Beyond employee satisfaction

By N. N. Sachitanand

BANGALORE, AUG. 19. The acquisition, fostering and retention of talent is a matter of concern for organisations operating in today's competitive world. To address the above issue, a common practice is to conduct employee satisfaction surveys and evolve personnel policies based on the feedback. The belief has been that whatever enhanced employee satisfaction would accentuate employee commitment and performance and by extension boost the welfare of the organisation.

This, says eminent HR practitioner, Mr. Ashok Malhotra, is a delusion. Employee satisfaction is not the sole determinant of employee commitment. The latter has diverse and dynamic triggers. In fact, the more relevant question is not how committed is the individual alone, but what is the nature of commitment, the ground from which it springs and the object of his commitment.

According to Mr. Malhotra, who is the Chairman of the Chennai- based Ma Foi Management Consultants, commitment is a process that is generated in the interface between the collective psyche, the organisation identity and the organisation leadership. What individuals and groups commit to, the nature and strength of their commitment and the implications for overall organisational health flow from the dynamics of this interface.

Ma Foi has now come out with a framework called EmPACT to understand and reflect on the diverse pulls and pressures between the three constituents mentioned above and the nature of commitment that they foster among members. EmPACT's accent is on holism and the study is concerned with understanding the particular and simultaneously its interplay with the whole.

An EmPACT roll out study is preceded by a strong organisation sensing exercise. To start with, this would appear to be a typical employee opinion survey, with some key differences, namely:

Employee opinions/perceptions are taken and treated as such - perceptions - no more, no less;

The `collective' profile - psychographic and demographic - to understand the pulls of the collective psyche is deemed more important;

The organisation identity is mapped as a distinct component as is the leadership identity;

Data analysis, an off-site activity done by the EmPACT consultants.

This is then followed by a workshop involving the keynote persons in the organisation. The workshop is a crucial step in the EmPACT study as it is a platform to:

Share data, analysis and interpretations

Identify the entrenchments/dysfunctional elements that impact the individual - organisation interface;

Understand the planks of commitment that different groups within the organisation seem to operate from;

Identify the points of leverage that the organisation can build upon; and

Create a path forward.

Thus, as Mr. Ashok Malhotra points out, an EmPACT study does not impose the consultant's solutions. It is the keynote members of the organisation such as the top management and the employee association leaders, participating in the workshop, who decide upon the action plans based on the data analysis presented by the consultants.

According to Mr. K. Pandia Rajan, Managing Director of Ma Foi, EmPACT studies have already been initiated in a few large organisations in India.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Business
Previous : Common strands in today's controversies
Next     : ICICI's third public offer of bonds