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Employee Engagement

Ensure a Personalized Employee Onboarding Experience to Boost Employee Engagement

Effective onboarding for employee engagement

A quick and faultless onboarding of employees acts as the first step to a seamless employee life cycle. Moreover, as the economic recovery from the pandemic creates a surge in demand in a number of industries; hiring, retaining and engaging new workers is a top priority for organizations today. However, what most organizations fail to understand is that beyond formal documentation and offer letters, employee engagement starts from Day 0. A personalized employee onboarding structure acts as a precious opportunity to increase alignment, productivity and brand loyalty. In fact, Harvard Business School states that 23% of new hires typically leave their organization within the first 12 months. Thus, making new hires feel welcome, appreciated and included is of paramount importance. Here are some simple ways in which you can enhance the same:

  • Joining Gifts

The first day for employees tends to be hectic, with a focus on extensive documentation, orientations and general overload of impersonal information. A small, tangible token of appreciation in the form of states like stationery, water bottles, t-shirts or bags can bring the much-needed spark of joy and make an employee feel welcome.

  • Executive Communication

Effective leadership connect in an organization has to be fostered from day 1. This can be easily achieved with a message from the CEO/senior executives personally welcoming all new hires and conveying the values the company was built on. In a virtual environment, messages can be sent out through collaboration platforms in various formats.

  • Employee Onboarding Survey

Employee Surveys are key to any effective onboarding process and should be conducted on the first day and then again at intervals of 1, 3 and 6 months, giving an insight into a new employee’s engagement levels. These surveys can be automated and even targeted to certain employee segments through a robust engagement platform. This data can be crucial to uncover larger gaps in org-level systems and processes, thus helping HR teams improve overall employee experience for new joiners in particular.

  • First Month Completion Recognition

Organizations need to switch their approach from waiting for a year or more to acknowledging employee milestones earlier if they want to keep their millennial workforce excited and motivated. Automated recognition can be triggered on occasions like the first payday or first month anniversary. While recognitions can be monetary or non-monetary, the opportunity to share the same publicly allows an employee and their loved ones to bask in their achievement.

  • Social Connect

In a previous blog, we spoke about the importance of fostering friendships in the workplace. Orientation for fresh recruits is a great way to establish the same early on. Instilling a sense of belonging in an employee is a challenge greatly exacerbated in a virtual environment. Having a virtual internal social network can help employees blend into organizational culture effortlessly. In addition, team bonding exercises, hobby clubs to connect those with similar interests and entertainment events can help break the ice for new associates.

At a time of interviews, candidates try their level best to create a great first impression. It is only right then for a firm to return the favor by making a great first impression on their new family member. In today’s multigenerational workforce, millennials and Gen Z’s tend to switch jobs more often than their predecessors. Thus, it is essential for HR teams to go beyond just basic enablement of an employee’s initial work period to helping them find a sense of purpose and meaning at their new jobs fast. Your organization’s contingent workforce requires an added layer of personalization when it comes to your RnR and engagement program. Starting on the right foot with some simple measures can go a long way in helping employees stay longer and perform better.

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Employee Engagement Popular

The Art of Employee Retention Through Data Science

Employee Retention Through Data Science

A majority of firms today already have fairly robust offline rewards programs that help them navigate the needs of evolving workforces. However, in today’s competitive world, having a manual total rewards program is not enough. Lending measurability to the same is essential and something that can only be accomplished with the help of a digital platform. The C-suite wants to see returns on investment and impact of employee engagement on the bottom line. McK­in­sey found that ​‘CEOs who insist on rig­or­ous­ly mea­sur­ing and man­ag­ing all cul­tur­al ele­ments that dri­ve per­for­mance more than dou­ble the odds that their strate­gies will be exe­cut­ed, and over the long term, they deliv­er triple the total return to share­hold­ers that oth­er com­pa­nies deliv­er’. Thus, extensive reporting and analytical capabilities are critical to successfully measure the impact of any RnR program thus allowing for early interventions which boost employee engagement and retention levels. Here are some innovative parameters for measuring the same:

  • Surveys

Employee surveys are a powerful tool to get both quantitative and qualitative data on your recognition program. It is imperative, however, to design survey questions in a way that allow for clear insight. For example- a question like ‘Did you receive recognition from your Manager in the last 7 days’ versus ‘Does your manager recognize you’ can give a direct quantitative insight on the frequency of recognition from a manager. Survey analytics, therefore, help in getting meaningful data for the intangible aspects of organizational culture.

