Employee

Engagement
Handbook
A 2022 guide for new-age
HRs with actionable solutions

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Why you need this guide
This super simple guide helps you cut through the
existing noise that surrounds engagement. It applies
to the context you find yourselves working in today.

• We throw out all the stuff that’s no

longer accurate.

• We give you evidence-based, targeted,

and concise advice to navigate employee
engagement in the new normal.

• We suggest tools, approaches, and ways of

working you can take into account for your
business today.

Like playing a sport or learning to play an instrument,

first, you need to understand the steps to improve.
And then, practice, practice, practice. The results only
come in when you commit to doing the work and being
consistent about it.

Let’s dive right in!

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5 Proven Steps to Boost
Employee Engagement →

Gather data-driven
Step 1:
insights to determine the
direction of engagement pg 4

Turn the Great

Step 2:
Resignation into great
re-engagement pg 7

Step 3: Focus on outcomes pg 11

Quality managers
Step 4:
make a world of a difference pg 17

Unlock wellness -the

Step 5:
door to thriving employees pg 21

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Step 1:
Gather data-driven insights
to determine the direction
of engagement

Imagine your market to be an ocean that endlessly

sprawls across different directions, and your business,
a ship. Will you let your ship cruise to the whims and
fancies of the market winds? Or will you navigate in a
specific direction? The answer is simple.

To navigate, however, you need a compass. That is

data. Data allows you to focus on the right route
and helps scale for maximum impact. Think of it as
looking at the way your business performs through a
magnifying glass. Data is the cornerstone upon which
successful decision-making rests. It goes without
saying that business leaders today rely on data as
their primary tool for both short-term and long-term
decision-making.

Valuable Continual Improved program

insights growth outcomes

Optimised Prediction of Actionable

operations future trends insights

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A great place to start is with Gallup’s Q12 survey, which
consists of 12 carefully crafted questions that measure
the most important elements of employee engagement.

1. Do you know what is expected of you at work?

2. Do you have the materials and equipment you
need to do your job?
3. At work, do you have the opportunity to do what
you do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have you received
recognition or praise for doing a good job?
5. Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem
to care as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages
your development?
7. Do your opinions count at work?
8. Does the mission/purpose of your company
make you feel that your work is important?
9. Are your co-workers committed to doing
quality work?
10.Do you have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, has someone at work
told you about your progress?
12.During this last year, did you have the
opportunity to work to learn and grow?

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 Q11 Q12
growth

Q07 Q08 Q09 Q10

teamwork

Q03 Q04 Q05 Q06

individual contribution

Q01 Q02
basic needs

Every individual question is meticulously crafted

after more than 30 years of surveying employees.
From primary needs to individual contributions to
teamwork and the desire to apply new ideas and make
improvements, each question represents a point within
the four stages of hierarchy that an employee goes
through on their path to engagement.

These engagement questions do a whole lot more

than gather information and measure engagement.
When paired with developmental manager
conversations, they directly translate into better
business outcomes - time and time again.

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Step 2:
Turn The Great Resignation to
great re-engagement
Over a decade ago, Zappos, an online retailer
headquartered in Las Vegas, rose to fame when they
spearheaded the “pay-to-quit” concept. This entailed
a bonus for those employees who quit their jobs.
Although it sounds bizarre, the ideology behind it
makes it justifiable.

Zappos believed the company would be better off

without employees who weren’t dedicated to their
work, values, and mission. Tony Hsieh, the former
CEO, perfectly captures this in his book Delivering
Happiness. He said that the goal of Zappos is for
employees to think of their work not as a career or
job but as a calling.

Fast-forward to now, the pandemic is organically

doing what Zappos and other businesses have done
artificially - prodding employees to ask themselves
whether their companies and jobs are the right fit,
and if not, causing them to make changes.

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 The Great Resignation is an opportunity
for #TheGreatReengagement.

It’s a call to action for HRs - for you to start investing

in your star players. This is how you can do it with the
9-Box Performance Model.

Potential Gem High Potential Star

High potential/ High potential/ High potential/
Low performance Moderate High performance
performance
Potential

Inconsistent Core High

Player Player Performer
Moderate Moderate Moderate
potential/ Low potential/ Moder- potential/ High
performance ate performance performance

Average Solid
Risk Performer Performer
Low potential/ Low potential/ Low potential/
Low performance Moderate High performance
performance

Performance
What is it? The tool helps with succession planning.
As an HR, you can quickly identify leaders and
strategically prepare employees for future roles.
The framework, literally, determines an employee’s
future within an organization and encourages managers
and leaders to evaluate employees on two factors:
1. Their past performance
2. An estimation of their future potential

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After you determine an individual’s position on the
grid, decision-makers can establish how and where
to invest their efforts:

Identify individuals who consistently

underperform. You can show interest to
offer a position that’s better aligned or
opt for termination.

Support employees, so they can increase

potential or improve performance and move
up on the grid.

Recognize high performers for their

excellent results.

The purpose of a 9-box is also to aid organizations in

planning better for future prospects.

How to use the tool?

