Introduction
This paper identifies two best practices to effectively engage employees in an
organization. It compares the best practices to the actual practices of a specific organization,
makes specific recommendations for that organization and identifies two insights gained into
employee engagement including specific actions to enhance leader effectiveness. Specifically, it
will define and analyze the two best practices using scholarly evidence. The organization that
will be used is Google. According to Mone & London (2018), there are various best practices to
effectively engage employees in an organization. The two best practices that will be discussed in
this paper are: keeping employees inspired and promoting diversity.
Keeping Employees Inspired
Employees will most probably be loyal to an organization serve their customers and most
importantly obey their leaders. According to Popli & Rizvi (2016), it is very easy to breed a
group of employees that are ready to take the organization to the next level. However, employees
will underperform in the organization if they are not motivated. It is therefore important for
managers to create a conducive environment where employees are comfortable working in. The
aim of creating such an environment in an organization is to make sure that the managers and the
employees are always in good terms for efficient productivity. Practices that a manager can
perform towards inspiring the employees include guiding and encouraging them on a day to day
basis. Managers should pay attention to the employees all the time.
Managers should get to know their employees by asking them about their welfare. When
a manager takes time to engage an employee at a personal level he or she gets to know more
about the employees’ history, experiences, and even family which helps to shape the relationship
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between the employee and the boss. A good manager communicates the organization's
expectations to the employees. Each employee in the organization must get a picture of how their
jobs and effort at work contributes largely towards the achievement of the mission, objectives,
and goals of the organization (Mone & London, 2018). An inspiring manager ought to be open
and available. Through making frequent contact with the employees, a good manager is in to
understand the reason behind the performance of a certain employee. An employee could be
experiencing health deterioration which impacts negatively on his or her performance at work. A
manager who interacts frequently with such an employee will motivate him or her. This boosts
the performance of the employee and is a clear demonstration of servant leadership.
Promoting Diversity
Innovation, as well as creativity, have emerged to be the fruits of promoting diversity in
most organizations. This is because people from all walks of life come together to build a team at
the workplace and the result is incredible. A diverse team in an organization consists of persons
with different experiences and this goes a long way in scaling the productivity of the
organization to greater heights. A diverse organization builds a workforce policy that is diversity
friendly. This means coming up with policies that will capture a wide group of people for
example when hiring employees the organization must ensure that the recruitment is done in
such a way that individuals from all backgrounds have an equal chance of joining the
organization. Furthermore, a diversity-friendly policy by an organization will exempt employees
off their duties during holidays or cultural days according to the employees’ background.
Implementation of such policies makes an organization an equal opportunity employer where
each employee is proud to work for (Popli & Rizvi, 2016). A diverse organization creates
mentorship programs to its employees. This involves ensuring that any employee that performs
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well and is eligible for promotion is granted the opportunity regardless of ethnic background,
religion or gender. Mentorship programs such as women empowerment help in promoting
gender equity in the organization. Promoting persons living with disabilities in the organization
as well as offering educational sponsorships has proved to be of positive impact on the
organization as well as building the reputation of the organization.
Mone & London (2018) say that Google keeps its employees inspired. This is despite the
fact that most employees are unmotivated in the majority of organizations. Google enables its
employees to have control over their jobs which enable them to complete their work in time and
build creativity as well. The leading company allows its employees to spend only a fifth of their
time at work. The twenty percent time at work keeps the employees at Google interested in their
work encouraging innovation while reducing the chances of boredom at the workplace. Google
promotes diversity in its organizational structure. This is evident in 2015 when the company
came up with a strategy in which employees set aside projects and ideas that are diverse (Popli &
Rizvi, 2016). Employees that work on such projects aim at ensuring that gender equity at
achieved at google by ensuring women and persons from other races such as Hispanics become
part of the Google team.
Recommendations
As one of the leading companies in the world, Google has shown great practices in
engaging its employees. On the other hand, it needs to explore other practices such as
articulating goals and responsibilities and promoting open and direct communications as
practices of engaging its employees. Articulating goals and responsibilities of employees goes a
long way in motivating and engaging employees. This involves showing employees specific
tasks that they are supposed to complete at the workplace (Mone & London, 2018). The
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organization's productivity is likely to drop when its employees are uncertain of their
responsibilities. A good manager improves employees’ engagement by reminding them of their
responsibilities. Promotion of open and direct communications is paramount towards motivating
and engaging employees. Inadequate communication hurts employee engagement in most
organizations. Engagement tends to grow whenever an employee is in a position to open up to
his or her manager and discuss matters concerning the job. Communication is of the essence as it
improves employee performance as well as innovation.
Insights
Mone & London (2018) point out that throughout the world, approximately 13% of
employees are regarded to be fully engaged as reported in leading research. It is a point that
needs to be looked at with a lot of concern since inadequate employee engagement negatively
affects the organization ranging from productivity and employer-worker relationship. It promotes
the performance of employees in that the workload is reduced. Engaging your team of employees
is the most important step towards solving day to day challenges in the organization which in
turn increases the profitability of the organization. A good leader would make engagement part
of the strategy in the organization. In the event that employee engagement plays a significant role
in boosting the overall performance of the organization, it will take precedence over other
strategies. A good leader would as well channel resources in programs such as leadership
development which would aim at ensuring my leaders are equipped with the necessary skills for
engaging a team of employees in my organization.
Conclusion
This paper has identified two best practices to effectively engage employees in an
organization. Keeping employees inspired has been suggested to improve the relationship
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between the boss and the employees. Promoting diversity will make an organization an equal
opportunity employer. Google, as a leading company has applied the two practices in engaging
its employees resulting in great innovation. The recommendations given to Google Company
include articulating goals and responsibilities and promoting open and direct communications.
These recommendations have been suggested to increase employee motivation and performance.
The insights gained from employee engagement shows that there is a need for promotion of
employee engagement worldwide and leaders should make it part of the organizational strategy.
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References
Mone, E. M., & London, M. (2018). Employee engagement through effective performance
management: A practical guide for managers. Routledge.
Popli, S., & Rizvi, I. A. (2016). Drivers of employee engagement: The role of leadership