Human beings want to be recognized for their good work and want to feel that they are holistically growing. Given that they spend almost a third of their lives working, they expect their workplaces to cater to both the needs, at least partially. Deloitte's Simply Irresistible Organization model identifies three important building blocks for employee engagement: a culture of recognition, facilitated talent mobility, and training and support for growth. Quoting Bersin, what happens when you give people the opportunity to grow? People stay excited, the business becomes more agile and innovative, and high performers want to stay.

The lack of recognition and opportunities for career growth results in demotivated employees who feel unappreciated, undervalued, and, consequently, underperform. Infact, Josh Bersin believes that the great resignation is a great migration. Employees are migrating from “crummy jobs” to “better jobs” and from “companies that don’t seem to care” to “companies that really care.” And for many workers this means moving to companies with opportunities for growth, promotion, and even a new industry. Recognition and career growth are the key pillars that impact employee engagement and the eNPS.

To gain a comprehensive understanding of the recognition and career growth factors that impact employee engagement, an Empuls Pulse Survey delves deeper into the three first-dimension drivers that affect them, which are known as the building blocks.

They are:

Multiple other factors influence first-dimension engagement drivers. To facilitate this, The Empuls Pulse Survey model considers second-dimension engagement drivers (sub-sub-dimensional drivers) that influence each of the sub-dimensional drivers of every engagement driver.

1. Career Growth: Josh Bersin’s research shows that organisations that invest more heavily in training, career development, and mobility outperform their peers in almost every industry. One of the primary reasons people switch jobs is the lack of growth opportunities. Career Growth is an important engagement factor.

In the Empuls Pulse Survey, there are four-second dimensional engagement drivers that impact Career Growth. They are:

1.1. Employees taking part in designing strategies: How involved are your employees in influencing the strategic decisions regarding their roles?

Being able to actively participate in and strategically influence one’s role in an organisation is essential for employees to feel empowered and accountable. It is an important second-dimension engagement driver in the Empuls survey.

1.1.1. Best Practices to improve your employee involvement in strategic decision making regarding their roles:

Plan: Co-create KRAs and KPIs

Do: Having an open dialogue with employees is essential when deciding their roles and responsibilities. Discuss your thoughts on how they align with the company strategy. Also, talk about the potential for growth within the role. Remember to always communicate how any decision about the roles is aligned with your business.

Some of the questions that both of you can find answer together are:

– Is the defined scope of the role relevant to the business?

– Are the goals defined relevant to the business?

— Is the scope of the goals appropriate?

– Are the goals coordinated with others' goals?

– Are the goals results-based and measurable?

Time: 2-4 weeks

How to manage the above Plan and Do?

How to communicate?

Measure:

Act:

The Managers should use the feedback to improve the action plan.

1.2. Timely feedback from managers: Do your employees feel that they get timely feedback from their managers?

Providing timely feedback is essential for growth. However, according to Gallup, feedback must be delivered at the right time and in the right form. Managers should not simply label an employee's actions as right or wrong. Instead, they should take the time to define, discuss, and assist in correcting any mistakes. Data from Gallup indicates that timely feedback from managers is an important second dimension driver in the Empuls Survey.

1.2.1. Best Practices to improve managers giving timely and proper feedback to your employees:

Plan: Conduct weekly work discussions

Do: Create a system where every manager has a 15-minute, weekly discussion (individual) with their team members to provide feedback and coaching for improvement.

Time: 2-4 weeks

Plan: Conduct a GROW framework training for Managers to turn into Coaching Managers

Do: Conduct an ongoing training session for all your managers on progressively transforming into excellent coaching managers every quarter. The training should provide actionable insights, role plays, and real-life examples to explain the GROW framework. Your managers should be trained to help your employees establish a Goal, examine the current Reality, explore Options, and decide What they will do. Joseph Weintraub defines this type of coaching as "an ongoing dialogue with the goal of increasing learning and improving one's ability to perform effectively now and in the future". This manager should be trained to use the GROW approach, which uses open-ended questioning combined with listening to lead employees to think about situations differently and be open to new ways of acting, all intending to bring out their best.

