CPO at Smartech Business Systems discusses company’s strategies for strengthening employee engagement
Myra Anwar joined mailing and print finishing solutions company Smartech Business Systems as the chief people officer, APAC, in 2021.
At the time, Smartech had recently acquired mailing equipment business Quadient, which brought with it new ownership and a new executive leadership team. And when Anwar joined, she had a vision to make Smartech inspiring for other competitors in the industry to look up to and to have “an amazing workforce”.
She highlighted that many employees have been working at the company for several years – some for more than a decade.
“We already had the infrastructure in terms of the talent, and it was more about creating an environment where everyone could be their authentic self and bring that to life in terms of their engagement level,” Anwar told HRD Australia.
Focus on talent development, performance management
Following the acquisition, there was a number of elements that needed to be sorted out.
“There were a lot of things that needed to be put in place, such as identification of talent from an engagement standpoint and putting in processes such as work performance, appraisal processes, performance management, KPIs and metrics,” Anwar said.
Another key element was looking at talent development and creating pathways for employees to be promoted.
“Last year, our promotion rate was about 30% within the organisation and that was through internally promoting; really going into the fundamentals and making sure that we do as we say,” she said. “And that is going back to our values of transparency, accountability and inclusion.”
Employee engagement through transparency
To support employee engagement, Anwar said the company lets employees know how the company is doing from a financial health standpoint.
“That's really important,” she said. “People want to know if we are performing well or if we're not, and how they can contribute to those results.”
Every month, the company holds a town hall where the CEO speaks about what's happening in the market and the forecast for the future in terms of the company’s strategic objectives, Anwar said. There are also insights shared by the chief operating officer on the financial performance of the business and then Anwar discusses the human resources elements.
“I go in from a people's perspective and talk about what's happening in our organisation from a promotion standpoint, safety standpoint and any initiatives that we may have,” she said. “Then we open it up to an interactive session with our employees, where they are able to articulate and ask questions. I think those sessions really help.”
In addition, each department has a session with Anwar, the company’s CEO and other executive leadership team members to discuss how they are performing.
“[We] ask them questions like ‘How is everything going? What can we do better? What are the hot topics that you need us to address, if any? And what are some things that you want to see differently in terms of our innovation perspective?’” Anwar said. “And we really find that over the last three years, as we've been doing that, we've been seeing a lot of engagement levels increase year on year.”
Employee engagement survey sees positive results
In 2023, Anwar launched the company’s first employee engagement survey, which had close to a 90% participation rate. And 80% of the workforce rated the company a four or above – with five being the highest.
Some of the areas the company measured in the survey included whether teams understood the strategic objectives of the company – in terms of the vision, mission and values, whether the company fosters a positive culture and whether their work is meaningful and challenging.
“If the work is becoming repetitive and boring, then employees tend to leave because one of the areas that is measured consistently is retention,” Anwar said. “And for Smartech, we've had a high retention rate over the last two years, sitting above 80%Last year it was sitting above 90%, which is tremendous.”
This year, the company achieved an employee satisfaction rate of 96%.
Focus on innovation at Smartech
One of the programs Anwar initiated at Smartech is an innovation champion group. It’s made up of employees who have decided to take on further education such as a master's degree or are top performers within their department and have been identified by the executive leadership team as having high potential within the company.
“I meet with them every month, I have a sit-down session with them for an hour,” she said. “We also invite the CEO into those sessions and he speaks about anything that the employee wants to be discussed. It could be a topic on financials or it could be the strategic outlook for the next one or two years. It could be ‘What are we doing from a philanthropy or sustainability standpoint?’.
“So this group is really critical in terms of building a succession for the organisation. But what we've found, from me holding this over the last few years, has been really successful. We've had a higher retention rate of all those employees, they still work with us. And many of them have been promoted since.”
Advice for HR teams to boost employee engagement
For other HR teams looking to improve their employee engagement, Anwar recommends having discussion sessions with staff members.
“Go and talk to your employees,” she said. “Have those little monthly sessions if you can. If you dedicate half an hour to have these open forums where you tackle the hot issues and you make the employees feel heard, I think that goes a long way in seeing a change in your employee engagement results.”
And following through is really important as well, Anwar added.
“You can't have meetings and not follow through on the actions, otherwise there will be dissatisfaction,” she said. “You’ve got to execute on the actions that you’ve promised.”
