ISSN (Print) : 0974-6846

Indian Journal of Science and Technology, Vol 9(15), DOI: 10.17485/ijst/2016/v9i15/92128, April 2016 ISSN (Online) : 0974-5645

Trends in Employee Engagement Practices in

Global and Indian Companies: A Technique to
Curb Attrition
Mita Mehta*, Arti Chandani, Nair Moksha and Chandran Parul
Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies (SIMS), Symbiosis International University (SIU), Range Hills Road,
Khadki, Pune – 411020, Maharashtra, India; mita.mehta@sims.edu, arti.chandani@sims.edu,
moksha.nair2014@sims.edu, parul.chandran2014@sims.edu

Abstract
Objectives: The objective of this review paper is to understand the practices adopted by various global and Indian
companies to engage their employees, in order to retain talent and sustain their competitive advantage. Methods: This
paper is divided into two parts - the first part focuses on the employee engagement practices among global companies and
the second part highlights the ones adopted by Indian companies. It also draws a distinction between the trends in Indian
and global companies, how their approaches towards employee engagement vary. This has been done by reviewing the
existing literature and thus this study belongs to the bibliometric study. Findings: The studies have found to have a very
strong relationship between employee’s customer service level and their engagement level. According to Towers Perrin
Survey 84% of the highly engaged employee are confident that they can positively contribute in improving the products
and services. The employee engagement fever has once again become epidemic in the corporate circuits. The most recent
has been the news of Google losing a good enough number of people to its rival, i.e., Facebook and others is making people
ask themselves that if this could be the fate of Google, where do the other companies stand? There is a large pool of
consulting firms doing brisk business by advising what companies can do to strengthen engagement. Line managers are
being coached on the same so that they can make a difference starting at the grass root level itself. Organisations have
realised the three main reasons why an employee would want to be loyal to an organisation-work, career opportunities and
a strong belief in what the organization is aiming to achieve. Applications: The fundamental question, given the current
situation, however, remains; is engagement a goal in itself or is it a capability for organisational effectiveness? If employee
engagement is practised in isolation and without examining what it does to help organisation to deliver results, it becomes
a sheer waste of effort.

Keywords: Employee Commitment, Employee Engagement, Global Companies, Human Resource Management,
Productivity

1. Introduction being made to ensure proper engagement of employees to

The concept of human capital is being recognised by
employers all over the world. They are shifting their focus
from processes to people to get ahead in the world of com-
petition. Human resource management is now endorsed
with responsibilities like employee empowerment,
employee commitment and employee growth. Efforts are
support the company objectives.
Engaged employees are passionately involved with
what is happening at the companies1. Many researches
made in the past decade have indicated that “only one in
every five workers is highly engaged in their work”2. This
poses a challenge for employers across the globe to take
measures to help employees identify, be passionate about

