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K. KANCHANA
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Employee Engagement Efforts –The Retention Strategy
Ms. Kanchana K
Research Scholar
Bharathiyar University, Coimbatore.
Abstract:
In Today’s global challenging and competitive business environment, it becomes a most
demanding task for the management of any organization to gain engaged workforce and to
retain them, particularly, after the economic downturn that started in 2008. Engaged employees
create a sense of loyalty in the competitive business environment and are serve as a brand
ambassador of the organization. Employee engagement is the key influencer of employee
retention and hence highly engaged workforce show high level of retention to stay in the
organization. This article tries to explore a clear understanding about the employee engagement
among “New-Age” and diverse workforce. Further this article attempts to measure the
engagement level and suggest the HR champions to take EE initiatives accordingly to combat
employees’ intention to leave and disengagement.
Introduction:
In Today’s global challenging and competitive business environment, it becomes a most
demanding task for the management of any organization to gain engaged workforce and to retain
them. To put in more precise words, the economic downturn, i.e., the recession period that
started in 2008, has lead the employers to face the challenges of human capital and uncertain
economy. Employee engagement is a construct beyond a mere commitment, involvement and
satisfaction, which touches almost all facets of human resources. Being this as the fact, if every
part of human resources is not paid attention to and addressed in an appropriate manner and at
the right time, the management cannot receive the full engagement on the part of the employees.
Hence, there must exist a strong two-way relationship and consensus between employer and
employee. The employer should listen to and address the needs and problems of the employees
and in turn the employees will show their strong attachment towards the management of any
organization in terms of higher efficiency and productivity beyond a mere employment
contractual agreement.
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For any organization to attain sustained success over their competitors, requires wellengaged workforce that are more efficient and productive with key talents. Employee retention
can be defined as the effort by an employer to keep desirable workers in order to meet business
objectives. Retention of key workers or key talent is the most critical factor to plan HR
requirements in the years ahead. A highly engaged workforce is a more stable workforce. Today,
labor and talent shortages made the retention problem critically important.
Objectives and Scope of the study:
The primary objectives and scope of this article is to:
1. Provide an overview of both employee engagement and retention, so that the “New-age” and
diverse workforce will have a clear understanding about what actually engagement mean.
2. Measure and identify the level of engagement and suggest HR champions to take employee
engagement efforts/initiatives accordingly for improving retention.
3. Suggest best innovative solutions to combat employee’s intention to leave and disengagement.
Research studies:
Rothbard (2001) classifies engagement into two critical components:1) Attention – the amount of
time one spends thinking about a role and 2) Absorption - getting engrossed in one’s role and
intensity to focus on one’s role. Engaged employees feel a strong emotional bond to the
organization that employs them, which results in higher retention levels and productivity levels
and lower absenteeism (Robinson, 2004). Attention and retention is the function of employee
engagement. High retention of employees is always characterized by a highly engaged workforce
(Talent keepers 2004). Truss et al (2006) defines engagement as “Passion for work”. Ellis and
Sorenson (2007) endorse a two dimensional definition of engagement that defines an engaged
employee as one who 1)knows what to do at work and 2) wants to the work, to increase
productivity. Towers Perin research (2007-2008) shows that engaged employees are more likely
to stay in the organization. Gallup identified that highly engaged employees are showing
absenteeism at an average of 2.7 days per year, compared with disengaged employees taking an
average of 6.2 days per year. Development Dimension International (DDI) reported that
absenteeism in low engagement teams hovered around 8 %, while high engagement teams shows
4.1 %. The strong correlation between engagement and retention is well understood. According
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to BlessingWhite’s Employee Engagement report (2013), “Intent to stay” (Retention) or an
employee’s stated desire to remain with their current employer, is a strong predictor of actual
turnover. It is also an indication of how strongly committed an employee is to their current
employer’s success. Globally, 60% of all employees report that, given the choice, they plan on
remaining with their current organization for the next 12 months. However, this number jumps to
81% among engaged employees but drops to 23% among the disengaged.
Retention vs. Engagement - The Relationship:
The relationship between retention and engagement is an interesting one:1. Lack of engagement always leads to employee turnover (i.e., reduction in employee retention).
Actually, an employee may be disengaged but because of lack of viable options may remain with
the organization, i.e., is "'deadwood."
2. Highly engaged employees rarely leave the organization. Highly engaged employees may
leave the organization for a variety of reasons such as because of a leader they do not trust or an
opportunity where the work is even more engaging.
