Podcast

Bold Questions, Unfiltered Answers

1. What one moment at work completely drained you and one that gave you energy?

2. What’s the difference between employee engagement and energy and why does it matter?

3. Why do you believe engagement surveys no longer reflect the true state of employee experience.

4. What’s your take on how HR should start measuring energy at individual teams and at org levels?

5. Do you think designing energy requires structural changes, or does it require a mindset shift?

6. What is the role of purpose, autonomy, and flow in building high-energy teams?

7. How should one design roles or workflows that align with energy rhythms instead of just output?

8. What would be your advice for the first time CHROs when they are making the shift from the engagement to the energy.

Has driving organizational change become your only mission? Dive into our full blog on appreciative inquiry, a tool that will make the change faster and effortless.

Mic-drop Moment:

“Don’t do a checklist job. Try to understand the spirit behind your role.”

Sudipto recommends discovering the true meaning behind your role and pursuing it with a spirit to truly enjoy it. It will not only boost your performance but align your mental abilities with it, enhancing your job satisfaction.

While advocating for people’s right to have more autonomy at work, he also advises HR and managers to build a sense of strong ownership in their workforce leading to uplifted energy and more engagement.

Motivating employees to perform and deliver in the field that’s truly aligned with their abilities can make the magic happen and enhance an org’s growth without the lack of trust between employees and teams.

No Prep. Just Perspectives:

• Energy or enthusiasm, which one is harder to fake?Energy is harder to fake.
• What’s one meeting you would cancel forever to boost your team’s energy?Meetings for reviews.
• Should HR lead energy design or enable managers to own it?Enable managers to own it.
• What drains high performers more, meetings or micromanagement? Micromanagement.
• Are we tracking engagement because it’s easy or effective?We are tracking engagement because it’s easy to track.

Employee Engagement Vs. Energy: Food for thought

Is employee engagement losing its meaning? Why?

Yes, employee engagement is an outdated term now. Companies are now making the shift from employee engagement to employee energy, which is a more logical and rational way to keep the burnout in check.

According to HR experts, energy is hard to fake and soon it’ll be the next metric to measure a team’s dynamic and positivity.

Employee engagement is all about how emotionally connected people feel to their work, teams, and organizations. It essentially informs on:

• How far are they willing to go for their company?
• How aligned do they feel with the company’s goals?
• How will they drive performance and culture?
• How long will they stick with the organization?

But it surely misses out on one crucial element of employee belonging at work. And that’s physical and mental vitality.

An engaged employee may be 5 or 10 years old at a company but still not energized to come to the workplace. There might be financial or emotional challenges in their personal lives, and that’s why they have been stuck with you for so long—who knows?

In short, employee engagement shows superficial traits, but what goes on internally—whether your employees are facing problems with a team member or feeling undervalued—engagement clearly is not a reliable tool to measure that.

What is an appreciative inquiry and why is it used?

Appreciative inquiry is the new strength-based approach to drive organizational change. It focuses on ‘What’s working well’ rather than ‘What’s broken.’ Originally developed by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva in 1987, the AI model has become a strong instrument to discover employees’ strengths and opportunities at workplaces.

The 5-D model of appreciative inquiry:

• Define: Clarify where your employees see themselves. What inspires them and what do they aspire to be?
• Discover: Identify your employees’ strengths, opportunities, and strong skills that help them grow profoundly in their career.
• Dream: Envision a future where your workforce and you grow together contributing to each other’s success.
• Design: Create a plan, system, or workflow to make the future come true.
• Destiny: Show shared ownership, adaptability, or learning to achieve the planned future.

Appreciative inquiry is generally used to minimize burnout and align the aspects of business goals with an employee’s strengths. It’s basically a shift in attitude—from “This isn’t working” to “Let’s go with this!”

In a nutshell, it’s a positive approach to reduce friction and make the workplace more productive and collaborative without highlighting employees’ weaknesses.

How can HR help employees maintain a positive attitude at work?

Maintaining a positive attitude at work is, however, a challenging task but possible. It all starts with small changes in communication, cultural values, team interaction, accessibility to growth opportunities, recognition to hard work, and factors that collectively decide a person’s mood and attitude at work.

Every interaction at the workplace impacts an employee’s attitude toward work, and it’s critical to ensure, they are positive. To make this happen HR professionals can use AI-based workforce management software to create an insightful and detailed analysis of employees’ outlook toward the workplace and targets.

Moreover, they can take advantage of mood bots, one-to-one communication, regular feedback toward managers, and detect early signs of burnout to tackle even before they trigger a negative perspective toward work at the workplace.

After collecting data from multiple touchpoints, HR can reframe their policies and define new meanings for their culture. Some of the strategies that you can start following are:

• Don’t wait for big milestones. Start acknowledging small wins.
• Train managers to ensure more professionalism and no biases.
• Encourage a fearless environment, where speaking without judgment is not a big deal.
• Advocate for autonomy and build trust.
• Prioritize well-being where health—including physical, mental, and emotional is protected from distortion.

How can I differentiate between positive and negative work?

Positive work energizes you and negative work drains you completely.

Positive work adds value, progress, and sense of fulfillment in a company’s growth by focusing on the impact rather than the effort. It helps employees stay aligned with the tasks, leading to successful goal achievement and adding meaning to their work.

Examples:

• Delivering on time with quality
• Fixing a broken process that’s creating conflicts
• Enhancing QA systems
• Offering constructive feedback
• Taking an initiative that’s innovative and adds value

On the flip side, negative work doesn’t deliver any value despite effort and time consumption. It doesn’t produce results, achieve goals, or add to progress—wasting resources and time. Moreover, it doesn’t improve employees’ skills, expertise, and problem-solving abilities, making the work meaningless.

Examples:

• Gossiping and taking breaks for too long
• Meetings with no solid agendas
• Micromanagement
• Reworking with no true value addition
• Busywork with no impact

How to measure autonomy at work?

Measuring autonomy can be challenging, but few tools and strategies can help. Using one-to-one surveys or candid communication with your employees can do wonders. Asking questions like:

• What decisions can you make by yourself?
• Do you feel over-managed?
• When was the last time, you took an initiative, and it was welcome

Additionally, you can track metrics like:

• Flexibility of work hours
• Inclusion in meetings and important decision-making processes
• Access to tools you can directly use for your tasks

Promoting autonomy is a strategic way to build trust in your employees’ abilities and help them take on more initiative. This not only boosts their morale but uplifts their energy—instantly skyrocketing productivity, performance, and confidence.