People and ‘good’ people are the backbone of any company. Over the last few years a whole lot of changes/re-structuring has happened not just in SAP but also in almost all major companies. We know that these re-structuring are important for greater alignment to changing market trends/demands and eventual company/product strategy, but it also stirs up a lot of uncertainty and anxiety amongst
employees resulting is dropping motivation levels, performance dips and eventual exits.
In a series of blogs, I try to list a few core people priorities that can help us win during these uncertain times!
Employee Engagement
This is one aspect which takes the biggest hit during the continuous restructuring and change.
Studies show that almost total lack of focus on the drivers of engagement for nearly 4-5 years has had a painful consequence. Employee motivation is low and a high percentage of employees would get out now if they could!!
This is a dangerous situation. Human capital and that too of good, skilled, talented group is a rare and every employer (big or small) should protect/safeguard this precious commodity.
There is no single remedy but a collection of activities which will increase the engagament and build employee trust. A few pointers are given below:-
- Learn how to enable people to self-lead their achievements. Urge colleagues to be independent and take ownership of what they do.
- Strong focus on doing constructive, regular, well-structured feedback sessions so that the employees know the expectations and align their work & resulting output. No point providing feedbacks only once or twice in a year as that is too less and too late.
- Leaders should create and demonstrate brand promise and pride in the work they do. The employees should feel their work has purpose and meaning. The leaders should engage and explain the work from a product strategy context (big picture).
- Create a leadership culture. Coach, mentor and employee development where employee ideas and opinions are sought and a milestone based program is set in place jointly (need the employee buy-in and hence a top down approach will not work).
- Timely reward and recognition. A reward delayed is as good as reward/recognition denied!! Give meaningful recognition and praise continuously. Bring the top contributions to management focus and thank their efforts, encouraging them constantly.
Constant encouragement to deserving colleagues builds a performance focused culture; peer pressure drives constructive competition and urges the colleagues and the team as a whole to push the bar higher!!
The above activities under the umbrella of employee engagament will build employee trust and pride directly translating to high motivation levels and even higher output/results.
