Does Engagement start with making a rangoli on Diwali and ending with Chocolates on New Year?
HR is often and mostly best synonymous with Rangoli and at worst with No Calls.
I remember during one of the Diwali celebrations, all of the HRs lamented that we didn’t have anyone to make a rangoli and we would be deprived of festive joy because of our serious lack of Rangoli-making skills. But that Engagement event went without a hitch and no one missed a well-made or worse-made Rangoli.
So the question remains how does one Engage an employee?
Is Rangoli the right answer for it? Engagement begins with understanding the DNA of the organization. It truly matters what kind of organization you are and aspire to be.
It also has to be a multi-pronged approach. It doesn’t have to have fancy gifts on every festive occasion or a plant in the onboarding kit to be environmentally friendly.
In one of the retail organizations- I used to give a Rs 10 chocolate to every Team Member I met in the store, it was one of those low-effort engagements that cost very little but made every team member a little bit happier.
On a very different organization – one of the key events was a hackathon and it was celebrated more than Diwali as it was predominantly an engineering organization.
So the answer is WHO is the organization, the key demographic, and what kind of culture you would like to cultivate.
If you start your engagement plan with a top-to-bottom approach, you will never even reach the middle, even if you know how to make a rangoli.
Your Engagement should always start with most of your employees and slowly go to the top.