"Employee engagement" is one of the popular concepts in
HR these days. Many organizations have launched new
initiatives to improve levels of 'employee engagement'.
Some of them have dedicated HR staff to 'handle' this
important dimension. I fully agree that 'employee
engagement' is very important. There is a lot of
research that links higher levels of 'employee
engagement' with positive outcomes like improved
productivity and reduced attrition rates.
What concerns me is the tendency in some organizations
to view 'employee engagement' initiatives mainly as a
series of employee communication programmes. Here the
term 'employee engagement' gets used in the sense of
leaders 'engaging with' or 'speaking to' the employees.
Now, this is an important part of employee engagement.
The problem is that true 'employee engagement' requires
much more than this. Another troubling trend is to
equate 'employee engagement' with 'fun and games'
activities. 'Fun and games' initiatives are also useful.
They provide a temporary distraction from work
(especially when they are held during office hours,
which sadly is not always the case !). They also provide
an opportunity to interact with other employees. But all
these do not make any significant change in the basic
nature of work or in the work context.
The defining feature of employee engagement is
'discretionary effort' put in by the employees. If
employees have to get motivated to put in the
'discretionary effort', just speaking to them and
telling them what is happening in the organization (and
even just listening to them) won't be sufficient. To get
discretionary effort, both the hearts and minds of the
employees have to be engaged. Often this calls for
interventions to improve the person-job fit, the
performance management/rewards system and the
organization culture. Of course, it is much easier to
hold communication meetings than to ensure that
employees are in those jobs that leverage and celebrate
their key talents/abilities/interests! But if the
objective is to have the type of 'employee engagement'
that motivates employees to stay on and to put in
discretionary effort, peripheral interventions (like
communication meetings, 'fun & games HR' etc.) might
not be sufficient.
This brings to mind the 'story of the Sky Maiden'. There
are many versions of this story. It goes something like
this: Once there lived a young farmer. He used to get up
early in the morning every day to milk his cows. This
went on for quite some time. Then he felt that something
strange was happening. The cows seemed to be giving less
milk than they used to. He tried many methods to improve
this situation. But they did not work. Slowly he became
convinced that someone was stealing the milk. So he
decided to stay up all night to catch the thief. So he
hid behind a bush and waited. For many hours nothing
happened and he was feeling very sleepy. Suddenly he
noticed something that left him spellbound. A very
beautiful woman came down from the sky and started
milking the cows. Initially our young farmer was too
dazed to react. Then his anger took over and he managed
to catch the thief before she could escape. He asked her
who she was and why was she stealing the milk. She told
him that she was the Sky Maiden, that she belonged to a
tribe that lived in the sky, and that the milk was their
only food. She pleaded with him to let her go. Our young
farmer told her "I will let you go only if you promise
to marry me". She said "I will marry you. But you need
to give me a few days so that I can go back home and
prepare for the marriage". He agreed. So the Sky Maiden
left and as promised she returned after a few days. She
brought a large box along with her. She said to him "I
will be your wife. But you must promise me one thing.
You should never open this box. If you open this box, I
will have to leave you". He agreed and they got married.
Many months passed. Then one day, while his wife was not
in the house, our young farmer could not contain his
curiosity anymore and he opened the box. He was
surprised to find that he could not see anything in the
box. When the Sky Maiden came back she could sense
something was wrong. She asked him "Did you open the
box?". He said " I am sorry. I opened the box. But there
was nothing in it". The Sky Maiden became very sad. She
said "I am leaving. I can't live with you any more". He
said "Why are you making such a big issue out of this. I
told you that the boss was empty". She said "I am not
leaving you because you opened the box. I knew that you
are likely to open it sooner or later. I am leaving you
because you said that there was nothing in the box.
Actually the box was not empty. It was full of sky.
Before I came to you I had filled the box with sky which
is the most precious thing for me. Sky is the core of my
real self. It is what makes me special. It is what makes
me myself. How can I stay with you if you can't even see
the thing that is the essence of my Self and that makes
me special?"
Now there are many important points here. No deep
relationship can thrive unless it recognises and
celebrates the factors that define the essential nature
of the parties involved and that makes them special. Of
course, this is more true for personal relationships and
the use of this in a work context is an exaggeration to
some extent. But I think that the central point remains
valid even in a work context.
Written by Prasad Kurian.
