Employee Engagement
Employee Engagement
The
idea of employee engagement was first proposed by Kahn (1990) as the saddling
of an organization’s people to their work functions; self-work and
self-articulation of individuals psychologically, and truly in their work
lives. Since Kahn (1990) proposed this idea, analysts have proposed various
definitions which reflect distinctive comprehension of employee engagement in
each study; however, this created confusion for administrators whether the
efforts that improve employee engagement are working altogether in an
organization.
Employee satisfaction, regardless of having some similarities
with employee engagement, should not be considered the same as employee
engagement (Stanford University, 2021). Engagement is much more than mere
satisfaction. For example, a person who is satisfied with their job could be a
totally disengaged employee. Steve Jobs said “the only way to do great work is
to love what you do” (Stanford University, 2005).
Kruse (2012) as said in Video 1.0 explains
that employee satisfaction is not only the employee engagement, as working 8 to
5 and taking breaks between working. Also, Kruse (2012) explains that employee
happiness like listening to music while working, having chats with subordinates
and feeling happy about the job is not job satisfaction. Kruse defines Employee
engagement as an emotional commitment that workers have towards the
organization and goals of the organization. When employees are passionate about
their job they give their best. Employee
engagement brings happiness and satisfaction to them and also it helps towards
achieving the goals of the organization and increasing profits.
Video 1.0: Employee Engagement
Figure 1 explains the
characteristics engaged employees have towards their organization. And these
qualities will make an employee drive the organization with happiness and a
satisfactory way. It is easy to identify an engaged employee through these
qualities.
The
organization, where I’m working also, is a well-structured organization where
most of the employees are engaged with their job and organizational outcomes
have resulted in a better way. Recently the bank which I am working for was awarded as the Best retail
bank for the 11th consecutive year and especially it was also honored as the
best-managed bank during the pandemic period.
Looking
at individual outcomes, we see the bank is providing lots of facilities to their
employees to develop the engagement towards the organization. The Bank was able
to face the critical situation during the pandemic period in a positive way
where some financial institutions faced it difficult to manage the situation.
This wouldn’t be possible if the employees were not committed to their
organization. They made the bank to be recognized as the best-managed bank
during the pandemic period.
The
organization also makes sure that safety measures are taken by every means to
protect its employees. Even though the pandemic created an unpleasant
environment for many financial institutions all over the universe bank ensured
that their employees are not made discontented. Salaries were paid in due time
and bonuses were also given as the way it was done in previous years. Bank has
ensured the job security of every one of its employees and employees are
committed towards their organization and they are capable to bring a better
return to its stakeholders.
Reference
- Harvard Business Review. n.d. 7 Ways To
Improve Employee Development Programs.
Available at:
<https://hbr.org/2015/07/7-ways-to-improve-employee-development-programs>.
- Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of management journal, 33(4), 692-724.
- Kruse, K., 2012. Employee Engagement
2.0. The Kruse Group.
- Stanford
University (2005) 'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says. [Online].
Available at: https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/.
- Stoyanova, Tsvetana & Iliev, Ivaylo. (2017). Employee Engagement Factor for Organizational Excellence. International Journal of Business and Economic Sciences Applied Research. 10. 23-29. 10.25103/ijbesar.101.03.
Agreed, Further Employee engagement is the main focus of organizations as well as academic researchers as it predicts productivity, motivation, employee involvement, job performance commitment and leadership (Baumruk, 2004).
ReplyDeleteThank You for your comment Nivethini, Agreed and indeed. Employee engagement as the employee's effective involvement in work and the state of complete physiology, cognition and emotion that goes with the work engagement including three dimensions: work engagement, organizational recognition and sense of work value (Sun, 2018).
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ReplyDeleteAgreed Pernalla Further to your Figure 1, Levels of engagement matter because employee engagement can correlate with performance. Even more significantly, there is evidence that improving engagement correlates with improving performance Mackleod (2009).
DeleteThankyou Duminda, As stated by A.F.Marrelli,(2017) All the managers from front line to top executive managers need to take various actions to facilitate the motivation and engagement between the employees of the firm and improve the sustainability of the organization through improving the workforce performance.
DeleteAgree with your argument, employee engagement strategies implemented by business leaders result in higher levels of employee engagement, customer satisfaction, productivity and profit and lower levels of employee accidents and turnovers. Business leaders adopt the concept of Self-determination theory to enable employees to hold positive attitudes towards their organization (Osborne et al 2017).
ReplyDeleteYes Treva, further Robinson et al. (2004) has defined employee engagement as a positive attitudes held by the employees towards their organization. An engaged employee is well aware of his/her business context and performs work with team mates to perform effectively and efficiently for the benefit of the organization. Also Robinson et al. (2004) emphasize that there is a necessity for the organization to develop engagement among employees and this require the two way relationship between employer and employee.
