Employee Engagement

12 Key excerpts on "Employee Engagement"

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  Employee Engagement in the Indian Ites-Bpo Industry

  • Venkoba(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Scholars World

    (Publisher)

  Therefore, engagement is something that the organization influences through its business practices, policies, procedures, culture, values and environment. Employee Engagement is a construct that has cognitive, emotional and behavioral components of individual role performance (Alan Saks, 2006). It is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption (Gonzalez- Roma et al. 2006). Truss et al (2006) define Employee Engagement simply as ‘passion for work’, a psychological state which is seen to encompass the three This ebook is exclusively for this university only. Cannot be resold/distributed. Review of Literature 15 dimensions of engagement discussed by Kahn (1990), and captures the common theme running through all these definitions. Employee Engagement is the extent to which employees commit to something or someone in the organization, those who are loyal and productive (Lockwood, 2007). Ellis, Christian and Sorensen (2007) endorse a two dimensional definition of engagement that defines an engaged employee as one who knows what to do at work and wants to do the work. They strongly view that engagement should always be defined and assessed within the context of productivity, and that the two elements of engagement noted above are necessary for driving productivity. Macey and Schneider (2008) define engagement behavior is an ‘‘aggregate multidimensional construct.’’ where employees goes above and beyond the typical in-role performance.

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  Managing Employment Relations

  • John Gennard, Graham Judge, Tony Bennett, Richard Saundry(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • CIPD - Kogan Page

    (Publisher)

  Defining Employee Engagement is not straightforward. MacLeod and Clarke, in their influential 2009 review ‘Engaging for success: enhancing performance through Employee Engagement’, identified fifty different definitions. They argued that Employee Engagement encompasses:

  • unlocking people’s potential at work and the measurable benefits of doing so for the individual employee, the organisation and the UK economy
  • retaining and building on the commitment, energy and desire to do a good job to maximise individual and organisational performance
  • making the employees’ commitment, potential creativity and capability central to the operation of the organisation – it is how people behave at work that can make the crucial difference between business success or failure
  • enabling people to be the best they can at work, recognising that this can only happen if they feel respected, involved, heard, well-led and valued by those they work for and with
  • employees’ having a sense of personal attachment to their work and organisation – they are motivated and able to give their best to help it succeed, and from this will flow a series of positive benefits for the organisation and the individual
  • ensuring that employees are committed to their organisation’s goals and values, are motivated to contribute to organisational success and are able at the same time to enhance their own sense of well-being
  • providing clear evidence of trust and fairness based on mutual respect through which two-way promises and commitments between employees and management are understood and fulfilled.

  Some commentators see Employee Engagement as a set of approaches or strategies designed to elicit organisational commitment. However, for others, Employee Engagement is an outcome of managerial actions and activity (see for example Purcell, 2012). Acas (2014) suggest that Employee Engagement describes the positive attitude or behaviour of someone at work. However, to whom, or with what, are employees engaged? Purcell (2010) draws attention to the importance of this, since the policy implications vary according to the nature and direction of engagement. Management consultants who undertake Employee Engagement surveys give the impression that engagement is mainly or wholly to do with engagement with the employer and the organisation

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  The Essential Guide to Employee Engagement

  Better Business Performance through Staff Satisfaction

  • Sarah Cook(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Kogan Page

    (Publisher)