  • Employee Pulse

Day-to-day employee behavioral patterns can also provide useful insight into the employee engagement levels of an organization. A Mood-o-meter functionality in an RnR software does exactly that. It captures employee sentiment on a regular basis, provides trend reports and gives an early warning for disengaged employees who pose a greater risk of attrition from the organization. Reports around attendance or absenteeism both in the WFH or WFO setup can also help measure engagement.

  • Leaderboard

An employee recognition tool can provide a comprehensive view of work culture, performance and employee motivation levels. A leaderboard consisting of top recognition receivers and givers can provide an org-wide sentiment map. At the same time, it introduces a level of gamification to the process, encouraging other managers and BU heads to boost their internal recognition numbers. Enabling employee to manager recognition can help close the 360-degree feedback loop, unveiling critical satisfaction data as a result.

  • Accountability

It is often said that “People leave people, not organizations”. No two managers are alike and hence, no two team cultures will be perfectly replicable. However, deep insights can help HR leaders bring consistency across departments by keeping leaders accountable. Reports around metrics like equal distribution of reward points across team members or how consistently points are given across a given quarter can help an organization drill down to the RnR program adoption at a granular level. By monitoring the equity of manager behavior, individual leaders can become brand champions of the organization’s values.

  • Reward Redemption Data

Reward redemption data can include the number of orders received, gift vouchers redeemed and reward points spent via an RnR software. This data can reveal the popularity of reward options when it comes to perks and benefits. Furthermore, the data can be leveraged to structure and hyper-personalize employee rewards to suit personal preferences that are just right for them or their families.

  • Platform Usage Statistics

The usage statistics for an RnR platform can say it all, be it the number of logins or the average hours spent on the platform. High platform adoption means that employees find the tool to be user-friendly and actually feel connected to their peers and organization via the digital tool.

The above data parameters can provide senior leadership with a comprehensive view of the various factors involved in creating a positive employee experience. However, leaders should also focus on measuring overall retention rates before and after implementation to gauge the true success of an RnR and engagement platform, instead of merely looking at attrition percentages. Having a data-driven approach can greatly help HR folks avoid many common pitfalls and tweak their strategy for maximum impact.

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Employee Engagement Popular

Using Nominations to Boost Holistic Recognition

Holistic Employee Recognition Program

The process of inviting nominations is a formal, time-tested method to recognize employee contributions and reward top-performers. Typically, firms encourage nominations for outstanding achievements which result in awards for employee of the month, quarter or year. Nominations in recognition programs serve as a signal to employees across levels on the kind of behaviors and organizational alignment that the executive management of a firm is looking for. Having a well-structured nominations module integrated with your total rewards program comes with significant advantages:

360 Degree Evaluation:

Nominations can be top-down, bottom-up or peer-based. Earlier, corporations would allow for only senior management or higher-ups to be the jury for employee awards, which would give a very unidimensional view of performance. Performance analytics and workforce insight tools today can help define KPIs and measure team or individual effort, which can weigh in as a deciding factor for nominations. Additionally, nominations from peers, subordinates and self can give a 360-degree view of an employee’s contributions to a workplace.

Increases Trust in the Rewards Process:

By leveraging the power of nominations, the entire total rewards process in an organization becomes increasingly transparent. Employees and executives are able to view (if allowed) nominees and winners at each level of the process. This boosts trust in the firm for rewarding employees on merit alone and not on any preset relationships. Moreover, it also makes managers more wary about continuously nominating their ‘favorites’, thus making them aware of their own subconscious biases.