The vertical axis signifies potential while the horizontal
axis displays performance. When an employee falls
higher on the grid, it exhibits that they have more
potential. The farther they move away from the vertical
axis, the better their performance. The star performers
are ones in the top right corner. They perform well as
well as exhibit tremendous potential to grow.

Conversely, those on the bottom left are low

performers who have little to no potential to advance
in their careers or role.

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As stated, this is a tool for succession planning.
When you plot potential and performance on the grid
and evaluate employees, succession planning takes
over. You can shortlist those individuals who fall in
the top right box for succession while not those in the
bottom left. You can either reassess or remove them
from your organization.

Here is how to go about it:

Step 1: Define the building blocks of the

9-box model – the what, why, and how

Step 2: Customize it to your

organization’s requisites

Step 3: Plot the result of the assessment

and the identification process

Step 4: Start the development journey

Senior management can use this information to

implement strategies to keep people engaged and
motivated in their roles – especially if the majority
of people are clustered towards the middle and the
bottom of the 9-box grid.

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Step 3:
Focus on outcomes
Imagine you’re going somewhere new and you use
Google Maps for directions. Maps show you 3 different
route options - 30 minutes, 38 minutes, and 40
minutes. Which one do you pick? Without a doubt, the
most efficient, right?

That’s essentially what an outcome-focused mindset

is. Without a destination, you wouldn’t have been able
to figure out the best way to reach it. Similarly, when
you set goals for your projects and organization, you
pave an efficient and clear path to forge ahead and
achieve them.

Don’t let outcome confuse you with output. They’re

two very similar terms with very different meanings.

The “what” of activities and actions are outputs,

whereas the “why” or the reason you chose those
activities or actions are outcomes.

Output - Outcome -
New employee Increase employee
engagement plan engagement by 10% YoY

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 Output - Outcome -

The things we do The results I hope

to get after doing
Deliverables, something
projects, etc, that
help us to work Measurable results
towards our goals defined as success
of the goal
We hope it brings
success but doesn’t Shows the success
guarantee it loud and clear!

Might change if it Stays the same

doesn’t bring results until achieved

While they go hand-in-hand - outcomes don’t happen

without output, however, outcomes have a great
impact on your customers, mission, and company.

With employee engagement, the Aon Hewitt

employee engagement model brings business
outcomes into the equation. It connects the dots
between business targets and engagement drivers
by adding a middleman: engagement outcomes.
These are essentially goalposts to help leaders gauge
the level of engagement.

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According to the model, organizations should
aim for three engagement outcomes:

Say - Engaged employees become your

company’s ambassadors. Their enthusiasm
shines through positively when they talk
about the organization, both externally
and internally.

Stay - Have you ever thought about the

fact that employees want to stay with
a company? More than just a paycheck,
they’re there because they feel satisfied
with the work, connected to the people,
and loyal to the organization.

Strive - Engaged employees strive to

go the extra mile and do their best
work for the organization. Because they
feel invested, inspired, and motivated,
they contribute above and beyond
what’s needed.

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To achieve the desired engagement and business
outcomes, companies need to fine-tune drivers. Hewitt
categorizes them into foundations and differentiators.

Foundational ones are core company elements

that you need for engagement.

The work - The work employees do must

be challenging and tailored to drive
engagement. At the same time, giving them
the right resources will help deliver their
best performance. Give them mentally
stimulating tasks and encourage autonomy
and collaboration.

Company practices - How an organization

operates on a day-to-day basis like support
toward employees, inclusion efforts,
staffing tools, communication, etc. sets
the foundation for employees to stay and
strive. Evaluate and update these with a
mind toward what is best for your people.

Basic needs - Basic needs of employees

are good work-life balance, a competitive
salary, job security, etc., and fulfilling these
needs improves retention. When basic
needs are taken care of, employees engage
with your organization on a higher level.

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The differentiating drivers are factors that set
you apart from your competitors and make
your company a place people want to work at
and feel proud of working for. They contribute
to your employees’ staying, striving, and saying
good things about your company.

Performance - Recognition is an essential

part of engagement. When an employee is
recognized, they know their contributions
matter leading them to stay and strive. As
a company, you need to create learning
and development programs, a culture of
recognition, and more career opportunities
to drive higher engagement.

Leadership - Leaders play a vital role

in engagement. As a leader, you must
actively involve yourself in your employees’
lives, pay attention to their feedback, and
commit to a better experience. This leads
them to say, stay and strive.

Brand - The way your organization is

perceived is not important only for
customers but employees as well. When
you build a strong company reputation
and a positive work environment, you
encourage the “say” engagement outcome.

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 Leadership

Performance Brand

The work
experience

The work Basic needs

Company
practices

Say Stay Strive

When you refine and adjust these drivers of

engagement and follow this model, as a business
you can consistently achieve the desired engagement
outcomes and improve overall employee engagement.

Remember, the first step is to address the needs

of your workforce and parallelly create opportunities
for them to thrive. You’ll then succeed at employee
engagement.

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Step 4:
Quality managers make a world
of a difference

“I’d rather interview 50 people

and not hire anyone than hire
the wrong person.”

- Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
Amazon is obsessed with hiring the right people.

