Introduction

HR professionals should anticipate a need before it actually happens  in the organization, at least to the greatest possible extent. As the  managers of the organization’s most valuable resource—people—even the  smallest negative influences can have a major impact. Part of  anticipating these needs is knowledge of employee engagement and the  Gallup model of the employee life cycle. Then, HR pros need to be able  to research the situation and provide leadership with options for a  solution to the employee or workplace issue the organization is facing.  This assignment takes the learner to the HR role, having to respond to a  situation that introduces one of a group of first-line supervisors who  are not sufficiently engaged with their direct reports.

Scenario

Currently, CapraTek is experiencing what senior leaders in the  organization consider poor engagement. In some cases, supervisors and  managers are disconnected from their subordinates. Some leaders are  being seen as insensitive to their direct reports’ professional needs  and desires. Based on information gathered, gossip, and actual formal  complaints, many employees say they do not see their first-line  supervisors as invested in their futures, so they only focus on getting  work done.

Among the  many supervisors at CapraTek is Karla, whose employees and others have  recently approached the HR department about the lack of connection,  recognition, and professional development offered from first-line  supervisors to employees. Karla has a history as a good supervisor; she  is quite shy and reserved and supports her employees but is not really  engaged with them and spends way too much time in her office. She avoids  making contact with her direct reports and has not nominated any of  them for recognition in four years, something that every other leader in  the organization does. These types of complaints have been repeated by  the employees of two other supervisors in CapraTek.

Alley is an HR Pro at CapraTek, responsible for the organization that  Karla and her employees are part of and is about to attend a meeting  with senior leaders. The senior leaders have been doing a lot of  chatting amongst themselves about employee engagement. Alley wants to be  ready to ask the questions she knows are coming, and she wants to have a  plan of action to present to senior leaders if they ask what strategy  she is planning to use to address the employee engagement challenge. The  HR pros are now in a situation where they will need to collect  information from employees about their attitudes and opinions on their  supervisors, managers and the leadership overall. Exactly how this will  be accomplished is a major component of this assignment.

Your Challenge

As an HR professional at CapraTek, you have been tasked with putting  together an internal memo that briefly describes the employee engagement  issues that have been observed and options that the leadership team  could consider to address the engagement issues in advance of a meeting  with the organization’s leadership team.

Instructions

Write an internal memo of approximately 2–3 pages that an HR  professional could use as a reference when attending a meeting with the  organization’s leadership team. Include the following in the memo:

Format your paper as an internal memo that includes the following fields at the top of the page: 

To, From, Internal Memo: CapraTek Employee Engagement, Date.

The rest of the memo can be written as a normal paper, including an introduction, conclusion, and the following elements: 

• Describe the current employee engagement situation at CapraTek as  observed from the weekly introductions and discussions in the course.

Explain the stages in the employee lifecycle according to the Gallup model.

Explain theories of motivation that lead to organizational commitment, employee retention, and employee development.

• Prepare a list of tools and practices that could be used to collect data about employee engagement at CapraTek. 
• What are the actions that could address the engagement problems?
• Analyze what criteria would be present for you to know that  employees at CapraTek are engaged and functioning as effectively as  possible in the workplace. 

What is the ideal state of employee engagement?

What would that look like in the day-to-day work of employees?