Why is employee engagement an important consideration for people managers today? Discuss the ways in which employee engagement can impact an organization?
Introduction
Employee Engagement is the rational and emotional commitment that employees have with the company. An engaged employee is the one who shares the vision of the company and finds of belonging to the organization, and also finds sense to the work that he performs for chasing the organizational objectives. That employee is willing to strive voluntarily above of what is asked. The employee engagement actions that are aimed at increase this feeling have an impact on innumerable external and internal employee, as well as, organizational variables such as organizational commitment, job satisfaction, job loyalty and satisfaction of consumers, sales, and above all, in the capacity of the company to attract new differential talent externally (Zikouridis, 2015, p. 68).
In the context of contemporary corporate world, the idea of employee engagement is imperative specifically in the field of motivation and employee satisfaction, where lies great promising prospects and benefits for the organizations. The underlying principle that makes employee engagement one of the most significant considerations for HR managers today is that keeping employee challenged, motivated, and engaged will cause employees to come up with a passion to work and going the extra mile for the success of the organization. This means that the higher will be the employee engagement; the better will be the organizational productivity.
Discussion
One of the simplest and generally accepted definitions of the concept of ‘Employee Engagement’ in many settings both in the literature and practice counseling is that ‘the extent to which the employee is required to look after something or someone in the organization, and consequently, how difficult that employee would be willing to work and how long it will remain in the organization’ (The Corporate Leadership Council). Kahn (1990) was the first scholar to describe what he called the personal engagement as ‘the leveraging of the member of an organization of their own work roles’. He explained that when people are engaged, they use and articulate themselves physically, emotionally, cognitively, and mentally throughout the development of their roles.
An alternative academic approach considers that engagement is a psychological state of achievement or the positive antithesis of burnout or burn-out syndrome at work (Albrecht, 2015, p. 7). It is assumed that unlike those who suffer from exhaustion, stress or work fatigue; the engaged workers (committed or involved) have a sense of lively and effective association to their work, and instead of seeing their work as stressful and demanding, they perceive it as challenging.
As for them, work is all fun and not a burden. In engagement, there is a sense of accomplishment in contrast to the vacuum of life that leaves people to feel the loss of burnout. From this perspective, engagement is described as the “positive mental state of fulfillment, related to work characterized by absorption, vigor, and dedication” (Presbitero, 2017, p. 68). Employee engagement is closely linked to two main factors i.e. dedication and absorption. As employee engagement is distinguished by elevated levels of mental and energy stamina while performing the job by the desire to strive in the work that is being performed even when the difficulty level arise.
The dedication is referred to a high level of labor involvement together with the manifestation of enthusiasm, pride, work challenge, inspiration, and a sense of implication. Lastly, absorption occurs when the person is perfectly focused towards his work, when time passes rapidly and presents difficulties in disconnecting from what is being done due to the strong doses of enjoyment and concentration experiences (Carter, 2016).
It has increasingly become an important consideration for HR managers today as the extensive studies in recent years found that employees involved in the better performance are ready to give more of himself for the benefit of the organization and less likely to leave the organization. Seen as a whole, there is a strong connection among employee engagement and organizational performance. Successful organizations create high involvement of workers benefit from a number of distinct advantages in the market, such as, greater customer loyalty, yields and profitability sizes, and more. Research and measurement processes made many organizations realize that a minority of employees in the organization (15-30%) are involved in high-level involvement and are actively engaged while most workers lack the active involvement.
This significant group is most critical for treatment, but for this purpose, we need to ask ourselves; what would cause these workers to be more involved? The organization can influence the level of engagement of its employees by creating a work environment and corporate culture fits while also improving two-way communication within the organization, the leadership culture of sharing and listening, steady development opportunities and challenging role, reinforcing the sense of control, and partnership of workers (Carter, 2016, p. n.d.).
The employee engagement can significantly impact organizations as it is found that engagement is positively associated with labor resources as social support of co-workers and immediate superiors, with feedback on performance, coaching, labor control, and a variety of tasks, opportunities for learning and development, and training facilities. In short: engaged workers (engaged or involved) are capable of working in challenging jobs, and this is all that modern organizations need. As the environment is getting more and more challenging with every passing day, and only employees motivated and engaged with their jobs tend to deliver the best of their proficiencies to the organizations.
Employee engagement tends to improve employee individual performance, job satisfaction, commitment to his job, and organization. An engaged employee benefits an organization in many ways, such as decreased turnover rate, low absenteeism, increase employee productivity, organizational performance, good customer service, organizational reputation, and overall profitability of the business. It is also found that organization with engaged employees tends to perform in a better way than an organization that has employee with low morale and low level of engagement and motivation. This has also become the primary reason that organizations are investing in factors like training and development, flexibility concepts, work life balance, competitive compensation benefits, health and medical facilities. and other personal and professional amenities as they tend to boost the employee level of job satisfaction while keeping him or her engaged and committed to his work and job for a longer period of time (Guest, 2014, p. 141).
This subsequently helps organization not only retaining the best talent for a longer period of time but also help in maintaining its creativity and innovation level at a steady pace. The engaged employees are inclined in a robust manner to realize the organizational objectives by utilizing their proficiencies, expertise, skills, and capabilities to the optimum. Employee engagement does not impact the organization internally but also bring it external benefits, for example, customers’ perceptions of the quality of service offered are found to be improved when employees are engaged in their jobs as compared to times when workers are not engaged. This reflects that the more engaged the employees feel, the better their performance is, which eventually raise the overall bars of organization’s overall performance while reflecting higher and better levels of engagement in their intra and extra role service (Saks, 2006, p.600).
Conclusion
All in all, employee engagement is related to better performance and it drives organization growth, productivity, and success. The above discussion concludes that engagement is a fashionable anglicism that can be assimilated to commitment or involvement used in the field of labor relations and organizational culture that is identified with the voluntary effort by the workers of a company or members of an organization. it is also concluded that engaged employees are those that are totally involved in and enthusiastic about his work, and when they have the opportunity to act in a way that goes beyond the demands of your organization, they do its willingly. Also, this is why it has become the biggest consideration for modern human resources managers to keep their employee motivated and engaged. The discussion also concludes that employee engagement is closely associated with overall organizational performance; therefore, increasing level of employee engagement within the organization can significantly increase the productivity and profitability level of the organization. These countless benefits of employee engagement have made it to become one of the most significant and important considerations for human resource managers of the modern corporate world.
References
Albrecht, S.L., Bakker, A.B., Gruman, J.A., Macey, W.H. and Saks, A.M., 2015. Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(1), pp.7-35.
Carter, W.R., Nesbit, P.L., Badham, R.J., Parker, S.K. and Sung, L.K., 2016. The effects of employee engagement and self-efficacy on job performance: a longitudinal field study. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, pp.1-20.
Guest, D., 2014. Employee engagement: a sceptical analysis. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 1(2), pp.141-156.
Presbitero, A., 2017. How do changes in human resource management practices influence employee engagement? A longitudinal study in a hotel chain in the Philippines. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 16(1), pp.56-70.
Saks, A.M., 2006. Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of managerial psychology, 21(7), pp.600-619.
Zikouridis, F., 2015. Employee engagement and job satisfaction. International Hellenic University Repository. pp. 65-68. Retrieved on January 28, 2017