Gamification of Rewards:

For firms that choose to incorporate an automated nominations process, workflow rules can be enabled that allow for gamification in rewards. For example, in sales teams, all those who achieve 120% of their monthly target qualify to get nominated for the ‘Salesperson of the Month’ award. By incorporating these rules at an initial stage, employees are more motivated to excel and make it to the list of top performers.

Improves Managerial Feedback:

Employee awards that need monthly/quarterly nominations force managers and leaders to keep an eye out for good work, thus ensuring that they observe team members keenly to justify their nominations. Through keen observation, managers often make it a habit to evaluate employee’s performances more regularly and can then give more timely and relevant feedback.

Improves Retention:

According to Deloitte, organizations with rewards and recognition programs have a 31% lower voluntary turnover. This comes down to the fact that all employees and particularly millennials crave to be noticed for their work done. Organization-driven recognitions through manager nominations can be effective in making employees feel appreciated and hence more loyal towards their employer.

Accelerates Adoption of any R&R platform:

Features like notifications can serve as reminders for timely nomination submissions and chat-based nominations can enable employees to nominate their colleagues on-the-go, ensuring high participation and validity for recognition programs.

Encourages Favorable Behaviors:

HR personnel should be able to configure new award categories and event-based awards in an R&R platform on their own and make changes when necessary. This includes nomination categories that can spread across CSR contributions, teamwork initiatives, punctuality etc. By configuring nominations, an HR team can build and convey the ethos of an organization.

Oftentimes, high-performers who are introverts or executives in backend or support functions don’t get the same attention that star sales executives of a firm do, for example. This leads the former group to feel like their work is not respected or valued, ultimately leading to disengagement. Nominations can help bring the spotlight to such ‘unsung heroes’ thus encouraging a wider range of talent to compete for employee awards. Self-nominations also encourage employees to take pride in and highlight their work irrespective of their position within the firm. Well-structured award nominations driven through a technology platform result in a measurable, 360-degree approach to recognition. This creates a merit-based culture within the firm, wherein everyone has an equal chance to work hard and emerge to the top.

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Employee Engagement

Improving employee engagement using the ‘Hawthorne Effect’

Employee Engagement Hawthorne Effect

The Hawthorne effect is a theory derived from a pioneering multi-disciplinary research study conducted by Elton Mayo, a renowned sociologist and his associates in the late 1920s and early 1930s. During that era, the industrial revolution was in full swing. Workers were treated as nothing more than machines, who were assumed to work purely for financial incentives. However, the times also gave rise to labor unions and there was increased media scrutiny on the poor working conditions experienced by industrial workers. Organizations, therefore, began to look into improving their corporate images and investigating possible ways to reduce employee dissatisfaction and turnover. Among these organizations was Western Electric, a manufacturing firm headquartered out of Hawthorne, Chicago.  They began incorporating subtle changes into their workplace practices like changes in floor lighting, work shifts and breaks, introduction of informal interviews etc. With every change, even if it included reverting to the default settings, they were puzzled to see productivity soar. Simply put, the Hawthorne effect finds that employee behavior and thereby performance, changes in response to being observed.

These findings are quite relevant even in today’s modern workplaces. Often, organizations focus purely on financial incentives or token gifts/appreciation to improve employee and partner engagement. Viewing employees as only financially driven individuals devoid of relational needs can be narrow sighted and prevent the management from understanding what really drives them to stay with an organization. The workers at the Western Electric factory felt cared for, valued and heard through the people-focused actions of the firm which sought to understand, rather than assume, how and why they work. Creating an open work culture where employees can express their opinions, needs and feel encouraged to bond with each other results in improved motivation and work performance. Going back to our example, the Hawthorne experiments also showed the importance of inclusion and team work. The scholars had picked 6 women of a department to work in a separate room, as part of a separate study. In the test room, the women felt freer to interact and bond with each other more than they did on the factory floor. As a result, their work performance surpassed that of any other team/department in the plant. While today’s more gender-balanced workplaces do not call for such extreme measures to be adopted, the idea of bringing together forums of like-minded peers to discuss similar interests, challenges etc. satisfies an individual employee’s ‘drive to bond’.

