The socio-economic environment of recent years, the pandemic, the spread of remote working, and the increasing focus of employees on wellbeing put the focus onemployee engagement.
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2022 report found that only 4 percent of workers in Italy feel involved, 14 percent in Europe-a warning sign that management cannot afford to ignore.
Leaders’ abilities to energize their teams and build a listening relationship can mitigate the risks associated with newer dynamics, such as quiet quitting: unmotivated people, rather than resigning, are no longer willing to go above and beyond (in terms of hours or extra activities managed) and simply perform their duties as per their contract.
At the forefront of finding new balances and redefining corporate priorities are HR managers, who are aware that work needs to be done on engaging people, the company’s first brand ambassadors.
An employee is “engaged” when he or she experiences the relationship with the organization with positivity and satisfaction and feels actively involved in the company’s goals, aware that he or she brings a real contribution with his or her skills.
A solid set-up makes it possible to implement some concrete employee care actions, aimed, for example, at promoting:
- flexible work, making it underpinned by an appropriate HR management system and clear, easily accessible policies and procedures
- the so-called job rotation, or dynamic people management, which involves placing workers in a project in which they are periodically relocated to a new department, task, even role, allowing people to gain a global view of business processes and new skills
- continuous and personalized training through bottom-up development plans built on the training needs of the individual employee, incorporating, in the modalities, self-learning tools.
Underlying all action remains the need to have, more than in the past, HR and managers who are passionate and work together to bring out the potential of individuals by guiding them toward truly shared goals.
Belonging and people’s growth come from this very alliance!
