EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AT THE WORKPLACE



Employee engagement is one of the vital concepts in Human Resources describing the employees’ level of enthusiasm, emotional commitment and dedication toward the organization and its goals, work, and company performance (Smith, 2022).  According to a study by (Kim and Parker, 2017), employee engagement is signified as an essential element for improving performance and enhancing organizational sustainability.

 

Employees play a vital and essential role for any organization and retaining employees is a major challenge as characterized by the current high levels of employee turnover and absenteeism ( Reijseger et al., 2017). Employee engagement is essential in any workplace as studies have shown a direct relationship between high employee engagement to higher levels of productivity, and employee satisfaction resulting in higher performance (Thisera & Wijesundara, 2020). As per a research study, companies with highly engaged employees help produce 33% higher profits and 44% more staff retention (Smith, 2017).

               Figure 1- Employee Engagement - Turnover is Predictable and Preventable

(Source: Shari Harley,2012)

Employees tend to stick to their jobs if they are expected to contribute in ways that make them feel happy and comfortable 75% of the time and are accepting if disliked tasks only occupy 25% of their general tasks at the workplace (Harley, 2012).

Factors Influencing Employee Engagement

Companies have realized the importance of maintaining more engaged employees to constantly work towards increasing employee’s participation to achieve better output and higher financial revenues (Richman, 2008).

 

A recent study that aimed to identify critical factors affecting employee satisfaction for ground service agents in a major middle eastern airline aimed to improve productivity and profitability for the company found employee job satisfaction levels getting impacted due to the following variables (Buksh,2020):

  •     Compensation
  •     Work Environment
  •     Age
  •     Education
  •     Workplace
  •     Management Style
  •     Work colleagues
  •     Job Stability
  •     Learning and Development

 

While combined factors like age and airport in the above research did not cause any variations in employee satisfaction, other factors such as work environment, education, management style, learning, and development as well as job stability proved to show prominent variations.  Learning and development were identified as major factors affecting employee job satisfaction as employees engaging lesser in learning and development opportunities showed less motivation and ended up not performing to the best of their abilities.

 

 

 

REFERENCES

Bakhsh, E.E (2020),’ Factors Affecting Employee Job Satisfaction of a Major Middle Eastern Airline’, International Journal of Management and Marketing Research, vol. 13, no.1, 15-22.

Available from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3736267 [ Accessed on 20 Nov.2022]

 

Osborne, S and Hammoud, M.S (2017), ‘Effective Employee Engagement in the Workplace’, International Journal of Applied Management and Technology, vol. 16, no. 1, 50-67. Available from https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1239;context=ijamt [Accessed on 20 Nov.2022]

 

Reijseger, G., Peters, M.C.W., Taris, T.W. et al (2017),’From Motivation to Activation: Why Engaged Workers are Better Performer’, J Bus Psychol, vol.32, 117–130. Available from https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-016-9435-z .[Accessed on 20 Nov.2022]

 

Richman, A.L. (2008),’The relationship of perceived flexibility, supportive work–life policies, and use of formal flexible arrangements and occasional flexibility to employee engagement and expected retention’, Community, Work and Family, vol.11, no.2, 183-197. Available from  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13668800802050350 . [ Accessed on 21 Nov.2022]

 

 

Smith, E (2017), ‘Employee Engagement- A good place to Start’, HR review [Online], Available at https://www.hrreview.co.uk/analysis/esther-smith-employee-engagement-good-place-start/103508.  [Accessed on 20 Nov.2022]

 

Smith, T (2022), ‘What Is Employee Engagement? Definition, Strategies, and Example’, Investopedia Business Essentials. Available from What Is Employee Engagement? Definition, Strategies, and Example (investopedia.com) [ Accessed on 19.11.2022]

 

Thisera, T. and Wijesundara, G. (2020), ‘How Changes in Job Resources and Personal Resources Predict Employee Engagement’, Open Journal of Business and Management, vol. 8, no. 6, 2623-2632.  Available from  How Changes in Job Resources and Personal Resources Predict Employee Engagement (scirp.org) [Accessed on 19.11.2022]

 

Comments

  1. Agreed with the content Divya, Further, Managers can get understanding about employees’ feel in significant issues by performing a survey and success of a business is closely correlated with the degree of commitment and passion displayed by its employees (Stanley et al, 2017). Additionally, surveys assist in identifying areas for development and training and tracking changes in behavior (Stanley et al, 2017). Burnout is a genuine issue in a company where employees are highly engaged but badly cared, on the other way around, when engagement is low but well-being is high, therefore, this could be identified and rectify by the managers (Blazi & Awolusi, 2020).

