In this part of my reflection, I will be focusing on Employee Engagement. Throughout my work attachment, most of the time I am handling matters on employee engagement. I was involved in organising festive bazaars (i.e. sourcing and liaising for vendors), organisation company wide employee engagement activities (e.g. World Environment Day roadshow, National Day morning surprise), development and enhancement of employee engagement initiatives and co-developed bi-monthly e-newsletter (e.g. searching for relevant topics such as wellness). At the same time, I was also part of the committee team who planned our own HR department’s recreational activities as well as part of the organising team for company’s semi-annual kick-off programmes.
One of the tasks that I was assigned was the analysis of the utilisation rate of Corporate Membership Schemes. From the analysis I had performed, it was evident that the one of the schemes did not reach its minimum return on investment. As such, I had proposed a cost-effective alternative that result in saving up to 50% of the given budget. From this task, I gained a better understanding of the correlation on motivation theory (i.e. Maslow’s theory of motivation, specifically belonging/love needs) to employee engagement. It had since come to my attention that compensation package is not always the main motivator for employees; thing like corporate membership scheme to attractions (which allow the employee to bring their family members along) also have a likelihood in increasing the intrinsic motivation of employees. With the presence of such scheme, employees can sense that the employer care for their well-being and not solely focusing on results. Hence, this allow employees to fulfil their need of belonging. I had also received several feedbacks from employees that they have benefitted from the corporate membership schemes.
In the post on work attachment reflection part 1, I had mentioned that Talent & Organisation Development (T&OD) had our own bi-monthly internal e-newsletter. Other than using the e-newsletter to disseminate information on personal development topics, T&OD also make used of it to share any upcoming engagement activities organised by us or some other weekends activities that the employees can participate in during their free time. Since the company had participated in the Corporate Steps Challenge organised by Health Promotion Board (HPB), we also utilised the e-newsletter as a platform to share with the employees on some wellness tips or programmes to increase their step counts and to update them about the progress of the Corporate Steps Challenge. From the development of the e-newsletter, I understood that ways to enhance employee engagement can come in any form. One of the way to enhance employee engagement is to have employee wellness. At the same time, I realised that employee wellness is not restricted to Health Screening Packages or having sport facilities within office premise. Sharing health related information on a regular basis could be a more sustainable measure in long run. Also, easily accessible tips shared would also be useful in promoting and improving employee wellness since the employees can check the information we shared during their free time as the e-newsletter are sent to their e-mail.
