Employee Engagement is the way out for Employee Retention - Key Notes

Hello there! Hope this week has treated you well, and, you have a contended weekend to start off the coming week with more energy. Talking about weekend, I attended a seminar on Employee Engagement, organized by iimjobs.com - 'All Things Talent Talk', in association with Event-Brite. The discussion was about prioritizing Employee Engagement as a way out for retaining employees in the organization. As a 'fresher' in the Corporate Domain, I'm really glad that I'm putting this platform to good use by sharing the key notes from this enriching seminar from Industry Experts. 

The Panel comprised of:
1) Mr. Mayur Satyavrat - Head of Learning, Organizational Development, Talent Management, Leadership Development at RBL Bank
2) Mrs. Esha Ahuja - Executive Vice President Human Resources at NCDEX
3) Mr. Sanchayan Paul - Head of Rewards, Organization Effectiveness and Change at Vodafone, India
4) Ms. Tanmayi  Vepakomma - Lead Talent Management and Leadership Development at Piramal Enterprises Ltd.

Firstly, why Employee Retention? 
Employee Retention is important from the organization's perspective because the employees are already accustomed to, and have aligned themselves with the culture of the organization, hence, it leads to lesser investment in the process of re-hiring and induction and also more business can be obtained from the existing employees. 

Next, Who's Agenda it needs to be for Employee Retention?
While the subject and the strategies of Employee Engagement and Retention be a part of the HR Department, but it requires equal involvement of the HR, the CEO, Employees and the immediate Supervisor / Line Manager, as one unit, working towards the give-and-take well-being of the employees for retaining them.

The Corporate Environment is seeing a massive change in the Employee Landscape, there is war for talent (less jobs, more talent), boundaries are collapsing, i.e. globalization and communication are taking over as a pivotal part of the organization, four generations are working together, hence Employee Retention has become equally diverse and crucial.

Another Key Aspect that was shared today, which I believe to be could be one of the most effective ways to handle Employee Retention through Engagement was treating the Human not as a 'Resource', but as a 'Possibility'. This concept is explained as follows:
Possibility means the feasibility of any being. Space, Water, Air, Fire and Earth are the 5 Elements of Life, on similar lines, the organization needs to be a holistic being in itself in order to retain employees: 
Space implies the vision and the purpose of the organization in the long run.
Water implies the flow of the processes of the organization.
Air, which can only be felt, is the culture that the organization has set.
Fire, i.e., the warmth in terms of the bonds that the team has to optimize productivity.
Earth, last but not the least, the element that keeps us and the organization 'grounded', the foundation which needs to be strong and the hierarchy that is just-and-fair - This is how you can set up an enriching Employee Engaging Culture in your organization. 

Coming of age, DATA is going to be huge when it comes to driving people practices and business productivity. While Predictive Analytics is something that everyone now seems to know about, Predictive Engagement is how you can build an EWS - Early Warning System (Aligning technology with policies and procedures designed to predict and mitigate the harm of employee attrition) provides useful insights about behaviour driven employee attrition. Once such a data is available, the organization can make amendments to enhance its engagement tactics. Over the time, the probabilities of EWS can be improvised by constantly updating data about the actual attrition that the organization has experienced. 

The last input, but the most crucial one: 'Listening' to the employees and 'responding' to their timely needs is the strongest lever to retain employees. Also, activities like 'Organizational Story-telling' and publishing them frequently in newsletters, motivates the employees and makes them feel connected with their organization.  

It was a wonderful experience to gain industry specific practical insights from the respected panel members, and it has been a delight to be able to share it with you'll through this blog. Keep sharing this post with all your fellow HR Team Members and Line Managers so that they too understand the need for Employee Engagement for retaining an existing super-productive pool of talent. I'm grateful to all my readers for following my page, every weekend.

Much Love, Positivity and Gratitude.

- Binal R. Chitroda
(#TheHRConnect)