How to Start Employee Engagement

Created by Chris Shayan
Mar 23, 2017
2 min read

Each year, companies are spending nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars in an effort to improve employee engagement — yet you’ll get wildly inconsistent answers if you ask managers what that means. That murkiness is a problem, because there are still signs that engagement — whatever it is — needs to be managed. In a Gallup survey, for instance, organizations whose employees reported high engagement had 25% to 65% less attrition than their peers. They also received higher marks in productivity and customer satisfaction. So defining engagement more clearly isn’t just a philosophical exercise. It has bottom-line implications.

Alright, this how I usually tackle to Employee Engagement and start executing it. It might not be as perfect as documentations on internet but it can be a good start. If you are not willing to invest money or assign budget then don't bother reading it.

Step 1: Watch this video

Step 2: Watch this Video

Step 3: Talk to CEO and hopefully you are lucky and CEO will care, if not then probably you should find another job. Share this article with your CEO and hopefully it will do the work. Luck is always important.

Step 4. Hire an Engagement Officer or play this role yourself. This a Job Description for Engagement Officer. 

Step 5. Write up a retention policy and dedicate budget. This policy can look like below. You need to also select what are your strategic drivers, for instance it can be building better relationship by caring, providing an environment that people can get to know each other better and build trust.

In order to completely be successful on this execution and keep it constantly going, HR and Engagement Officer from Engineering must work very closely. I would like to assign weekly a budget of $1,000 to be managed by Engagement Officer (excluding following costs) in order to fulfill her/his responsibilities.

  • Subsidize Monthly Gym Membership $40 per month
  • Provide a Monitoring Wearables like MisFit
  • Offer Good Health Insurance Program
  • Avoid asking for Medical Certification on sick leave
  • Offer Family sick leave so people can save their vacation leave
  • Provide drinks, coffee and snack
  • Decorate the floor with proper paintings, wall graffiti, Big TV Screens, and Speakers like Samsung R7
  • Providing better chairs something similar to this example

On getting to know each other:

  • Weekly Sharing Sessions, invited guests or speakers
  • Monthly All Hands Meeting
  • Monthly Charity Programs
  • Monthly Contests such as The Best Working Environment, Employee of Month, Service Hero and etc
  • Quarterly Meeting with iCare users who placed orders
  • Monthly Internal Hackathon to build bots and similar services that might improve our company’s productivity

and on trust:

  • Unlimited Annual Leave
  • MacBook Pro or same cost laptop as option
  • 24 Hours Office Hosting, emplyees can use office at anytime
  • Providing access to temporary servers for personal research that is approved by Engineering Leaders
  • Employee On-Boarding Booklet

You need many more initiatives to improve communication and efficiency as well as engagement; however, some of the above initiatives need following preparation that Engagement Officer will work closely with HR:

  • Cost Calculation
  • Expense Prediction
  • Policy Design
  • Roll Out Plan
  • Communication Plan
  • Approval from Executives (hopefully)