Employee Engagement : What It Means Today?

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.

One of the primary factors in employee engagement is a person’s relationship with his or her direct manager. Some managers are excellent at managing teams and making each person feel valued, while others don’t have the same abilities. Train your managers in the skills that can improve employee engagement, and it can boost your organization’s overall results. Most employees fear their supervisors, so they choose to leave because they don’t want to work in a stressful environment. However, they don’t always express their

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.

In other nations meeting the altruistic and simple human needs of being part of something greater than yourself are the driving forces to an engaging environment (Vorhauser-Smith, 2013). According to Major Angelo’s actions of communicating with employees and developing a relationship with them demonstrate how leaders begin to create an engaging environment. According to Harter & Adkins (2015), employees whose manager communicate with them through meetings are practically three times more likely to be engaged as employees whose managers do not hold regular meetings with them. Another method to engage employees is by ensuring they understand their goals and helping them understand the big picture of how their role impacts the whole organization structure.

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

Aon Hewitt (2012) indicates that the business success is critical regarding company’s performance on employee engagement. Engaged employees have a clear understanding of their roles in business strategy and deliver greater performance; they get more involved as well as having a strong connection and commitment to the company and strive to go above and beyond in their jobs (Aon Hewitt, 2012). Aon Hewitt (2012) also mentions that engagement is about measuring the state of emotional and intellectual involvement or commitment of the workforce. It goes beyond satisfaction (“how much I like things here”) and commitment (“how much I want to be here”) to engagement (“how much I want to, and actually do, improve the business results”) (Forde, 2014).

An organization’s capacity to manage employee engagement is closely related to its ability to achieve high performance levels and superior business results. Some of the advantages of Engaged employees are • • • • Engaged employees will stay with the company, be an advocate of the company and its products and services, and contribute to bottom line business success. They will normally perform better and are more motivated. There is a significant link between employee engagement and profitability. They form an emotional connection with the company. This impacts their attitude towards the company’s clients, and thereby improves customer satisfaction and service levels • • • • • • It builds passion, commitment and alignment with the organization’s strategies and goals Increases employees’ trust in the organization Creates a sense of loyalty in a competitive environment Provides a high-energy working environment Boosts business growth Makes the employees effective brand ambassadors for the company

The monkeys at the top look down and see a tree full of smiling faces. The monkeys on the bottom look up and see nothing but assholes. The unknown author of this metaphor provides a descriptive analogy on the view of the executives who are at the top of the organizational chart which is completely opposite of the view that everyone else in the company sees. These different perspectives are just one of the reasons why employee engagement continues to be an important topic of research among consultants and company leaders. Engaged employees are defined as being committed to their organizations’ goals and values, motivated to contribute to organizational success, while enhancing their own sense of well-being. Even though engagement is a personal feeling, it still requires a combination of effort between the employee and the leaders of the organization. The bottom line is that organizations need highly engaged employees working in their companies because at the end of the day every employee’s productivity is affecting the bottom line of the company.

Employee engagement is a business management concept. An "engaged employee" is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about their work, and therefore will act in a way that furthers their organisations interests. 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. A well and engaged employee is efficient and effective and a valuable asset in the workplace.

The Human Capital Management classes and specifically my deeper drive into the topic employee engagement is very timely for the organization that I lead. As a small medical practice with limited resources, conducting employee engagement survey’s is normally beyond the reach of our budget. However, we recently took part in a free survey launched by the local business journal to identify the best places to work in the local community. This survey, conducted by Quantum Workplace, was primarily a measure of the employee engagement level within our company. While it was very encouraging to see that our

Talking about the engagement and commitment of an employee to an organisation, most companies are of the opinion that they do have a few, but they still want more. Why? It is merely because these companies have come to the realization of the fact that their organization’s long-term success relies on employee performance, which is directly impacted by the level of employee engagement and commitment to an organisation. Well, some organisations think that simply making people happy and paying them handsome pay packets is the solution. But it is not so. These are things which an organisation need to consider to

Employees are key to creating sustainable competitive advantage. Consistently, research has shown that employees who are engaged significantly outperform employees who are not engaged on several different key performance metrics (Harter, Schmidt & Hayes, 2002; Gebauer, Lowman & Gordon, 2008; Lockwood, 2007; Vance, 2006). As global replication of technology and processes becomes easier and easier, the differentiation of service becomes critical for an organization in order to shine in an increasingly competitive market. Changing demographics have enabled increased competition for skilled resources regardless of location (Simonds, 2007) with technology innovations and service-focused jobs requiring more specific skills (Lawler, 2000). Now more than ever, companies are recognizing that the ability to attract, engage, develop and retain talent is critical (Lockwood, 2007). Understanding the key to employee engagement and utilizing methods to increase engagement will be a key differentiator for companies looking to achieve long-term success.

In today 's corporate world, where reliability to organizations is fading fast, engagement has been growing by companies to maintain employees. Employee engagement is “a level of commitment and involvement of employees towards their organization and its value,” (Maslach, 2008). An engaged employee works with his/her colleagues to progress their productivity within their job, for the ultimate benefit of the organization. Effective managers have the talent to get things done by other employees. This is done by motivating employees to accomplish tasks. A manager must be able to represent these tasks to employees. Motivated employees will work with the manager to accomplish company objectives. Those employees who are displeased will work against company objectives. In this study it examines to see what enhances employee engagement or what can create the employee to be disengaged. Employee engagement drives employees ' motivation, job satisfaction, and loyalty to their companies. A manager’s capability to build solid relationships with employees generates engaging employees which then they can accomplish at the highest level and be a successful employee, (Judge, 2001). Employee motivation is seen as an important building block in the growth of effective businesses. A motivated employee symbolizes both a modest advantage and as a strategic asset in the corporate world, which is why the issue of building self-motivation in employees has sparkled interest in managers. Not