Discussion
The term Employee engagement usually refers to the level of dedication and commitment that an employee of an organization shows. In today’s competitive environment, employee engagement has emerged as a critical factor for the business’s success. Engagement of employees at an elevated level helps organizations encourage talent retention, build customer loyalty, and boost the organization’s performance and shareholders’ value. Enhancing employee engagement is regarded as one of the top five worldwide corporate strategies, according to executives all around the world. Participation or engagement of employees can dramatically improve employee retention, efficiency, and devotion of employees. Still, it is also an essential component of customer happiness, the organization’s reputation, and overall value for shareholders (SHRM, 2022).
In the current era of Covid 19 where the effect of the global pandemic is affecting the entire economy, the business environment is shifting due to its impact. Human resource managers are constantly developing creative, innovative, and effective approaches to engage employees more healthily during this difficult time actively. Employee engagement is a workplace approach that motivates all employees of the organization to contribute their best effort each day while remaining committed to the firm’s goal and its values. A business organization always keeps in their mind that employees who are well engaged in the organization will create more productivity for the Entity, which will provide higher customer satisfaction and, without a doubt, improvements in profit and revenue of the organization (Chanana 2021).
Employee engagement is a widespread phenomenon that is attracting considerable interest from scholars and Human resource professionals. According to the definition given by Kahn, Employee engagement can be described as the process of channelling the organization’s members’ selves to their respective work roles; through engagement, individuals employ and represent themselves cognitively, physically, and mentally during their work role performances. According to the definition given we can also define Employee engagement as an intellectual and emotional commitment of the organization or even as a discretionary effort exhibited by the employees of the organization in their employment. Aside from these concepts, Robinson et al. also shed some light on organizations for employee engagement. They added that a sense of value and a higher level of commitment to the organization would help in boosting employee engagement. They further said that the importance of being valued in the organization is derived from numerous procedures and policies implemented. Some policies that make an employee feel more appreciated in the organization are communication, training and development, and cooperation, while job satisfaction, friendliness with family, and effective management enhance their involvement (Rana 2019).
Employee Engagement
The observation of literature on the determinants of employee engagement provides a lot of information about what factors motivate employees. According to Maslach et al., meaningful and recognized work in conjunction with employees who have a measure of control over their employment could significantly influence employee engagement. It has often been shown that communication that is particularly done from a higher level of management is a key determinant of employee engagement in the area of employment. According to Saks, employee engagement is strongly affected by perceived support from the supervisory, recognition and rewards, organizational justice, fair treatment, and affective organizational commitment. In his model another researcher named Bakker and Demerouti incorporated personal resources and job resources as important determinants for engagement in work, ultimately leading to improved performance in their model. On the other hand, Armstrong and Taylor discovered that engaging in work, responsibility, and control over resources both influenced employee engagement. Eventually, Joshi and Sodhi (2011) also discovered that compensation/monetary perks, job content, work-life balance strategies, relationship with top management and employee, career advancement and development opportunities, and cohesion among team members are factors that help in predicting employee engagement.
The employee engagement model developed by Kahn is generally believed to be the earliest form of a model for employee engagement. As per his model, it is essential for an organization to meet three psychological conditions relating to work disengagement and personal engagement. The three psychological conditions comprise safety, meaningfulness, and Availability. According to his study, it was revealed that Employees sense more involvement at work when they experience psychological safety, psychological meaningfulness and when they become mentally available. We can define psychological meaningfulness as characterized by complex work, acceptable goals, autonomy, and innovation. On the other hand, Availability is mainly concerned with the emotions of employees and psychological readiness to execute the project. According to Kahn’s concept, an employee is competent until he or she feels safe, develops confidence in his or her skills, develops a sense of self-consciousness, and feels connected to the social system. Lastly, the third aspect, safety, denotes a favourable and peaceful interaction between the employees and their co-workers and superiors. Workers will feel highly engaged whenever they feel comfortable and safe; that is when they have the backing of their colleagues and managers. In 2003, a very well-known independent consultancy firm based in UK which is commonly known as IES (Institute for Employment Studies) carried out a survey that has been formally known as the Robinson, Perryman, and Hayday model of employee engagement. As per this model, it was found that strong employee engagement would result in building a good attitude toward the company and aid in promoting a bit of pride for the entity employees feel more positive toward achieving performance expectations. Employee engagement creates a sense of teamwork; thus, these factors assist employees in going over and above the needs of the job. Some other aspects identified for responsible employee engagement comprise Training and development, performance evaluations, family friendliness, communication, compensation, remuneration, and fairness in the treatment of employees. These elements are considered crucial for employee engagement because these elements will make an employee feel more valued and connected with the business. The model discussed above placed a greater emphasis on appreciation of feelings and involvement within the business; additionally, when more emphasis is placed on family friendliness, cooperation, and job-related pleasure, employees may feel more connected with the firm.
