Employee Engagement Essay

Employee engagement is today’s leadership priority. However, the catchphrase goes a long way back in the beginning of the 21st century. It has gained interest to this date, which can be credited to Gallup’s first version of the Q12 in the 1990s commonly termed as the Gallup Workplace Audit (Gallup Consulting, 2006). Subsequently, Gallup has continuously refined and expanded their Q12 for current business challenges. Furthermore, several literatures, surveys and evidence-based studies abound that exhibited positive results with employee engagement such as increased performance, safety, retention and profits among others.

The CIPD (2014) factsheet states that Employee Engagement is a concept that ‘is generally seen as an internal state of being – physical, mental and emotional – that brings together earlier concepts of work effort, organisational commitment, job satisfaction and ‘flow’ (or optimal experience)’. An engaged workforce willingly demonstrates discretionary effort within their roles; their goals and values reflect that of their employers/organisation; they express a passion for work, feel valued and that their work has meaning.

There are three levels of engagement in which an employee can be measured at (Catado, P. 2011); fully engaged, disengaged, and actively disengaged. A fully engaged worker takes it upon themselves to stay relevant and up-to-date in company’s and their professional field and take on additional responsibilities as the opportunities arise. They also show respect towards their fellow colleagues, are willing to put in more effort than is expected, and exhibit high levels of enthusiasm.

3.3 Explain the application of employee engagement through job design, discretionary behavior, role autonomy and

Employee Engagement is a measurable degree of an employee's positive or negative emotional attachment to their job, colleagues and organisation which profoundly influences their willingness to learn and perform at work. Thus engagement is distinctively different from employee satisfaction, motivation and organisational culture.

Employee Engagement: It’s a known perception that an engaged workforce provides many intangible benefits that is linked directly to retention. HR policies should focus on employee engagement initiatives that stimulate motivation levels of employees to perform better and bond with organisation. This process should be initiated right from induction and continue throughout their tenure by opening channels of continuous communication and encouraging interpersonal relations. HR is responsible to incorporate methods to measure engagement and at regular intervals track engagement contribution to company’s success.

Engagement is a sign of satisfaction and loyalty to the firm which can be incurred by increasing job resources

Employee engagement, which reflects the emotional commitment an employee has to an organization is not just an organizational nicety but a business necessity due to direct ties to a number of performance outcomes, such as profitability,

Employee engagement has been a trend of management since 2004.(CMI 2015) ‘Some people may believe that engagement is just about employees ‘going the extra mile’, but it is much more.’(CMI 2014) Within globalization, how to apply employee engagement is significant for an organization to achieve their performance. A key aspect of employee engagement concerns how employees manage their position, performance and development in relationship to the company’s strategies. Therefore, according to Moenguc (2013), employee engagement has been personalized as a“persistent, positive affective-motivational state of fulfillment.” To demonstrate how this process affects the overall performance of an organization, John Lewis has been selected as the case study

Employee engagement is a branch of public relations maintained between the manager and the employees. It is an integral part of a successful business organization. According to Kruse (2012) the employee engagement can be defined as, “The emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals.” There is a distinction between the employee being happy and the employee actually being engaged in his or her work. According to Kruse (2012), a research from Towers

Engagement is more than just happiness. It involves commitment and helping others accomplish goals, whether it’s personal or for work. When people are engaged they do everything possible to complete that task, take full responsibility of the projects that is at hand, stay positive, deliver great work, and go above and beyond to make sure that they do great at the goal that was set. Engagement is the most important factor needed of any person for the achievement of any company in order to succeed.

Employee engagement is a concept whereby an employee feels an emotional attachment to their employers and the goals and values the employer holds. There doesn’t appear to be a definitive description of employee engagement, but most agree that the emotional attachment is a key element to being an engaged employee. “The term employee engagement has gained considerable popularity in the past 20 years yet it remains inconsistently defined and conceptualized”, Shuck B & Wollard K (2010) - Human Resource Development Review. This emotional attachment could be described as a passion for the organisation and their part in it and a feeling that they can make a difference.

The challenge presented by the literature is the lack of a universal definition of employee engagement. Most managers acknowledge the fact that employee

An organization’s performance and success is closely related to that organization’s ability to effectively manage employee engagement, and several advantages of engaged employees include profitability, more motivated employees and higher levels of performance, and an increase in employees’ trust in the organization (Hough, Green & Plumlee, 2015). One important aspect to include when discussing benefits with employee engagement is overall workplace satisfaction. Engaged employees not only create value, but in turn also feel valued in the workplace. This value is accompanied by a meaningful job which provides the employees with a sense of satisfaction. The more a person’s work environment fulfills his or her needs, values or personal characteristics, the greater the degree of job satisfaction (Abraham, 2012).

Maintaining the good vibe on employee engagement is vital for TQM implementation although it is difficult to do so. Organisation need to give extra attention on this problem. Extra workloads and procedures will make the employees feel dissatisfied and leave the company as showed in qualitative results. Additional monetary or non monetary rewards as mentioned by both managers in the interviews are important to enhance the level of engagement and satisfaction among the employees. When employee feel not needed in the organization, they have low performances. This is supporting the views by Gebauer (2008) where employee engagement is related to individual behavior; including the act of willingness to show commitments in the work performances or refuse to do so.