This obsession to hire only the crème de la crème

has helped the organization survive the 2000 dot-com
crash where the NASDAQ fell by 78% and innumerable
hot-shot startups filed for bankruptcy and vanished.
While Amazons has seen tremendous growth
ever since!

Of course, you’re thinking that all organizations look to

hire the best. What’s so different about Amazon? The
idea of “bar raisers” is what makes them different.

“Bar raisers”

Amazon has a bunch of significant cultural values

like customer obsession, a high bar for talent,
ownership, innovation, etc. Bezos felt that every
new hire should bring this with them. Thus, he
introduced the “bar raiser.”

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The bar raiser is like the final hurdle in Amazon’s
interview process. Basically, an existing Amazon
employee is selected through lengthy training and a
nomination process. They become evaluators who run
the final interview as well as make the final judgment
of hiring. They’re put in place so as to ensure the hiring
manager isn’t hiring anyone too quickly for short-term
gain or a below-average candidate.

Although it sounds quite extreme, it’s one way Amazon

makes sure their hiring standards never slip.

So how do you follow the steps of Amazon and raise

your own hiring bar?

We’re not asking you to go the whole nine yards and

refactor bar raisers into your hiring process. You can
make minor, actionable tweaks instead.

1. Rather than hiring someone who merely fits

your culture, look for people that add to your
culture. This way, every member on a team
brings something different to the table and
when they approach business problems, they
come up with clutter-breaking solutions from
all directions.

2. Look for intellectual horsepower and curiosity.

They’re indicators that a candidate can grow
beyond their current set of skills and become
a leader in your organization.

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3. Align your recruiting team around the goal of
hiring the right person, not just hiring quickly.
Because of a time crunch or urgency, don’t
compromise on your hiring bar.

4. Diversify assessment. If bar raisers are

something you cannot implement, try
something else. For instance, a presentation
to stakeholders. The idea is to go beyond
standard interviews and resume reviews and
dig deeper into a candidate. You can do this by
work simulations, cognitive tests, or personality
evaluations to help predict success.

5. Put everyone through a trial period and also

offer ample training and learning to improve
skills and knowledge.

6. Take into consideration both technical and

soft skills. You need to realize that management
has more to do with character than knowledge.
Also, promote based on a level of aptitude and
interest in people skills.

7. When a new hire or an existing manager isn’t

fitting in, quickly take action. Transfer them to a
new position at the earliest.

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Let’s flip the switch from the hiring talk to
employee engagement.

Ultimately, managers or “middle management” are

the ones who’re doing all the groundwork. They work
with employees on a daily basis, develop strategies,
and execute plans. They determine how an employee
experiences and expresses the employee-organization
relationship. So, it’s critical to cherry-pick the right
team of superheroes for your organization.

Employees who trust their managers will stay with

the company have better morale, which translates to
enhanced productivity, efficiency, and engagement.

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Step 5:
Unlock wellness - the door to
thriving employees
A pool table at work and free beers over the weekend
definitely create a positive work environment. But do
they really contribute toward employee engagement?
They don’t!

They’re nice gestures, but they don’t play a part

in improving employee wellbeing either. Health
and wellbeing are an integral part of employee
engagement. Just like you cannot separate the mind
from the body, you cannot separate wellbeing from
work life.

The Harvard Business Review found that, on average,

employers who invest in comprehensive group health
insurance along with wellness and wellbeing initiatives
saw a nearly 3 to 1 return in money invested.

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 In Gallup’s 2021 report, you can find some
insightful information into factors that
affect employee engagement, including
well-being. Well-being is not just physical
but includes several other aspects.

Physical
Wellbeing

Career Social
Wellbeing Workplace Wellbeing
Wellbeing

Community Financial
Wellbeing Wellbeing

Thriving employees report high levels of satisfaction

in all these areas. People feel good at work when they
feel psychologically safe, happy, and healthy. As a
result, they are less likely to experience burnout and
thus, are more engaged.

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No matter what industry your business caters to,
employee wellness is something you mustn’t brush
aside or knockback on. Only when you prioritize the
wellness and wellbeing of employees will engagement
eventuate. Therefore, start acknowledging it as a core
value and don’t let it take a back seat.

A few ideas to kick start employee wellbeing

are:

Investing in good comprehensive group

health insurance for employees along with
added benefits like mental health and
telehealth benefits.

Encourage flexible schedules and better

work-life balance

Offer opportunities for professional

development that align with employees’
needs, wants, and strengths.

Make financial resources available, such

as easy access to workshops on money
management or a financial planner.

Help employees get to know one another by

setting up initiatives like a buddy program,
mentorship, or an informal club.

Promote a lifestyle change by offering

rewards for being fit, completing 10,000
steps, visiting the gym more than thrice a
week, etc.
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 At the end of the day, employees
want:

A healthy work-life balance

A deep social connection

with colleagues

A deeper understanding of their

role in the business

To feel valued and appreciated

100

90
78 77
80
72 70 72
70
65
60 60

50 51

40

30

20

10

0
Personal

Skill

Control
Team
co-operation

performance

Knowledge

Attention

Common
bond

Headspace

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Boost employee
engagement
effortlessly

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