Employee Engagement - Nurture or Abandon?

Employee engagement – Now is the time to nurture not abandon
So you might have heard of this excellent employee engagement initiative practiced in a leading US firm. Let me illustrate it for all readers - 2 chairs are kept on the lawn, one chair occupied by an employee representative and another hung with a message board. Different employee topics for different days. Employees participated and shared their thoughts and concerns on issues ranging from management to work to co-workers.

Brilliant idea, isn’t it?

Those 2 lawn chairs measured the pulse of employee thoughts and fears. It helped employees to open up and speak out.

During recession or otherwise, I think an organization can do a world of good for itself and employees if it can engage employees through work and recognition. Engaged employees will do things in a better way and do better things more efficiently. What else can empower a business during a slowdown. Job cuts won’t do. It can only raise the mercury on insecurity. Probably now is the time to go face-to-face and do honest communication with your employees.


~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Who's on the bus?

Top management guru and best-selling author Jim Collins quips : "If the bus is your company, and getting the right people is crucial to success — more important, even, than your strategy... and what do you do if you've got the wrong people on the bus? Or the right people doing the wrong things?"

I think that there are times when your most revered and most performing employee may have lost the golden touch or the zest. An aggressive Sales Eagle who wins account at will might become one average sales manager on promotion. A multi-faceted executive could get jaded if micromanaged to put all the eggs in one basket. And employees who thrive in a creative set-ups may choke when you tell them that rules and processes are sancrosant, which is the case in a big company.

How will you match great resources to right jobs?

Would these questions help in every performance appraisal ?? : What is the resource good at? What is the resource not good at? What does the resource love about his/her job? What does he/she hate about his/her job?

Now match your judgements with his or her observations on the same set of questions :What are you good at? What are you not good at? What do you love about your job? What do you really dislike about it?

~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Employee Productivity & Performance

Yesterday, during a sales call when I was stressing on our improved performance management system, there was an interesting question from my client : How much does performance management of talent has a role to play in productivity and attrition?

I found shelter in the Aberdeen's benchmark report entitled "Enhancing Operational Results with Employee Performance Management.

The report says that the primary pressure driving employee performance management was the need to improve overall company performance (57%), followed closely by employee productivity (46%).

The pressures driving organizations to pursue employee performance management in 2008have shifted and reflect the stifling realities associated with the global shortage of labor and talent. Though workforce productivity still remains a Top 2 driving force cited by 27% of more than 900 organizations surveyed in Aberdeen study, the primary pressures revolve around insufficient talent pipelines, the loss of top talent to competitors, and a diverse workforce with varying needs and expectations.

Sounds familiar ??