HR has continually struggled in making the investment case for engagement building programs and services. Gallup, as we must all know by now, indicated that a disengaged employee costs companies 40% of their payroll. One just needs to let that number sink in for a few moments to realize the magnitude of this issue. As an HR executive, what comes to mind when confronted with this stark generalization? First and foremost, the natural reaction for most executives would be to figure out just how many disengaged workers exist within one’s organization. There are of course many ways to do this, most of which revolve around the ubiquitous annual or pulse employee engagement survey. Whichever approach one takes, validating the issue and determining overall levels of engagement is the starting point. No doubt all HR executives know this drill.
Conventionally, it all starts with analyzing the results, reviewing with the executive team, coming up with a myriad of recommendations for improvement and finally communicating the “sanitized” results back to the people in the organization. The issue with this process conducted year after year is that it’s lost its overall effectiveness. It’s like the organization has developed an immunity against it and no longer responds. In fact, overall levels of engagement have barely gone up since Gallup started measuring it way back when in the early 2000’s with billions of dollars spent following this approach.
So, what’s an HR executive to do? The answer in my opinion is simple – alter the process. This is not to say that one has to immediately throw out the existing approach, but rather start gradually by introducing new and innovative ways to build engagement directly at the worker level. In other words, change the Engagement paradigm from a top-down driven model to a “Worker Up” model where employees are given voice to call out what’s working well and what’s not. Giving workers the tools to innovate and transform their environment into a fresh constantly evolving workplace where everyone has the opportunity to build engagement each and every day of the year and not just doing so by filling out an annual employee engagement survey.
I invite everyone to check out RehvUp www.rehvup.io Unlike other engagement platforms, RehvUp is an “active” human engagement platform. We build engagement through human experiences from the Worker Up. We utilize Employee Experience coaches from all walks of life – Mental Health, DEI experts, HR, Management Leaders, Social Influencers, and others that create short continuous positive content that workers relate and respond to with one another.
Utilizing RehvUp is easy to implement – employees can download the application in less than 90 seconds and be ready to go in no time at all. Imagine the possibilities for you and your company!
