Maintaining The Good Vibe On Employee Engagement

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.

Arumugam, V., Chang, H., Ooi, K., and Teh, P. (2009). "Self-assessment of TQM practices: a case analysis", The TQM Journal, 21(1), 46 – 58. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/journals.htm?articleid=1766744&show=abstract#sthash.TkDGZoZ7.dpuf

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.

Recently, the Sales Training Department has developed a set of Key Sales Indicators (KSI 's) to monitor each Sales Representative 's sales performance against predetermined monthly targets. This was done to align the MAP to XYZ goal of improving sales performance and to reinforce the selling mindset of the sales department.

3. The implementation of the TQM program is not being properly clarified for the other groups of management. The managers haven’t had proper training or guidance of what the expectations of the team to attain the desired results to improve the quality throughout the company.

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).

The second aspect suggested by Macey and Schneider (2008) refers to the positive conditions encountered at work. This aspect implies that behavioral engagement is more likely to take place when some conditions such as the nature of the work people do and the leadership encountered at work yield positive attitudes; therefore behaviorally engagement. In conclusion, there is no single definition of employee engagement that can encompass the full meaning of the term. Employee engagement is simply a combination of the facets explained above; employee engagement is the key to create and yield positive results at the work place, is the treasure any organization wants to possess in order to create competitive advantage and success in general. According to studies made by Gallup, engaged workplaces yield a 38% in productivity and a 27% increase in profitability. Promoting an engaged workforce should be one of the first goals the organization sets. Maximizing the innate talents by taking into consideration the psychological state engagement, behavioral engagement and personal traits engagement of every individual will bear a sustainable organizational growth.

Employee engagement is always thought to be most desirable element towards employers. Nowadays not only in the corporate world but also in the small business industries employee engagement has equal important. Because it is the people who cannot be duplicated (Anitha, 2013). Committed employees are asset for any organizations. To gain competitive advantage in this modern era committed people are a great tool (Anitha, 2013). They put their best effort for the well being of their workplace and often motivate other employees. The purpose of this essay is to explore the stimulators and components which employers can use to successfully engage their employees. At first this paper will briefly review employee engagement, challenges faced by employers while engaging employees. It will also focus on MARS model. After that it will focus on finding which drives commonly motivate employees. Finally, this paper will try to recommend some strategies that employers can use for effective employee engagement.

Employee engagement is a kind of work approach designed for workplaces in order to confirm that the staffs are committed to the organisation goals and understand the values which are intended for the success of the company and equivalently they are capable of reinforcing their own sense of well being. In this report, the topic of employee engagement has been discussed and supported with relevant details.

The term “employee engagement” was introduced by W.Kahn in 1990 but it was referred as personal engagement and it was about an employee who brings his shelf, interests and preferred roles to the organization. He supported that people have many aspects of their selves which express or defend according to the occasion (Kahn, 1990, p.692-693). Today each corporation small or large has a goal that needs to be achieved in order to be successful. Employees are a nodal point in a company because they affect the way a corporation functions in order to meet that target. Each person needs to be focused on his task, to show commitment, energy and passion instead of a person who does not put much effort in his work. In other words, engaged employees are dedicated to their jobs and their organizations emotionally, physically and intellectually because they realize the importance of their work (Macet et al, 2009, p.1). In contrast, disengaged employees are negative to do extra work for the

TQM is a way of life for a company. It has to be introduced and led by top management. This is a key point. Attempts to implement TQM often fail because top management doesn't lead and get committed - instead it delegates and pays lip service. Commitment and personal involvement is required from top management in creating and deploying clear quality values and goals consistent with the objectives of the company, and in creating and deploying well defined systems, methods and performance measures for achieving those goals. These systems and methods guide all quality activities and encourage participation by all employees. The development and use of performance indicators is linked, directly or indirectly, to customer requirements and satisfaction,

In the workplace research on employee engagement (Harter, Schmidt & Hayes, 2002) [Ref.No.34] have repeatedly asked employees ‘whether they have the opportunity to do what they do best everyday’. While one in five employees strongly agree with this statement. Those work units scoring higher on this perception have substantially higher performance. Thus employee engagement is critical to any organization that seeks to retain valued employees.

On the basis of the set of provocative propositions, as mention above, employee will take initiative and act differently aligned with organizational vision. Appreciative inquiry helps in team building, through experiments and test, and found improvement in a team 's process and performance (Bushe & Coetzer, 1995).

The researchers chose survey questionnaires as a research instrument. The survey questions used in the study is acquired through our team efforts. The researchers chose to use the said questions because it correlates with the study. The questionnaire is about the usage of the TQM in their establishments. The questionnaire does not only ask about the TQM practices but also other activities that relates to TQM in improving the products and services offered by the company. There are a total of 6 questions in the survey.

How can TQM be implemented? The first step in TQM implementation is to have an honest look at the organization’s current reality and assess how healthy the organization is. If the organization faces with preconditions such as significant financial problems, incompetent managerial skills, and low employee morale, then it might not be a good idea to implement TQM until those issues are first addressed, and the need for change is openly accepted. Next is to assess readiness: creating goals and objectives, assigning responsibilities, and securing resources followed by training and creating transition management structure.