How do we increase employee engagement

Empowerment

Senior management should provide the necessary resources to enable additional employee responsibility for activities relative to the processes they normally operate:

1. Routine maintenance activities 
2. Identifying/notifying improvements 
3. Quality control
4. Achievement of Productivity, Quality, Environmental and Health/Safety measurable objectives

NOTE 1: Set measurable objectives for every employee/department and publish performance figures to promote competition. This by far is the best method for increasing employee engagement.

NOTE 2: Set/provide financial insentment for the fulfilment of objectives even though note 1 above (competition) will suffice alone to increase employee engagement 

 1. Ask the hard questions: We have a business health culture index. We ask employees a series of questions that basically gets at the question: ‘Is your job making you unhealthy?’ Our business health culture index is really important for us and, amidst COVID, 79% (2% increase YOY) are saying YES I’m engaged and I feel healthy.” - Dan Healey, Head of Human Resources, SAP North America

2. Be empathetic. “We had always had an innovative, market-leading vacation policy. We had a crisis leave and doubled it to 10 days by the end of March 2020 [we knew our people were facing a lot of pressure and pain]. We rolled it out across 24,000 colleagues. We learned 25% of our employees – 6,000 people – have used 8-9 days – and 75% of our employee base still have it available to them. This has allowed our employees to re-engineer their lives around childcare, elder care. We have virtually unlimited sick days, too. We just don’t want people burning staycation days if they need a crisis to leave [to take care of their loved ones].” - Dan Healey, Head of Human Resources, SAP North America

 3. Create space for non-work conversations...and be thinking that sometimes people just want their time back. “We do Happy Hours on Zoom. We’ll have a drink together and focus on non-work topics - sharing tips on parenting, places to go, things to do during COVID. However, we keep in mind that people are appreciative of having time off, so we don’t over-schedule Happy Hours.” - Shawn Zimmerman, VP of HR at Cardinal Health. “My team I have daily standups, 15min, optional, no work talk. We check in on: how are we doing? How are we feeling? What’s going on with you? How is the pandemic impacting you?  I expected high attendance that would drop off when I started it, but it’s stayed consistent. One of my employees said the stand-ups “made her feel like she still worked at the company as opposed to being isolated and alone.” - Todd Davis, Global Talent Executive at IBM

4. Dial-up social listening. “Our policy is to listen, understand, and act, so we do a ton of surveying. Our 2020 people survey, called #Unfiltered, is a new continuous listening experience evolving from our once-a-year survey to a Flagship survey enriched by two Pulses throughout the year. What we learned: employee engagement rose 2% from 2019 to 2020 (86% are currently engaged). So our engagement has gotten better during COVID-19. What is an engaged employee? Psychologically safe. Happy.” - Dan Healey, Head of Human Resources, SAP North America

 5. Help your sales teams transform. “We know our sales teams can’t visit their customers anymore [and this impacts them dramatically]. To help them hit targets, we’re running Virtual Summits, Digital Seminars to engage customers in new and meaningful ways.” - Shawn Zimmerman, VP of HR at Cardinal Health

6. Encourage your teams to bring their whole selves to work. “HR is incredibly focused on measuring whether employees feel they can bring their whole selves to work. Whole selves mean their professional, personal and emotional selves. Giving permission from top-down for all of us to show up as our whole selves, and modeling it, is incredibly important.” - Todd Davis, Global Talent Executive at IBM

7. Set up an ongoing channel for remote-work resource sharing. “The biggest success for us was a remote work slack channel, focused on resources for working from home. Moderators do a fairly good job, less of a work-related channel, helps people stay connected, problem solve - groceries, homeschooling.” - Todd Davis, Global Talent Executive at IBM

8. Have your CEO host regular office hours. CEOs started doing office hours, akin to professors at universities. Before, leaders didn’t do this. Over time it became an opportunity for people to send in questions about our business, transformation, and tech. He was open to these questions. Office Hours happen on a regular basis - once every 2-3 weeks. It’s done live and recorded so people can see them