*Author for correspondence

 Trends in Employee Engagement Practices in Global and Indian Companies: A Technique to Curb Attrition
and feel motivated to work. According to Aon Hewitt, “the
companies that have highly engaged workforce have risen
to the challenge of maintaining and improving engage-
ment levels. They proactively respond to environment,
competition and changing needs of the workforce. They
progress but stay true to the values which has made them
successful as well as positioned for continued success in
the future”.3
Engaging employees on a continuous basis is a very
valuable investment for any company irrespective of
its scale of operation. There are different practices that
organisation adopts to engage employees as employee
gives different priorities to different variables4. People are
the biggest asset and their commitment ensures long-term
growth and profitability of an organisation. “Involving
employees in overcoming the challenges the company is
facing generates a sense of worth and accomplishment
that will not only grow the company, but it will grow your
people as well. Once established, this becomes an upward-
spiralling cycle: involved employees become engaged in
overcoming a challenge, which leads to superior results,
a stronger bond with the organization, and a building
passion for continuing to grow the business”5. Hence, a
detailed analysis of the trends in this sunrise concept is
vital in the field of human resources. This paper aims to
consolidate various researches done on this concept and
bring out clear definitive patterns followed by companies
in India and abroad.
2.  Objective
This paper is divided into two parts - the first part focuses
on the employee engagement practices among global com-
panies and the second parthighlights the ones adopted by
Indian companies. The objective of this paper is to identify
the changing and evolving measures of employee engage-
ment adopted by Indian and global companies and how
these measures are used to curb attrition. It also draws
a distinction between the trends in Indian and global
companies, how their approaches towards employee
engagement vary.
3.  Definition of Employee
Engagement
Various researchers have defined employee engagement
in different ways. They all point out to one basic idea that
2 Vol 9 (15) | April 2016 | www.indjst.org
it is a positive state of mind that enhances productivity
and efficiency. The concept of employee engagement was
introduced by William Kahn in 1990. He did not use the
term employee engagement in his article, instead used
‘personal engagement’ and ‘personal disengagement’.
His theory was not widely accepted for many years, but
the concept was institutionalised by many authors later
on. He defined employee engagement as “the harness-
ing of organisation members’ selves to their work roles;
in engagement, people employ and express themselves
physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role per-
formances”.
6
define employee engagement as “a positive attitude
held by the employee towards the organization and its
value. An engaged employee is aware of business con-
text, and works with colleagues to improve performance
within the job for the benefit of the organization. The
organization must work to develop and nurture engage-
ment, which requires a two-way relationship between
employer and employee”.
7
defined, employee engagement as the amount of dis-
cretionary effort exhibited by employees in their job.
According to the study in Drivers of Employee
Engagement conducted by researchers for Institute of
Employment Studies (IES), engaged employees have the
following characteristics:-
• Belief in their organisation
• Desire to work to make things better
• Understand the business context and the ‘bigger
picture’
• Are respectful and helpful to colleagues
• Are willing to go ‘the extra mile’
A research done by Blessing White Global in 2013
suggests that employee engagement is the alignment of
the goals and aspirations of the organisation with that of
individual employees. Employee engagement not only
ensures full commitment from the employees but also
creates passionate and enthused workers who strive hard
to work towards the organisation’s vision and their per-
sonal goals.
Many researchers have pointed out the lack of
employee engagement practices in organisations across
the globe. There is still a vast gap between the employees
and the organisations that needs to be bridged. Since it
is a very subjective concept, developing a comprehensive
method of measuring employee engagement is difficult.
Indian Journal of Science and Technology
 Mita Mehta, Arti Chandani, Nair Moksha and Chandran Parul

These definitions therefore help companies to u

­ nderstand 5.  Chart 1. HR Value Chain
what activities fall under the umbrella of employee
engagement.

4.  Employee Engagement in

Global Companies
4.1 Employee Engagement leads to better
Customer Service
8
classifies employees into Engaged, Disengaged and
Actively Disengaged wherein each class of employees
exhibit a set of specific characteristics. He also points
out that according to the Gallup organization; the cost
for keeping actively disengaged workers over a five-
year period was approximately $300 billion in lost
productivity and employee performance. There are many
studies conducted in this area that show that low employee
engagement not only affects performance, but also lowers
customer service satisfaction increases absenteeism and
increases employee turnover.
An example of Southwest Airlines will highlight how
employee engagement and empowerment can lead to bet-
ter customer service. The senior management at Southwest
believe in complete empowerment to the employees at Sridhar Balasubramanian, Professor and Associate
every level. To empower their employees, Southwest got Dean of UNC Kenan-Flagler’s MBA program, notes that
rid of strict work rules and inflexible job descriptions so this linkage has helped the company to be true to its val-
their employees could assume ownership to get the job ues, and to execute on its customer promise flawlessly.
done and get their planes out on time, regardless of whose “Southwest is a fun brand that delivers focused value,” he
“official” responsibility it is. The airline also gives employ- said, “and the flight attendants and pilots who crack jokes
ees the flexibility to “bend” company policy if they think and entertain the passenger are not just putting on a show.
it would be in the best interest of its customer. This level They have been hired at Southwest because that sense of
of engagement comes through building complete trust in humour comes naturally to them”.
the employees. An efficient training system helps them The HR value chain is an integrated set of human
to handle situations as best as they can a great customer resource management practices – from the sourcing and
experience. recruiting of talent, through training and development
and engagement, to employee separation and exit. It
4.2 HR Value Chain can help Build engages employees to work towards a common strategy
and core values of the organisation.
the Engagement Factor in an
The process of creating engaged workforce begins
Organisation with the founders of the organisation coming up with a
The engagement factor: building a high-commitment vision and strategy that can be percolated down to all the
organisation in a low-commitment world put forth an levels in the organisation. Next step is to find and recruit
integrative model for employee engagement focusing people who fit the desired strategy. Finding a person, who
on the organisational practices at the micro as well as is the ‘best fit’ in the organisation, is the most critical step
at the macro level9. This model integrates the HR value in the value chain.
chain and organisational strategy at the macro level with For example, to gain employee commitment early,
employee engagement at the micro level. Proctor and Gamble developed a well-structured