Time: 4 weeks to start

Plan: Create a group of Fast Feedback Evangelists

Do: Providing feedback that is valuable, forward-looking, frequent, and prompt is a skill. It is known as Fast feedback. You can identify managers and leaders who possess this skill by assessing how they give feedback on various things such as tech processes, food in the cafeteria, or new policy changes within your organization, aside from their everyday work. By doing so, you can create a pool of fast feedback givers. It is recommended that the group responsible for promoting the concept of providing fast feedback within the organization be led by someone in a leadership position. This group should hold monthly meetings and impromptu water cooler sessions to help other managers and leaders understand how they can improve their ability to provide quick feedback. Additionally, the group should act as a co-owner by assisting managers in addressing any challenges they face in delivering feedback effectively.

Time: < 2 weeks to start

How to manage the above Plan and Do?

- The HR and a Leadership team member should co-own the initiatives.

- The HR department must ensure that all managers are included in the chosen initiative. The leadership team must lead by example and demonstrate the importance of timely and meaningful feedback.

- The initiative should be a part of the KRA for HR and the Leadership team members and have metrics to measure performance.

How to communicate?

Measure:

Act:

The HR and the Leadership team members should use the feedback to improve the action plan.

1.3. L&D Resources: Are your employees satisfied with the learning opportunities available in your organisation that are required for their growth?

Quoting an SHRM resource: An agile learning culture is needed now more than ever—one that enables employees to demonstrate their ability to quickly adapt to new environments, new protocol and shifting market demands.

L&D resources play a vital role in creating a culture of high-impact learning in your organization and they feature as a second-dimension engagement driver in the Empuls Pulse Survey.

1.3.1. Best Practices to improve the L&D resources available to your employees:

Plan: Create an L&D Committee

Do: Create an L&D committee in your organisation to oversee the creation and implementation of all the L&D programs. It should comprise an HR member, a Leadership team member, and members from different functions. They should set the framework for how every L&D program should function. They should also set monthly and quarterly goals to ensure that L&D is an evolving process

Time: > 4 weeks to begin

Plan: Shadow a senior program

Do: Allow every employee to shadow a senior member for half a day once a month or quarter, especially to learn a skill or acquire knowledge. This opportunity would help the employee obtain practical knowledge and experience applying their skillset in a professional setting. Additionally, it would enable them to resolve any doubts or queries they may have. This one-on-one session also functions as a personal coaching session, which benefits both the employee and the senior who assumes the role of a coach. Allow your employees to choose their preferred senior, but have a list of suggestions ready so that your junior employees can be directed towards developing skills that will benefit their growth and advancement within the organization.

Time: <2 weeks to start

Plan: Create a team-wise L&D repository

Do: The L&D committee should create a framework to help every team create and publish their own L&D resources. Apart from being a team-bonding activity, this will allow every team to not only understand the skills and knowledge used by their respective teams but also have access to them.

Time: 2-8 weeks

Plan: Allocate an L&D budget

Do: Introduce an L&D budget for individuals or teams to incentivise learning at an organisational level. This action would require a change in policy and approval from management based on the organisation's financial situation.

Time: > 4 weeks

Plan: Introduce learning sabbaticals

Do: Introduce a learning sabbatical for employees who have completed a fixed tenure in your organisation. This would promote a learning culture and incentivise employees to take a break to hone their knowledge. This action would require a change at the policy level and come from the management depending on the organisation's finances.

Time: > 4 weeks

How to manage the above Plan and Do?

- The Leadership should own this and work with HR and Team Leads

-The plan and do should be a part of the Leadership's KRA. The HR and Team Leads should include the do part for some initiatives in their KRA, depending on the initiative selected.

- There should be defined metrics to measure performance.

How to communicate?

Measure:

Act:

The Leadership should use the feedback to improve the action plan.

