Engaging with employees is a full time job

Companies, big or small, thrive because of the people who work for them. It is the passion of the employees that drives a company towards its target and its success. And hence, one would imagine that engaging with one's employees would be the biggest priority for a company. But sadly, while this could be the stated objective, in more cases than not, HR (perhaps the designated department to carry the onus of employee engagement) might be busy handling matters of immediate urgency such as a recruitment drive or a Comp and Benefits presentation to the COO!

It is not to say that an employee engagement strategy and plan is easy meat - infact, one would say that most mid-sized companies should have an exclusive resource to manage employee engagement. Several questions come up about what constitutes employee engagement.

At a broad level, it's about creating an eco-system which places the employee as an important pillar of the organisation's being and success. It then boils down to deriving strategic guidelines on

• creating a framework to reward good employees with challenging and high visibility work
• encouraging the practice of knowledge sharing and team work - intra and inter departments
• streamlining the compensations and benefits policy that is built on the principles of meritocracy
• ongoing communication with the employees to enhance the spirit of belongingness

Giving employees visibility with the CEO is just one of the things that can pull up employee morale considerably and this is one aspect which Cisco seems to do so well - http://features.bizmore.com/2009/08/the-employee-birthday-breakfast/

At the end of the day, a high employee satisfaction score is a factor of all the above and in my humble opinion any company looking for employee engagement should do a grounds up introspection to put together a integrated plan.