The HR landscape is changing with the face of the American workforce. As baby boomers move into senior leadership roles and begin to retire, and millenials begin to represent a larger portion of today's working world employee needs become drastically different and the way employees learn and process also diversifies. Millenials and baby boomers do things differently. They think differently, they act differently, they are motivated by different things and human resources professionals are tasked with engaging employees at all levels. Employee empowerment is the new key to pleasing everyone and the key to successful employee engagement. Empowering employees to train each other, help each other through on-boarding processes creates a dynamic leadership structure that empowers employees and fosters employee engagement. Younger workers are looking for an environment where their voice can be heard, and more senior members of the workforce don't want to feel like they are "aging out." By combining these two needs and creating and empowered employee leadership structure everyone can teach their strengths and learn their weaknesses with their peers, rather than within a rigid hierarchical power structure. The result is greater harmony and increased employee engagement. Rewarding employees for participating in this new-age peer-to-peer training program helps aid professional development and provides an opportunity to reward employees for giving of themselves for the greater good of the team. Rewarding employee engagement doesn't have to be a trip to Hawaii. It could be a gift card for a luxury item from Crutchfield, or a gift card for dinner out at The Cheesecake Factory, or for the shopaholic a gift card to a popular retailer like The Limited. Gift cards allow engaged employees to chose their ultimate reward as a "thank you" for giving back to the team.
For more information on employee engagement or collaboration through dynamic leadership check out this article from Forbes.