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    1. Appreciate and agree with your valuable comment Romeda.e Management (Kaufman, Barry, Wilkinson, & Gomez, 2020; Marchington, 2015; McCloskey & McDonnell, 2018). Employee attitude Surveys are considered crucial for
      addressing these causes (Puni, Agyemang, & Asamoah, 2016) since they are an essential component of employee
      voice mechanisms used by HR professionals. Human resource management (HRM) literature on employee voice has grown enormously in recent decades. Given the broad scope of the concept and its importance in contemporary
      workplaces, researchers have focused attention on a wide range of aspects in the employee attitude surveys phenomenon. They have paid particular attention to the meaning of employee attitude surveys evolution trends,
      consequences, and relationship with individual and organizational outcomes in shaping organization systems and influencing their effects in different countries (Barry& Wilkinson, 2016).

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  2. Great article Tarishma, furthermore employee engagement has been conceptualized in different ways, for example, according to Men (2015), it is the positive attitude held by the employees toward the organization and its values. The level of employee performance is highly determined by the level of commitment an employee has toward their organization and its values (Selvarasu & Sastry, 2014). An engaged employee is aware of business context and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization (Ologbo & Sofian, 2013).

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    1. According to the Gallup Institute, globally only 15% of workers can be described as fully engaged in their work, while 85% are not engaged or are actively disengaged (Gallup, 2017). The causes of the deepening “disengagement crisis” lie in the absence of support to employees in achieving what they perceive for themselves as meaningful results (orbes, 2014)

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  3. a solid article. Additionally, communication makes it feasible for team members to communicate with one another. Through thorough and efficient communication, a manager should be the first to build bridges amongst the team members of the organization. Activities of the organization scroll correctly through communication (Bucata & Rizecsu, 2017).

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    1. Thank u for the feedback. Ruck & Welch (2012) state that managers have long recognised the importance of internal
      communication, however, it is seen from the perspective of management rather than the employee. Furthermore, Welch and Jackson (2007) argue that research into employee preferences for channel and content of internal corporate communication is required to ensure it meets employees’ needs.

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  4. Great article Tarishma. I like to add that a study done by Satata (2021) concluded that employee engagement influences the quality of individual performance in the organization. Thanks to employee engagement, the productivity and job satisfaction produced by individuals in the achievement of company organizations have better quality because individuals feel that they can work consistently, are absorbed in work (absorption), and are more physically and psychologically competitive.

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    1. Thanks for the comment. Yes, I agree. In the recent times there is an increasing awareness that employee engagement is pivotal to successful commercial and business performance, where engaged employees are the ‘backbone of good working environments where people are industrious, ethical and accountable’ (Levinson, 2007; Cleland & Townend, 2008)

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  5. Adding further, work quality is very important in achieving organizational goals so that it can generate employee engagement for each individual (Alqarni, 2016). In the industrial sector, employee engagement has a major effect on the sustainability of the company and leads to better performance changes (Mokaya & Kipyegon, 2014). A person can be professional when they have engaged in their work. The higher the employee engagement, the better the quality of work obtained. Besides, cognitive, emotional, and physical conditions while working also needs to be considered (Khan, 1990).

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    1. Yes Derrick. Although there might be a diverse array of components to the human dimension (e.g., equity, philanthropy, and employee engagement) [ Flore, 2013)], given that a pivotal mechanism for understanding the human dimension of sustainability is the ability of employees to thrive or be engaged in the workplace, employee engagement at work could be considered to be a core component of the human dimension of organizational sustainability.

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  6. Useful Article Tarishma, Employee engagement is a physical and psychological condition that is related to work cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally in order to achieve the organization's goals. Employee engagement refers to things that are positively effective when it comes to carrying out work with vigor, dedication, and absorption. This sense of engagement is a cognitive, emotional, and behavioral condition of the individual directed towards organizational goals. Employee engagement is defined as an individual's positive attachment, commitment, and loyalty to one or more lines of work, or the individual's positive psychological state regarding their work (Satata, 2021)

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    1. Thanks Zacky. Yes, Because of the emergence of positive psychology, work engagement, as a positive aspect of psychology, is increasingly popular in occupational health psychology. Engaged employees have a sense of energetic and effective connection with their work activities and see themselves as able to deal well with the demands of their job (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004).

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  7. Agreed on the above content. Tarishma. Apart from the amount in order to get 100% of employee engagement, companies also need to contribute from the company’s culture, leadership style & rewarding schemes.
    The company culture plays a major role in the level of employee engagement. Kompaso & Sridevi (2010) states that employers should make sure that they maintain psychologically safe workplace for their employees to improve employee engagement. Granatino, Verkamp, & Parker, (2013) states that carrying out training programs will increase engagement.

