Measures taken by organizations to stand against the global health crisis from affecting the business, this has an effect on almost all employees as realization that ‘work’ is not a place. During this global crisis, organizations have risen to make a move towards mitigating the effect on the organization. Most organizations are equipping themselves to continue business-as-usual by suddenly shifting gears and adopting work-from-home practices.
V5 Model of Employee Engagement
V5 Model of employee engagement incorporates five major
elements of employee engagement. These are: value, voice, variety, virtue and
vision. Where value and voice elements are discussed in the context of
employees, while the rest three are discussed in context of organization.
Value: considering the fact that employees of an
organization as a vital asset and value their efforts, loyalty and commitment
to the organization. This may include optimism at work, respect at work,
interaction and recognition (Demerouti
& ten Brummelhuis, 2012).
Voice: providing an opportunity for employees to
raise their concerns and issues without fear of being judged and negative
impact (Rees
et al., 2013). Continuous feedback, supervisor’s support and cooperation,
and inputs on procedure and policies are a few ways that can productively
amplify employees’ voice (Saks,
2006).
Variety: scientifically designing a job that
uses a variety of skills, knowledge and expertise to have a higher degree of
creativity and innovation and thus enhanced employee engagement (Schaufeli
& Bakker, 2004). Variety in terms of autonomy, significance, task
variety and challenging jobs can reduce psychological distress and raise
engagement level (Christian
et al., 2011).
Virtue: having a moralistic mission that
supports ethical values for employees, customers, shareholders and community.
Organizations having virtue clusters like affection, trust, justice and harmony
can develop a humane work environment where employees will be more engaged.
Vision: a clear and comprehensive stated goal of
an organization that it strives to achieve in the future. Brevity, goal
clarity, abstract yet challenging, desirable goals are a key feature of a good
vision of an organization to develop an engaged workforce.
In global
context organization are using strategies to keep their employees motivated and
engaged.
Regular check-ins:
Regular check-ins with employees are a must
when working remotely to ensure that your remote teams are on the same
page regarding their work duties.
Video meetings:
Even though the chances are that employees have
to attend lot of conference calls and meetings while working remotely, face to
face communication is a more effective way to get all the remote team members
on the same page for this reason employees can get engaged during your
video meetings. These meetings should be short and everyone who participates
in this meeting should contribute to core purpose of the meeting. And each of
your video meetings has to have a clear purpose and timeboxed. By rotating
the roles of each participant in the meeting we can keep everyone engaged
in the videos call.
Online team buildings
While the most suitable way for team building
activity is onsite and with physical presents of the team member, with the currently
social distancing regulatory imposed this cannot be achieved. And organization are
finding ways to effective ways to do this online. There are many different online activities and
games organizations can use to help remote employees get to know one another
and build stronger connections as trust is one of the key elements in achieving
team goals. Following are few online activities organizations are facilitating
to fulfill this activity.
- Company
culture workshop
- Hackathon
- Online
board games
- Quiz
- Gaming
session
- Karaoke
or movie night.
Motivation and employee engagement are essential for considering the work from home concept. this concept generates more pressure than normal routine work. For example, unavailability of data or documents, technical issues, disturbance from social factors, etc.. can happen. Remote work and living under the stress of a pandemic have caused many people to work long hours every day and employees have fear of losing their job. The stress of the situation will make it harder than usual to stay motivated. So motivation is a critical activity for the WFH concept.
ReplyDeleteEngaging remote employees will ensure your team is efficient and productive as they would be in the office, if not more so. However, it can be hard to define and measure what employee engagement looks like to your team members.
ReplyDeleteWorking remotely is a challenge for many, as there tend to be distractions like chores, housemates or roommates, social media, and TV at home. The best way to gauge your employees' engagement levels is by simply asking them about their work and their passion levels. You can monitor their progress on assignments and confront any concerns you might have about their performance.
Here I wish to mention some ways to maintain the employer's culture & virtual staff feel they are truly be a part of the company team.
1) Encourage health & wellness of employees
2) Host virtual meetings & casual hangouts
3) Ensure employees feel heard & valued
4) Foster personal connections
5) Keeps the lines of communication open
6) Gamify your teamwork
Agreed with you. in a nut shell what you have elaborate here is that working from home in a sense make employees feel isolated and less connected. It becomes therefore imperative to make every effort to keep them engaged to maintain their productivity. Recognizing their efforts and achievements can boost their confidence and motivation to work.
ReplyDeleteEngaging remote employees will challenge the company. because employees working from home and they have to attend their private matters and external environment. on that case employees attention missing from the work. so the company HR team has more responsible to engage with the employees and give motivation hints to employees to complete their target.
ReplyDeleteCertainly Maheshan, HR team must get their employees engaged and motivated though they are working from home. Employee engagement and motivation are key areas of HR which are directly effect on employee productivity and achieving company goals. Thought it would be very challenging, HR team has to come up with a strategic plan to get their employees engaged while they work from home.
ReplyDeleteI think these theories can’t apply for each & every industry. These are ok with industry like IT & education. But with my experience in banking industry, it is very hard to motivate & keep employees engaged in regular branch banking. Most of the times we can experience bad scenarios when working from home conditions.
ReplyDeleteAs you have mentioned clearly employee engagement needs to be thoroughly managed to obtain the best output from the employees. Employees are not having any physical connection and so as to get them connected video conferencing, group chats are ideal methodologies.
ReplyDelete