Vol 9 (15) | April 2016 | www.indjst.org Indian Journal of Science and Technology 3
 Trends in Employee Engagement Practices in Global and Indian Companies: A Technique to Curb Attrition
c­ ollege intern program. This process assigns interns to
work on high profile projects. These projects help them
interact with the senior management. While most of
the companies believe that an extensive intern program
can drain management resources and waste a lot of
managers’ time spent in mentoring, coaching and moni-
toring interns, Proctor and Gamble feels this is time
well spent because the conversion rate of these interns
into full-time employees in the company is much above
the industry average. Once new hires are brought on
board, a process of continuous employee development
begins.
6.  Intent to Stay
Many researchers have studied the correlation between
employee engagement and intent to stay or the rate of
retention. “Intent to stay,” or an employee’s stated desire
to remain with their current employer, is a strong pre-
dictor of actual turnover. It is also an indication of how
strongly committed an employee is to their current
employer’s success”10. A comparative analysis on the lev-
els of engagement in different countries indicated that
the 81% of engaged employees were motivated to stick
with their current employer. Among the various coun-
tries, employees in China and India had higher chances
of retention as compared to those in North America and
Europe.
It is also observed that the employees who stay in an
organisation for a longer period of time and are given an
opportunity to develop their skills and capabilities, tend
to have higher levels of engagement. A well-defined career
progression plan for employees would help in increasing
their commitment towards the organisation and posi-
tively impact their intent to stay.
7.  Employee Engagement in the
Best Places to Work
Employee satisfaction is not dependent on salary and
monetary benefits only. Psychological and social content-
ment is equally important to engage employees and keep
them motivated to work. Forbes conducted a research
on how the best employers around the world indulge in
employee engagement. They “motivate high performance
and align talent with their business strategy by focusing
on what matters most to the employees” 11.
4 Vol 9 (15) | April 2016 | www.indjst.org
These were the few practices followed by these
c­ ompanies in order to ensure maximum employee com-
mitment and retention:
1. Understanding what employees are thinking –
Companies like Recreational Equipment (REI) use
social media as a source of employee engagement
surveys. Their “online campfire” allows associates and
executives to share their thoughts and experiences in
the company and helps the company in getting a pulse
of the employees.
2. Creating an intentional culture – A very good example
of this practice is Google. It is known for its informal
and playful culture wherein all employees are given
the freedom to work with their own style. It offers rec-
reational facilities like gym, meditation centres and
gaming areas where employees can “blow off steam”
and get back to work later.
3. Appreciating even for small contributions – DHL
Express is known for thanking its employees for their
good performance in the form of either monetary
rewards or an appreciation pin on the company cork-
board.
4. Honest and open communication – SAP believes
in adopting an effective two-way communication
channel. The employees are made to understand the
strategic reasons behind their work and are free to give
feedback to their leaders at any time.
5. Supporting a defined career path – M.D. Anderson
Cancer Centre has a formal mentorship program
that allows employees to connect with the leaders
and their colleagues and work on their professional
goals.
6. Social interactions outside work – Participating in
social development initiatives is a great way of getting
all the employees together and improving productiv-
ity. Cummins employees work on community service
projects that in turn help in building stronger relation-
ships at work.
7. Communicate organisation’s stories – A company
well known for its employer branding is Southwest
Airlines. The company’s fun, friendly and innova-
tive culture is acknowledged and appreciated across
the globe. A strong employer brand ensures that right
people are attracted to the organisation and majority
of them are motivated to stay in the organisation for
long.
Indian Journal of Science and Technology