DeleteAgreed with you Pernalla, adding to your argument the employee engagement can be achieved through the creation of an organizational environment where positive emotions such as involvement and pride are encouraged, resulting in improved organizational performance, lower employee turnover and better health (PratimaSarangi & Nayak, 2016).
ReplyDeleteYes Sachith, Employee engagement is where employees understand how their deliverable are connected to the organization’s objectives and it therefore makes them more focused on the relevant activities with full commitment and also the engaged employees will exhibit not only better performance but also will be intrinsically motivated (Parker, 2002).
DeleteAgreed Pernalla,Employee engagement directly influence to organizational success, organization should improve the engagement strategies to have better engagement,HRM practices, work environment, job satisfaction, organizational culture, employee-supervisor relationship(Kaliannan & Adjovu,2014).
ReplyDeleteThankyou Sandun, adding further organizations must work harder in order to engage employees, furthermore in current dynamic context employee performance is very crucial and its directly link with organizations performance hence organization should identify employees and get them engaged (Schrita, 2017).
DeleteI Agree, further employee engagement establish positive attitude among employees such as job satisfaction, commitment, loyalty, ethical behavior, lower labor turnover, continuous improvement, and positive exchange of psychological contract between employer and subordinates, which enable organization to fulfill its objective and profit (David guest, 2009).
ReplyDeleteDefinitely Sujeendran, An employee who is motivated and satisfied about his job will have a high level of performance and this satisfaction can be achieved through monetary and non monetary rewards (Zaini,2009).
DeleteAs you explained employee engagement is a key factor to improve performance significantly. When employees are engaged they are loyal to the organization and not limited to their contractual obligations (Sridevi, 2010).
ReplyDeleteYes Chanaka, According to Evans & Lindsay (2012) when it comes to employee productivity, engaged employees are more productive & achieve the expected quality level with minimum mistakes, fewer accidents and good safety records.
DeleteAgree with you. Employee engagement is closely linked with organizational performance outcomes. Companies with engaged employees have higher employee retention as a result of reduced turnover and reduced intention to leave the company, productivity, profitability, growth and customer satisfaction. On the other hand, companies with disengaged employees suffer from waste of effort and bleed talent, earn less commitment from the employees, face increased absenteeism and have less customer orientation, less productivity, and reduced operating margins and net profit margins (Markos and Sridevi, 2010).
ReplyDeleteYes Chamara , Further Shresha (2019) has said employees are the valuable assets in an organization and the engagement of them is more valuable because it will be the key reason for every action reflected by them in the organization.
DeleteAgree with you. Employee Engagement is the devotion, passion of employees and effective leadership skills with support from the top management to the employees. Human resource leaders set the drive and creed of their company and spread that positive morale to the employees in the company. 10 C‟s for employee engagement by the author, George Ambler (2007) pulled the facts and highlights as follows: Connect, Career, Clarity, Convey, Congratulate, Contribute, Control, .Collaborate, Credibility and Confidence.
ReplyDeleteThankyou Uddika, Adding further Employee engagement is a positive attitude of an employee towards the job and it is all about the passion and commitment ( Rothwell ,2010).
DeleteWell said Pernalla. Career development and internal career opportunities are key components for
ReplyDeletestrengthening employee engagement. High engagement has a significant impact on the performance of the employees, their productivity, and the turnover (Zeuch, M., 2016).
Yes Wasantha, Employees who are highly engaged are assets to an organization which can be used to attract more talented people where as disengaged employees can be said as a liability to the organization due to low level of productivity(Gallup,2005).
DeleteAgreed with you and adding to that , In addition, Employee engagement is a part of employee retention." This definition integrates the classic constructs of job satisfaction (Smith et al., 1969), and organizational commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1991).
ReplyDeleteDefinitely Eranda, As said by Erdagon(2012) workplace engagement is based on workplace satisfaction with the environment, payment, coaching and allocated work.
DeleteYes, I agree with you, employee engagement accomplishes organizational performance. An engaged workplace encourages commitment and energy among the workers of the organization to enhance production and business performance (Kumar & Swetha, 2011). In addition, According to MacLeod & Clarke (2009) four key enablers to successful employee engagement are: leadership, engaging manager, voice and integrity which deals with the attitude throughout the organization that employee engagement is about how you do; what you do; it is a belief in the importance of people and what they are capable of when managed effectively.
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DeleteCorrectly said Gagana , Further committed employees act in an engaged way so that they don’t easily quit the job also they generate tremendous benefits t the organization such as reduced turnover and increased productivity(De Lange,2008).
Agree with you Pernalla. Adding to that, Rothwell, (2010) described engagement as a positive attitude toward the job and distinguished it from both job satisfaction and commitment. Thus, the complete equation of engagement is obtained by aligning maximum job satisfaction and maximum
ReplyDeletejob contribution (Sharma & Krishnan, 2012).