2016 saw the term “Employee Engagement” turn itself into a major buzzword. Whether it’s a single HR or founder running a startup or a multi-national corporation’s HR Head leading a team of hundreds of human resource executives, they all understand the importance and benefits of employee engagement.
This year we did see certain positive steps in the adaptation and implementation of HR analytics and employee engagement tools and softwares, but it was vastly about getting fully educated on this subject and how companies can make tangible benefits from it.
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However, it is 2017 which is being foreseen to be the big leap for this industry when informed decision makers in the top management across companies will now begin to invest in employee engagement, feedback and workforce intelligence platforms.
Here are some of the key trends we are geared to witness in 2017:
1.) More, much more Millennials
This is not just the case in 2017, but is expected to continue till 2030 when more than 85% of the workforce in India and 70% in US will be all Millennials!
With the growth in millennial population in the workforce, there will be an even greater need for organizations often run by the previous generations to take harder look at employee engagement and participation policies. It has been well established the Millennial generation is very different from the ones that came before them. They mean work when they are at work but with greater creative freedom.
2.) Empathetically charged work leaders
Millennials are not just entering the workforce in greater numbers, but are doing so in leadership positions as well. Especially the more experience ones and Tier-1 college graduates. They understand the young working class today and are much more likely to bring about fundamental policy changes that drive up an empathetically charged engagement policy.
Moreover, even traditional leaders have recently woken up to the ground reality that a business that hires people need to be empathetic and treat people as they are – humans, not robots.
3.) Moderate rise in employee feedback and engagement
While employee engagement has been more than just a buzz word, the amount the shift that it has caused in terms of policies in organization has been rather moderate. It is expected to accelerate in the coming years, however, realistically 2017 will show only moderate growth in real employee engagement.
4.) Line between life and work will get more blurry
By that we do not mean an imbalance in life and work. We mean that more and more people will actually enjoy working – spending time with their colleagues and being passionate about what they do.
There is a saying that “If you love what you do, then work doesn’t seem like work”. More millennials are now aware of where their passion lies and refuse to settle for anything less than that, often refusing better paying jobs.
Moreover, with the increase in the startup work culture, no matter how moderate the rise in overall employee engagement, it still is a significant contributing factor in the increasingly blurred out line between work and life.
5.) Increased demand for workforce analytics and intelligence
With increasing interest in employee engagement and the tools that help make it happen in an impactful way, businesses are much more likely to adopt sophisticated employee analytics and intelligence gathering platforms.
Organizations are no longer looking for just means to survey their employees for feedback, instead, they want to understand how the mood and morale of their office space is at any given time, how their company fares against an Organizational Health Index (OHI) and above all, they want to see real analysis rather than just raw data in excel sheets!