  Engagement can be summed up by how positively the employee: ឣ thinks about the organization; ឣ feels about the organization; ឣ is proactive in relation to achieving organizational goals for customers, colleagues and other stakeholders. What is Employee Engagement? 3 In other words, it is about the degree to which employees perform their role in a positive and proactive manner. As Figure 1.1 shows, engagement therefore is about what employees think rationally about their employers, what they feel about them, their emotional connection, as well as what they do and say as a result in relation to their co-employees and their customers. So why has Employee Engagement become so important across the globe? There are two key reasons: the increasing power of the customer and the increasing power of the employee. THE POWER OF THE CUSTOMER The customer now has much more choice of where to do business. Increasing competition, globalization, plus the power of the internet mean that customers’ expectations have risen. We as customers now have much more discretionary power than previously. Furthermore, in today’s busy society value for time is often as important as value for money. We are now more likely to take advice from our peer group on the internet as we are to wander from shop to shop seeking the best product. Businesses that will succeed in the future are those that make it easy for customers to do business with and that engage at an emotional level with the customer. Effectively there are two costs a customer incurs in doing business with an organization: economical costs (time, effort, money, etc) and emotional costs (our feelings towards the brand, its products and employees, what it stands for, how we are treated, etc). In many cases we connect on an emotional basis with a brand. This emotion often overrides our logic. Witness makes of car or brands of clothing that become iconic.

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  Employee Engagement

  A Practical Introduction

  • Emma Bridger(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Kogan Page

    (Publisher)

  Different definitions of Employee Engagement make reference to a range of human resource management (HRM) and organizational behaviour concepts such as work effort, commitment to the organization, job satisfaction, motivation and optimal functioning. However, what they tend to have in common is that they view engagement as an internal state of being. Engagement is something that the employee has to offer and cannot be ‘required’ as part of the employment contract or objective-setting process. The following definitions provide a flavour of the many definitions that exist.

  The Engage for Success website defines engagement as: a workplace approach resulting in the right conditions for all members of an organization to give their best each day, be committed to their organization’s goals and values, be motivated to contribute to organizational success, and with an enhanced sense of their own well-being. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), in their work with the Kingston Employee Engagement Consortium, define Employee Engagement as: ‘being positively present during the performance of work by willingly contributing intellectual effort, experiencing positive emotions and meaningful connections to others’ (Alfes et al , 2010).

  This definition provides three dimensions to Employee Engagement:

  1. Intellectual engagement , ie thinking hard about the job and how to do it better.
  2. Affective engagement , ie feeling positively about doing a good job.
  3. Social engagement , ie actively taking opportunities to discuss work-related improvements with others at work.

  Interestingly, academics tend to talk about ‘work engagement’ as opposed to Employee Engagement. Schaufeli and Bakker (2004), two well-known and highly regarded academics who have made a significant contribution to the world of engagement, define work engagement as: ‘a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigour, dedication, and absorption. Rather than a momentary and specific state, engagement refers to a more persistent and pervasive affective-cognitive state that is not focused on any particular object, event, individual, or behaviour.’

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  Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice

  A Guide to the Theory and Practice of People Management

  • Michael Armstrong, Stephen Taylor(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Kogan Page

    (Publisher)

  Kahn (1990: 894) defined Employee Engagement as ‘the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances.’ There have been many definitions since the explosion of interest in the concept during the 2000s, which perhaps explains its somewhat elusive nature. Harter et al (2002: 269) stated that engagement was ‘the individual’s involvement and satisfaction with as well as enthusiasm for work.’ Saks (2006: 602) defined Employee Engagement as ‘a distinct and unique construct consisting of cognitive, emotional and behavioural components that are associated with individual role performance.’ He distinguished between ‘job engagement’ (performing the work role) and organizational engagement (performing the role as a member of the organization).

  A later definition was produced by Macey et al (2009: 7) who defined engagement as ‘an individual’s purpose and focused energy, evident to others in the display of personal initiative, adaptability, effort and persistence directed towards organizational goals.’

  Alfes et al (2010: 5) saw engagement as having three core facets:

  • intellectual engagement – thinking hard about the job and how to do it better;
  • affective engagement – feeling positively about doing a good job;
  • social engagement – actively taking opportunities to discuss work-related improvements with others at work.

  Job or organizational engagement or both?

  The term ‘engagement’ can be used in a specific job-related way to describe what takes place when people are interested in and positive – even excited – about their jobs, exercise discretionary behaviour and are motivated to achieve high levels of performance. Truss et al (2006: ix) stated that ‘Put simply, engagement means feeling positive about your job.’ They went on to explain that ‘The engaged employee is the passionate employee, the employee who is totally immersed in his or her work, energetic, committed and completely dedicated’ (page 1 ).