1.4. Career progression opportunities: Are your employees satisfied with the career progression and growth opportunities available in your organisation?

Access to career growth opportunities is an important factor in influencing employee retention, and it features as a second-dimension engagement driver in the Empuls Pulse Survey.

1.4.1. Best practices to improve employee satisfaction with career progression and growth opportunities in your organisations:

Plan: Conduct the 9 box grid exercise

Do: The 9-box grid is an individual employee assessment tool that evaluates the employee's current and potential level of contribution to the organisation. Conduct this and map the employee's potential to the company's growth plan. Let the employees be involved in this process. Set targets with timelines to co-create a progression plan for your employees within your organisation.

Time: 4-6 weeks (about 1 and a half months)

Plan: Provide developmental assignments to prepare for promotions

Do: Include developmental assignments in an employee's Key Result Areas (KRAs) after completing a certain period in your organisation. This will help employees understand that they are progressing within the company and must acquire new skills in specific areas. By doing so, employees will clearly understand how they can grow and in which direction they should focus their efforts.

Time: 2-4 weeks to start

Plan: Create a Match and Mentor Program

Do: Every manager should sit with their team members and understand individual employee aspirations. They should then collaborate with HR to find a mentor who can help them grow within the organisation. Mandate a minimum number of hours for weekly/monthly mentorship.

Time: < 2 weeks to start

How to manage the above Plan and Do?

-The Leadership and Managers should co-own the initiatives. They should work with HR whenever need be.

-The plan and do should be a part of their KRA for the quarter

-Metrics should be defined to measure performance.

How to communicate?

Measure:

Act:

The Leadership and Managers should use the feedback to improve the action plan.

1.5. Actionable Insights on the Pulse Survey Results

Weak: Score less than 3.

Insight: Most of your employees are unhappy with your organisation's career growth prospects.

To improve your employee involvement in strategic decision-making regarding their roles:

Co-create KRAs and KPIs

To improve managers giving timely and right feedback to your employees:

Conduct weekly work discussions

Create a group of Fast Feedback Evangelists

To improve the L&D resources available to your employees:

Shadow a senior program

Create a team-wise L&D repository

Create an L&D Committee

To enhance employee satisfaction regarding career development and growth opportunities in your organisation:

Create a Match and Mentor Program

Overall: Focus on communicating about the actions taken

At risk: Score between 3 and 4, showing a downward trend in the last 3 pulse runs

Insight: While more than 50% of your employees are happy with the career growth prospects in your organization.

To improve your employee involvement in strategic decision making regarding their roles:

Co-create KRAs and KPIs

To improve managers giving timely and right feedback to your employees:

Conduct a GROW framework training for Managers to turn into Coaching Managers

Conduct weekly work discussions

To improve the L&D resources available to your employees:

Create a team-wise L&D repository

Create an L&D Committee

Allocate an L&D budget

To improve your employee's satisfaction with the career progression and growth opportunities available in your organisation:

Provide developmental assignments to prepare for promotions

Overall: Focus on communicating about the actions taken

Acceptable: Score between 3 and 4, showing no change in the last 3 pulse runs

Insight: More than 50% of your employees are happy with the career growth prospects in your organisation.; however, this has not improved.

To improve your employee involvement in strategic decision making regarding their roles:

Co-create KRAs and KPIs

To improve managers giving timely and right feedback to your employees:

Conduct a GROW framework training for Managers to turn into Coaching Managers

Create Fast Feedback Evangelists

To improve the L&D resources available to your employees:

Create an L&D Committee

Allocate an L&D budget

Introduce learning sabbaticals

To improve your employee's satisfaction with the career progression and growth opportunities available in your organization:

Conduct the 9 box grid exercise

Overall: Focus on communicating about the actions taken

Improving: Score between 3 and 4, showing an increasing trend

Insight: More than 50% of your employees are happy with the career growth prospects in your organization. Work on converting this to a strength.

Continue doing what you are doing and use the Good practices document to incorporate new initiatives that will turn this second-dimensional engagement driver into a strength.

