Stepping Up Employee Engagement

What does it take to have a dedicated, motivated and hardworking team that supports the very columns of your company ?

The answer is simple but technically the most difficult to achieve. "The Employee Engagement" - creating  a culture and understanding throughout the organization to uplift and equip your best talent.

How to reach that Nirvana?  The place where it is all hunky dory, with rainbows, unicorns and glitters, where there is an environment of motivation and success fueled by achievers and go-getters reaching far beyond their goals. The place where employees get a sense of ownership and responsibility, where gratitude turns into success of the organization as a whole.

The honest truth remains on a more obvious approach towards transparency and mutual trust, without creating a co-dependency. The process of liberating the employees, where checks and balances do not jump far off the fence and undermine their capabilities but rather enhance their existing skills.

Having said that, it reminds us to nurture a constant mechanism of feedback and learning where the communications are focused and bring out the desired outcome. The " performance evaluation " as the term goes is also entering into a completely new territory and is of a less judgmental sort and more of a learning and development activity. The solution lies in listening, observing and measuring how to create a symbiotic environment  between all tiers of the organization, displaying the best features offered by those employees.

The DNA OF A Successfully Engaged Team 

If the motives are always weighed as collectively, rather than individually and benefits are portrayed as a shared "success", it will provide enough incentives to perform brilliantly and bring forth an energized and charged atmosphere, improving the workplace ambiance.  The purpose of boosted self-esteem can result in a constructive achievement of objectives. "The learn and develop" mantra can help groom the team for future challenges and teach them to co-operate at all levels and stages of the projects. A mechanism that is well oiled and working in coherence. The system where concerns don't come out as arguments and promises of rewards don't stay empty promises. I cannot stress enough on this, that employees are the company's best ambassadors and represent the face of the company, so their well-being and prosperity is a company's well-being and prosperity. They would not only promote and glorify the company's motto but also deal with the clients more efficiently, binding them into a long term beneficial business relationship.

Small gestures and appreciation go a long way, a happy and emotionally stable employee would be more creative and would work faster, overcoming all glitches and improvising where hurdles come. Companies relying on constant innovation can benefit immensely from employees which stay tuned and focused rather than the employee who couldn't think beyond working from paycheck to paycheck.

The more engaged the team at work is, the more chances of productive days and less absences and sick leaves. Employees get engaged where there is room for thought, consideration and realization. A workplace where culture, traditions and values are taken care of become the examples other would like to follow. If this scenario is achieved, an atmosphere is set for visionaries to be born and incubated to fill in the shoes of the leaders passing on this legacy.

The Deal Breakers

An array of behaviors, ranging from being over powering to being super-bossy might scare people and the term, keeping them "in-line" loses its importance. It is morally unjustified to keep employees tied up in errands that undermines their personal growth and engages them in an unpleasant, burdened and mechanical way of working. An emotionally upset employee might not utter something against the employer but the productivity and loyalty would certainly decrease over a period of time. Any kind of manipulative behavior might come under abuse, a very cynical and sarcastic approach can tarnish the company's image in a paramount fashion.

Pointing out employee's faults publicly can cause a caustic background and would put the members of the company in an awkward relationship with each other. Disappointment and resentment can never lead to a team that works towards the prosperity, as employees need a balanced leadership to guide them through different phases of the job cycles. Maturity and responsibility comes with setting examples that can be followed and adopted. Public ridiculing and humiliation are two zones, that if entered or ventured into might lead into the destruction of the very structure of the company. The only sensible way is to calmly work on the things that work and then encourage the employees to expand their skill sets.

Working with weaker parts of the team all the way up to the strengths and then letting them build the foundations of mutual association and team spirit to guide them through ups and downs of a company. These are the very basics of self-sufficient teams that can work independently.

The essential point that centralizes a gentle and understanding leadership to focus on building and strengthening the basic structure of the company is the "mainstay agenda" towards effective employee engagement.