  Organizational engagement focuses on attachment to or identification with the organization as a whole. The Conference Board (2006) defined Employee Engagement as the heightened connection that employees feel for their organization. Robinson et al (2004: 9) emphasized the organizational aspect of engagement when they referred to it as ‘a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organization and its values.’ This definition of organizational engagement resembles the traditional notion of commitment.

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  The Talent Powered Organization

  Strategies for Globalization, Talent Management and High Performance

  • Peter Cheese, Robert J Thomas, Elizabeth Craig(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Kogan Page

    (Publisher)

  ᔢ Dedication: highly engaged employees are dedicated to their work because they find it meaningful and fulfilling. Through their work they become better people in their own eyes. Such behaviours are readily observable. An engaged workforce normally looks happier and busier. And as you would expect, research has confirmed that engaged employees have higher job satisfaction, work harder and perform better in their jobs than their less engaged colleagues. They have lower absenteeism and greater job loyalty. They have better relationships at work and build better teams. They are more likely to meet their organization’s standards of behaviour and service to its customers. In summary, engagement is a combination of heart and mind. It is a collective result of complex factors such as people’s sense of identity and belonging, feeling valued and their emotional and intellectual connection with colleagues, and more extrinsic factors such as satis-faction in work content and the support they get to perform effec-tively. At the high end, engagement represents the degree to which they are aligned, confident and committed to achieving higher performance, and motivated to apply additional discretionary effort to their work; and at the low end, it manifests itself in low levels of responsiveness and energy, and high absenteeism. An important and closely related concept to engagement is align-ment: the degree to which employees understand and identify with their organization’s goals, the linkage to their own objectives and abilities, and how they direct their energies to achieving them. Engagement l 155 Without alignment, it is easy to see how even employees’ positive engagement could be misdirected and wasted within an organization, but of itself it is also an important factor in building engagement.

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  Cultivating Engaged Staff

  Better Management for Better Libraries

  • Margaret Zelman Law(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Libraries Unlimited

    (Publisher)

  3 Increasing Employee Engagement A high level of Employee Engagement that results in staff members bringing energy and passion to their work has many positive outcomes, both for the individual and for the organization. Engaged employees are fully at work, focused on the performance of their job, and highly connected to the work of the organization and their coworkers. A previous chapter provided a theoretical understanding of Employee Engagement; this chapter outlines some specific strategies for increasing engagement, both for yourself and among your employees. Employees are engaged at work when their needs for recognition, direc- tion, inspiration, and purpose are met. From an organizational perspective, these requirements are part of the mission, climate, and culture of the organization. These needs form part of employees’ psychological contract and clearly go beyond the simple exchange of labor for money that was the original foundation of paid work. A 2015 study of North American workers (http://go.achievers.com/rs/136-RHD-395/images/Greatness- report-FINAL.pdf) found that fewer than half of the employees who were surveyed were passionate about their employer’s mission or found it inspir- ing or motivating. This is unsurprising, when only 39% of them reported knowing their organization’s mission, and a further 61% reported not knowing their organization’s values. This is unlikely to engender a strong emotional tie to the workplace, one of the conditions needed for a high level of Employee Engagement. According to a recent Gallup report, Employee Engagement can help organizations to survive, or even thrive, in poor economic times (http:// www.gallup.com/businessjournal/163130/employee-engagement-drives- growth.aspx). While this is not specific to the library and information envi- ronment, uncertain funding is frequently identified as a barrier to growth and service implementation. The Gallup report goes on to say that during

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  The Future of Employment Relations