8.  Employee Engagement
Corporate Practices – Indian
The number of disengaged employees in Indian compa-
nies is the lowest in the world. It has the highest number of
engaged employees that are as much as those in countries
like Australia and New Zealand. China leads in the level
of disengagement.  When a survey was done a question
was put to the employees that what would make them stay
longer in an organisation and the answers were – work a
belief in the organisational goal and career opportunities,
turned out to be the most significant reasons to continue
their stay in the organisation.
The survey showed that Indian managers are one of
the best in the world when it comes to motivate employ-
ees, to employ their talent, to take suggestions and inputs
from them and take actions on their ideas. It is respec-
tively 9% and 7% higher than the global average. However,
Indian managers should lay more emphasis on rewarding
the achievements and giving recognition. Organizations
should help employees in redefining career success to
encompass skill development, lateral moves, and special
projects and stretch assignments - not just advancement
or promotions. “Organisations need to focus on provid-
ing career development options to help their younger
employees. They need to set their own standards of suc-
cess, which would help them achieve their targets in the
organisation. It would in turn prevent attrition as they
would not be misguided by vague career development
opportunities”12.
At the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the senior
executives guide their team members who come up with
innovative solutions in their work related problems/issues.
This has ultimately resulted in the development of a large
number of useful products that have added to the success
of the business13. At Bharti Airtel Ltd, the best perform-
ers of the month and the new joiners are rewarded by the
way of a special dinner / lunch with the Chief Operations
Officer. The levels of employee engagement across all lev-
els and groups are monitored at Aditya Birla Group, who
carries out a biennial Organisational Health Study (OHS),
led by the chairman It gives the employees an opportunity
to express their own opinions on a range of issues without
fear of broadcasting their identity. Another key engagement
factor has been ‘The Aditya Birla Awards for Outstanding
Achievement’. The Birla Group have conducted competi-
tion such as “Oh! Not so smart”, “Vision 2015”etc for all
employees. It has also created a portal where in one can
Vol 9 (15) | April 2016 | www.indjst.org
Mita Mehta, Arti Chandani, Nair Moksha and Chandran Parul
find job opportunities across all the horizontals and ver-
ticals of Birla across all geographic locations. It also has
opened up many learning opportunities like:
a) Gyanodaya for management learning: In that the man-
agers participate in strategy and managerial programs
conducted by many leading academics.
b) The virtual campus for the ‘E-learners’. Over 250 online
courses covering areas like engineering, leadership,
marketing and sales are available on their learning
network.
Indian Hotels, the group which operates the Taj chain
of hotels, has successfully been able to create a culture
wherein the performance of their employees is measured
on the guidance given by senior leaders and customer
Orientation efforts. Tata club at Jamshedpur is a prime
example of Tata Motors’s employee engagement, which is a
get together for employees and employees’ families as they
come together and have fun. The Community Development
Centres (CDCs) have been established all across India so
as to merge family values into Tata Motors organizational
culture. To promote education and to bring to notice the
achievements of employee’s children, awards are given in
sports, academics and extracurricular activities. Kalasagar
and Kalasangam is a way to nurture the artistic talents of
the employees – Tata Motors Cultural group.
They usually arrange cultural events on drama, dance,
music and other activities to promote creativity among
employees and their families.
HUL soon realized that a cyclical feedback system is
a must for its sales managers and their salespeople that
come under the managers. HUL believes that “Ownership
of engagement really goes to the manager”. Recently the
HUL managers were made to go through intense engage-
ment training under the Gallup consultants and each
individual’s follow up action plan was reviewed. They also
went to different locations so as to talk to their salespeo-
ple, individually.
Vodafone has introduced a new model called the
Vodafone Way which is a customer centric model for
achieving high customer and employee satisfaction. The
model is based on three pillars: Trust, speed and simplic-
ity. Line managers are held accountable for their team
engagement and providing them plans and tools to drive
performance by giving the employees a clear goal and cli-
ent focus - and thus achieving an increase in the level of
innovation and productivity even in a downturn.
Indian Journal of Science and Technology 5
 Trends in Employee Engagement Practices in Global and Indian Companies: A Technique to Curb Attrition
In Godrej the motto is ‘take yourself lightly and take
your job and your responsibilities seriously’. They believe
that real fun at work should imply that ‘Work itself is fun’.
At Godrej and Boyce the head of each division is respon-
sible for organizing some fun activities for employees in
division. These include Attendance / Retirement functions,
Birthday celebrations, Department picnics, Annual get-.,
Festive dress codes, Saturday casual dressing, Dusserah or
Diwali celebrations, Learning & Sharing day, online quiz-
zes, announcing Employee of the Quarter/Month, Team
Lunches/ Movies, Lights Off Day, Sense of Humour (try
to laugh at ourselves rather than others).
Tata AIG General Insurance Co. Ltd honour team
and individual achievements by organizing a fun filled
evening for its employees. There is an event called the
Employee Town Hall where the head of the organization
interacts and addresses all employees about the organisa-
tion’s progress and gives an insight into its future. Thereis
interdepartmental football and cricket matches organized
yearly for sports enthusiasts which helps foster esprit de
corp. World of Work (WOW) is another event where the
employees’ children are invited to come and spend some
time at their parents’ place of work.
Need of the hour:
1. Day one: Almost all organizations have ways of acquir-
ing new talent but what they lack is an innovative /
good strategy for retention for the same. For the first
day it is important to keep a well-planned orientation
programme for the new employee14. A manager must
be able to extract the potential qualities by means of
efficient recruitment methods. After the decision of
hiring is taken, the manager should ensure that the
talent obtained is fit for the role and then all efforts
should be made to retain such a talent within the orga-
nization.
2. Top to bottom approach: Employee engagement is
such that it requires to be led by example. Until the
top management doesn’t believe in it and encourage
their managers and further to their employees, it will
not get imbibed into the culture of the organization.
3. Encourage two-way communication: What man-
agers must encourage is a two way communication
process. The employees should be given the oppor-
tunity to express their ideas as it’s their job that gets
affected the most. A clear and steady communication
is what keeps the employees engaged. Sharing the
power of making/giving ideas for work will ­create a
6 Vol 9 (15) | April 2016 | www.indjst.org
sense of belongingness and thus increase their engage-
ment level.
4. Give opportunity and freedom: Providing job auton-
omy will encourage them to think independently. The
employees will also get a chance to freely choose the
best possible method of doing the job and as long as
they are producing the desired results, the manage-
ment should not object. Managing the results should
be the aim and not the process in itself.
5. Ensuring availability of resources: All resources
such as material or monetary or information related
resources must be provided to the employees by the
manager. The manager needs to be doubly sure that
the employees are getting all resources in order to
complete their jobs efficiently.
6. Train the employees: Provide training to the employ-
ees to keep their knowledge updated. When an
employee knows his job thoroughly, his confidence
level increases as he is able to complete his task without
any supervision. This builds the employees ‘commit-
ment and self-worth.
7. Encourage Feedback: Organisations ought to keep a
track of the level of engagement shown by the man-
agers and their employees not only will this help in
increasing the initiatives taken in this field but also help
zeroing down to the factors that engage an employee.
8. Incentives/Benefits: Many management theories have
proved that when an employee gets any kind of recogni-
tion either by praise or payment, he tends to put in more
effort into his job. Thus certifying a link between incen-
tives and performance .Managers must come up with
ways to provide financial and non-financial benefits to
those employees who show more progress at work.
9. Create a distinctive culture: Creating a strong work-
ing culture is an integral part of ensuring that the
engaged employees become an example to the rest of
the work force and the new employees who join also
understand the standard of work that the organization
maintains.
10. Top-performing employees: A study conducted by
Watson Wyatt Worldwide in 2004/05 on HR practices
of 50 large USA firms shows that high-performing
organizations are focusing on engaging their top
(performing) employees by providing with the
resources that they require, by helping them modify-
ing the processes according to their needs and thus
being able to reduce the turnover rate of their high
performers
Indian Journal of Science and Technology