Factors of Employee Engagement
The engagement of employees impacts various important issues that are of significant importance to the firms from various points of view, such as the performance of the organization, productivity of employees, retention of employees, and loyalty of the customer. Various studies research observed that employee has a favourable influence on the organization’s performance measures, such as employee satisfaction and turnover. Other scholarly investigations have reported that employee engagement is a strong factor in organizational effectiveness (Otieno et al., 2015; Dajani, 2015). As per the research conducted by Gallup, it was revealed in his study that better engagement of employees would result in increased earnings per share (EPS) for the publicly listed organization. Employees exhibit those behaviours that contribute to promoting performance consistently as a result of their high levels of engagement. Productivity is another major result of employee involvement. Productivity and engagement have a favourable and significant relation. The knowledge of Employees about an organization’s productivity levels would also be a key determinant of employee engagement. Moreover, employee engagement depends on four fundamental organizational circumstances such as the organization’s culture, policies emphasizing continuous encouragement of employees, relevant measures, and performance of the organization. Employee engagement not just helps in boosting efficiency but also aids in lowering the rate of absenteeism inside the organization’s workplace. According to various researchers, it was revealed that those employees who remain engaged are more cognizant of their activities in the business, and they try harder since they know that their contributions will help their organization to be more efficient and successful. Another study conducted by some researchers determined that employee retention rate will increase in a firm where employee engagement practices are done. They further discovered that concentrating on non-financial factors of employee engagement such as work engagement, communication, management support, role clarity, and teamwork can improve employee retention rate.
Another researcher Towers Perrin conducted a survey in which he revealed that those employees who are highly engaged are more stable because they feel inspired, which relieves anxiety and creates a positive work environment. Work engagement sometimes creates a link with consumer satisfaction also. The study conducted by Rama Devi argued that the provision of customer service with operational efficiency would only be achieved if two factors were addressed, namely, employee engagement initiatives and customer happiness. She further added that when employees are more engaged, their likelihood of leaving the firm diminishes, and they become more devoted to satisfying the demand of their customers. Over time, an employee might develop customer loyalty by adopting this attitude.
Employee Engagement Models
Employees who are engaged assist the firm in achieving its objective, executing its strategy, and creating significant results for the business. Various Hr practices, such as creating job design, hiring, selecting, deciding remuneration, coaching, and performance appraisal, can enhance employee engagement. It is often seen that those Organizations that encourage employee engagement can manage talent smartly and be able to do honest communication with employees at the right and proper time. They can face fluctuation in the current market and achieve a successful future. Both organizations and employees rely on one another to accomplish their objectives and goals. It is essential to note that Employee engagement should never be a one-time event; rather, embedded in the organization’s culture. In the workplace, Employee engagement is influenced by variables such as encouragement, opportunities for career development, communication, rewards, flexibility in employee work hours, a reasonable wage structure, an open and transparent workplace environment, and involvement while making a decision.
To improve employee engagement, it is essential to have six C’s parameters within the organization confidence, clarity, connection, credibility, convey, and career. The six C’s must be met to boost effective employee engagement. It is often observed that engaged employees are concerned for their work and the organization’s performance and will always like to assume that their effort and hard work are making a real difference. Productivity often gets increases as a result of Employee engagement in the workplace, which results in improved consumer satisfaction and increases in revenue and profit of the Entity. It is also essential to develop confidence and a habit of communication among the organization and employees. The building of unity between the employees and the organization is crucial since both are capable of executing work in the best manner (Sarangi & Nayak, 2016). Employee engagement is built on an organization’s followers’ beliefs, trustworthiness, communication, and commitment; an entity might boost employee engagement by improving staff decision-making, devotion, and transparency in senior leadership (Maanda 2021).
Employees are more likely to act proactively and adopt risk-taking practices when inspired by an overwhelming desire to tackle complex societal and organizational challenges (Hur et al., 2016). Moreover, as per the broaden and build theory, those employees who remain engaged are more likely to experience pleasant emotions, which greatly expands their cognitive and behavioural resources, encouraging them to explore new, innovative, and unconventional ways to accomplish their job. Employees can be motivated to acquire, digest additional knowledge, and keep coming up with innovative ideas and solutions due to these pleasant psychological experiences. Likewise, engaged workers can explore creative pathways more than non-engaged. Likewise, engaged workers can explore creative pathways more than non-engaged.