Strength: Score above 4

Insight: More than 80% of your employees are happy with the career growth prospects in your organization. This is an area of strength for your organization. Keep up the good work!

Continue doing what you are doing, document your actions and share them with us. Also, use the Good Practices document to incorporate new initiatives to ensure that this second-dimension engagement driver remains a strength.

2. Reward: Quoting a Gartner research here, by making rewards supportive of and responsive to employee needs and preferences, organizations can engage talent and drive performance in an uncertain and rapidly evolving business environment. An organization’s reward strategy is a driver of employee engagement.

In the Empuls Pulse Survey, four-second-dimensional engagement drivers impact Reward's perception of First-dimensional drivers. They are:

2.1 Incentives: Do your employees feel your incentive structure is on par or exceeds industry standards?

Incentives offered as part of compensation are important not just to attract and retain talent but also to keep them happy. They are also a means of motivating employees and achieving the goals set by the organisation.

2.1.1. Best Practices to improve your employee feeling your incentive structure is on par or exceeds industry standards:

Plan: Conduct a two-level as-is audit of incentives and create a plan of action to improve it

Do: Announce an incentives audit in your workplace. It should be a two-level audit.

Action One: Let the HR team take ownership of creating a comprehensive list of incentives offered by companies in your industry, your competitors, the leaders in your industry, and leading organisations of your size and scale in other industries.

ActionTwo: The HR department should conduct a workshop on incentives for all employees in each department in conjunction with a discussion on Empuls. In this, the aim is to capture:

These two actions will provide you with a comprehensive picture of your current incentives structure. Use the research and workshops to improve the quality of incentives offered.

Time: > 4 weeks

Plan: Offer a customisable incentive package

Do: Incentives are used to motivate performance. By offering a customisable incentive package, you are giving your employees the power of choice. Your organisation's outflow will be no different, but by offering a bouquet of incentives to choose from, you are motivating your employees to work for something they want.

Time: 2-4 weeks to start

Plan: Create or use a real-time incentive management system

Do: A real-time incentives management system has real-time access to how the incentives are calculated, whether they are eligible to get any specific incentive, and when it gets disbursed. While this system may be relevant to your teammates in sales, where incentives form a large part of the salary package, it is still an important system to have as it enables complete transparency and trust.

Time: 4 weeks to start

Plan: Add a team-based incentives component

Do: Adding a team-based incentive component to every employee's incentive structure fosters collaboration, boosts productivity, and motivates people to work together, leading to better performance.

Time: 2-4 weeks to start

How to manage the above Plan and Do?

-The HR should own the implementation of the initiatives. They should ideate with the leadership before implementing the initiatives.

-The initiatives should be a part of HR’s KRA

-There should be performance metrics to measure performance

How to communicate?

Measure:

Act:

HR should use the feedback to improve the action plan.

2.2 Rewards: Do your employees feel your rewards structure is at par or exceeds industry standards?

Rewards and recognition are imperative as intrinsic and extrinsic motivators for employees. Having a rich R&R program helps foster and promote a culture of recognition, which plays a large role in boosting employee morale and happiness.

2.2.1. Best Practices to improve the rewards offered in your organisation:

Plan: Personalise your R&R program

Do: Create a reward system where employees receive rewards that they like and are meaningful to them. You can begin by evaluating your existing rewards system, identifying the gaps in the structure, and collecting individual feedback from your employees on

-what they think of your existing R&R structure

- what would they like to see as a part of the rewards system

Use these insights to create a personalised R&R program, one that is customised to the individual needs of every employee.

Time: > 4 weeks

Plan: Empower your employees to drive portions of your R&R program

Do: When your employees can own a portion of the R&R program, they feel empowered. Some ways of doing this are by instituting peer-to-peer, employee-to-manager appreciation, and manager-to-employee recognition and reward programs. This way, your employees will have the power to applaud and appreciate their teammates or managers for their good work.