The Hawthorne studies form the tenets of modern management and look at employees in a social context. For organizations today, they serve as an important reminder of keeping employees engaged through:

Careful Listening

Employee listening is crucial to understanding employee behavior and the possible changes that can improve their morale and increase their loyalty. Surveys and other listening tools on an employee engagement platform can provide structured insights for the management to act upon.

Ongoing Performance Reviews

A 365 day performance feedback module can be extremely useful in providing prompt, ongoing feedback to employees, making them feel like their work matters and they are valued.

Employee Recognition

The best way to gratify employees is to share a word of appreciation for a job well done, through an employee appreciation tool, which makes the recognition formal, public and transparent, while creating an accessible ‘log of compliments’ for the employee

Team Bonding

A single, unifying work purpose and strong allegiance to the team are driving factors for performance, retention and in turn, an organization’s profits. Strengthen them by encouraging virtual team activities and peer-to-peer recognition modules.

The industrial revolution had stripped society of strong communal relations and shifted the source of bonding and relationships to the workplace about a century ago. Today, COVID-19 has shifted workplace dynamics yet again. This time, the challenge for organizations is to show their employees that work culture resides with the people, not a physical space, and that team relations still matter. Competitive organizations will take this into cognizance while planning a powerful virtual employee experience in today’s stress-ridden workplaces using an effective employee engagement software.

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Employee Engagement Popular

Improving Employee Engagement Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Framework

improving employee engagement with recognition programs

Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy is a powerful, holistic roadmap from which one can understand the needs of the modern workforce. With the post-COVID economic slowdown, talent optimization has been a business priority. Maslow’s theory helps with just that- it helps organizations hone talent and improve employee engagement through the right kind of gratification.

Maslow’s theory comprises of a pyramid with 5 levels- Levels 1 and 2 comprise what we call the bare minimum or basic needs of a human being like water, food, shelter, financial security and stability. Levels 3 and 4 are higher-order needs which are more psychological in nature like the need for connection, social status, appreciation and recognition. Maslow’s hierarchy can be rearranged and applied in multiple situations. In the work context, it supports a bi-directional model- a two-way exchange between employee and employer. From the employee’s perspective, it provides a scale through which to measure job satisfaction and move towards increased fulfillment and impact at work. From an organization’s perspective, it helps create a positive work culture which in turn improves motivation, engagement and ultimately, performance.

Most organizations are able to cater to the first 2 levels of needs in the form of an employment contract, office space, financial compensation and benefits. It is levels 3 and 4 where the gap exists. As later researchers such as the American psychologist Frederick Herzberg explained, fair compensation and decent working conditions are just ‘hygiene factors’ that prevent disengagement. In other words, their absence can lead to disengagement but having them in place does not create positive engagement. Hence, organizations need to focus on levels 3 and 4 to improve engagement.

To pursue the twin goals of connection/belonging and self-esteem/recognition, a comprehensive R&R program structured by a robust technical program can help. Having an employee recognition software can ensure timely appreciation for good work in a public, transparent way. This can build self-worth for employees while helping them feel deeply connected to their peers and the organization. A platform like Gratifi can help digitize employee engagement through 360-degree recognition, physical and digital gifts, badges and points-based rewards, virtual social clubs, events, surveys and mood-o-meter. Such a platform can help organizations map employee sentiment while giving data-driven insights through intelligent reports. As well, flexible workflows can help accommodate any changes in R&R strategy as well as organizational hierarchy/workforce.

While Maslow’ hierarchy of needs has proven to hold true for people and cultures around the world, Maslow himself had remarked that the theory describes a general order of needs and can vary for individuals. For example- some people may value emotional connection more than financial security while others can value status and respect more than group associations. Hence it is important for organizations to understand which category of Maslow’s needs pyramid best relates to individual employees and map relevant recognition categories on the R&R platform accordingly. A technical platform can support HR leaders in getting the data they need to personalize and continually iterate their employee engagement program for best results.

