another approach which really helps is being PROACTIVE. In a physical office I could have explained about not meeting deadlines much more easily but when operating from home one has to very sure before giving up. Here only results a visible not efforts and to make it more transparent it’s the individual who has to be vocal enough to share concerns rather than waiting for the ugly turn.

A very important aspect of work from home is that many think it’s only boon for working moms, but in the changing dynamics men too prefer it. For now just it saves on ‘TRAVEL TIME’ but also ‘COST’ both for employee and employer. This work format also provide employers to target a potential latent talent which are otherwise females on sabbatical and for organizations which can’t afford to have a full fledged in-house crèche facility , this work as wonders.

But yes one size can’t fit to all!!

However in profiles where team work/brainstorming/product development is required one might to operate face to face then virtually .Again expecting fresher’s /junior members to be productive in this model can be a challenge. So as much as it can be a benefit of one, many might just be demotivated enough to give up.

Infact, many individuals find it difficult to operate remotely and are more comfortable in physical set up with people around. I remember we hired somebody recently and she quit because found it boring, working all by herself. We can’t blame anybody here, for humans are social and that’s the secret, why social networking is so useful in connecting virtual beings. Any achievements or failure which we would have shared with our team member otherwise are now shared with a larger audience. Trust me many people envy me for being on Face book and Twitter the whole day J

So guys to be honest this works for me, because I want it to work for me. At the end of the day I am ‘ACCOUNTABLE’ to perform and by virtue of my experience can be productive without much surveillance. If you are ready for such high ‘COMMITMENT’, you are in….

 

Do you Bake Cookies @ Work?

I am a “Workflex” mom and typically am running short on patience with kids getting extra enthusiastic about working around the house during my “working” hours.

Today was one such day. Early on in the day, my 10 year old decided that he needed to hone his baking skills, and TODAY was THE day he wanted to do it, and of course, now was the only time!

So we got into this argument about how it’s not such a great idea to do it at 9:30 in the morning on a working day and how it was wiser to wait until the maid got in and was around to assist, trouble shoot, clean up, etc.

Arnie (the aforementioned 10 year old), was of course having none of that and he resolved that he would brave on and do it all on his own…… So far so good! Promptly, out came the recipe book, pans, ingredients, weighing scale, spatulas, gloves, blender et al. I could feel my blood-pressure rise but decided, for the sake of my peace of mind, to allow this transgression!

And so it was that Arnie, who knew nothing about baking, had never baked alone ever in his 10 year life, had only rudimentary knowledge of kitchen implements, but who was never short on purpose, enthusiasm and chutzpah, baked the most delicious, gorgeous cookies I had ever eaten. And here I was, berating him for the mess he had made, the countless interruptions he had added to my work, the general chaos in the house with the dog getting frisky on all the food smells and a kitchen that was getting increasingly buttery and floury!

When I look back at this, what exactly did he learn?? Hopefully, he learnt that when you want to do something badly, just go ahead and do it, doesn’t matter if mom thinks of it as a good idea; And not – “Mom never appreciates that I am doing something Awesome!”

What did I learn? Well, there is short-term pain when there’s an enthusiastic hand around. But with some nurturing, how that hand can create AWESOMENESS!

Ok, now let’s extrapolate this to your organization… Do you have Arnies around? What do you do with them? Do you allow the overwhelming urge of playing it safe and keeping everything clean and perfect to dominate? OR Do you allow them to bake their cookies despite the mess they will surely make? In short, are you experiencing AWESOMENESS?

Would be keen to know!

Happy Birthday Rachana

plugHR launches plugPal

Finally over 1000 members of plugHR are relieved to find plugPal as a neutral financial planning and advisory tool available to them right through the year. PlugPal promises to provide top of the line wealth management platform to members allowing them to take control of their investments, tax planning, insurance and real estate needs. From advisory support to desktop processing of transactions, everything would be available in a secure environment of their own workplace.
PlugPal is powered by plugHR and Park Financial Advisors thus providing both financial expertise and care of HR.