3. High retention organizations are always characterized by highly engaged workforces.
LOW
Measure the employee engagement
level at regular intervals through
employee surveys
HR champions
should think of
EE initiatives to
improve
employees’ level
of engagement by
explaining how
their performance
affected the
organization’s
productivity,
rather than
punishing/firing
HIGH
POSITIVE
NEGAITIVE
Good sign for the
organization’s
success and HRs
should initiate
for “Sustainable
engagement”
May lead to
“Workaholics”
rather than
engaged workforce
HR champions
should think of
flexible work
practices to
ensure Work-life
balance
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Exhibit 1: Measurement of Employee engagement level and the remedy for the consequences
Source: Author’s research
4. The factors and solutions relating to employee retention are identical to those of engagement.
They are similar but not identical. Training leaders in trust is appropriate for improving both
leadership and engagement, but compensation typically only affects retention.
Strategy to promote retention and engagement of employees:
To ensure engagement and retention of employees, “The Towers Perrin, 2003” suggested the
following strategy:
ATTRACTION
RETENTION
ENGAGEMENT
ATTRACT
• Competitive health care benefits, Competitive base pay, Work-Life
balance, Competitive retirement benefits, Career advancement
opportunities, Challenging work, Caliber of co-workers, Pay equal to
individual performance, Recognition and Company reputation.
RETAIN
• Career advancement opportunities, Retention of high caliber people,
Overall work environment, Development of employee’s skills,
Resources to get the job done, Competitive base pay, Clear goals
from superior, Challenging work, Manager inspires enthusiasm and
Overall satisfaction with benefits needed in day-to-day life.
ENGAGE
• Management’s interest in employees well-being, Challenging work,
Decision-making authority, Customer orientation, Career
advancement opportunities, Company reputation, Collaboration with
co-workers, Resources to get the job done, Input into decision
making and Management vision.
Exhibit 2: Strategy to promote retention and engagement of employees
Source: Working today: Understanding what drives employee engagement, The 2003 Towers
Perrin Talent Report.
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PriceWaterhouseCoopers suggested 3 common surveys among employee across their lifetime in
the employment, as exhibited below:
ONBOARDING SURVEY:
• Provide a view into the new employee's perspective. Employers have a
unique opportunity to shape engagement as the new hire's employment
experience begins.
ENGAGEMENT SURVEY:
• Offers a detailed assessment of which aspects of the employee/
organization relationship drive employee effor, pride and commitment.
EXIT SURVEY:
• Provides candid insight into the factors that are driving employee
turnover. They can point to organization's strength, as well vulnerabilities.
Exhibit 3: 3 Common surveys
Source: Surveys can shore up worker engagement; retention - Kathleen Koster, October 2013
Employee Benefit Nevus
From the elements suggested above, we can analyze what HR professionals do or what are the
best HR’s “Employee Engagement Efforts” that can be implemented to promote the
engagement and retention of the workforce in this 21st century:
Strategic HR Planning:
Strategic HR planning helps to manage and direct the human resources towards
the organization’s objectives. Strategically planning will help the organization to meet its
current and future needs of human resources and the step for employee engagement and
retention should begin from the day one of the employee. Management should be strong
in choosing the right person for the right job and strong induction and orientation
programme should be given to the employees. New hires tend to quit the job early due to
their inability in meeting expectations. At such beginning time, management should
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handhold the employee and connects them with a buddy and help in assimilating them
into the organization and their new role. Hence, the management should implement an
employee selection strategy which involves effective interviewing, job benchmarking,
and personality profiling to ensure that new hires are a good fit for the job. “Bridge the
gap” between the employee needs and understanding of the employer.
Financial and Non – financial benefits:
Management should motivate the employees through both financial and nonfinancial incentives for the good job done. Employees’ performance should be linked
with proper reward and recognition in terms of compensation and other benefits when
they perform above and beyond the expectation towards the organization’s success, to
ensure the satisfaction and intention of employees to stay in the organization. While
rewarding for employees good job done, the management should be mindful about the
fact that not all the employees prefer to be satisfied for their job well done in the same
ways. Also, the management should organize recreational activities like festivities, gettogethers, sports, outing, etc. for bonding with the organization.
Framing and Developing HR Policies:
Both, the policies and procedures communicate the values of the organization and
provide every employee with a consistent process to follow which in turn help the
employees to approach any critical situation with much confidence. HR policies and
procedures explain the employees about the work culture, work methods and other work
practices for their smooth functioning of the task in the work environment. An open and
transparent policy should be focused on employee empowerment.
Job description:
A well-written job description helps the employees to understand what is
expected of them actually and sets an employee up for success by outlining their roles,
responsibilities and parameters of their position. Job description shows how an
employee’s position contributes to the mission, goals and objectives of the organization.
