For a company founded by 2 mathematicians who owe their stupendous success to a culture of innovation and creativity they understood early that it was employee engagement that set them apart from the thousands of other technology companies.

Free, healthy and well cooked food was a key ingredient of its employee engagement strategy. The day the company went public the celebration was not a series of senior management speeches about its vision and bright future – but a free ice cream station for employees.

Analysts expect Singapore Air to post its 25th consecutive annual profit in 2009, as global airlines lose $ 11 Billion. In a fiercely completive industry where every airline flies the same planes and uses the same airports it is employee engagement that differentiates between the best in class and the also ran.

When Intertek, a market leader in inspection and testing services, launched its internal cross-selling scheme it recognized that employee engagement was a prerequisite for its success. A reward and recognition scheme where the COO personally handed out a certificate and cheque to winners of a quarterly award sent cross-divisional “leads” soaring 300%.

Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL Tech in his path breaking book “Employees First, Customers Second” puts conventional wisdom on its head. Vineet is candid, brutally honest about himself and believes that it is important to break down the conventional hierarchy in an organization to unleash the potential of employees. His personal appraisal with 360 degree feedback is posted on their intranet for all 50,000 employees to see. He does not believe that all wisdom percolates downwards and believes in bottom up accountability. Presentations at HCL Tech are posted on their intranet for everyone to see and comment – peers, subordinates, bosses – and transparent feedback from all directions makes all the difference. Employees are empowered and the company’s financial performance reflects this.

The role of HR:

Employee engagement cannot be fully delegated to the Human resource department. It needs to be conceived, strategized and driven collectively by the chief executive and his senior management team. HR is the glue that binds together employees of different business lines and functions by creating and communicating a common set of values and culture. The “conventional” role of the HR Manager – negotiating long term wage settlement with the Union and preparing administration manuals is a thing of the past. In today’s world, where every employee is wired with high speed broadband and is aware of market trends for talent, the role of HR is transformed completely.

Engaged employees are ones who:

* Revel in their work and celebrate achievements collectively

* are highly committed

* challenge the status quo

* are passionate about what they do

* take ownership of their successes and failures

* are empowered to speak up if they disagree with the strategy

Developing a strategy for Employee Engagement:

At senior management levels, surveys have shown that it is the working environment and recognition accorded to employees which scores above compensation. At the entry level it is compensation and hygiene factors which score above all else. For workmen doing repetitive jobs the challenge is to understand and map out individual needs and aspirations and plan job rotation to upgrade skills and change job content. A job with offers no career growth – a dead end job – can be very de- motivating.

The first step in developing an employee engagement strategy is to map out the needs and aspirations of different profiles and levels in the company. This becomes the source document on which the strategy is built. At senior levels independence, professional recognition and more space to take decisions is what matters most – and compensation and hygiene factors do not figure in the top 3 factors. At the entry level and middle management level the converse is true. So the engagement strategy has to be tailored accordingly – one size fits all does not work.

Some of the best managed companies have a career plan for different functions and a Technical or Sales entry level employee is rotated typically every 3 years through a defined career growth plan which trains and grooms him for increasing levels of responsibility. The company offers him a career – not just a job - and he has a long term commitment to the organization and can look ahead to a career. This builds a strong bond between the employee and the company and he imbibes the values and culture.

Leadership:

Nurturing of creativity and innovation – two pillars on which success of cutting edge companies rests - can only be achieved by a high degree of empowerment and delegation. Some of the most successful leaders of our time delegate to the point of abdication. If you need to spend too much time supervising an employee then you have selected the wrong person.

Employee engagement starts with the leadership. John Heider in his book “The Tao of Leadership” defines well the role of a leader. “The wise leader does not intervene unnecessarily. Do not intrude. Do not control. Imagine that you are a midwife; you are assisting at someone else’s birth. Do good without show or fuss. Facilitate what is happening rather than what you think ought to be happening. When the baby is born, the mother will rightly say: “We did it ourselves!”