Time: 2-4 weeks to start

Plan: Implement an appropriate R&R platform

Do: Implementing an R&R platform that satisfies the needs of your organisation would go a long way in ensuring that your R&R system is robust, has actions happening in real-time, helps your employees feel empowered, and gives you access to data and insights. To choose the most appropriate R&R platform for your organisation, conduct an in-depth analysis of what you want the platform to do. Some of the points to consider: It should enable easy rewards, be easy to use, encash reward points, and give you in-depth insights into how your R&R program functions.

How to manage the above Plan and Do?

HR and Leadership should own this together.

At least one HR member and one member from the Leadership should form an R&R committee that runs the R&R program end-to-end.

Incorporating these initiatives should be a part of their KRA.

How to communicate?

Measure:

Act:

The R&R committee should use the feedback to improve the action plan.

2.3. Actionable Insights on the Pulse Survey Results

Weak: Score less than 3.

Insight: A majority of your employees are not happy with the rewards system in your organization.

To improve your employees feeling your incentive structure is on par or exceeds industry standards:

Creative and customisable incentives

Create or use a real-time incentive management system

To improve the rewards offered in your organization:

Empower your employees to drive portions of your R&R program

Implement an appropriate R&R platform

Overall: Focus on communicating about the actions taken

At risk: Score between 3 and 4, showing a downward trend in the last 3 pulse runs

Insight: While more than 50% of your employees are happy with the rewards system in your organisation.

To improve your employees feeling your incentives structure is on par or exceeds industry standards:

Create or use a real-time incentive management system

Create team-based incentives to boost collaboration and productivity

To improve the rewards offered in your organization:

Empower your employees to drive portions of your R&R program

Personalize your R&R program

Overall: Focus on communicating about the actions taken

Acceptable: Score between 3 and 4, showing no change in the last 3 pulse runs

Insight: More than 50% of your employees are happy with the rewards system in your organisation.; however, this has not improved.

To improve your employee feeling your incentive's structure is on par or exceeds industry standards:

Create or use a real-time incentive management system

To improve the rewards offered in your organisation:

Personalize your R&R program

Implement an appropriate R&R platform

Overall: Focus on communicating about the actions taken

Improving: Score between 3 and 4, showing an increasing trend

Insight: More than 50% of your employees are happy with the rewards system in your organisation. Work on converting this to a strength.

Continue doing what you are doing and use the good practices document to incorporate new initiatives to turn this second-dimension engagement driver into a strength.

Strength: Score above 4

Insight: More than 80% of your employees are happy with the rewards system in your organization. This is an area of strength for your organization. Keep up the good work!

Continue doing what you are doing, document your actions and share them with us. Also use the good practices document to incorporate new initiatives to ensure that this second-dimension engagement driver remains a strength.

3. Performance Appraisals: Fair performance management is a requisite for any organization to attract, hire, and retain talent.

In the Empuls Pulse Survey, there are two second-dimensional engagement drivers that impact the employees' perception of an organisation's performance appraisal. They are:

3.1 Transparency: How transparent is the performance appraisal process in your organization?

Transparency in performance appraisal processes goes a long way in keeping people happy.

3.1.1. Best Practices to increase the transparency in your performance appraisal process:

Plan: Document and publish the performance appraisal process

Do: Set a performance appraisal process if you don't already have one. Standardise it throughout your organisation. Document the process, including who will be doing it, how the employees' performance will be gauged, how the employees will showcase the work that they have done, and how often this appraisal will be done. Publish this document so that every employee has access to it. Most importantly, stick to the process and elicit feedback to improve on it.

Time: < 2 weeks

Plan: Create and measure performance against OKRs or some other reliable framework

Do: Have a goal setting and outcome measuring framework such as an OKR, which will enable an employee to showcase their work, progress, and achievements in a mutually agreeable and measurable manner. Hence, create such a framework for measuring performance and conduct performance reviews based on the framework only.

