Employee Engagement in the Oil & Gas Sector

Employee Engagement - This is the communication between an employee and staff on all levels. There are 3 dimensions of employee engagement - Intellectual, Affective and Social. If these dimensions are positive, encouraging and work related, staff will feel valued and make greater contributions towards the organisation.

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.

Employee engagement and motivation can be increased by providing clear line of sight, providing right job knowledge with required resources, supportive supervision, incentives and rewards.

1.2 Analyse the three principle dimensions of employee engagement (the emotional, the cognitive and the physical)

Workforce engagement is the feeling of emotional connection someone has to their workplace. An engaged employee feels satisfied and enthusiastic about their work. They feel valued, driven, and that they belong to part of a team. This is the way a school should feel for its employees. When teachers and staff of a school are engaged in fulfilling the work of the school they show higher levels of performance and thereby increase the achievement of students. Principals should know the engagement level of their staff and also any events or feelings that may impact that engagement level.

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.

2. Staff Engagement: The assignation and involvement of employees who know the connection between their own duty, the organization's resilience, and its long-term achievement. Employees are empowered and use their abilities to sort out difficulties.

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

Vorhauser-Smith, S. (2013, August 14). How the best places to work are nailing employee engagement. Retrieved 11 June 2013 from

It’s important to understand that every experience and interaction at work has the potential to influence an employee’s engagement level. Each person is unique, and to influence their commitment requires an understanding of what motivates them. The most important thing any leader can do to improve engagement is focus on the employee’s individual spirit as well as the team’s and to ensure that they are in complete

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

As Gallup measured in their research that there is still an overwhelming number of disengaged individuals in the workplace, which has cost the organizations in the United States at an enormous amount of about 300 billion dollars annually (Gallup Consulting, 2006). Certain programs are initiated in different workplace to embed employee engagement. Personally, apart from the traditional motivational factors of financial and non-financial incentives to increase employee morale and active participation within the goals of the organization; it would even be more remarkable to come up with innovative practices that would be unique to the organization and meet the demands of the business.

Companies that have higher levels of engaged employees have higher earnings per share (EPS) than companies that have lower engagement levels (Kelleher, 2011). Engaged employees are more productive, have higher levels of customer loyalty and help their employers become more profitable. An engaged employee is less likely to leave their current position. This saves their company money because there is no need to spend money to hire and train new personal. These saving can be passed along to the employees for increased wages, bonuses, and benefits. All of these items help in motivating employees, to attempt to engage the disengaged.