Enhancing Employee Engagement: Marks & Spencer Strategies & Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of employee engagement within Marks & Spencer, a prominent retailing business. It explores key concepts and drivers of employee engagement, such as leadership, engaging line managers, employee voice, and integrity. The report also examines diagnostic tools used to measure engagement levels, including employee reward programs, frequent surveys, separate meetings, and exit/stay interviews. Furthermore, it delves into the formation of an employee value proposition (EVP) and outlines strategies to enhance employee engagement, emphasizing deliberate communication, investment in well-being, and feedback mechanisms. The analysis aims to provide insights into how Marks & Spencer can optimize its employee engagement strategies to improve productivity and retention.

Business Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Mention the concepts and drivers of employee engagement......................................................3
Diagnostic tools to measure engagement....................................................................................5
Form a employee value proposition from the ideas and evaluation done till now with the help
of strategies to increase employee engagement..........................................................................6
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The business management is the process of functioning and collaboration of the firm's
activities. This helps in supervising the functions and productivity to reach on a height by the
workers (Dionisio and de Vargas, 2022). The report describes about explanation on the concepts
and drivers of the worker's engagement, analysis of diagnostic tools to count the engagement.
This report gives a detailed structure on worker value proposition from ideas and evaluation done
before with the strategies to increase the levels of contribution. The respective report is to be
made in reference to Marks &Spencer which is a retailing business sector that deals in apparels,

food, home related goods and clothing. It was established in 1884. It is located in London,
England, UK and the company maintains employees worldwide.
MAIN BODY
Mention the concepts and drivers of employee engagement
This is an element of human resource management which explains in the form of level of
satisfaction, dedication and energy achieved by the workers in their job. This brings success to
the company as the employee morale is increasing their satisfaction as well. The workers who
are engaged into the firm are most productive and give better performance. These employees
help the organisation to achieve their values and aim in an efficient way (Hadden, Gardner and
Patterson, 2022). Relatively Marks & Spencer is also using some techniques to increase the
engagement of their workers as they influence for effective communication and distribute some
rewards to them. They promote their highly productive employees as well as they take frequent
feedback from them for the company's functioning and performance. They make efforts for
employees to be valued, respected and they understand their suggestions. There are some drivers
of employee engagement as explained further -
 Leadership – Leadership is a quality for influencing, guiding and motivating in the work
by the leaders to their subordinates. The business leaders have the duty to inspire their
workers and they provide the job satisfaction to them. The leader brings engagement
among the employees that should be compromising some elements like making the trust
for their company, clear them their purpose of working, following the hierarchy in the
system and exposing their hidden talents (Kimura, 2022). Marks and Spencer is
motivating the employees who are working from home. They are also building trusts
among the employees who have the dedication to work in outlets after a safe comeback
from Covid-19. They have such potential leaders who give priority towards worker's
engagement while ensuring their current standing and the results they expect.
 Engaging line managers – The line managers have different types of engagement. The
supervisors will lead to the engagement of the workers. The teams should be actively
communicating to the customers. The behaviours that are noticed in their contribution
towards the company can vary according to their work. Their engagement is more
focused towards communication despite of metrics. The managers of Marks & Spencer

provide some support to their employees by making clear, open, honest and frequent
communications for them. They regularly encourage, motivate and support them for their
work so as to increase their level of morale. The managers and employees must have a
clarity in their expectations so that they can speak with each other openly. The teams
should be concern of the work provide to complete, how it could be completed and the
purpose of doing it.
 Employee voice – The voice of an employee should be mattered. Whenever an employee
raises concern then they must be listened properly and some actions should be performed
upon it after the discussion. The employees must be offered value in any decision making
of the firm and they must be given few chances to speak up in their ideas and
suggestions. This protects the emotionality in the employees which can be balance by
listening to them when necessary (Ligorio, Venturelli and Caputo, 2022). For example
Marks & Spencer have the leaders that promotes their employees to speak up and assure
them their value and trust. They interact well with staff who are working from home and
listen to their concerns. The employees feel good and satisfied as they are being heard.
Consequently the managers and leaders can influence workers in a positive way when the
level of trust among them is increased.
 Integrity – The behaviour of the employees states that how well they can perform at their
work. The company should have the level of consistent trust and honesty among the
relationship of employees and leader. The gap between them will increase the level of
distrust. The employees who are engaged more then they will be valued strongly.
Therefore employees and managers should stick to their commitments and they must
fulfil them on time in order to maintain the trusts. Marks & Spencer have been making a
transparent relationship with their employees so as to ascertain their thoughts and build
trust (Dionisio and de Vargas, 2022). After Covid-19 the company is now shifting
towards offline working mode so as to gain their consistency and honesty in their
relationships from employees.
Diagnostic tools to measure engagement
The employees can not only engage by their happiness or the amount of work offered.
This is about achieving in the aspects of satisfaction, connection, promises and encouragement
the workers possess at a work place. The employee engagement also varies according to the