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Employee Engagement

The right gifting cycle for improved employee engagement

Corporate gifts for employee engagement

Employee recognition and engagement is a priority for any organization that wishes to attract the right talent, particularly in the face of today’s unstable economic conditions. However, it is important to celebrate not only your employees’ extraordinary accomplishments, but also them as people. Creating an employee R&R strategy with a gifting focus can greatly help in this regard. Mapping the employee’s personal journey to their company life cycle can offer numerous opportunities to organizations to give inexpensive yet meaningful gifts to employees.

Typically, organizations have adhered to gifting on milestones- 5, 10 or 20 year work anniversaries. However, looking at the latest statistics from Deloitte, we realize that millennials do not stay in an organization long enough to receive such gifts, and hardly value them even if they do. Recognition delayed is recognition denied, and an organization’s employee rewards program needs to be cognizant of the changing preferences of today’s intergenerational workforce.

Following are the types of occasions that can be considered for a corporate gifting cycle:

  • Personal events – Birthdays, marriage anniversaries, new-born child
  • Professional milestones – Years of service, achieving or surpassing sales targets, product launch, project completion, process/product innovation
  • Firsts – first working day, first payday, first new account or sale etc.
  • Festivals – Diwali, Christmas, New Year etc.
  • Special events – any noteworthy achievement/award received outside the workplace

Having a scientific approach to employee gifting involves having a clear gifting and incentive framework for employees, including setting rules for eligibility and redemption. Moreover, complete transparency and strict adherence to the budget can be gained through a robust digital platform. Conducting surveys and getting regular feedback on the gifting process helps firms constantly improve and get new incentive ideas. The ‘art’ of gifting, however, involves aligning corporate gifts to company values and delivering superior ‘recognition moments’.

Creating a gifting calendar and configuring the various occasions on an R&R platform can help automate reward distribution, ensuring that gifts are disbursed on time, without exceeding the allocated budget. Considering that a majority of the global workforce is still working-from-home, manual methods of gifting have become obsolete and drain significant time and resources. Engaging today’s workforce therefore involves having a mix of tangible (cash-based, physical products) and instantly redeemable gifts (e-vouchers, online L&D opportunities). A digital gifting platform can offer an e-catalog from which employees can get the freedom to choose their own gifts. Some of the most popular gift categories are experience vouchers, gift certificates, and physical products spanning over gadgets, home appliances, etc. With the holiday season upon us, the way a gift package is delivered makes all the difference. For remote employees, a timely, well-packaged gift delivered to the doorstep creates an enduring positive impression. Every employee interaction, especially on happy occasions such as festivals, adds to the growing attachment with the organization and brand as a whole.

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Channel Partner

Engaging and Incentivizing Channel Partners in the FMCG Sector

channel partner engagement

The ‘Indian FMCG sector’ and ‘distribution channels’ are practically synonymous with each other. Traditionally in India, distribution networks were owned by large FMCG firms- these distributors in turn worked closely with retailers or small-scale kirana stores to push products to the end consumer. Hence, the entire business model, including scale, margins and market share has always depended vastly on channel partner networks and secondary sales channels.

In today’s times, the FMCG industry has evolved and expanded, resulting in numerous firms bringing vast, sophisticated product lines to the market. Customers are the ones driving demand and stocking strategies at local distributor stores. As a result, now more than ever, channel partners are exposed to multiple competing firms.

Unlike earlier times, a single conglomerate can no longer dictate all the terms of their relationship with distributors/dealers. The latter own their distribution networks and often collaborate directly with aggregators and ‘modern’ kirana stores in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. The terms of the trade, therefore, are changing with the evolving retail landscape. At the same time, the role of sales representatives has also changed. Be it a classic or a co-investment model- wherein a firm contributes its own salespeople towards a channel partner’s efforts- sales agents are no longer merely responsible for managing inventory and pushing end-retailers to sell. They’re now actively responsible for maintaining channel relations and ensuring brand awareness/relevance in the face of high distributor turnover (in fact, even the churn rate of salespeople has spiked). Considering the above scenario, FMCG firms need to work in close partnership with sales and channel partners to create value and sell to the modern, often fickle customer.

