Employee Engagement Through Effective Leadership Strategies

The buzz word in the HR world today is “employee engagement”. Go through any HR magazine or newspaper, the first term one notices is “employee engagement or engaged employees”. But are companies really putting an effort to engage people?

According to HR professionals, employee engagement is a term that describes an individual’s dedication and level of motivation towards his/her work and company. This concept takes into consideration an employee’s psychological state, behavioural engagement and skill engagement.

When HR professionals succeed in acquiring the best talent, engagement levels of new employees is at its zenith. They are excited and buzzing. They are already in the process of making a difference in their new role. However, this engagement level diminishes over a period time. For some, this engagement level might just reduce in weeks. However, some of the most crucial questions any HR researcher or professional must ask is – Why do employees become disengaged? What is the underlying factor that leads to the reduction of engagement in employees?

One of the answers to these questions lies in the leadership level of the company. It is understood that the employees become disengaged as a result of a leader’s conduct and attitude, their behaviour, words and action. When a leader doesn’t appreciate or value their employees’ efforts and ideas, they become bossy. And nobody wants to work under a boss who undervalues performance and cribs about every little issue.

Another answer on disengaged employees that talent consultants or researchers have arrived to is micromanagement – a control freak or somebody who keeps an eye on everything. In such a work environment, a leader keeps track of every little thing their employees do such as banning them for socialising with other departments, lunch-hours reduced, lack of recreation activity etc.

Micromanagement also leads to inherent favouritism and biased judgement which hampers employees’ creativity and thus, makes them highly disengaged.