The New Age of Employee Engagement – Experience Central

The Traditional Concept of Employee Engagement

The concept of employee engagement has been around for many years, with George Gallup and other companies pioneering the idea of engagement surveys over three decades ago.

The importance of employee engagement cannot be underscored more – researchers found that the companies with engaged employees experienced higher profitability, productivity and rates of retention. In Malaysia, only 59% of all employees are considered to be engaged – the lowest rate within major Asian markets and in the last half decade. In fact, the contribution of labor productivity toward Malaysia’s GDP dropped from 83.3% in 2016 to only 65.5% in 2017.

Despite there being a myriad of survey providers and benchmarking tools used by other Consultancy Firms, to assess and improve an employee’s level of engagement, these recent trends are suggestive that this process is not detailed enough, is not applicable to real-time scenarios and does not consider all work-related issues which drive employee productivity and commitment.

Corporate Human Resource (HR) practitioners, Talent Managers and HR Researches have suggested a more holistic approach to tackling the issue of employee engagement based on the idea that every firm is culturally, operationally and fundamentally different. To provide an example - The cost of serving a customer who is purchasing clothing from a Parksons’ store is likely far below the same cost for a Louis Vuitton store however, Louis Vuitton would probably not benefit from studying Parksons’ selling processes given that the products offered by both clothing retailers to be vastly different.

The New Age of Employee Engagement – Experience Central

In line with the need for a contemporary and holistic approach to employee engagement, Maslow Trainers and Consultants (MTC) has developed Engagement Central. Engagement Central (EC) is a platform which effectively and efficiently provides valuable insights into the factors which prevent employees from performing at their best. EC amalgamates a four-dimensional approach with Design Thinking to identify barriers to performance, allowing it to provide engagement initiatives to tackle the root causes of performance issues.

The First Dimension – Design

This is the identification of key areas in which employee engagement within an organization appears to be lagging. These are the key areas, identified by employees through a preliminary survey, in which they feel least engaged. There are 20 Engagement Elements that employees can choose from (see the picture below).

Each element represents a factor which is likely to affect employee engagement levels within an organization. The top 8 elements that have been selected by all employees are indicative of the areas of engagement that a company should focus on. Each company would have a different 8 categories selected – given the differences in culture, personnel and nature of business of each firm (note the Parksons’ and Louis Vuitton example).

The Second Dimension – Diagnose

A secondary survey is issued to employees. This survey contains questions/statements which are holistically representative of the 8 selected engagement elements outlined in the first dimension. Each statement has the ability to measure the impact of each element, on employee engagement – the diagnosis.

Each survey statement has been developed to gauge an employee’s perception of the quality of human capital management practices within the firm. MTC’s Engagement Central employs a forced choice response system for each survey question. This reduces responses like “does not apply”, “do not know” or “ambivalent” or to allow for a more comprehensive understanding, from the employee’s perspective.

It is vital for this stage (the survey) to be communicated effectively to ensure maximum participation. Maslow provides a comprehensive communication strategy with templates and scripts provided for each stage within the engagement enhancing process. There are offline questionnaire booklets and online survey forms which allows for both traditionalists and tech savvy personnel to employ the survey. Surveys are offered in both English and Malay.

The Third Dimension – Discover

Based on responses to key benchmark statements, Engagement Central creates an Element Engagement Index that allows employers to discover the various groups of employees from “Disengaged” to “Ambassadors”. The results are further analyzed by mapping them against “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” from an organizational perspective to define their behavioral profile (See picture below).

This helps employers to understand the attitudes and characteristics of employees in each of the groups. The figure below provides an overview of the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of employees based on their level of engagement.

Employees are also encouraged to provide open ended feedback and to share their thoughts on the organization. These comments are also utilized in the discovery process and are related to engagement categories of the survey. This enables Engagement Central to gauge holistically – quantitatively and qualitatively – how employees feel about their organization and human capital management practices.

The Fourth and Final Dimension – Delivery

Based on the results discovered in the third dimension, Engagement Central prescribes engagement initiatives to enhance employee engagement. The prescription would be in the form of robust, tried and tested engagement strategies that will raise the engagement levels of employees in highlighted sectors. This enables the employer to deliver and implement the prescription provided to manage and increase employee engagement within the firm. The results from the survey findings will allow for a tailor-made action plan for your firm with regards to employment engagement.

Engagement Central – The Verdict

In terms of creativity and innovation, 53% of engaged employees said that their job brings out their most creative ideas naturally. Furthermore, companies with high engagement scores demonstrated 45% greater revenue growth as compared to companies with a lower engagement score. Higher engagement scores are also representative of increased productivity per employee and customer advocacy - Companies with high engagement score experience 39% higher productivity per person and 27% higher customer advocacy.

Research shows that building a highly engaged workforce takes combination of many things, each impacting people in different ways. Businesses all over the world are attempting to re-brand themselves as inclusive, passionate and irresistible organizations. With many industries trying (and failing) to re-engage their people, it must be noted that people are not motivated by the bottom line - they want to feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves. Engagement Central allows an employer to understand exactly how employees feel about the organization and the way in which the fit within.

Written by: Parvin Raj Mohan

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