Employee Engagement (Blog 7)

The meaning of Engagement

According to Kahn (1990), engagement means to be psychologically as well as physically present when occupying and performing an organisational role. Also he stated personal engagement as “the simultaneous employment and expression of a person’s ‘preferred self’ in task behaviors that promote connections to work and to others, personal presence, and active full role performances”.

What is Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement is a desirable condition, has an organizational purpose, and connotes involvement, commitment, passion, enthusiasm, focused effort, and energy, so it has both attitudinal and behavioral components (William and Benjamin, 2008). Harter et al. (2002) stated that engagement was ‘the individual’s involvement and satisfaction with as well as enthusiasm for work.

According to Robinson (2006), employee engagement can be achieved through the creation of an organisational environment where positive emotions such as involvement and pride are encouraged, resulting in improved organisational performance, lower employee turnover and better health.

It has also been argued that employee engagement is related to emotional experiences and wellbeing (May et al., 2004).

Best Practices of Employee Engagement

Most impactful best practices to enhance employee engagement as described by Henry S. Miller (2014):

• A Strategic Imperative - The Voice of the Employees

• Vision, Values, and Goals - Insuring that all employees are clear about these guiding principles for organizational success

• Leadership - senior executives need to be inspirational, enthusiastic, visible, clearly communicate and accessible.

• The Voice of the Employees - empowering people to share stories, exchange ideas, and disseminate best practices in accordance with achieving the vision and goals.

• Rewards, Recognition, and Career Path Development - Insure that formal rewards and recognition programs.

• Accountability - Companies and organizations with highly engaged workforces hold managers at all levels accountable for their team’s engagement that affects the team’s overall performance.

• Enablement and Empowerment - increase enablement of managers to give employees decision-making authority to contribute overall performance of the company.

• First Line Managers - make sure all first line managers and supervisors are trained to monitor, track, and act on employee engagement metrics and hold them accountable in their performance reviews for enhancing the levels of employee engagement.

Drivers of Employee Engagement

  

(Figure 1 : The top five drivers of sustainable engagement)  

Crawford et al. (2013) explain drivers of employee engagement ;

• Job challenge – this takes place when the scope of jobs is broad, job responsibility is high and there is a high work load. It enhances engagement because it creates potential for accomplishment and personal growth.

• Autonomy – the freedom, independence and discretion allowed to employees in scheduling their work and determining the procedures for carrying it out. It provides a sense of ownership and control over work outcomes.

• Variety – jobs which allow individuals to perform many different activities or use many different skills.

• Feedback – providing employees with direst and clear information about the effectiveness of their performance.

• Fit – the existence of compatibility between an individual and a work environment which allows individuals to behave in a manner consistent with how they see or want to see themselves.

• Opportunities for development – these make work meaningful because they provide pathways for employee growth and fulfilment.

• Rewards and recognition – these represent both direct and indirect returns on the personal investment of one’s time in acting out a work role.

References

• Crawford, E. R., Rich, B. L., Buckman, B. and Bergeron, J. (2013) “The antecendents and drivers of employee engagement” in (eds) Truss, C., Deldridge, R., Afles, K., Shantz, A. and Soane, E., Employee Engagement in Theory and Practice, London, Routledge, pp. 57–81.

• Harter, J. K., Schmidt, F. L. and Hayes, T. L. (2002) “Business-unit level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes”: a meta-analysis, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 87, pp. 268–279.

• Henry S. M. (2014) ‘The 10 Best Practices for Enhanced Employee Engagement’: The Henry Miller Group LLC, Los Gatos, CA. [Online] available at: http://www.millergroup.com/the-10-best-practices-for-enhanced-employee-engagement/ [Accessed on: 15^th September 2018].

• Kahn, W. A. (1990) ‘Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work,’ Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 33, pp. 692–724.

• May, D. R., Gilson, R. L. and Harter, L. M. (2004) ‘The psychological conditions of meaningfulness, safety and availability and the engagement of the human spirit at work’, Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology, Vol. 77, pp. 11-37.

• Robinson, I. (2006) “Human Resource Management in Organisations”, London, CIPD.

• William H. M. and Benjamin S. (2008) 'Industrial and Organizational Psychology', Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1(1), pp. 3-30. [Online] available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1754-9434.2007.0002.x [Accessed on: 15^th September 2018].

• Figure 1 : Willis Towers Watson (2018)The top five drivers of sustainable engagement:   [Online] available at: https://www.towerswatson.com/en-GB/Insights/Newsletters/Europe/HR-matters/2014/12/What-are-the-top-drivers-of-employee-attraction-retention-and-sustainable-engagement  [Accessed on: 15^th September 2018].