Employee Engagement

Employee Engagement

Definitions of Employee Engagement

Employee Engagement could be defined as the” harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances”(Kahn, 1990, p-694). Employee engagement has created a countless interest in recent years as a broadly used phrase in organizations (Macey & Schneider, 2008). Employee engagement also defined as how the employees are emotionally and cognitively dedicated towards the success of the organization (Hewitt Associates LLC, 2004). Work engagement can be expressed as “the psychological state that accompanies the behavioural investment of personal energy” (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2010, p-22). Moreover this is defined as “a distinct and unique construct consisting of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components that are associated with individual role performance” (Saks, 2006, p-602).

 Employee performance is the achievements and endeavors acquired at work. Performance is maintaining the plan while focusing on the results. Estimation of performance is the core of the performance management (Cardy, 2004).Employee engagement is a main feature to improve employee performance (Macey et al., 2009; Mone and London, 2010).Employee Engagement supports the organization to increase competitiveness.  Since Human Resource factor cannot be duplicated it is considered as one of the most treasured strength of an organization (Baumruk, 2004). Hence employee engagement is a major concern for the leading roles of an organization (Seijts and Crim, 2006). Besides employees are the most significant factor in any organization (Lockwood, 2007).

Types of Employees

There are three types of employees. Engaged employees, not engaged employees, and actively disengaged employees. Engaged employees are highly enthusiastic, self -motivated and satisfied. They trust and accept the company values. They are loyal and result oriented. They are willing to take responsibilities outside their job description. Not engaged employees do what they are asked to. They are not bothered about the objectives and the goals of the organization. Actively disengaged employees are not fervent about their work. They are money focused. They influence others in a bad way and create unpleasant working environment for others as well (Gallup, 2002; Truss et al., 2006). Engaged employees are equipped with three general behaviours. They typically vocal their satisfaction. They think and talk positively about the organization. These employees cannot be taken away easily by other organizations, and are passionate and keen to go for the extra mile to accomplish the business goals (Hewitt Associates LLC, 2004). There are three psychological conditions need to be encountered for an employee to be engaged. They are meaningfulness, psychological safety and availability. Meaningfulness means the return on investment. Psychological safety is primarily affected by the social background. They are the relationships, methods of management and social standards. Availability is the capabilities that employees can bring forward to increase their performance level (Kahn, 1990).

Determinants of Employee Engagement

Leadership and Employee Engagement

Leadership is an area that highly influences employee engagement (Hawley, 1993).The behavior and the role of the leader pointers to a positive approach as employees are vastly influenced by the leaders (Seijts and Crim, 2006). Participative leader assists the subordinates who need more independency while directive leaders are good with achievement focused employees, because the leader can guide the subordinates towards objectives of the organization (Malik, 2013). The main task of a leader is to provide assistance to subordinates with a positive approach and direct them to accomplish the goals and objectives of the organization (Robbins and Judge, 2012). Trustworthy and supportive leadership increases employee engagement by enhancing their contribution, fulfilment and eagerness for work (Schneider et al., 2009).

Teamwork and Employee Engagement

Teamwork refers to a group of employees who work towards a common goal. They cooperate each other to achieve the goal. Teamwork is a crucial element in an organization (Senior and Swailes, 2004). Superior-Subordinate relationship effect the quality of the teamwork and that quality affects the engagement (Brunetto et al., 2013). Supportive setting is vital for the employees to feel safe and to try out new things even if they are unsuccessful (Kahn, 1990). The motivation of peer groups can bring the engagement to a higher level. Additionally the member personality affect the engagement as well (Liao et al., 2013).

Training and Career Guidance

“satisfaction of growth needs depend on a person finding the opportunity to be what he or she is most fully and become what he or she can”( Alderfer, 1972). Support the development of the employees is a key factor in the process of employee engagement because it helps the employees to focus on a given area. Training programs advances service precision and service performance and eventually employee engagement (Paradise, 2008).

Rewards and Remuneration

The level of employee engagement is a result of the benefits they receive (Kahn, 1990). Attractive compensation includes a salary, bonus, monetary rewards and non-financial rewards such as recognition. Recognition and rewards play a significant role in the process of employee engagement. Employees feel appreciative and recognized when they receive rewards form their organization and return a higher level of engagement (Saks and Rotman, 2006).