Channel partners need to feel a sense of affiliation with a brand to stay connected. Discounts and cashback schemes are no longer sufficient to drive channel performance. Continuous, 24X7 sales support, along with relevant training and a targeted incentives scheme is the need of the hour for healthy channel relations, particularly in the FMCG sector. A comprehensive sales incentives and channel management software can help streamline processes and eliminate human error, in the following ways:

  • Equipping head of sales/sales managers with the data they need for longer-term planning and understanding channel partner ROI for better negotiations. In addition, helping them determine and push the top performing SKUs as well as planning the right product mix, all through real-time data visibility
  • Helping ASMs closely track the performance of team members through a territory-wise sales tracking dashboard
  • Enabling sales executives to seamlessly share product information, unique benefits as well as monitor distributor performance through a single digital portal
  • Assisting a firm’s marketing team to develop the right sales enablement collateral by sharing pulse surveys with channel partners. A platform like Gratifi can help administer surveys digitally and translate collated results into actionable insights
  • Helping distributors stay connected to the firm as well as to the firm’s other channel partners through an online community or forum, where questions can be posed and answers can come from various stakeholders, providing rich insights and a useful, accessible knowledge base

With the rise of aggregators and omni-channel platforms, the FMCG industry now relies on a smaller pool of channel partners to drive their business. As we move towards the future of retail, creating a best-in-class shopping experience for the end consumer will be the determining factor for channel partner success. Given that the COVID-19 pandemic has virtualized collaboration, this can seamlessly be made possible through cloud-based platforms. The result will be the empowerment of a firm’s sales and channel network, creating a win-win situation for both stakeholders.

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Channel Partner

Incentivizing and Engaging Channel Partners in the BFSI sector

The BFSI and NBFC sectors have expanded over the past decade to include a range of financial products and services. We are also seeing a startling increase in competition that has emerged with homegrown and international players tussling for market share. As a result, customer experience has become of prime importance and firms are increasingly looking to leverage their channel partner network for improved customer care, expanded product reach and boost in sales numbers. Such partners can range from customer service representatives, sales agents, vendors, consultants, aggregators and value-added tech resellers. Cash-based commissions alone can no longer inspire channel loyalty, which is why non-cash-based rewards and omni-channel incentive solutions are essential for effective channel partner engagement today.

Some of the major challenges faced by financial services firms with regard to implementing incentive programs are fragmented data, manual sales tracking, offline and inconsistent incentive calculation and stale incentive packages. The laborious system of uploading and sharing excel sheets for data exchange between multiple systems takes immense bandwidth of channel partners as well as firms. Additionally, secondary sales data is hard to capture and even harder to verify. Determining individual contributions towards a sale is a complex process if done manually. BFSI firms need to eliminate human errors in the incentive disbursement process which currently leads to significant losses over time, as explained in our previous blog.

A channel incentives software can help streamline administrative processes and make incentive programs attractive and accessible to the end consumers. To win the loyalty of agents, brokers and resellers, firms must use digital tools to promote their culture, ethos and overall brand differentiation, in addition to providing comprehensive product knowledge. A digital platform can greatly help in improving communication and overall brand connect with channel partners, using features like notifications, discussion forums, surveys and online knowledge hubs.  According to the Incentive Research Foundation (IRF), an automated awards system is a distinguishing feature of channel incentive programs of top financial companies, which ensures timely rewards for high performers. Digital platforms ease the burden of accounting teams by integrating incentive data with real-time performance tracking.

Their study showed 3 determinants of incentives for channel partners in top performing financial companies :

  • Financial outcome metrics- sales value, operating income, number of units sold
  • Activity metrics- number of leads, CRM updation
  • Customer relationship metrics- customer feedback, repeat customers

An interesting case in point is that of our client, who uses Gratifi’s system to gamify regular target milestones and allows channel partners to win electronic gadgets, automobiles and experience vouchers, in addition to gift cards. Their channel partners also receive regular communication regarding product updates, sales differentiators, marketing collaterals and target reminders within the rewards platform.

The current tide of digital transformation has a host of benefits for BSFI firms willing to leverage the often overlooked indirect sales force and engage them meaningfully for maximum results.