Most of the employees especially those in software companies might have heard of "Engagement" and the immediate recollection associates the term with all the get togethers, games and mails from HR on Engagement activities ...
But what exactly is engagement and why companies are interested in investing resources ( financial and intellectual) in getting the employees engaged ?
lets start with the definition of Engagement , (According to Hewitt Associates)
Engagement is the state of emotional and intellectual commitment to an organization-the degree to which you have captured the hearts and minds of your employees
There are many other definitions of Employee Engagement but the essence remains the same - An engaged employee stays connected with the organization at both emotional and intellectual and gives his best for the success of the organization
This connection happens at three levels :
Heart (SAY): An engaged employee says good things about the organization . one of the metrics to measure success here is to check the success of the company referral program ( though referral success can also depend on other factors like compensation, security etc and hence cannot be attributed to engagement alone)
Head (STAY):An engaged employee stays with the organization for long time as he visualizes his growth with the growth of the organization over long term . A caution here is that disengaged employees and poor performers also tend to stay with the organization unless until they find better opportunity else where . hence we introduce the third level "strive"
Hands(Strive): An engaged employee goes beyond his job role and flexible for the overall success of the organization.These are the employees who can see the business logic in changed job roles or work environments
Every employee have unique drivers for him to be encouraged .some of these can be generalized based on culture, demographies (ex: Gen Y employees requires more challenging work roles , though it cannot be the case with every Gen Y employee, it gives a platform to understand the employee and engage them)
In the current competitive environment when competitors can easily copy the business model , having an engaged work force is sure going to be a differentiator between successful organizations and other companies