The organization which I work focuses on enhancing employee engagement by creating a pleasant working environment and through monetary and non-monetary rewards. The organization could further improve employee engagement by recognizing individual and team contributions on innovations and improvements which will enhance the organization’s performance and by creating an environment for new ideas to flourish for the betterment of the organization. Engaged employees work positively to achieve the objectives of the organization, and it is difficult to achieve higher standards with lack of employee engagement, since actively engaged employees lead the organization towards success (Hewitt Associates LLC, 2004).

Conclusion

This is a conceptual framework of employee engagement, signifying the relationships between organizational cultures, leadership, teamwork, rewards as facilitated by the employee motivation. It is revealed that a high organizational culture and better communication makes the employees more engaged. Organizational incorporation, managerial communication, particular feedback, subordinate communication, business information highly defines the organizational communication which supports employee engagement. Therefore its crucial for every organization to invest time, money and commitment to improve employee engagement programs because it reinforce employees which ultimately lead to organizations’ success and sustainability (Schneider et al., 2009; Brunetto et al. ,2013; Saks and Rotman 2006).

References

 Alderfer, C.P. (1972). Human Needs in Organisational Settings, Free Press of Glencoe, New York, NY. 

Baumruk, R. (2004). “The missing link: the role of employee engagement in business success”, Workspan, Vol. 47 No. 11, pp. 48-52. 

Cardy, R.L. (2004). Performance management: Concepts, Skills, and Exercises, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY.

Gallup (2002). “The high cost of disengaged employees”, Gallup Business Journal, April 15, available at: http://businessjournal.gallup.com/content/247/the-high-cost-of-disengaged-employees.aspx  

Hawley, J. (1993). Reawakening the Spirit in Work: The Power of Dharmic Management , Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, CA. 

Hewitt Associates LLC (2004). “Research brief: employee engagement higher at double-digit growth companies”, available at: www.hewitt.com 

Kahn, W.A. (1990). “Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 692-724.

Liao, F., Yang, L.  Wang, M., Drown, D. and Shi, J. (2013). “Team-member exchange and work engagement: does personality make a difference?”, Journal of Business and Psychology , Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 63-77. 

Lockwood, R. (2007). “Leveraging employee engagement for competitive advantage: HR’s strategic role”, HR Magazine, Vol. 52 No. 3, pp. 1-11. 

Malik, H. (2013). “Relationship between leader behaviors and employees’ job satisfaction: a path-goal approach”, Pakistan Journal of Commerce and Social Sciences , Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 209-222. 

Mone, E.M. and London, M. (2010). Employee Engagement Through Effective Performance Management: A Practical Guide for Managers, Routledge, New York, NY. 

Paradise, A (2008). “Influences engagement”, ASTD, Training and Development, Vol. 62 No. 1, pp. 54-59. 

Robbins, P. and Judge, A. (Eds) (2012). Organizational Behavior, 14th ed., Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. 

Saks, A.M. and Rotman, J.L. (2006). “Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement”, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 21 No. 7, pp. 600-619. 

Schaufeli, W.B. and Bakker, A.B. (2010). “Defining and measuring work engagement: bringing clarity to the concept”, in Bakker, A.B. and Leiter, M.P. (Eds), Work Engagement: A Handbook of Essential Theory and Research, Psychology Press, Hove, NY, pp. 10-24. 

Schneider, B., Macey, W.H. and Barbera, K.M. (2009). “Driving customer satisfaction and financial success through employee engagement”, People and Strategy, Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 23-27. 

Seijts, G. and Crim, D. (2006). “What engages employees the most, or the ten Cs of employee engagement”, Ivey Business Journal, Vol. 70 No. 4, pp. 1-5. 

Senior, B. and Swailes, S. (2004). “The dimensions of management team performance: a repertory grid study”, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 53 No. 4, pp. 317-333. 

Truss, K., Soane, E., Edwards, L., Wisdom, K. , Croll, A. and Burnett, J. (2006). “Working Life: Employee Attitudes and Engagement 2006”, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, London. 

W. H., Macey and B. Schneider, ‘The meaning of employee engagement’, Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 1, 2008, 3-30.