Employee engagement
Employee engagement is a fundamental concept in the effort to understand and describe, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the nature of the relationship between an organization and its employees. An "engaged employee" is defined as one who is fully absorbed by and enthusiastic about their work and so takes positive action to further the organization's reputation and interests. An engaged employee has a positive attitude towards the organization and its values. In contrast, a disengaged employee may range from someone doing the bare minimum at work, up to an employee who is actively damaging the company's work output and reputation.
An organization with "high" employee engagement might therefore be expected to outperform those with "low" employee engagement.
Employee engagement first appeared as a concept in management theory in the 1990s,
becoming widespread in management practice in the 2000s, but it remains contested. Despite academic critiques, employee engagement practices are well established in the management of human resources and of internal communications.
Employee engagement today has become synonymous with terms like 'employee experience' and 'employee satisfaction', although satisfaction is a different concept. Whereas engagement refers to work motivation, satisfaction is an employee's attitude about the job--whether they like it or not. The relevance is much more due to the vast majority of new generation professionals in the workforce who have a higher propensity to be 'distracted' and 'disengaged' at work. A recent survey by StaffConnect suggests that an overwhelming number of enterprise organizations today were planning to improve employee experience in 2018.
Definitions
William Kahn provided the first formal definition of personnel engagement as "the harnessing of organisation members' selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances."In 1993, Schmidt et al. proposed a bridge between the pre-existing concept of 'job satisfaction' and employee engagement with the definition: "an employee's involvement with, commitment to, and satisfaction with work. Employee engagement is a part of employee retention." This definition integrates the classic constructs of job satisfaction, and organizational commitment.
Defining employee engagement remains problematic. In their review of the literature in 2011, Wollard and Shuck identify four main sub-concepts within the term:
- "Needs satisfying" approach, in which engagement is the expression of one's preferred self in task behaviours.
- "Burnout antithesis" approach, in which energy, involvement, efficacy are presented as the opposites of established "burnout" constructs: exhaustion, cynicism and lack of accomplishment.
- Satisfaction-engagement approach, in which engagement is a more technical version of job satisfaction, evidenced by The Gallup Company's own Q12 engagement survey which gives an r=.91 correlation with one measure.
- The multidimensional approach, in which a clear distinction is maintained between job and organisational engagement, usually with the primary focus on antecedents and consequents to role performance rather than organisational identification.
These definitional issues are potentially severe for practitioners. With different definitions of the object being measured, statistics from different sources are not readily comparable. Engagement work remains open to the challenge that its basic assumptions are, as Tom Keenoy describes them, 'normative' and 'aspirational', rather than analytic or operational - and so risk being seen by other organizational participants as "motherhood and apple pie" rhetoric.
Correlates
Prior to Kahn's use of the term in the mid-1990s, a series of concepts relating to employee engagement had been investigated in management theory. Employee morale, work ethic, productivity, and motivation had been explored in a line dating back to the work of Mary Parker Follett in the early 1920s. Survey-based World War II studies on leadership and group morale sparked further confidence that such properties could be investigated and measured. Later, Frederick Herzberg concluded that positive motivation is driven by managers giving their employees developmental opportunities, activity he termed 'vertical enrichment'.Costs
Recent research highlights the significant financial impact of low employee engagement on the global economy. According to Gallup's 2023 report, disengaged employees cost the world an estimated $8.8 trillion, roughly 9% of global GDP. The report identifies that while engagement levels have shown gradual improvement, the majority of employees worldwide remain psychologically disconnected from their work, leading to reduced productivity, higher turnover, and increased workplace stress. Gallup emphasizes that organizations must shift from traditional performance management to a culture of frequent, meaningful feedback and employee recognition, which has been shown to drive higher engagement, job satisfaction, and business performance.Contributors
With the wide range of definitions comes a variety of potential contributors to desirable levels of employee engagement. Some examples:Involvement
and her colleagues studied 15 steel mills, 17 apparel manufacturers, and 10 electronic instrument and imaging equipment producers. Their purpose was to compare traditional production systems with flexible high-performance production systems involving teams, training, and incentive pay systems. In all three industries, the plants utilizing high-involvement practices showed superior performance. In addition, workers in the high-involvement plants showed more positive attitudes, including trust, organizational commitment and intrinsic enjoyment of the work. The concept has gained popularity as various studies have demonstrated links with productivity. It is often linked to the notion of employee voice and empowerment.Two studies of employees in the life insurance industry examined the impact of employee perceptions that they had the power to make decisions, sufficient knowledge and information to do the job effectively, and rewards for high performance. Both studies included large samples of employees. In both studies, high-involvement management practices were positively associated with employee morale, employee retention, and firm financial performance. Watson Wyatt found that high-commitment organizations out-performed those with low commitment by 47% in the 2000 study and by 200% in the 2002 study.