9.  Chart 2. Employee
Effectiveness Framework –
Common Drivers (Source Hay
Group Insight’s)
There is a significant association between engagement
and justice perceptions. The correlations suggest that
individuals who reported that they were more engaged in
their jobs also reported higher levels of justice15.
India’s EEI increased in 2007 and steadily rose till
2008. From 2008 to 2009 there was drastic increment in
the employee engagement index but then again it started
to decline in 2009-2010.Two distinct trend patterns were
observed across job types. An upward trend was found
for management, professional and sales job types where
as a downward trend was found for transportation and
production, administrative support, crafts/skilled trades
and service job types. According to Rena, organizational
leaders and HR professionals should compare their com-
pany’s engagement levels to the normative levels shown
in their research, as well as to previous levels within one’s
company. This will help organizations interpret their own
organizations’ engagement trends by determining the
extent to which engagement changes are due to specific
practices within their organization. The study conducted
by Blessing White and HR Anexi also found out that just
over 34% employees in India are fully engaged and 13%
are actually disengaged.
Though Indian firms have benefited from rapid growth
and healthy profitability, HR processes have to keeping up
with the growth and dynamic nature of India’s workforce.
Right Management showed that organizations that seek
Vol 9 (15) | April 2016 | www.indjst.org
Mita Mehta, Arti Chandani, Nair Moksha and Chandran Parul
to improve engagement measures experience significant
differences country wise in engagement levels from 45%
in India to only 11% in Japan.
10.  Can Engagement really
create a difference?
Employee engagement does make a huge difference in the
overall performance of the organisation. There are many
research conducted on the same and the following were
the results:
“Teams with high engagement performance zone had
a 37% net promoter score (NPS) as against those teams
with outside the engagement performance zones with
10% NPS”16.
It is noticed that in many department stores, the cus-
tomers had a higher satisfaction level in sections where
the level of employee engagement was the highest17.
Executives in organisations should pay heed to such
findings. It has been proved very predominantly that
there is a strong correlation between productivity and
engagement. According to a research published in the
Journal of Applied Psychology, “employee satisfaction and
engagement are essential to achieve business targets and
should be the focus of all the companies.” One interesting
question is this: What is the difference in the productiv-
ity of engaged employees when compared to non-engaged
workforce?
Employee engagement plays a very prominent part
in affecting the attitude of employees towards their work
and the organisation. They are motivated to make a differ-
ence in the organisation. They possess the right amount of
knowledge and abilities and are confident to use it in their
work. This frames their present behaviour and also marks
their future loyalty to the organisation.
Therefore, it is important to consider some of the
results of the Towers Perrin survey:
• 84% of the highly engaged employees are confident
that they can contribute positively in improving their
products and services, as compared to the 31% of the
disengaged employees who lack it.
• 72% of the highly engaged employees can positively
affect customer service, versus 27 percent of the dis-
engaged.
• 68% of highly engaged employees know that they can
help in cost reduction in their job or unit, compared
with just 19 percent of the disengaged.
Indian Journal of Science and Technology 7
 Trends in Employee Engagement Practices in Global and Indian Companies: A Technique to Curb Attrition

