Creating employee delight is beneficial and fruitful for employees as well as for employer. Creating employee delight translates into employees who are a delight to work with. It is worthwhile to invest significantly in this process as it leads to higher employee retention, which is better than replacement.

They say prevention is better than cure. If you were to apply this adage to your workforce, it would make sense to say that employee retention is better than replacement. After all, employee turnover is associated with a number of costs - both hidden and evident.

Creating employee delight is a constant process

But let's concentrate on the positives, that is, on employee retention as opposed to turnover. Rightly speaking, if an employer has correctly gauged the benefits of employee retention, as opined by Satyam consultants Sunil Tadwalkar and Manjira Sen in an article in Ubiquity titled Manpower Retention in IT: An Oxymoron?, the retention of people would be considered a business goal rather than a damage control measure. And there - you could say - lies all the difference.

Most managers talk a lot about employee motivation so as to encourage employees achieve (often overrated) goals. But the same managers usually focus less on an employee's desires and needs. If you think of it, employee motivation benefits a business. In contrast, creating employee delight benefits both - an employee as well as an enterprise. Achieving the latter simply calls for a shift in perspective - to think of what an employee wants, in addition to what a supervisor and employer expect.

Yatish Hulkunte, founder & consultant naturalist, Life Environment Awareness Foundation believes every employee has a dream or goal, a basic point/platform that they need to reach. According to him, all an employer needs to do is to find out what this dream is - it is often not related to money - and assist in its fulfillment.

Do what you are told, do not think" - a strict no-no

Of course, you could argue that the dream should relate to the business purpose the employee was recruited for in the first place. This holds true - but only to a certain extent.

Employees often join an organization thinking of future opportunities that may come their way. Unless pressed by personal circumstances, they do not necessarily think of jumping the gun, so to speak, as soon as a better opportunity comes their way. For instance, a technically qualified person may aspire to work on the latest technologies and therefore join a well-established tech company in a junior capacity believing that s/he will sooner (preferably) or later make a better grade by proving his/her skills.

For these reasons, Sandeep Vegad, supporter campaigns with Greenpeace (www.greenpeaceindia.org) opines that "the creation of employee delight is essentially preceded by understanding a person so as to get the best out of him or her. Understanding, in turn, has to do with knowing why the person has opted to work with a certain enterprise? It may be the pull of a brand name, work culture, money or could be any other reason. This understanding is useful in deciding what and how much resources to invest on the person and in the process, retain the employee."

In truth, every employee desires the space that comes with a role of some authority wherein s/he can think and truly feel occupied and valuable. Simply speaking, the employee must be able to answer the question "Have I made a difference?" affirmatively. This gives rise to a feeling of ownership that encourages him/her to stretch more then s/he would otherwise. Well - isn't that kind of motivation that managers try to achieve in the first place?

An emotional engagement

Apparently, it all boils down to an emotional engagement of the employee with the organization. But should this sense of engagement (albeit professional!) extend also to a manager? If so, are managers responsible for creating this feeling and employee delight? Tadwalkar and Sen describe this feeling as an umbilical cord of connection to the organization - to communicate and be communicated with - and to know that his/her ideas, thoughts and creativity do matter.

An old clichéd debate related to employee turnover is whether employees leave organizations or managers. If the onus of creating employee delight rests on managers, it stands to reason that employee turnover is largely attributed to the failure of managers. It would therefore, help to empower managers to enhance their emotional competence and effectively leverage the same at the workplace. As this implies that managers do more than merely monitor performance and liaise between clients and staff, a measure of responsibility also rests on the senior and intermediate management to ensure supervisory staff has sufficient time to take on employee mentoring duties.

For instance, Gaurav Malik, area coach, Pizza Hut handles six outlets in Central Bangalore. Speaking of creating employee delight, he says an employer should "step into the employee's shoes and think about what they need by engaging them in regular one-on-ones over lunch or dinner." Hearing Malik talk of two hour sessions with individual employees (which are documented and if needed followed up one month later), I agree with the modus operandi as being an ideal way to understand employees and make them feel special, but question the availability of time with most front-line managers. After all, Pizza Hut and KFC have close to around 1200 employees in Bangalore itself.

Not employees, but internal customers

Nevertheless, Malik emphasizes that either he or his subordinate Unit Head effectively take on such regular sessions, which they view not as fault-finding or audit instances, but opportunities to determine if unit heads, assistant manager and staff are following correct procedures and if not, to facilitate, guide and motivate them in that direction. In short, Malik believes he has to communicate his Belief in People - as in the capabilities of his staff - to the people he works with.

Simultaneously, this time out (or should we say ‘time spent to clue into employees minds') helps bring to light employees desires for further training and growth opportunities. Malik opines that employees must be treated as though they are internal customers, as any organization would succeed only if it builds people capability - results automatically follow. This approach is also the best way to ensure a holistic review of employee performance that stretches beyond mere evaluation and takes into consideration employees talents - latent and patent - so as to ensure that employees do not feel under-utilized or that they're not working to their complete potential.

Office manager, ICF International, Neera Bhandari is responsible for the team of 35+ India staff. Explaining how ICF provides a career path that enables its employees to direct their own progression, she says "whether you begin your career with ICF as a research assistant or as an associate, you will have the opportunity to cultivate your skills in a challenging environment." She continues saying that ICF recruits talented individuals and provides them an environment that breeds innovation, balances teamwork with autonomy, and rewards achievement, both financially and professionally.  Essentially, employees are encouraged to develop specific skills through the talent development program. Bhandari believes this opportunity to learn and grow while contributing to a clients' success leads many of their staff to build their careers at ICF.

Ideally, appraisers should metamorphose into performance catalysts and organizational developers by focusing on various facets of talent - talent-spotting and mapping, talent-centric goal setting, talent engagement and talent development.

Recognition and appreciation

Talent development is in itself, recognition of capabilities that precede the allocation of an expanded role at work. Another kind of recognition that follows a job well done helps keep employees' emotional engagement alive. But when this is absent, an employee feels de-motivated and uninspired to perform, and begins to search for other opportunities.

An enterprise must therefore have in place suitable means of rewards and recognitions, including yet not limited to compensation. Ram Sridhar, CEO, Eventful India, believes good work done by a particular employee should be appreciated and rewarded in the presence of all your staff. "Don't worry if the others are upset," he says "as this is very temporary." 

Bhandari describes the perspective at ICF in a few words - "Our people are the firm's greatest asset." Yet this approach leads the concern to value each member of its staff as a unique contributor - from the most senior executives who are renowned experts in their fields to junior staff who bring enthusiasm and new ideas to their work. At ICF, collaboration across practices and flexible career paths that crossover specialties - factors leading to employee delight - are strongly encouraged.

There is a host of other ways for employers to create employee delight. Malik suggests dedicating one day in a month to employees. You could also work to cut out red tapism and bureaucracy - major sources of employee headaches - or offer flexible working arrangements. At the end of the day, as creating employee delight translates into employees who are a delight to work with, it is worthwhile to invest significantly in this process that creates value all around. 

Charu Bahri is an author, freelance writer, columnist and [part-time] manager - projects and information systems at J Watumull Global Hospital & Research Centre. More about her at http://charubahri.googlepages.com

Issue BG84 Mar 08

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