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    1. I agree. Even though organizational culture is thought to be important in shaping employee-related factors, research to identify that employee engagement is affected by organizational culture is limited. Likewise, the work engagement-related research literature has been insisting on investigating broader contextual factors impacting on work engagement ( Bakker et, al., 2011).

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  8. Great article Tarishma. Organizations need to pay attention to the areas such as job security, compensation, supervisor support culture & rewards, training & developments, work environment, and organization justice, etc. as for Osteraker (1999) [20], employee satisfaction and retention are the umbrella terms for the success of an organization. Further, organizations with a lack of human resource practices have a very high chance of keeping employees over the long term by providing them an acceptable degree of privacy and friendly workplace management (Wells & Thelen, 2002). Investments made in employees' professional and training development are one of the key determiners in employee retention (Messmer, 2000).

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  9. Great approach Tarishma. Highly engaged workers have a few commonalities, including a need for feedback and a desire to learn and grow. Companies with a global presence that invests in its employees' self-esteem and provides quality coaching see a rise in employee engagement (Dhir & Shukla, 2019).

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    1. Thank you Ishara. In a study of self-esteem with work engagement by Kim and Hyun (2017), where he found that self-esteem had a positive impact on work engagement. Job characteristics such as compensation, reward and recognition enhance social status leading to higher self-esteem, which affects work engagement (Saks, 2006; Fairlie, 2011). Crawford et al. (2014) also found that self-esteem contributes to developing work engagement.

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  10. Fasinating Tarishma. When leaders build purpose-driven organizations,employees are more engaged.Employeesin these organizations act likevolunteers because they believe in the cause or purpose of theorganization.At times, acrisis maycreate a temporary purpose-driven organization. In utilityfirms, when a stormcreates power outages, utility employees find a clear and unifying purposeto their work. Employees think much less about distracting politics or policies and focus onrestoring power.These employees are engaged.The greater challenge for leaders is to ensure acontinuity of engagement with the benefit of an external crisis (Dave 2008).

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    1. Thanks Manodya. I agree. A constant feature of today’s work environment is large-scale change (Robinson and Griffiths, 2005). Organizations are forever changing the way they do business in response to growing international competition, a diversifying workforce, increasingly complex work environments and shareholder pressures (Lawler, 1986; Pettigrew et al., 2001; Robinson and Griffiths, 2005). Although these change strategies should accelerate an organization’s strategic and financial goals by streamlining organizational processes and offering cost-saving solutions, this is often not the case because individuals find these transitions difficult to experience (Marks, 2006).

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  11. Bruce and Pepitone (1999) propose an interesting viewpoint according to which managers cannot motivate employees; managers can only influence what employees are motivated to do.

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    1. According to Chaundary & Sharma (2012) basically motivation word is derived from ‘motive’, which covers need, wants and desire of persons. So the employees’ motivation means the process in which organization inspires employees with the shape of rewards, bonus, and others for achieving the organizational goals (Zamer et. al., 2014). In the other word to achieve the objectives of the company, the leaders and managers have a significant role to encourage and motivate their employees to work better, enthusiastic, engage and able to improve their career and existence or proudness (Vnouckova & Klupakova, 2013; Uzonna, 2013

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  12. Great approach Tarishma, Employee engagement is seen as positive attitudes and behaviors those improve organizational performance, in a manner that they interact together and support one another (Nabil M. Eljaaidi, 2016)It is about employees’ feelings of pride and loyalty working for the organization, being a great advocate of the organization to its customers, users and partners, exerting more efforts to complete their job duties. Furthermore, engagement is about utilizing staff’ opinions and knowledge to develop products, and by their organization (Nabil M. Eljaaidi, 2016)

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    1. Thank you Wickramasiri. I agree. Robinson, Perryman & Hayday (2004) defined employee engagement as a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organization and values, and an engage employee is aware of business context, and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization (Markos & Sridevi, 2010).

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  13. Great article Tarishma. Furthermore research conducted by practitioners and academicians has found positive outcomes of employee engagement (Saks, 2006), such as positive relationships with organizational outcomes, which in turn lead to better financial performance and profitability (Armir and Buckley, 2009; Gibbons, 2008; Robertson‐Smith and Markwick, 2009; Saks, 2006; Salanova et al., 2005; Schaufeli et al., 2009; Xanthopoulou et al., 2007).

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  14. (Gankar and Chitale, 2011)) highlighted the high level of initiative
    determined by engagement, considering that engaged employees are willing to do everything within their power for the benefit of the clients and for the success of the organization.

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  15. Good article Tarishma. Would like to add further, most often employee engagement has been defined as emotional and intellectual commitment to the organisation (Baumruk 2004, Richman 2006 and Shaw 2005) or the amount of discretionary effort exhibited by employees in their job (Frank et al 2004).

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