From the above statistics it is clear that organisations itself or is it a capability for organisational effectiveness? If
that invest their time and money in employee engagement employee engagement is practised in isolation and with-
have a better chance of beating the competition as against out examining what it does to help organisation to deliver
those who do not. Employee engagement practices set results, it becomes a sheer waste of effort. The challenge,
a benchmark of good practices in the industry that can therefore lies, for companies and its leaders is to keep a
make or break the reputation of an employer. track which of the engagement drivers support the organ-
isational results and which of them do not.
Many Organisations are coming up with innovative
11.  Conclusion monetary and non-monetary ways of keeping their staff
Employee engagement has always been one of the most engaged all throughout the year. Line managers are being
worrisome issues for most organisations. Training pro- coached on the same so that they can make a difference
gram peddlers and event managers are back in action starting at the grass root level itself. Organisations have
again carrying out classes in managing retention and realised the three main reasons why an employee would
engagement. The employee engagement fever has once want to be loyal to an organisation-work, career oppor-
again become epidemic in the corporate circuits. The most tunities and a strong belief in what the organization is
recent has been the news of Google losing a good enough aiming to achieve –and these are the factors upon which
number of people to its rival, i.e., Facebook and others is the organizations of today are primarily focusing on.
making people ask themselves that if this could be the fate
of Google, where do the other companies stand?
12.  References
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