Understanding Drivers of Engagement from Employees’ Perspective during COVID-19

Abstract

Modern organizations are like organisms constantly evolving on an evolutionary scale. Employee engagement is a vital nutrient which in most of the cases decides the survival of the modern organizational creature in a jungle fighting for resources. Employees in the modern era constantly seek organizations which provide and actively improve the levers of engagement which provides them with both purpose and satisfaction of meaningful contribution. In this study, responses from participants reinforce and push to the frontier an important organizational cultural aspect which emerges as a key driver apart from “Leadership”, “Communication” & “Meaningful Purpose” across different strata of the occupations, industry, age group and genders. An additional dimension of the COVID pandemic (Impact Onset from the month of May 2020 considered for study) is also considered as a key factor in finding out how the drivers will evolve in the future In the present study, a survey method is applied, and statistical tools have been employed to determine the both traditional and evolving employee engagement drivers. In total a sample of 286 participants from Manufacturing, Retail, IT, Logistics, Education, Consulting, Interior design sectors as well as age has been analyzed. The study indicates that “Hyper personalization” is the key to consumer choices, a similar approach to employee engagement should be applied. The data suggests that each group has specific preferences in terms of “employee engagement” drivers and the era of “One size fits all” is over. Employees are passionate about “Growth”, “Leadership” & “Wellbeing” but each group deals with it differently and hence “HR engagement” policies have to be delivered in terms highly personalized engagement catering to each employee.

Keywords: Employee Engagement; Growth; Hyper-Personalization; Leadership; Motivation, Well-being