Commitment
Employees with the highest level of commitment perform 20% better and are 87% less likely to leave the organization, which indicates that engagement is linked to employee satisfaction and organizational performance. When employers are more empathetic, productivity will naturally increase. 85% of US employees believe that their employers are not empathetic.Productivity
In a study of professional service firms, the Hay Group found that offices with engaged employees were up to 43% more productive. Job satisfaction is also linked to productivity.Person factors and individual differences
Frequently overlooked are employees' unique personalities, needs, motives, interests and goals, which interact with organizational factors and interventions to influence engagement levels. On the other hand, some employees will always be more engaged and motivated than others, as the recently operationalized construct of drive implies.Elements of engagement
According to Stein, et al, there are four elements that determine employee engagement, and they include the following:- Commitment to the organization- Are the employees "bought in" to the organization's mission and do they see a future at the company
- Identifies with the organization- Does the employee's beliefs, values, and goals align with their role and where they want to go in the future.
- Feels satisfied with their job- Is the employee feeling accomplished at the end of the day and are proud of what they do.
- Feels energized at work- They want to show up to the job and they are motivated to work all day and not counting down the hours until the end of the day
Generating engagement
Drivers of engagement
Some additional points from research into drivers of engagement are presented below:- Employee's personal resources – "...it is found that the positive perceptions that individuals hold of their own personal strength and ability allow them to be engaged with the organisation.
- Employee perceptions of job importance – "...an employee's attitude toward the job's importance and the company had the greatest impact on loyalty and customer service than all other employee factors combined."
- Employee clarity of job expectations – "If expectations are not clear and basic materials and equipment are not provided, negative emotions such as boredom or resentment may result, and the employee may then become focused on surviving more than thinking about how he can help the organization succeed."
- Career advancement / improvement opportunities – "Plant supervisors and managers indicated that many plant improvements were being made outside the suggestion system, where employees initiated changes in order to reap the bonuses generated by the subsequent cost savings."
- Regular feedback and dialogue with superiors – "Feedback is the key to giving employees a sense of where they’re going, but many organizations are remarkably bad at giving it."
- Quality of working relationships with peers, superiors, and subordinates – "...if employees' relationship with their managers is fractured, then no amount of perks will persuade the employees to perform at top levels. Employee engagement is a direct reflection of how employees feel about their relationship with the boss."
- Perceptions of the ethos and values of the organization – "'Inspiration and values' is the most important of the six drivers in our Engaged Performance model. Inspirational leadership is the ultimate perk. In its absence, is unlikely to engage employees."
- Effective internal employee communications – which convey a clear description of "what's going on". "'
Recent research has focused on developing a better understanding of how variables such as quality of work relationships and values of the organization interact, and their link to important work outcomes. From the perspective of the employee, "outcomes" range from strong commitment to the isolation of oneself from the organization.
Employee engagement can be measured through employee pulse surveys, detailed employee satisfaction surveys, direct feedback, group discussions and even exit interviews of employees leaving the organization.
Employee engagement mediates the relationship between the perceived learning climate and these extra-role behaviors.