The One Thing #10: Employee Engagement

The business context is very volatile and opportunities are shrinking day by day. Organizations will undergo challenging times and unless people are motivated and engaged they will not be able to succeed. If I were to choose just one thing that HR leaders should focus on, it would be keeping employees motivated and engaged with the business plans. This is important both in the private sector and the public sector companies, but PSUs are governed by government rules so we don’t have all the levers that private sector companies have.

It is no longer about customer satisfaction, it is about customer delight. There is tremendous pressure to achieve targets within the given timeframes. So, when you are working in a highly competitive environment where customers have multiple options, only a highly engaged and motivated team can bring the level of commitment that the customer expects.

In 2014, we are embarking on an exercise to assess the competency levels of our leadership team. We will invest in building the required competencies because once that is done there will be an increase in confidence and motivation that will help the team perform to the expected level of targets. We are also building an incentive plan that is tied to performance. This alignment of individual performance with that of the company and in turn the government will make sure that everyone is working together towards a common goal. As a PSU, we have an MoU with the Government of India and the business agenda is driven down by fixing responsibility and accountability on individuals and section heads of various business units.

As the HR, we need to identify if employees are motivated enough to perform the given assignments and if there is a need to upgrade skills and provide training opportunities. We are also putting in place performance metrics and rewards for high performing individuals. We have several programs to reward employees in the form of training and developmental opportunities and rewards and recognition programs.

There are many things that influence motivation in our employees, whether it is workplace, job satisfaction, environment etc. In our case, many of our employees work and live in our own townships so we have to make sure that they have adequate facilities like community centers, homes for rent and extend care to their family members. We track each of these elements through our Employee Satisfaction Survey. We see what things are more important than others, what works and what needs to be fixed and we keep calibrating to make sure we keep our employees happy and engaged. My message to HR colleagues is: Take care of your people and make sure they are happy.

R. KRISHNAN is the Director-Human Resources at Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited