Concept of employee engagement
Undertake a Literature Review on – Employee Engagement: What is it? What causes it? What does it lead to?
Engaged and motivated employees within the organisational environment tend to contribute more in terms of profitability, productivity and support in maintaining a higher level of commitment leading to the higher customer base and satisfaction. The present paper seeks to identify the concept and different dimensions of employee engagement by reviewing a range of literature.
The concept of employee engagement refers to the measurement of employee involvement with their respective jobs, performance level and working environment. It is worth mentioning that an engaged employee refers to the individual who is completely enthusiastic about and fully absorbed by their work and thereby takes action to improve the reputation of the organisation. According to Pandita and Bedarkar (2015), leadership, work-life balance and communication have a significant impact on the employee performance that leads to the employee engagement within the workplace environment. The author also stated that these factors impact on the spontaneous involvement, muscular effort and visible investment of attention of an employee in the respective job role by managing high morale among the employees. Hence, as opined by Mone and London (2018), employee engagement refers to the elusive force that motivates workers to improve the productivity of the company. Thereby, it is worth mentioning that managing high morale amid the workforce is beneficial for an organisation as it can be stated that actively engaged employees are more productive and loyal towards the company.
Herzberg’s theory
These days employee engagement becomes high on the business agenda and the theory of Herzberg is effective in defining employee engagement and motivation within the workplace. According to Herzberg, the ‘motivational factors’ and ‘hygiene factors’ are responsible for improving job security and employee recognition that lead to improving employee performance in the workplace. The five motivational factors that impact on the higher employee engagement are recognition, opportunities for growth, sense of achievement, meaningful work and responsibility. Providing the opportunities for training and development plays a significant role in the Herzberg’s theory in improving employee engagement. On the other hand, hygiene factors such as reasonable policies, safe and clean workplace and relationship with co-workers are also associated with the worker-involvement in the workplace (Alshmemri et al. 2017).
Kahn’s theory of personal engagement
The theory of Kahn on employee engagement refers to the three psychological conditions that have a significant impact on the development of workers’ involvement in the workplace. These factors regarding employee engagement include psychological meaningfulness, psychological availability and the psychological safety (Bailey et al. 2015). The psychological meaningfulness refers to the value of work goal and hence, lack of meaning in work can lead to detachment and apathy of one’s work. Thereby, according to the theory, the organisations need to focus on these factors for fostering individual’s motivation for improving productivity.
Theoretical perspectives of employee engagement
The concept and the theories of employee engagement come out with the significant contributors to employee engagement with the various organisational priorities. The contributors are
Involvement
The high-involvement practices such as training, the power of decision-making, rewards of high performance, teams, incentive pay systems and other factors show superior performance of the employees. In addition to this, it can be stated that the employees in high-involvement practices show a more positive attitude such as organisational commitment, trust and intrinsic enjoyment of the work. It is often linked to the effective and higher notion of employee empowerment. According to the viewpoint of Slack et al. (2015), high-involvement management practices are associated with the employee retention, higher morale and financial performance of the company positively.
Commitment
The employees along with the highest level of commitment are responsible to perform 20% more effective and they are less likely to leave the company and it indicates that the higher level of employee engagement is linked to higher level of organisational performance. Thereby, it can be stated that commitment from the management has a significant impact on the employee engagement with the culture and the transparency of the company.
Productivity
The organisations with effective employee engagement are 43% more productive and they are more likely to gain customer satisfaction positively. However, it is worth mentioning that the job satisfaction is linked to the significant employee engagement that leads to the productivity of the company.
Employees can be perceived as the asset to an organisation. For gaining competitive advantage in the cutthroat market, organisations are now using intellectual property as an essential source and it is worth mentioning that one way the companies can navigate the challenges and capitalise the intellectual property is by fostering employee engagement. As mentioned by Kumar and Pansari (2015), high levels of employee engagement are associated with the improved rates of organisational growth and profitability as the engaged employees are more passionate and energised about the work they perform. The authors further stated that an engaged employee has that potential to consistently outperform and gain new standards of excellence. These factors within the engaged employees impact over the improvement of the company productivity significantly.
Along with this, it can be stated that with the help of improved employee engagement, it can be possible to improve the customer satisfaction. By engaging with the employees, it can be possible to improve the quality and the quantity of the productions that lead to the higher level of customer base and bring a significant brand image among the customers. At the present time, the organisations and the public relation professionals are identifying the needs of strengthening internal communication among the employees for improving employee engagement (Mishra et al. 2014). By communicating with the employees, it can be possible to build a culture of transparency between the employees and the management and it can engage the workforce with the priorities of organisations. By engaging employees with the decision-making procedure, the management can be able to understand customer preferences and thereby can improve customer relationship significantly.
Contributors to employee engagement
A range of factors within the workplace climate is responsible for driving employee engagement with the work process, culture and other priorities of the organisational entity. Hence, the study of Popliand Rizvi (2016) shows the relationship between the employee engagement and leadership styles. According to this study, effective leadership plays a significant role in developing a culture of employee engagement and it is worth mentioning that the proper human resource practices and leadership styles drive engagement that needs to be fostered by an organizational entity in order to drive the performance of the company in the existing market.
On the other hand, the study of Albrecht et al. (2015) stated that the HR practices such as socialisation, selection, training and performance management facilitate and improve employee engagement and this helps organisations to achieve competitive advantage potentially. Along with this, the study of Mishra et al. (2014) deals with the role of internal communication as one of the key drivers in improving employee engagement and hence, the study defined a range of communication styles (such as face-to-communication, written and other styles) in improving employee relations in the workplace environment. Hence, it can be stated that with the help of effective communication styles, it can be possible for the public relation executives to find themselves in an enhanced role of fostering employee engagement. In addition to this, organisational culture plays one of the key roles in driving employee engagement. Hence, the culture that defines job role to each employee effectively that improves employee engagement. Thereby, these are the factors that drive employee engagement in the workplace environment.
At the present time, most of the companies rely on commitment, engagement and energy of the workforce for the purpose of driving and surviving in the competitive market. Hence, there are some steps that the organisations need to consider for fostering employee engagement in the workplace. As opined by Karanges et al. (2015), relationship-oriented behaviours, enhanced visibility, increased face-time with the employee as well as accessibility plays one of the major roles in improving employment involvement with the entire work process of the company.
On the other hand, Pandita and Bedarkar (2015) argued that the consideration of high-level measures such as company-wide awareness training as well as worker-involvement programs impact on the development of employee engagement and it leads to the improvement of the customer satisfaction dimension positively.
Along with this, different worker involvement programs such as health and safety measures help to engage employees with the company more than anything. Thereby, facilitating the company’s safety program can foster employee-involvement that could lead to improved productivity and financial profitability.
However, Mone and London (2018) argued that the concept of working in teams can enhance engagement and thereby, the organisational culture that fosters strong relationship among the co-workers makes the employees more engaged with the entire work procedure. Apart from this, it can be stated that the reconfiguring company bonus scheme can be identified as one of the key steps to improve worker involvement as it makes the employee more motivated towards their respective job roles.
Thereby, on the basis of above-held discussion, it can be stated that the companies need to employ the key ways for the purpose of developing employee engagement in order to improve more productions, profitability and reputation in the market
Reference List
Albrecht, S.L., Bakker, A.B., Gruman, J.A., Macey, W.H. and Saks, A.M., 2015. Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(1), pp.7-35.
Alshmemri, M., Shahwan-Akl, L. and Maude, P., 2017. Herzberg’s two-factor theory. Life Science Journal, 14(5), pp.12-16.
Bailey, C., Madden, A., Alves, K. and Fletcher, L., 2017. The meaning, antecedents and outcomes of employee engagement: A narrative synthesis. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(1), pp.31-53.
Bedarkar, M. and Pandita, D., 2015. A study on the drivers of employee engagement impacting employee performance. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 133, pp.106-115.
Eldor, L. and Harpaz, I., 2016. A process model of employee engagement: The learning climate and its relationship with extra?role performance behaviours. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 37(2), pp.213-235.
Karanges, E., Johnston, K., Beatson, A. and Lings, I., 2015. The influence of internal communication on employee engagement: A pilot study. Public Relations Review, 41(1), pp.129-131.
Kumar, V. and Pansari, A., 2015. Measuring the benefits of employee engagement. MIT Sloan Management Review, 56(4), p.67.
Mishra, K., Boynton, L. and Mishra, A., 2014. Driving employee engagement: The expanded role of internal communications. International Journal of Business Communication, 51(2), pp.183-202.
Mone, E.M. and London, M., 2018. Employee engagement through effective performance management: A practical guide for managers. Abingdon: Routledge.
Popli, S. and Rizvi, I.A., 2016. Drivers of employee engagement: The role of leadership style. Global Business Review, 17(4), pp.965-979.
Slack, R.E., Corlett, S. and Morris, R., 2015. Exploring employee engagement with (corporate) social responsibility: A social exchange perspective on organisational participation. Journal of Business Ethics, 127(3), pp.537-548
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