A Term Paper

on
Employee Engagement Strategy

Course Code: HRM-501

Course Name: Strategic Human Resource Management

Submitted to
Dr. Shyam Sundar Karmakar
Professor
Department of Management
Faculty of Business Studies
University of Dhaka

Submitted by
Emon Barua
ID- 129
Section: HRM- A
Batch: 22
Department of Management
Faculty of Business Studies
University of Dhaka

Date of Submission: January 10, 2021

 Employee Engagement Strategy
Employee engagement is defined as the degree to which an employee is motivated by,
passionate about and invested in their work and the organization they’re a part of.

Staff engagement is difficult to understand, mainly because it’s an intangible idea that
has very real results for a business’s success. A highly engaged workforce has been
shown to improve productivity, increase profitability and reduce turnover. Having a
thorough and thoughtful employee engagement strategy that is tailored to your staff’s
unique needs is crucial to your long-term success.

Characteristics of an Engaged Employee

Motivated
Engaged employees are active participants in their work; they want to be doing it and
to get it done. Whether that’s because they want to further themselves and/or the
company, or simply because they enjoy their day-to-day job. Either way, they have a
sense of purpose and motivation, and don’t need to be carefully watched, hand-held,
or badgered.

Aware
An engaged employee knows where the company is heading, and they’re aligned with
this goal. They know their role within the company, what it contributes, and how they
should fulfill it.

Content/Happy

This doesn’t mean resting on their laurels. It means engaged employees are content
with where they’re at in the company and their path forward. Happy employees are
more engaged and more productive.

Committed
Engaged employees are committed to their work and act positively within their role to
further the success of their company. When faced with challenges, they’re committed
to overcoming them, rather than shirking them off. Even if they’re not naturally
curious or extroverted, they’ll demonstrate initiative to overcome obstacles.

Enthusiastic
Engaged employees are generally enthusiastic about their jobs. It doesn’t necessarily
mean they’re all smiles or jumping for joy every day; an engaged employee is not
necessarily an extroverted or exuberant employee. But, they fundamentally enjoy their
work and their time at work. They’re not spreading negativity or begrudgingly taking
on projects.

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Factors To Contribute Employee Engagement

Over the years, employee engagement has been the subject of numerous research
studies, which includes employee turnover rate, absenteeism, dedication at work and
more.

Career Development Opportunities

Career development opportunities are one of the factors contributing to employee
engagement at the workplace. When employers continuously invest both time and
money in their employees’ development at the workplace, employees will realize that
the company is also interested in the progress in their career.

Flexible
Another factor contributing to employee engagement is the flexibility of employee’s
hours at work. Employees are given the flexibility to either work around the regular
office hours or work away from the office.

Fair Pay Structure

While salary is a sensitive issue to talk about, it is something that nobody can avoid.
Explain to your employees how your company’s pay structure works and what they
look for when a certain employee deserve a promotion. By being transparent and
educating your employees about this sensitive issue, employees will understand better
and even work harder to prove to you that they deserve that promotion.

Adopt a Learning Culture

One of the factors contributing to employee engagement is by creating a company
culture that encourages your employees to keep on learning and acquiring new
knowledge all the time.

Cultural Diversity
We are currently in the generation full of multicultural people and each with different
ethnicity, thus cultural diversity is rather important in a company.

Cultural diversity is when companies are open to hiring employees from all sorts of
different backgrounds; regardless of ethnicity, religion and culture. When companies
recruit and retain a diverse pool of people, it brings about different benefits to the
company as well as its employees.

Transparency and Honesty

One of the contributing factors to employee engagement is having a transparent and
honest work environment, where employees are able to walk up to you and have a
serious discussion that has been bothering them for a while. This is one of the factors
contributing to employee engagement.

Inspiration

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Regardless of the industry that you are in, people will always need the inspiration at
work. Inspiration does not necessary mean having creativity, it just means being
motivated at the workplace.

Communication
Communication is another factor that contributes to employee engagement. When
there is miscommunication among you or your employees, there will always be
problems either in the project or within the company. Try to prioritise a regular team
meeting as a critical part of company’s communication, and employees should be
abler to offer their views on how to improve communications both within their
departments and in the company.

Employee Recognition
Employees who feel they have a positive personal rapport with their management are
more likely to be engaged. Not only that, employees would feel appreciated when
they or their work gets noticed and this encourages constructive employee
engagement.

6 Strategies For Enhancing Employee Engagement

It’s no secret that employee engagement is vitally important for improving

productivity in the workplace. A disengaged team is an under performing team and,
on the reverse, a team that is fully engaged is capable of unprecedented performance.

A leader should want to improve his employees' engagement at every turn and he
must not be satisfied with anything other than high engagement and
high-performance.

However, inspiring engagement is easier said than done and, like any element of
business, it needs a clear strategy to be successful. I’ll show him how he can measure
and enhance engagement in his teams to create an environment where his employees
want to engage.

Measure & Set Goals

By setting goals for employee engagement, he will be able to measure the kind of
increase in engagement he is looking for. Then, once he has achieved what he set out
to do, he will then have a benchmark to work towards in order to keep engagement
consistently high.

Give the teams a voice

If a leader is trying to enhance employee engagement on his own without input from
those he is trying to engage, he is going about it in the wrong way. He need to include
his employees when it comes to their own engagement. After all, only they can tell
him what will engage them.

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Challenge the teams

One of the main reasons that the employees might be experiencing a lack of
engagement is because they aren’t challenged enough in their work. If the employees
don’t feel challenged in their roles and they turn up each day feeling too comfortable.
This will likely result in the team slipping into a state where their work becomes
second nature and they stop pushing themselves to reach greater levels of
performance.

Reward Innovation

Allowing the team to run with their own ideas inspires employees to take
accountability for their work, which increases engagement and workplace
performance. Just remember to award innovation even when it doesn’t go entirely to
plan. There’s nothing more demotivating than seeing a colleague try something new
and fail, so it’s important to always find the positives.

Lead By Example

By regularly evaluating own practices, the leader should set an example of

self-reflection and help to create an environment where his employees begin to
consider the way in which they work and what they can improve upon. No doubt that,
when they see their leader trying to improve, employees’ engagement will improve
too.

Make a clear vision

In order for them to be fully engaged in the process and the result of their work, they
need to know the purpose. They have to understand why the business does what it
does. A leader can do this by clearly outlining his vision for them and for the
business.

Employee engagement is about all about valuing the employees. While the factors
listed are a good start, there is still much more to look into when it comes to
perfecting a company’s employee engagement. Remember that an engaged employee
is productive, active and disciplined. It is about time to invest in engagement as an
integral part of the workplace.

References:

1. Connell, J. and Teo, S., 2010. Strategic HRM. 4th ed. Prahran, Vic: Tilde University Press,
pp.35-76.

2. Price, H., 2021. What Is An Engaged Employee?. [online] Blog.jostle.me. Available at:
<https://blog.jostle.me/blog/what-is-an-engaged-employee> [Accessed 23 December 2020].

3. Jones, R. and Martain, S., 2013. HRM Fundamentals. Nollamara, W.A.: HRVET, p.144.

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