Time: 2-4 weeks to start

Plan: Map a total rewards strategy to KPI and Performance Appraisal

Do: If you do not have a total rewards strategy, the first step is to create one that encompasses pay, benefits, incentives, perks, and rewards, categorising them as monetary and non-monetary. Next, map the appropriate components of the total rewards strategy to key KPIs. At the start of the evaluation cycle, let every employee know what total rewards will be given for what performances and outcomes achieved.

Time: 4 weeks to start.

How to manage the above Plan and Do?

-HR, Leadership, and Managers should co-own these initiatives

- HR and Leadership should ideate and arrive at the strategies while the managers should be a part of implementing the initiatives

- They should be a part of their KRA for the quarter

-They should have metrics to measure performance

How to communicate?

Measure:

Act:

HR should use the feedback to help managers improve on the action plan.

3.2 Adherence to goals and objectives: What is the employee's perspective on how closely the appraisal process aligns with the goals and objectives set?

A performance appraisal process which does not align with the goals set will create friction between the employee and the management.

3.2.1. Best Practices to improve the increase employee perspective on how closely the appraisal process is aligned to the goals and objectives sets:

Plan: Create a self-performance appraisal process

Do: Before every performance appraisal, ensure that your employees do a self-appraisal on the same parameters that their performance would be appraised by the manager. Share an easy-to-use template that has the same questions as the performance appraisal would have. Let your employees fill it in and submit it before the appraisal by the manager. Any situation where there is a divergence of 20% between the two appraisals, an HR or a senior manager must step in to address the gap.

Time: 2-4 weeks

Plan: Conduct a training session for Managers on the appraisal process

Do: Before every performance appraisal session, ensure that your managers are trained, have their memories refreshed, and are abreast of the process established in your company. To enable this, have a senior leader conduct training on the appraisal process, giving examples about the likely scenarios and situations. Also, teach your managers to give constructive feedback.

Time: 2-4 weeks

How to manage the above Plan and Do?

How to communicate?

Measure:

Act:

HR should use the feedback to help managers improve the action plan.

3.3. Actionable Insights on the Pulse Survey Results

Weak: Score less than 3.

Insight: A majority of your employees are not happy with the performance appraisals in your organisation.

To increase the transparency in your performance appraisal process:

Document and publish the performance appraisal process

To improve the increase employee perspective on how closely the appraisal process is aligned to the goals and objectives sets:

Create a self-performance appraisal process

Conduct a training session for managers on the appraisal process

Overall: Focus on communicating about the actions taken

At risk: Score between 3 and 4, showing a downward trend in the last 3 pulse runs

Insight: While more than 50% of your employees are happy with the performance appraisals in your organization.

To increase the transparency in your performance appraisal process:

Create and measure against OKRs or some other reliable framework of measuring

To improve the increase employee perspective on how closely the appraisal process is aligned to the goals and objectives sets:

Create a self-performance appraisal process

Conduct a training session for Managers on the appraisal process

Overall: Focus on communicating about the actions taken

Acceptable: Score between 3 and 4, showing no change in the last 3 pulse runs

Insight: More than 50% of your employees are happy with the performance appraisals in your organisation.; however this has not improved.

To increase the transparency in your performance appraisal process:

Map a total rewards strategy to KPI and Performance Appraisal

To improve the increase employee perspective on how closely the appraisal process is aligned to the goals and objectives sets:

Create a self-performance appraisal process

Conduct a training session for Managers on the appraisal process

Overall: Focus on communicating about the actions taken

Improving: Score between 3 and 4, showing an increasing trend

Insight: More than 50% of your employees are happy with the performance appraisals in your organisation. Work on converting this to a strength.

Continue doing what you are doing and use the Good practices document to incorporate new initiatives to turn this second-dimension engagement driver into a strength.

Strength: Score above 4

Insight: More than 80% of your employees are happy with the performance appraisals in your organization. This is an area of strength for your organization. Keep up the good work!

Continue doing what you are doing, document your actions and share them with us. Also use the good practices document to incorporate new initiatives to ensure that this second-dimension engagement driver remains a strength.

References: