Engaged employees enhance productivity and overall efficiency of an organisation. Employees are organisations’ biggest brand ambassadors. Collectively, employees contribute heavily to the overall reputation of any company.

In the financial services industry, clients expect an inherent promise of trust and excellence from employees. This in turn contributes to the brand’s corporate reputation.

A ratings agency was looking to strengthen its employer branding and add value to employee and client engagement. Eminence suggested an approach that focused on increasing employees’ sense of belongingness to the company through a well planned Learning & Development (L&D) program. Leveraging the company’s existing values, ‘Trust, Innovation & Excellence’, we created a rigorous programme of employee engagement activities. These, in turn, add to the employees’ sense of purpose, make them act as brand champions, and deliver meaningful business outcomes.

We created a calendar of various sessions that provided new and existing employees a platform to establish better connections and understand the practical nuances of the industry.

≫ Training Sessions for Business Knowledge

As the rating industry is relatively niche, several new joinees require in-depth knowledge about the services and sensitivities. We initiated a series of training sessions that helped employees understand the business, clients and market sentiments, as well as common roadblocks and how to deal with them. We also looked at cross-skilling as a means of knowledge sharing across verticals. It helped employees prepare better for their roles or bring crucial changes in the existing work methods.

≫ Special Skill Building Sessions

Apart from knowledge about the business nuances, another important aspect of employee branding is soft-skill training. We organised sessions on various topics from email communication and sales pitches to mental wellbeing, inviting both internal and external leaders to share their experiences. Such initiatives helped employees become more confident about their practical skills. This in turn resulted in more engaged and motivated teams that took initiatives to deliver better business outcomes.

≫ Building Connect:

Apart from special skills and training sessions, employee engagement activities are also crucial to build a stronger connect with the company. We conducted various sessions like team huddles, quiz competitions and informal chats with senior management. These helped give employees a perspective about their careers, discuss life beyond business and build a stronger bond amongst themselves. The bond translated into a higher sense of purpose that aligned with the company.

After each session or event, we reached out to the employees for their valued feedback and consistently worked on improving processes. One of our biggest takeaways from this exercise was the impact employee engagement activities can have. Since we started the sessions, we received overwhelming feedback from employees about the benefits of the sessions. It also started a dialogue on future events and topics that can be useful to employees. We recorded that while employees were engaging more with the company, they were also actively thinking about ways to improve the business.

Employee engagement activities also have a long-term impact on strengthening employee belongingness towards the company. The face of the company, employees are the most important touchpoint for stakeholder communication. As Richard Branson famously said, “Employees come first. If you take care of employees, they will take care of the clients.”