Bhavna Batra on Changing Employee Engagement: What CHROs Need to Rethink?

Is the traditional employee engagement model still relevant? What do you believe will matter most to employees in the next two to three years, and how should CHROs rethink engagement?

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Responding to this, Bhavna Batra, Vice President – People at S&P Global, said:

The emphasis on employee engagement was, is, and will continue to remain pivotal for accelerated and sustainable business growth. Research from multiple sources continues to show a strong correlation between employee engagement as an input and high team performance, enhanced customer impact, and stronger financial health metrics as outcomes.

What is evolving, though, are the drivers of engagement.

• Strong perceived connection between enterprise mission and individual sense of purpose
• Opportunities to learn, contribute meaningfully, and grow continuously
• Feeling informed and empowered as a part of day-to-day life in the organization

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These three pillars of engagement have gained significant momentum in view of the multi-generational workforce and continuously evolving world of work.

To nurture an ecosystem that enables this sense of engagement as a core tenet of people experience, CHROs and members of the People function need to proactively partner with stakeholders across the organization, with a strong emphasis on people managers, who are regarded by members of their teams as the first source of trusted information and, therefore, play a key role in driving culture.

Also Read: Rajita Singh: Has Employee Engagement Outgrown Its Traditional Model?

Engagement is a metric that can no longer be simply measured a couple of times a year or addressed through sporadic interventions or fun at work activities. Rather, it is a vital indicator owned and impacted directly by how each people manager or business leader sets the tone and connects objective goals to collective success.

Inspiring engagement is a multi-layer, collective program: it is how policies are designed and implemented, impacted by every company-wide message or leadership decision, strengthened by strong and authentic narratives explaining decisions, and ultimately made tangible by growth avenues offered, and everyday heroes and successes being celebrated.

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With the rise of agentic workforce, maintaining human engagement will require a sustained focus on the basics including developing people leader skills, simplifying of systems and ways of working to ensure a stronger and clearer connection with purpose, and creating psychological safety so that people can bring their whole selves to work and thrive.