BrazilNew SPAG offering helps clients build employee engagement
Asian communications consultancy SPAG has launched a new practice focused on helping clients build and maintain the engagement with their internal teams.
The launch comes at a time when employee engagement has become a prime concern for executives globally and across Asia. Already before the Covid-19 crisis employee engagement had been found to be a contributor to organisational health, with one study finding that organisations that lead the way in engagement outperform their peers in productivity and profitability, among others.
But with people across the region forced to work from home in light of the social distancing restrictions, maintaining employee engagement has been complicated by the fact that now the largest chunk of the ‘engagement journey’ has to be take place online.
Organisations that turn a blind eye to employee engagement during Covid-19 are expected to quickly feel the drawbacks. According to the latest Trends in Global Employee Engagement by Aon Hewitt, at corporates, 1% drop in employee engagement translates into an almost 1% fall in sales.
Empower
This is where SPAG’s new offering comes in. Branded as ‘Empower’, the proposition helps companies with building and executing communication strategies and plans geared at keeping employees informed, connected, and ultimately engaged.
Vagmita Sharma, who leads the new practice, said that the firm takes an integral approach to the challenge: “We look at empowerment as a journey of which both the employer and employee is a crucial part. To be able to derive the right strategy and approach, it is critical to get a buy in from the employees at multiple levels and, understand not only the business objectives but also the nature of the workforce.”
Sharma brings in more than a decade of experience of driving communications, public relations and employee engagement roadmaps for corporate in Asia. She takes on the role from Strategic Partners Group (the parent of SPAG as well as D Yellow Elephant & GIGA Life) and previously held marketing roles at Edelweiss (one of India's larger financial services groups) and Kotak Mahindra Bank.
She is joined by a team of researchers, data analysts, marketing, communication and behavioural science experts, as part of the promise to deliver a “holistic internal communications approach.” Tangible deliverables include internal communication audits, employee surveys and employee feedbacks – all of which are used to build employee engagement action plans.
Speaking about the launch, Priyanka Bajpai (Regional Head, Southeast Asia) and Aman Gupta (Managing Partner and Co-founder) said: “We will work with organisations to help develop and execute a well-developed and researched internal communication plan – one which will marry their intrinsic culture and environment seamlessly.”