Employee Engagement Effect on Creating Value for the Organization
Since organizations are developing different practices for keeping employees engaged by implementing policies for full-time remote work in response to COVID-19. Some of the practices that an organization may use to keep their employees engaged in their work from home jobs are discussed below. As per the recommendation given by Sarkar (2020), a new realm included in the organizations for keeping the employee engaged include the engagement of the family of the employees, which involves keeping the children of the employees occupied for some hours while their parents work during the covid 19 lockdown. Some of the organizations following this approach include Deloitte, Genpact, AMD, Accenture, and Hinduja Global Solutions; they are among the top firms engaged in these practices. The article written by Talukar (2020) provided five ideas for implementing employee engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. These include Establishing a stronger communication regime among the remote teams of the organization, making them feel good with prompt recognition, ensuring flexibility, developing an online community with almost all of the employees, and holding events for team building via online mode. In addition, an article written by Goswami (2020) confers to make downtime of the employees engaged throughout the period of lockdown. Various manufacturing organizations such as Aditya Birla, SAR, and CEAT prioritize Employee downtime. Organizations keep their employees motivated during a lockdown by providing them opportunities for learning and development. However, some entities engage their staff with webinars, TED Talks, books, e-learning, and some content to make one self-developed.
Conclusion 200
Thus, from the above discussion, it is evident that developing employee engagement is a vital tool for organizations to grow and flourish. Although firms embrace the full-fledged model provided by the experts, organizations may be more effective when dealing with engagement issues since these models provide well-defined parameters for boosting employee engagement levels. Employees feel devoted to the organization due to engagement activities, and they can go well beyond their job description and obligations. The model discussed above placed a greater emphasis on appreciation of feelings and involvement within the business; additionally, when more emphasis is placed on family friendliness, cooperation, and job-related pleasure, employees may feel more connected with the firm. According to Maslach et al., meaningful and recognized work in conjunction with employees who have a measure of control over their employment could significantly influence employee engagement.
Moreover, by making an effort, they assist their organization in achieving a competitive advantage and accomplishing its vision and mission. With rigorous engagement programs, a business can able to manage and retain talent and sustainability, thereby ensuring the organization’s long-term success.
Reference
Chanana, N., 2021. Employee engagement practices during COVID?19 lockdown. Journal of public affairs, 21(4), p.e2508.
Dajani, M. A. Z. (2015). The impact of employee engagement on job performance and organisational commitment in the Egyptian banking sector. Journal of Business and Management Sciences, 3(5), 138–147.
Goswami, A. (2020) Lockdown: Engaging downtime employees is equally important. HR Katha Retrieved from https://www.hrkatha.com/employee-engagement/lockdown-engaging-downtime-employees-is-equally-important/
Hur, W.M., Moon, T.W. and Ko, S.H. (2016), “How employees’ perceptions of CSR increase employee creativity: mediating mechanisms of compassion at work and intrinsic motivation”, Journal of Business Ethics, doi: 10.1007/s10551-016-3321-5
Maanda, M.L., 2021. Investigating the relationship between employee engagement, counterproductive-work behaviors and turnover intentions in a selected South African correctional service facility (Doctoral dissertation, North-West University (South Africa)).
Otieno, B. B. A., Waiganjo, E. W., & Njeru, A. (2015). Effect of employee engagement on organisation performance in Kenya’s horticultural sector. International Journal of Business Administration, 6(2), 77–85.
Rana, S., 2019. Managing organizations through employee engagement: An Indian perspective. In Management Techniques for Employee Engagement in Contemporary Organizations (pp. 256-267). IGI Global.
Sarangi, P. & Nayak, B. (2016). Employee work engagement and its impact on organizational success – A study in manufacturing company, India. IOSR Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM), 18(4), 52-57. DOI: 10.9790/487X1804015257
Sarkar, B. (2020). Companies roll out initiatives to keep employees kids engaged at home. The Econimic Times. Retrieved from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/companies-roll-out-initiatives-to-keep-employees-kids-engaged-at-home/articleshow/75058556.cms?from=mdr
SHRM, 2022. Developing and Sustaining Employee Engagement. [online] SHRM. Available at: <https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/sustainingemployeeengagement.aspx> [Accessed 23 April 2022].
Talukar, A. D. (2020). 5 tips for practicing employee engagement amidst the covid?19 pandemic. Business 2 Community Retrieved from https://www.business2community.com/human?resources/5?tips?for?practicing?employee?engagement?amidst?the?covid?19?pandemic?02300396
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