How employers can attract, retain employees for high productivity

Employee experience and engagement should be a priority that employers must create in order to attract and retain employees for improved productivity and organisational performance, human resource (HR) experts say.

The HR experts stated this at the ongoing 2nd edition of the Financial Institution Training Centre (FITC) Employee Engagement and Experience (E3) conference, themed “Re-imagining talent performance: Employee engagement and retention strategies (managing rewards, culture and employee well-being)”.

The two-day virtual conference which began on Tuesday, provides a forum for business executives and leaders to navigate the issues of rewards, organisational culture and employee wellbeing for improved productivity and organisation growth.

According to the HR experts, the conference comes at a time when COVID-19 pandemic disruptions have created discussions around how to boost talent, enhance employee engagement and experience to ensure that employers retain talents so that they can deliver on their business objectives.

“Employees want interpersonal connections with their colleagues, managers and organisations. However, employers are beginning to realise that they can’t focus only on customers’ service but employees as well. They are realising that employees are the real deal and as such they must be treated like that,” said Abike Wesey, divisional head of human capital management at Heritage Bank plc in her presentation.

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Wesey further said that employee’s experience was critical to his/her engagement and performance and that any business not focused on it may not likely achieve success.

A recent global 2022 CEO survey conducted by PWC showed that employee engagement after customers’ satisfaction was one of the major challenges that CEOs are currently facing in their organisations.

“This is the first time that employees’ engagement will top the list because prior till now, it has never been a priority. So, they are saying that employees’ engagement will have a long impact on their corporate taxes and annual bonuses,” Wesey added.

Similarly, Yemi Obakin, the chief human resource officer at Allco Insurance, noted that when newly recruited employees join the organisations, the experience in the first week, month or quarter is important.

“It builds a very strong impression about the organisation to them. It is also important to have feedback mechanisms in place to ensure that you hear from them so that you can continue to improve on what you currently have. That is good because that is how you build employee experience,” Obakin said.

Some of the factors mentioned by the HR experts that contribute to a positive employee experience and engagement are meaningful work, supportive management, positive work environment, growth opportunity and trust in leadership.

Additionally, employee engagement initiatives such as people-friendly culture, work-life harmony, HR solutions, data analytics for decisions, redefining humans in HR, diversity and inclusion, employee as brand ambassadors, opportunities for career growth, workplace wellness and mental health.