Employee Engagement

Dr. Jitendra Mohanty

• Employee engagement is a property of the relationship
between an organization and its employees.
• “An engaged employee” is one who is fully absorbed by
and enthusiastic about their work and so take positive
action to further the organization’s reputation and
interests.
• High employee engagement organization is expected to
outperform low engagement organizations.
• William Kahn: Harnessing of organization members’
selves to their work roles; in engagement, people
employ and express themselves physically, cognitively,
and emotionally during role performances.
• 1993, Schmidt et al. proposed a bridge between the
pre-existing concept of ‘job satisfaction’ and employee
engagement
• “An employee’s involvement with,
commitment to, and satisfaction with work.
Employee engagement is a part of employee
retention.”
• Above definition integrates the classic
constructs of job satisfaction (Smith et al.,
1969), and organizational commitment
(Meyer & Allen, 1991).
• Shuck and Wollard (2011) identify four main
sub-concepts within the term:
1. “Needs satisfying” approach, in which engagement is the
expression of one’s preferred self in task behaviours.
2. “Burnout antithesis” approach, in which energy,
involvement, efficacy are presented as the opposites of
established “burnout” constructs: exhaustion, cynicism
and lack of accomplishment.
3. “Satisfaction-engagement approach”, in which
engagement is a more technical version of job satisfaction,
evidenced by Gallup’s own Q12 engagement survey which
gives an r=.91 correlation with one (job satisfaction)
measure.
4. “The multidimensional approach, in which a clear
distinction is maintained between job and organizational
engagement, usually with the primary focus on
antecedents and consequents to role performance rather
than organizational identification.
• Early 1920s: Mary Parker Follett – employee morale,
work ethic, productivity, and motivation
• Frederick Herzberg concluded positive motivation is
driven by managers giving their employees
developmental opportunities, activity he termed
‘vertical enrichment’
Contributors to desirable levels of employee engagement
1. Involvement: Eileen Appelbaum and her colleagues
(2000): compared traditional production systems with
flexible high performance production systems
involving teams, training, incentive pay systems –
plants utilizing high involvement practices showed
superior performance – workers in high involvement
organizations showed more positive attitudes, trust,
organizational commitment, intrinsic enjoyment of
the work – often linked to productivity, employee
voice, empowerment, morale, employee retention,
firm financial performance
2. Commitment: Employees with highest lvel of
commitment perform 20% better – 87% less
likely to leave the organization – proves
engagement is linked to organizational
performance
3. Productivity: In a study f professional service
firms, the Hay Group found that offices with
engaged employees were up to 43% more
productive – job satisfaction is also linked to
productivity.
 Generating Engagement
• Employee perceptions of job importance: “… an
employee’s attitude toward the job’s importance and
the company had the greatest impact on loyalty and
customer service than all other employee factors
combined.”
• Employee clarity of job expectations – “If expectations
are not clear and basic materials and equipment are
not provided, negative emotions such as boredom or
resentment may result, and the employee may then
become focused on surviving more than thinking about
how he can help the organization succeed.”
• Career advancement/improvement
opportunities – “Plant supervisors and managers
indicated that many plant improvements were
being made outside the suggestion system,
where employees initiated changes in order to
reap the bonuses generated by the subsequent
cost savings.”
• Regular feedback and dialogue with superiors –
“Feedback is the key to giving employees a sense
of where they are going, but many organizations
are remarkably bad at giving it.” – “What I really
wanted to hear was ‘Thanks. You did a good job.
But all my boss did was to hand me a check.”
• Quality of working relationship with peers,
superiors, and subordinates – “…. If employees;
relationship with their managers is fractured,
then no amount of perks will persuade the
employees to perform at top levels. Employee
engagement is a direct reflection of how
employees feel about their relationship with the
boss.”
• Perception of the ethos and values of the
organization – “In inspiration and values is the
most important of the six drivers in our engaged
performance model. Inspirational leadership is
the ultimate perk. In its absence it is unlikely to
engage employees.”
• Effective internal employee communications
– “which convey a clear description of ‘what is
going on’.” –
• Commitment theories: based on creating
conditions, under which the employee will
feel compelled to work for an organization.
• Engagement theories: aim to bring about a
situation in which the employee by free choice
has an intrinsic desire to work in the best
interests of the organization