Are happy employees engaged or engaged employees happy?

It is a known fact that employees with high job satisfaction are generally more productive, engaged and loyal to their companies. Keeping the employees happy has been significant for organisational sustainability. However, the term ‘Happy’ could not be defined under one school of thought and has different denotation for companies today. 

To begin with and decode the happy quotient, it is vital to understand your workforce. 

“We conduct a yearly employee satisfaction survey which factors what is relevant and not relevant to both employees and the employers. Apart from this we have employee sentiment management which maps the sentiments of the employees including health,” says Anthony Joseph, HR Head, Hinduja Global Solutions, who mentions how the nature of work sometimes brings in stress. It therefore becomes imperative for companies to map the workforce’s sentiments to keep their well being under check. 

Are happy employees engaged or engaged employees happy? Pradyumna Pandey, VP & Head Human Resources, JK Tyre & Industries Ltd has a different take on keeping the employees happy. “Discipline is important in terms of job accountability, creating transparent processes, flexibility in utilising the policies and others,” says Pandey, who mentions how digitalisation is easing the flexibility to seep in. However, most important aspect of all is motivation by leadership behaviour. Pandey echoes that the core focus of the organisation must be to keep its workforce motivated by leadership which keeps the roots of the company intact.
As digitalisation enters the organisations, the workforce itself has got divided, putting employers under a challenging cloud. Ayan Mazumdar, Director-Rewards, Emerging Markets Pearson talks about the digital transition of the company with hiring of new skills, indirectly connoting to millennials. At the same time, the company has almost 60% of the 8-10 years sustained workforce. 

“There is a challenge to understand the needs of the already existing workforce and at the same time understanding the millennials who bring different kind of skill set and dynamics in the company,” according to Mazumdar.
Talking about keeping the workforce happy the conventional way, companies have their own strategies ranging from recreation activities, fun Fridays, flexible working conditions and others. One new disruption recently added to this strategy and gaining traction is family engagement. For instance, a lot of companies have set up ‘walk clubs’ where the families of the employees come together to mingle.

“We are a part of a global workforce today but we do not know anything about our own surroundings. City walks are not a great way to keep the employees motivated and happy but also a great learning and a conversation starter. We have big corporates coming to us to take their teams for city walks now and then,” says Nidhi Bansal, Co-Founder, India City Walks.