Employee Engagement

According to Scarlett Surveys, "Employee Engagement is a measureable degree of an employee's positive or negative emotional attachment to their job, colleagues and organization which profoundly influences their willingness to learn and perform at work".

It has not been very long that the organizations have started to fiddle with the word ‘employee engagement’ because Employee engagement has been found directly proportional to employee retention and also to the productivity of the organization. According to HRSurveys, People higher in levels of organizaton show higher levels of engagement because of the power vested in them to make decisions and the authority to influence the decision making process.

Some of the outcomes of employee engagement are emotional attachment, involvement, commitment and productivity. These are discussed below:

Emotional attachment

Emotional attachment of an employee with the organization has a love-love relationship with engagement. Better employee engagement creates stronger bonds of emotional attachment and vice versa i.e. strong emotional attachment invokes better employee engagement.

Involvement
The studies have indicated that more the team involvement, trainings and incentive pay schemes, more is the employee involvement which has been found to be liked with productivity. But the more important by product of the involvement at employee level is what I call ‘employee-empowerment’. Employees find themselves empowered which brings in confidence and trust.

Commitment

Studies have statistically demonstrated that engaged employees are more productive, more profitable, more customer-focused, safer, and less likely to leave their employer.

Productivity

In a study of professional service firms, the Hay Group found that offices with engaged employees were up to 43% more productive.  

But the bigger question what are the different ways or the activities to improve employee engagement? Some of the ways could be:

Attitude towards the job: The employees that have positive attitude towards their job and the organizaton, tend to stay connected with the management and play a very proactive role in the change management or disaster management processes. Thus the organizations must provide with an environment conducive to the development of positive attitude towards work.

Employee clarity of job expectations: It is very important that the employers pass very clear expectations to the employees which in turn results in better communication and positive work culture. All employees must be clear about their job expectations, department vision, success measures, priorities, hierarchy flow etc. Unclear expectations, on the other hand, give rise to resentment and negative emotions. This can be easily implemented by having a good appraisal system in place which ensures that all the employees get to know the success measures, department vision, heirarchy etc. TimeMerlin has excellent appraisal system that is so simple and easy to use and doesnot create a overhead task on any employee in the organization.

Career advancement/improvement opportunities: Generally speaking all the individuals have an instinct to grow in their career. The organizations and the management has to provide that fodder for growth constantly so that all the employees move ahead in their learning curve.
If at any point employee feels he has not landed in the right job, employers must provide the other opportunities wherever possible. Organizations should provide variety and an open environment that encourages employees.

Communication: Communication process has to be a two-way process. The management should communicate regularly with all the employees regarding growth of the organization, challenges in the industry and occasionally easy to understand company financial information. Utmost care has to be taken to process the communications in such a way that the employees are encouraged to express their positive or negative comments to the management. Constructive feedback should be put into practice and the employee who has given the feedback should be appreciated accordingly. Monthly or quarterly newsletter with employee section is a very effective tool in making the announcements and acknowledging success. Similarly blogs, forums and other discussions boards can be utilised to establish communication.

Quality of working relationships with peers, superiors, and subordinates:  Team building activities, workshops, seminars, training opportunities or even simple group coffee breaks strengthen the relations. Healthy relationships are required not between peers but also supervisors and subordinates. Good communication is the key to build healthy and fruitful relationship. Inspirational and motivational leadership also helps the employees to look up to their role models and generate lot of loyalty.

Reward to engage: As mentioned earlier the employees must be rewarded for the active engagement. Individual, team and organizational success must be celebrate and appreciated. A simple group email with a thank-you note, a handshake and a thank-you phrase at the lunch hour or coffee break also goes a long way. Long serving employees should be rewarded as per the company and HR policies.

TimeMerlin is one stop shop to all the points mentioned above. It provides a platform to make announcements, discuss employee growth and list the company expectations from the employees. Under the miscellaneous tab, the various seminars, talk-shows, or other company and project events can be listed and communicated to everyone in the team. TimeMerlin also has its secured chat functionality for internal use. This will ensure that all the employees stay connected to each other without the hassle of anyone outside the network bothering them.

What is TimeMerlin ?

Inspired by Who am I ? Something I write as a tribute to the application that we create and design – TimeMerlin!!

What is TimeMerlin ?
A precious application of employee time management…
This application is you – dear TimeMerlin.

Imagine a timecard narrating where the employee activities come from.
That application analyses, reminds and helps to decide.
This application is you – dear TimeMerlin.

The application where decision making is enhanced…
This application is you – dear TimeMerlin.

A precious application interacting through the web…
This application is you – dear TimeMerlin.

The wonderful application of employee time management, project management, appraisal management and expense management.
This application is you – dear TimeMerlin.

Appraisal Management system

TimeMerlin - Appraisal Process

For any organization to have a successful performance management system in place, the key is to have an appropriate level of employee engagement in place. It should not be something that management “does” and employees “react”. “Doing” and “reacting” leads to more employee disengagement and draws cynicism towards the whole system which in turn leads to the failure of the system. For performance management to be effective we need to have a paradigm shift in that mentality of “doing” and “reacting”. We need to be more proactive. Researches have found that filling out the self appraisals have an excellent benefit because getting the employees to complete their self-appraisals, before their managers write their appraisals is a great way to involve them in the process and in their performance. It's a way to give them an active role and a voice in the process. Even for managers or team leads who work very closely with their employees, it's hard to get the full picture, and understand all the factors that affect their employees' performance. Employee self-appraisals help fill that knowledge gap and avoid surprises. But more importantly, they give the employee an active role in the process.