Learning, Training and Development programs:
Management should make optimum investment in training programs to help the
employees for their personal and professional growth. Liberty, for choosing the own best
way of doing the job must be given to employees, as long as it yields good results without
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affecting the organization’s interests and violating organization’s policies. Also, the
management should find steps to increase the employees’ knowledge, skills and abilities
to perform their job without any difficulty or confusion, through appropriate training
programs. When the employees’ KSAs (i.e., knowledge, skills and abilities) increase,
their level of confidence, self-efficacy and commitment also will increase. Career
navigation along with adequate training programs will help the individual employee to
plan and advance in their desired career path, which in turn will increase the engagement
and retention and also decrease, their attrition level. Aashish Singh, VP and Head – India
HR, Sutherland Global Services, tells in his article titled “New-Age Retention Strategies”
to The Times of India (16.04.2014), “Career Ecosystem” is a practice that Indian
companies should strongly emulate as it will help increase retention rates. He further adds
that high performance expectations and monotonous jobs make the employees feel
frustrated. Hence, a well-defined career path with skill development opportunities should
be provided by in-house learning and development teams to reposition employees’ career
aspirations. Organizations must adopt a multi-pronged retention strategy to handle the
diverse workforce and make them engaged. Hence the organizations must look for
innovative technologies by providing growth opportunities.
Two-way communication:
A clear and consistent communication of what is expected of employees paves the
way for engaged workforce. Management should listen to the voice of their employees
for any matter that affects their interests in the workplace. Management should respect
the employees for their input and share power with them through participative decisionmaking which in turn will build a sense of belongingness thereby increasing their
engagement as well. The organization should encourage communication forums to
provide regular feedback to and from very employee, meetings at regular intervals,
conferences, In-house magazines, on-line communications including discussion boards
and blogs by company, employee suggestion schemes, monthly updates on organization
goal, employee satisfaction survey,
Effective performance management and feedback system:
Performance management is an on-going and never-ending process where the
superior and subordinate employees work together to plan, monitor, review and direct an
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employee’s wok towards the achievement of organizational goal or objective. Effective
performance management system provides constructive feedback on employees’
performance and motivates them to do their best. Whenever required, plans are
established to improve performance and identify skills and abilities of each employee, so
that work assignments build on and reflect an employee’s strength. Performance
management system should be framed in such a way that it identifies employees for more
challenging work. Performance should be reviewed at regular intervals and same should
be communicated to the employees by way of feedback. Feedback system must lead the
management to develop action-oriented plans that are specific, measurable, accountable,
realistic and time-bound (i.e., SMART) to yield the very expected result.
Distinctive Corporate culture with good value system:
The organization should hire the right kind of employees who can fit into the
culture of the organization. If an employee is so skilled and very talented, but not fit for
the culture of the organization, then it will not lead to maximum performance or
retention. An organization culture of trust often has higher levels of performance.
Organizations with a strong work culture shows mutual respect and trust by keeping
success stories alive. This will surely help to engage employees and also to baptize new
employees. A culture of unfairness and mistrust will lead the employee to assume
negative or withdrawal behavior which will in turn result in absenteeism, employee theft,
feeling of under-appreciation, workplace depression, employee turnover, etc. “Everyone
makes mistakes”, hence instead of penalizing and finger-pointing their mistakes,
management should explain the employees and make them understand how their mistake
affected the overall productivity of the team and the organization as well, in a polite way.
Employee recognition:
Recognize employees for their significant business achievements. Good work of
the employees need to be recognized, congratulated and applauded by the management to
drive them to contribute further towards organization’s success. Management must thank
the employees for their every contribution to make them feel motivated and valued. For
example, the organization can exhibit the employee’s photo along with a short bio with
appreciation notes, in the organization’s website. Employees are filled with feelings and
emotions and hence motivation and recognition are the prime part of employees to
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engage and continue further in the organization. Motivate employees and raise morale
through recognition letters, profit sharing schemes, long performance awards, etc.
Management should make the employees to understand the truth that they care about not
just the performance, but also them as an individual human-being.
Workplace wellness initiatives:
A healthy workplace is more holistic and takes into consideration the physical,
spiritual, environmental, intellectual, emotional, occupational and mental health of
employees. Wellness in terms of sufficient and adequate resources or tools to perform
their work, better conflict resolution, better management of workplace diversity by
providing the work environment which is secure and safe from harassment, statutory and
non-statutory welfare facilities, job security, effective grievance handling system, etc.
help the management to overcome the problem of absenteeism, intention to leave and
increase the level of engagement and retention.
Conclusion:
Employee engagement is a continuous process. Employee engagement efforts followed
by best HR practices are greatly instrumental for high retention rates and in turn for
organization’s success. Employee engagement and retention are the two major HR functions and
has to go hand-in-hand. Green HR should be seriously adopted in all organizations to ensure
environmentally-friendly HR initiatives for greater efficiencies, lower costs and better Employee
engagement and retention.
References:
1. Lockwood NR (2007), Leveraging employee engagement for competitive advantage:
HR’sstrategic role, Society for Human Resource Management Quarterly, ¼
2. Macey WH, Schneider B (2008a), The meaning of employee engagementı, Industrial and
Organisational Psychology, 1, 3–30
3. Robinson, D., Perryman S., & Hayday, S. (2004). The drivers of employee engagement
Report 408, Institute for Employment Studies, UK
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