Employee Engagement

Many of the organizations in the world today have employees who are willing and do give more than what is required from them. This is the level of motivation that is needed in any organization and this is the kind of motivation which cannot be exchanged in terms of monetary consideration (LaPorta, P, 2003).

Employees need a reason and a motivation to engage in their work and this was addressed in the following manner: People need motivation, inspiration, a sense of belonging, something to believe in, a purpose and mainly a sense of comfort in all they do. They not only need this factor at their homes but also at their places of work and organizations that in fact address these factors are recognized as employee friendly and humane organizations (Chang R, 2001).

Employee engagement is relatively a new topic that needed recognition spanning not longer than close to two decades ago in the field of Human Resource Management as per writings of (Maben, West, and Robinson. 2005). It could be characterized as the feelings of commitment, passion and energy which could result in increased innovation and effort, high levels of effort along with tendency to take initiatives to do a task ad exceeding expectations (Dickson, 2011).

The founding father of employee engagement William Kahn (1990) defines 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”. Robinson et al. (2004) define employee engagement as “a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organization and its value. An engaged employee is aware of business context, and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization. The organization must work to develop and nurture engagement, which requires a two-way relationship between employer and employee.

It is further understood that the terms ‘job satisfaction’, ‘motivation’ and ‘commitment’ are generally being replaced now in business by ‘engagement’ because it appears to have more descriptive force and face validity (Reilly and Brown, 2008).

Employee engagement has 3 core components as stated by Alfes et al (2010):

1. Intellectual engagement – thinking hard about the job and how to do it better; 

2. Affective engagement – feeling positively about doing a good job; 

3. Social engagement – actively taking opportunities to discuss work-related improvements            with others at work.

Further on another note engagement is said to have 3 overlapping components. 

1. Motivation 

2. Commitment 

3. Organizational Citizenship Behaviour

                                  Exhibit 1.1: The IES Model of Employee Engagement

              Source: Armstrong et al (2010)

The exhibit illustrates the model that has been produced by the Institute of Employment Studies and presented in the above figure as the IES model of employee engagement.

Rich, Lepine, and Crawford (2010) state that, employees who are engaged display higher performance by putting more cognitive, emotional and physicals energy into their work. Moreover, these employees are more focused, work as a team, connected, and moreover satisfied with what they do as a part of their job role.

Application:

An employee who is engaged can always be motivated to come up with new ideas. These ideas can be innovative to generate more profits or to reduce the cost involved. In a company that is always used to using printed documents an engaged employee could come up with an initiative to go Green and reduce printing documents. This in the long run benefits the company in the cost factor.

An employee coming up with an efficient mechanism or a procedure to streamline a process is an employee with increased engagement.

References:

Alfes, K, Truss, C, Soane, E C, Rees, C and Gatenby, M (2010) Creating an Engaged Workforce, London, CIPD

Armstrong, M, Brown, D and Reilly, P (2010) Evidence Based Reward Management, London, Kogan Page

Chang R, (2001) The Passion - Plan at Work – Building a Passion Driven Organization – Jossey – Bass 

Dickson D, (2011) Fostering Employee Engagement – Practical Tools and Best Practice Techniques – HRD Press, Inc. 

Kahn, W (1990) - Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work, - Academy of management journal 33, 692-724

LaPorta, P (2003) – Ignite the Passion – A Guide to motivational Leadership – Bloomington – USA.

Rafferty A. M., Maben J., West E., and Robinson D. (2005) - What makes a good employer? Issue Paper 3 International Council of Nurses Geneva

Reilly, P and Brown, D (2008) Employee engagement: future focus or fashionable fad for reward management? World at Work Journal, 17 (4), pp 37–49

Rich, B., Lepine, J. and Crawford, E. (2010). Job Engagement: Antecedents and Effects on Job Performance. Academy of Management Journal, 53(3), pp.617-635.

Robinson D., Perryman S., and Hayday S. (2004). The Drivers of Employee Engagement Report 408, Institute for Employment Studies, UK