Employee Engagement — a non-negotiable

Employers have asked, indeed expected, a lot from their employees over the past fourteen or fifteen months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Employees have been expected to make paradigm shifts in their thinking, have had to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty, have had to become more resilient, have had to adapt to frequently changing organisational landscapes, and have had to learn to embrace and adapt to change. Against this backdrop, employees have also had to learn new skills, acquire new competencies, and have had to take on additional responsibilities.

Employers around the world have recognised the enormous step-up their employees have made during the pandemic and are ‘rewarding’ them by ramping up their employment engagement programmes and initiatives.

The need for genuine, authentic employee engagement has never been as acute as it is right now. As employers set their sights on the return to some semblance of normality in workplaces globally, so too are they focusing on forging and maintaining sound, harmonious and sustainable working relationships with their employees. Traditional employee engagement programmes such as annual or bi-annual employee climate surveys are, however, not enough.

Employers need to consider conducting more frequent surveys/engagement sessions with their employees in order to capture their day-to-day experiences, thoughts, feelings, opinions, and ideas. The feedback provided by employees via these surveys/employee engagement sessions is collated, analysed, and interpreted to provide employers with a framework for the creation of, amongst other things, a symbiotic employer/employee working relationship, a productive and efficient organisational culture, the retention of talent, and a mutually beneficial employer/employee prosperity partnership.

Succinct, targeted, and frequent surveys/engagement sessions provide employees with opportunities to raise critical issues, provide feedback, make recommendations, and share ideas. They provide an avenue for the employer and employee to address day-to-day issues and in the process, enhance and improve the employee/employer experience/relationship.

Attentive analysis, monitoring, and evaluation of outcomes emanating from traditional employee engagement programmes, such as formal annual or bi-annual employee climate surveys, provide employers with inputs to their strategic planning processes. Additionally, employee engagement initiatives in the form of frequent employee surveys/engagement sessions enable employers to respond to information and adjust to day-to-day issues as and when they arise — resulting in employees feeling engaged, appreciated, and empowered.

A fundamental way for employers to know what their employees are experiencing is to actually engage with them and to ask them for their feedback or inputs. This encourages two-way communication — something many employers may well have overlooked during the past year or so due to Covid-19.

Many employers fell into the trap, albeit unintentionally, of practicing one way communication during the pandemic. Many employers communicated to their employees, not with them. Employers communicated information to their employees regarding issues such as health and safety, changes to terms and conditions of employment, hybrid working arrangements and the like, and employees were either unable, or unwilling, to engage with, or respond to, their employers. This one-way communication model is obviously not desirable as it creates a disconnect between employer and employee. The employee feels disenfranchised and disempowered.

Employees need to feel relevant, engaged, and empowered. They need to feel that their voices are being heard, that they are adding value, that they are making a difference, and that they are making meaningful contributions to decision making processes. Frequent and meaningful engagement with employees is not only desirable, it is an imperative; a non-negotiable.

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