Putting HR at the heart of the employee experience: engaging employees from an HR perspective

Creating the right employee experience and employee engagement strategy has become one of the fundamental focal points for many organisations. From high staff retention levels to increased productivity, the added value of engaged and committed employees is increasingly being recognised by business leaders.

Who owns the employee experience or employee engagement anyway, the CEO, HR, Recruitment, Internal Comms, or is it all of them? Depends on the organisation and who is pushing the agenda for change internally or who is tasked with the issues that are often resolved and improved by higher levels of employee engagement.

But let’s agree in the main that the responsibility for employee engagement and the employee experience does sit with HR, what does it mean to HR departments and are we all, whatever our specific HR expertise or discipline, doing enough to integrate the total HR perspective into the employee engagement strategy?

The dynamics of employee engagement and HR departments are changing.  No longer segregated by specific job roles solely focused on recruitment or company-led processes, HR departments now play a key role in creating and integrating employee engagement initiatives and helping to define and shape the employee experience.  Often, this includes, but is not limited to designing and executing employee surveys, analysing and assessing the results and diving deeper in to issues through interviews and focus groups. All before reporting back to senior leaders’ of the key significance and  potential future actions required for improving and enhancing employee engagement in the organisation and to drive retention, attendance, productivity, innovation, development, teamwork, safety and compliance,  as well as employee advocacy as a great place to work to help recruitment efforts.

As the merge between communications, talent and resourcing, learning and development, marketing and HR departments increases, (as well as more regular invited and listened to, employee feedback opportunities andplatforms) HR professionals are frequently becoming more responsible for integrating actions from key insights and results generated from the employee  voice, including employee engagement surveys and 360 feedback surveys, into future marketing and comms strategies, shaping communication approaches, role performance expectations and levels, values and behaviours, the employer brand and culture and the overall structure of the organisation.

Which is why, more organisations are proactively choosing to integrate HR led and focused employee engagement tools; strengthening employee engagement on a practical and productive level and facilitating organisations in achieving holistic approaches in improving, projecting and actioning future growth and sustainability in their industry.

From surveys to focus groups, strategies to processes, integrating the total HR perspective is increasingly having a renowned effect on overall employee engagement scores – giving companies collective insights from start to finish of the employee journey and employee experience. Combine that with creatively engaging, timely, relevant and intelligent internal communications and behaviour change can positively happen.

Rather than viewing your HR department as just in-house recruiters, case managers or employee policy creators and regulators, recognise the value in their roles, that they all now play, the insights they gain, the positive impact potential and dramatic benefits they can implement and integrate into the overall people strategy in pursuit of achieving the business strategy of the company.

HR is so much more than a recruitment or policy department, it is your foundation for better employee engagement and organisational performance!

Further reading: http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/report-summaries/report-summary-what-customers-want-hr

 

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Engage & Prosper is a UK based privately owned Employee Engagement Consultancy and Social Enterprise, on a mission to help organisations develop a highly productive and fulfilling workplace culture, with their people, through enhanced employee engagement strategies, fabulous and effective internal communications platforms and tailored reward and recognition programmes.

For more information on Engage & Prosper or to discover how we can help you achieve your organisational and people goals please call +44 (0) 330 223 0464 or find out more at www.engageandprosper.com