  New Paradigms, New Developments

  • A. Wilkinson, K. Townsend, A. Wilkinson, K. Townsend(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  In the exploration of what Employee Engagement might be, authors also have attempted to break Employee Engagement up into various parts, such as psychological state engagement, behavioural engage- ment, and trait engagement (Macey & Schneider, 2008). In some cases, they agree to simply give up with the definitive approach to what Employee Engagement is and study it because the topic is very popu- lar and does appear to be associated with good outcomes (MacLeod & A. Wilkinson et al. (eds.), The Future of Employment Relations © Adrian Wilkinson and Keith Townsend 2011 86 New Perspectives on Employment Clarke, 2010). In a few rare cases, the topic of Employee Engagement comes under criticism. For example, a Forbes writer (Luisa Kroll) wrote a short piece in September, 2005 that quotes Randall MacDonald of IBM saying ‘Soon we’ll be talking about marrying all those employ- ees to whom we’re engaged.’ Ed Frauenheim, a writer for Workforce (2009) wrote an article titled ‘A skeptical view of engagement’, where he cites professionals who warn about the ‘one-size fits all’ approaches to Employee Engagement. However, it is very difficult to find anything negative in print about Employee Engagement because it sounds so good. Employee engage- ment speaks to something most social scientists, employees, and man- agers truly believe, and that is the fact that when employees go ‘above and beyond’ and are not just robots doing a simple, repetitive job, then organizations do better. Who can argue with that? There are volumes of literature and research on employee commit- ment, empowerment, motivation, organization citizenship research, job satisfaction work, and more that point to the importance of employ- ees in driving performance. This quest is what the fields of organization behaviour, organization development, human resource management, and more are all about. Thus the point made in this chapter is that Employee Engagement is an effort worth pursuing.

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  Advanced Introduction to Employee Engagement

  • Alan M. Saks, Jamie A. Gruman(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Edward Elgar Publishing

    (Publisher)

  In addition, both job and organization engage- ment predicted job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intention to quit, and organizational citizenship behavior towards the organization; however, only organization engagement predicted organizational citizen- ship behavior towards individuals. In a study that used single item meas- ures of overall job and organization engagement, Saks (2019) found that job engagement was a stronger predictor of job-related consequences (i.e., job satisfaction and intention to quit one’s job), and organization engage- ment was a stronger predictor of organization-related consequences (i.e., organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors). Saks and Gruman (2014) extended the multidimensional definition of Employee Engagement by noting that in addition to performing work and organizational roles, many employees also perform group or team roles as well as specific tasks and assignments. Thus, Employee Engagement can vary within and across employees with respect to various targets. In organizations, employees might vary in how engaged they are when they perform a specific task, their job, team-related tasks and behaviors, tasks and activities that are associated with being a member of a business unit or department, and tasks, activities, and initiatives that an employee performs as a member of an organization. THE MEANING OF Employee Engagement 25 A multidimensional definition of Employee Engagement is important because it recognizes that employees have multiple roles in the workplace, and they will bring different degrees of themselves into the performance of each role. Thus, the extent or degree to which employees choose to employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally will vary across the different roles they occupy. This means that an employee who has very low job engagement might be highly engaged in other roles or even in specific work tasks.

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  New Perspectives in Employee Engagement in Human Resources

  • Emerald Group Publishing Limited(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Emerald Group Publishing Limited

    (Publisher)

  No matter an employer’s policy of “leave it at the door”, employees bring their whole selves to work. Thus, employees are uniquely different. Engagement, however, is not for a select few that have the right combination of personality characteristics and who are for-tunate to work for organizations that strive to develop engaging cultures. Although levers that drive engagement may vary from organization and employee, engage-ment is theoretically possible at every organization and with every employee. For example, Macey et al. (2009) suggested three general requirements for engagement to develop in each employee: (1) the capacity to engage; (2) the motivation to engage; and (3) and the freedom to engage. The capacity to engage concerns motivation that naturally flows from a sense of competence and autonomy and can be developed ( Maslow, 1970 ). Employees need to feel competent, valued and purposeful in their work and organizations contribute to competence and autonomy development by informing employees of what is expected, providing resources to complete work and following-up with focused and balanced feedback ( Buckingham and Coffman, 1999 ; Harter et al. , 2002 ; 42 M. Brad Shuck et al. Kahn, 1990 ; Wagner and Harter, 2006 ). The motivation to engage concerns the communication of job roles and responsibilities and the degree of challenge each job role provides ( Macey et al. , 2009 ; Resick et al. , 2007 ). Work is an engaging experi-ence when job roles are interesting, challenging and meaningful ( Kahn, 1990 ), and provide autonomous decision-making abilities in how work gets accomplished, not just what work gets done ( Shuck and Wollard, 2010 ). Organizations can contribute to motivation at work by helping align employee values with organizational values through recruitment processes, focus groups, team meetings and treating employees with respect ( Kroth and Keeler, 2009 ).

