Employee Engagement by Debasish Sengupta and S. Ramadoss

Before I read this book, employee engagement meant the following 2 things to me:

1.       Letting employees participate in management decisions, since they are the ones closest to the operations and know what is out there. (employee empowerment)

2.       Organizing events/ activities for employees so that they get an opportunity to interact with each other in an informal environment and feel better connected to the organization.

Additionally, I used to think, it might also include handling employee grievances and work life balance.  Since I was not sure, out of sheer curiosity, I ordered the book from flipkart. I was a little worried initially that my thought process would  be clouded by just 2 authors’ views but fortunately the book is teeming with references to other research papers and reports. As it turns out, employee engagement is all that I thought it was plus a hundred other things. It seems to me it encompasses, in one way or another, the entire gamut of HR topics I have read and experienced so far!

The first chapter Demystifying Employee Engagement mentions the following points that were an eye opener for me:

1.       Culture is an incubator for employee engagement

2.       EE is not only about satisfaction, but also about contribution

3.       It has to be first attained and then sustained.

4.       Engaging, developing and retaining employees cannot be the sole responsibility for the HR function- line managers must shoulder the responsibility too.

The chapter also gives classification of employees as: engaged, not engaged and actively disengaged. The categorization is on the basis of how strongly connected the employee feels to the company. This impacts absenteeism, turnover and other basic performance parameters. What I did not realize was that it can affect creativity and innovation, which I always thought was primarily driven by the culture of the organization. Now looking at point no. 1 above, I can make sense of this. Other points are happiness at work, what employees do with expectations, opportunities etc.

One sentence from the book summarizes the definition of an engaged employee very well:  An engaged employee is “enthused” and “in gear”, using his talents and discretionary effort to make a difference in his employer’s quest for sustainable business success.

Another chapter lists eleven building blocks of engagement: building high level of trust, treat your employees well, deliver promises, envision, provide opportunity for career growth, design meaningful jobs, breathing offices and safe workplaces, collaborate and involve, empower in real terms, encourage informal networking and communication.  All these are supported by interesting examples/ diagrams/ quotes/ questionnaires.

The authors have then dedicated one full chapter to work-life balance, which is not yet given due attention in organizations.

The next chapter Lens of the Service Marketer, provides an analogy between HR and Marketing by treating employees as internal customers.  The 7Ps have been defined as:

1.       Product- Job itself

2.       Price- Energy, Skills, Intellect and time

3.       Place- Placement

4.       Promotion- Effective Communication

5.       People- The Right Guy!

6.       Process- Procedures, Routines

7.       Physical Evidence- Identity

The sixth chapter gives some strategies for employee retention. It defines retention as not about preventing people from leaving their respective organizations, its more about preventing even the creation of this ‘intent of leaving’ in the first place amongst its people. Employee engagement goes even beyond this. It includes the employee’s contribution to the organization’s success. Employee engagement depicts the connection of its key constituents-‘employees’ with their work, organization, efforts and results.

In the chapter Measuring Engagement, some standard surveys are given, which organizations can use to gauge employee engagement. Some of these can be quantified as they use likert’s  rating scale.

The last chapter lists reward and recognition, learning and development, communication practices, employee care and well being and performance management as best practices in employee engagement.

Overall this book has been an interesting read and now, when a placement consultant asks me in a telephonic interview if I have experience in employee engagement, my first response wont be ‘ummmm’… ;)