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Onboarding is an essential part of employee engagement: Anjan Pathak, Vantage Circle
1st March, 2021
Employee Experience caters to the employee’s journey within an organisation including all of their interactions and experiences, throughout their life cycle. Along with this, employee wellbeing has found renewed importance today, thanks to the pandemic.
“As an employer, we have invested in employee experience, as it enhances our ability to retain our employees and inspire people to work their best,” said Anjan Pathak, CTO and Co founder of Vantage Circle.
Significance of Employee Experience
According to Pathak, the advantages of shaping a great employee experience include high level engagement, enhanced customer experience, job satisfaction, lower chances of burnout, enhanced productivity and stronger peer relationships.
Speaking about the employee engagement challenges in the new normal, he said, “The Covid-19 unrest had made it difficult for us to engage our workforce due to remote working. Due to less employee interaction, the good old office communication was minimal.”
“Another significant challenge is onboarding and orientation. There are substantial drawbacks to online recruitment. Some of the unforeseen difficulties we faced include lack of transparency, brevity, buffering, and network failures. Thus, while recruiting and hiring through digital channels, the employee onboarding process was never the same. And I believe onboarding is an essential part of employee engagement,” he added.
Employee Engagement Initiatives
Mentioning various employee engagement initiatives that an organisation could take, Pathak said, “Employee Wellbeing is imperative for any organisation. To encourage a healthy lifestyle among your remote workers, you can conduct health challenges online. Apart from this, online office games can also be conducted within teams.”
He further said, “In my opinion, employee engagement activities positively impact employees’ mental wellness. It helps reduce stress and pressure of workload and deadlines, which is a good sign of employee wellbeing.”
Shift in Addressing Employee Wellness at Workplace
About the shift observed in addressing employee wellness at workplace, Pathak said earlier it was convenient to address employee wellness in the company, but now it is a challenge to inspire the employees to check on their health and wellness due to lesser training and workshop opportunities.
Pointing that remote work hid the mental health issues of employees under the surface of digital contact, he added, “Whether working from home or office, every leader needs to keep their workforce motivated and feel valued. Probe into their situation if you see them getting disturbed or disoriented at work. This enhances communication, trust and problem solving becomes seamless.”
He also asserted, “As a business owner, having good leadership skills is paramount to keep your workforce energetic and healthy. But doing all of this digitally can be physically and mentally draining as too many Zoom calls may lead to employee fatigue.”
Mental and Physical Health of Employees
Pathak also talked about initiatived adopted at their organisation for maintaining the mental and physical health of employees. He said, “We planned out a series of contests and challenges to keep our employees engaged even during the pandemic by organising weekly fitness tasks and activities like walkathons, running challenges, work-out challenges etc.”
Moreover, “Gamifictaion attracts equal and high participation from the employees. We set particular goals like completing 10,000 steps in a week. That becomes our weekly challenge. Similarly, we organise monthly events, E-Marathons, etc.”
Upskilling Employees
Highlighting that technology is creating fresh opportunities and job positions within the workplace, Pathak said, “We need to fill these new roles with candidates who have a specialised skill set. Upskilling will allow us to strengthen our workforce by creating learning opportunities. Thus learning and development are vital to upskilling employees.”
Also, “We tend to implement virtual online courses for our employees. By doing so, they can upgrad their skills in their relevant departments to a new level and stay updated with the rapidly changing enviornment.”
“As a business leader, I believe the key to a fantastic employee experience is to become employee centric. One must always think from the employees’ perspective and not only of the personal profits,” he concluded.