NEWS
Engagement, enablement and energy are key to business
presentation at the Towers Watson Employee Engagement seminar
6 Dec 2011

Kuala Lumpur | In early November 2011, Towers Watson Malaysia shared its experience in the practice of Sustainable Engagement and methods of measurement, demonstrating how human resource strategies can drive corporate and financial performance.

Towers Watson has shown that as organisations look towards increasing financial returns for their businesses and improving corporate performance to gain a competitive edge, the spotlight has been turned towards refining employee engagement strategies.

Employee engagement is no longer confined to workforce interaction within a confined space, but it has now expanded to include other factors such as work environments and employee wellness. Towers Watson indicated that organisations should look towards ‘enablement’, referring to equipping employees with proper supplies, processes and training to enable them to complete their jobs with little or no obstacles. By doing so,
Towers Watson found that employees were not only well informed and excited of an organisations goal, but were able to translate this enthusiasm into a high performance output.


Image:: (Left) Dr Jens Ballendowitsch, Senior Consultant - Organisational Surveys & Insights, Towers Watson Australia
and Dr Brent Ruge, Southeast Asia Practice Director – Organisational Surveys & Insights, Towers Watson.

On a micro level, Towers Watson emphasised that employers were recognising the importance of ‘energy’ in employees. To address the ‘energy’ levels of its day-to-day employee performance, organisations were now looking towards implementing health programmes targeted at improving social, psychological and physical aspects. Other aspects that involve employee well-being include managing work environments, workloads
and goal clarity.

To examine the connections between employee engagement and business performance, Towers Watson listed methods that include measuring the marketplace views, financial performance and operational performance. Other traditional HR measures include measuring turnover, absenteeism and presenteeism.

Towers Watson also covered methods of measuring exponential engagement, recommending employee opinion surveys as the best way to gather employees’ views. To better create and implement exponential engagement strategies, Towers Watson highlights the importance of identifying the critical drivers of engagement. Whilst these vary between different organisations, some common drivers include career development, employee confidence in organisational leadership and employee’s decision-making abilities.

Employees who are not only engaged, but also energised and enabled are expected to produce far greater financial benefits than employees who are merely engaged. The Towers Watson Employee Engagement seminar was presented by Dr Brent Ruge, Southeast Asia Practice Director - Organizational Surveys & Insights for Towers Watson and Dr Jens Ballendowitsch, Senior Consultant, Organizational Surveys & Insights for Towers Watson Australia.

Source : Towers Watson