The P/L Statement And Employee Engagement

For years now, experts in the field of accounting and business management have tried to bifurcate between cost and revenue centres. The result has been that, one has almost established a caste based system within the organisation. The demarcation ensures that business managers are always on the lookout of finding ways to curb the cost centres while the revenue centres are continuously incentivized. However, the imminent question is whether such bifurcation of business activities has profited or impeded the business’ growth. Take an example of employee engagement. A much fancied but largely misconstrued term from the world of business management, employee engagement can quite innocuously be defined as a cost centre. This is because it entails a cost and it has no direct connection with the generation of revenue. A more descriptive analysis, though, will prove that there, in fact, is an innate element of profitability that such engagement of employees brings along. While it does not reflect in the more celebrated profit and loss statement of an organization, one cannot completely ignore the profitability that is on offer. Now, let us firstly understand what employee engagement is. Employee engagement has been quite frequently misconstrued as employee retention and has been associated with many other facets of human resources. Regardless of the fact that there is some common qualities that many of these functions share, engagement of employees have unique features which lend it a special position. Letting an employee feel completely involved in all that is transpiring within an organization and be willing to learn and work harmoniously with the goals of the organisation is employee engagement. It is neither a process and nor is it an activity. It is a culture which has to be sown within the organisation to reap rich dividends over a period of time. Think of an employee who is working in the organisation without any motivation to learn and develop. S/he is performing the assigned role as per the basic expectations. S/he is not an asset but just a redundant resource of your organisation which is being wasted. Instead, an engaged employee will develop such knack of learning and other self leadership qualities that s/he will do more for the organisation than what the job role specifies. S/he will continuously conceive ideas of the ways in which his/her work can be enhanced as also the way in which the organisation can move forward. Therefore, this does impact the profitability. The efficiency of the employee is enhanced and so are the vibes within the work place. People are working unanimously towards a goal which the organisation has set for itself. Hence, as mentioned earlier, the ignorance of engagement of employees from the profit and loss statement defies logic as only a profit centric HR department would be able to add to the willingness and engagement of the employees.