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  Organization Development

  A Practitioner's Guide for OD and HR

  • Mee-Yan Cheung-Judge, Linda Holbeche(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Kogan Page

    (Publisher)

  So if organizations and their workforces are to thrive in changing times there must be a better balance between corporate and individual needs. Employers should aim to develop employment relationships based on fair and adult–adult, rather than paternalistic and ultimately instrumental parent–child assumptions. Employers who are forward looking, who sustain their investment in people and continue to develop the abilities of their workforce are likely to maintain their competitiveness and be well positioned for growth since they will motivate and retain valued employees. After all, employees will welcome change if, as a result, they work in a positive environment, are part of a winning team, are more capable and empowered, have learnt from their experiences and have the tools to be self-managing. Ensuring mutual benefits (as well as risks) for both organizations and employees is potentially a more sustainable and honest basis for an employment relationship that is better suited to the demands of today’s volatile global economy.

  The engagement–performance potential is there – delivering the results is a shared effort involving leaders, managers, HR/OD, internal communications and employees themselves since Employee Engagement flows up, down and across the organization. There is no short cut to building and maintaining Employee Engagement, but the time, effort and resource investment required will be amply repaid by the performance, health and reputational benefits that should endure over time. With an uplifting and energizing purpose, Employee Engagement at the heart of its culture, effective leadership, management and followership, any organization and its employees can become change-able and achieve the win–win outcomes they deserve.

  In the next chapter we shall consider how to develop the kinds of leadership fit for the 21st century.

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  Leading HR

  • P. Sparrow, M. Hird, A. Hesketh, C. Cooper(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  These shared beliefs, in our definition of engagement, therefore extend to other requirements for better performance. An engaged team should also have clearly defined goals. Employees should also believe that they have the required control over their work environment and backing of the team leadership to achieve the desired results. This part of the definition draws from both the goal theory and the demand and control research, which advocate that employees should have the relevant resources and control on their work environment for better performance. Therefore, in the final analysis, it is the role of team leadership that often plays a critical role in the team being engaged or disengaged. NOTES 1 Heskett, J.L., Sasser, W.E. and Schlesinger, I.A. (1997) The Service Profit Chain. New York: Free Press, p. 11. 2 Kaplan, S. and Norton, D. (1996) The Balanced Scorecard. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. 3 Becker, B.E., Huselid, M. and Ulrich, D. (2001) The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy and Performance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. 4 Harter, J.K., Schmidt, F.L. and Hayes, T.L. (2002) Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, Employee Engagement, and business outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87: 268–279. 5 Ibid., p. 269. 6 Towers Perrin (2007/8) Confronting Myths: What Really Matters in Attracting, Engaging and Retaining Your Workforce? Global Workforce Study. 7 Robinson, D., Perryman, S. and Hayday, S. (2004) The Drivers of Employee Engagement. Institute of Employment Studies Report No. 408. Brighton: IES. 8 Schaufeli, W.B., Salanova, M., Gonzalez-Roma, V. and Bakker, A.B. (2002) The measurement of engagement and burnout: A two-sample confirmatory factor analytic approach. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3: 71–92. 9 See: Saks, A.M. (2006) Antecedents and consequences of Employee Engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21 (6): 600–619; Saks, A.M. (2008) The meaning

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