I have often come across HR leaders who ask “Are we ready for employee engagement?” Many HR practitioners feel that they should be initiating an employee engagement program only when their HR systems / processes reach certain maturity levels. The fear, of course, is the fear of failure. The fear is “What if the results are bad? And they are likely to be bad, because we are not ‘there’ yet.”
As far as I am concerned, it is never too early to measure & manage employee engagement. Employee engagement is not about an organizational or managerial scorecard. It is so much more than the data. It is a continuous change process encompassing:
- Creating a positive, productive workplace
- Giving a fair ‘deal’ to employees
- Charging up employees emotionally
- Building trust
- Maximizing individual & organizational performance & rewards
So, no matter how robust or unstable your processes might be, you are ready to embark on the engagement journey. There’s no place for fear, if you are really keen on making your organization profitable, as well as a great place to work. What we need are strong leaders who can own the engagement metrics and drive interventions to achieve targeted benchmarks.
So, go ahead…be the leader your organization needs…start running! Or, you might miss the bus!
Asking, “Are we ready for employee engagement?” to me is the same as asking “Are we ready to make more profit, or are we ready to get more customers?”. If the answer is no, the you have to question why you are in business.
Engaged employees and increased ‘profit/performance/happy-customers ‘go hand in hand.
One of the challenges I see is that employee engagement should really be understood and addressed at the CEOs office or at board level. It is a company wide problem (and opportunity) and should be understood in terms of business growth, not just another programme.
Richard
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