time. Hence there are some tools to measure their level of engagement in the firm that are
mentioned further -
 Employee reward and recognition programs – Most of the employees give their best
of efforts in their work if they are appreciated by their superiors. For an instance Marks &
Spencer offers some activity and target based rewards in teams of workers. This will
result in increment of the employee engagement automatically. The HR and managers
will recognise employee engagement when they notice their activeness in those activities.
 Frequent employee surveys – The company judges their employee's opinions by taking
some surveys and feedbacks in order to analyse their participation. The workers get easily
motivated in this aspect and also the managers get to know few ideas from them. The
communication between employees and manager is very important to engage the
workforce (Louis, Sulaiman and Zakaria, 2022). The HR of Marks & Spencer send some
surveys on a frequent basis to the workers of basic questions that would be dependable on
the satisfaction, time and further orientation.
 Separate meetings – HR and mangers must organise some frequent separate meetings
for their workers that should be one-to-one among them all. The employees don't hesitate
in alone when they asked about any issue separately rather than in-front of all of their co-
workers. This will make them feel free for sharing and expressing their thoughts easily
(Rahman and et. al., 2022). In context to Marks & Spencer conducts these types of
meeting sometimes whenever they see their behaviour or as per the needs. This exercise
should be done by the managers and HR every week or two times in a month.
 Exit and stay interviews – The HR and managers should be concerned about the real
reason for exit of any worker. Sometimes the workers confess that they are no more
interested or engaged in their work which lead them to leave their job. When they come
to know about their cause to leave then they will try to improve upon those areas where
they lack. Through exit interviews Marks &Spencer come to know about the problems of
their employees who were not able to get engaged in the company. They also conduct
stay interview in order to know their positive areas of company. Thus they can prevent
other employees to face the same problem at workplace again.
 Make small focus groups – When the big companies are not able to conduct one-to-one
interviews for their workers then they go for making some small groups which is made

up of the people who should be concentrated more. The members who have the same
background or field can be comfortable with each other in the group. The managers and
HR should ask few and important questions to the workers which would be like how
much they are keen for their work and how much they value for it. Marks & Spencer is a
large company as when they can't focus on their workers separately then they have to ask
few questions in their focused group so that they can analyse few ways in order to
develop their productivity level and engagement.
 Measure productivity metrics and retention rate – The companies measure them for
the means of knowing how often their workers are engaged to their work as has a direct
relationship with the productivity and retention rate. Therefore it is necessary to measure
them both on a frequent basis so that the company can keep their workers encouraged and
retain them towards their work (Rendtorff, 2022). For example Marks & Spencer has
been doing these measurements timely with the help of some strategic tools.
Form a employee value proposition from the ideas and evaluation done till now with the help of
strategies to increase employee engagement
The employee value proposition is explained as a form of financial and non financial
advantages given by the company to their workers in the favour of their skills, abilities and
experience they provide to their company for achieving their common goal. It is also explained
as a support, recognition and values given to the workers so that they can increase their
efficiency in their work. The company can create a good employee value proposition in these
following steps -
 Analyse offering – The initial process of EVP is to be concerned about what the
company deal in. Marks & Spencer wants their all workers to know the company's
objective and work in market.
 Interview the previous employees – A company can become strong if it comes to know
about their weaknesses in terms of employees. For example Marks & Spencer takes
surveys in order to know why they left their work and after understanding they make
efforts for them to stay.
 Know the key elements of EVP – After then the company should evaluate their findings
and make their new employee value proposition if needed (Sarstedt and et. al., 2022). In

context to Marks & Spencer, they attract and retain their focused groups to utilize their
talent.
 Form EVP – A company is entitled to write a proper Employee Value Proposition
statement which is to be right, unique and encouraging to the workers so that they can
increase their engagement.
 Promote EVP from right channels – If a company has made right EVP isn't valued
much until it isn't communicated in the right channels (Sudha and Singh, 2022). Marks &
Spencer informs all the employees, they make pages and communities for spreading it
over blogs, newspapers and email to promote their EVP.
 Analyse the results – They need to measure the talent which should be reacting to EVP
such as they should increase their engagement and the responses from the employees.
Marks & Spencer reviews their EVP timely so as to attract the focus groups and
interviewing them.
There are many strategies to increase the employee engagement that are explained below -
 Communicate deliberately and regularly – The HR of Marks & Spencer follow a
healthy communication among all the employee's thoughts and interview them.
 Invest in well-being – The company also promotes some mental health training and they
ensure for their healthy eating and exercising.
 Invite feedback – Marks & Spencer confirms that every employee have given a genuine
feedback and then they analyse their lacking (Youssef, Eid and Agag, 2022).
 Empower employees – It is necessary to make trust and understand the employees in the
times of crisis such as in Covid-19. The company had supported most of the employees
so that they don't suffer in their work life.
CONCLUSION
This report has provided a deep study about concepts and drivers of engagement of a
worker, it also analysis diagnostic tools to measure their engagement. At last it concludes with
providing a brief employee value proposition from the ideas and evaluation done in the whole
report which also includes some strategies to increase the level of engagement. This report is
made in the reference to a company named Marks & Spencer.

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