While many organizations view the performance appraisal process as beginning after 6 or 12 months of employment and view it as a review of how the employee has performed for the previous period, a successful performance management process should begin during the hiring process. It continues as an ongoing cycle from recruitment, through hiring, orientation, and goal setting and on to performance appraisal and evaluation.

In the initial stages, all employees must identify the short-term and long-term goals for the year ahead. They must sit with their mentor or supervisors and try to match the expectations of the organization with their skill sets. The byproduct of this process will be also self-recognition of the limitations or the weaknesses. This process should hence be identified as a collaborative tool to bridge the gap between employee role and profile as against his capabilities. Appropriate induction and orientation will also guide them to focus their energies and identification of the core values of their job profiles.

Once the goals are set down the employees must also be asked to chart out their own development plan, elaborately list down the training or the exposures they think are necessary for them to achieve that goal. It's also a great way to uncover hidden talents, abilities or interests you might not know about the employees otherwise. It can help start a conversation about the employee's roles and responsibilities, and ways to expand them, or even focus them. Also if they list their own development plan, they stay focused to achieve the laid down targets. They are committed because they had initiated it.

TimeMerlin - Employee management process

Next they should be given access to the organization goals and development plans. The key deliverable here is to ensure that the employees recognize their development plan in sync with the organization development plan.

Employee management has to be managed throughout the year and not just once a year. Something that is done once a year usually is filled with dust rest of the year. So to avoid this, it has to be a continuous process. To make it a continuous process, a very simple and “little management over head task” is to get the daily status reports. These reports should be consciously filled with everyday’s achievements and failures. This kind of recording encourages reflection, which can foster learning and growth. Sharing this regular progress reporting with the manager can open up another forum for dialogue and keep the manager in the loop with what's going on in the employee's work life.

Though I have read that quarterly reviews are also a good way of making the employee performance management task a continuous process but I have to still confirm that it is not becoming too much of a “overhead task” and thus losing its charm and importance. Instead, semi-annual performance measures seem more appropriate. These small semi-annual reviews make everyone stop, take notice of where things are at, make any needed adjustments to goals and development plans, and address any performance challenges before they become big issues. And they just get managers and employees formally talking about performance on a more frequent basis – which is always a good thing.

TimeMerlin - Appraisal Management

So to summarize, the performance or appraisal management can be done in two steps. First, an employee completes a self assessment and then the secondly their mentor/manager/supervisor completes the performance appraisal form. Once this process is over both the parties involved should compare the assessment forms. The baseline in these assessment forms should be the first assessment form filled by the employee. All the short-term and long-term goals identified by the employee at the time of joining should be reviewed together by the employee and the manager.

The appraisal form, used by the employee and the manager, consists of performance standards and criteria that are used to judge and evaluate employee's performance. The items comprising of employee's job description are usually the performance standards that are used in their annual appraisal.

Better Engagement Means Better Performance. The more engaged the employees are with the performance management process, the more the organization will reap its benefits. The management should not just go through the motions of rating performance, setting goals and identifying development plans, rather consider it an investment opportunity. When done well, employee performance appraisals can be an invaluable tool for driving employee engagement.

TimeMerlin

A complete web based platform for managing employee timesheets, appraisals, expenses and assets.

Appraisal process

What is the importance of appraisal process in an organization especially in service oriented industry? The expectations in service oriented industry are very high and cruel! The levels of expectations rise higher and higher with every delivery which in turm means that an organization is able to provide high quality output to meet the service needs of the customers. This clearly implies for the establishment of the process to recognise the employees of high calibre and competence wich in turn calls for performace appraisal process.

While many people view the performance appraisal process as beginning after 6 or 12 months of employment and view it as a review of how the employee has performed for the previous period, a successful performance management process should begin during the hiring process. It continues as an ongoing cycle from recruitment, through hiring, orientation, and goal setting and on to performance appraisal and evaluation.

In the initial stages, all employees must identify the short-term and long-term goals for the year ahead. They must sit with their mentor or supervisers and try to match the expectations of the organization with their skill sets. The byproduct of this process will be also self-recognition of the limitations or the weaknesses. This process should hence be identified as a collaborative tool to bridge the gap between a employee role and profile as against his capabilities. Approrpriate induction and orientation will also guide them to focus their energies and identfication of the core valus of their job profiles.

The annual performance appraisal can be done in two steps. First, an employee completes a self assessment and then the secondly their mentor/manager/supervisor completes the performance appraisal form.Once this process is over both the parties invovled should compare the assessment forms. The baseline in these assessment forms should be the first assessment form filled by the employee. All the short-term and long-term goals identified by the employee at the time of joining should be reviewed together by the employee and the manager.

The appraisal form, used by the employee and the manager, consists of performance standards and criteria that are used to judge and evaluate employee's performance. The items comprising of employee's job description are usually the performance standards that are used in their annual appraisal.