Characteristics of Successful Employee Engagement

In the current era of technological revolution, where day by day, one can see the advancement in technology, spurring up the businesses to focus on developing new strategies with which they can attract customers and side by side retain the existing consumers. To fulfil this vision of companies, employees are hired. It is said that the right people for the right job are hired by the companies. Employees are the most important asset of the companies which is why they are called as human capital or intellectual capital as they are important in gaining strategic success as well as gaining competitive advantage (DiVanna and Rogers, 2005; p. 19). The human resource department is the department which is responsible for taking care of the employees by developing strategies and policies through which they can be satisfied, motivated and committed to the organization. These help in retaining the employees as well. Employee engagement is another important duty of the HRM. This ensures that the employee is engaged in the work he/she is performing while side by side he / she is satisfied and motivated.

This essay is written on the topic “drivers and characteristics of successful employee engagement (from an employer’s perspective)”. As the name indicates, there will be discussed in the essay regarding employee engagement, but from the perspective of the employer. There are different dimensions of this essay in which discussion about employee engagement as a strong predictor of employee and work unit performance will be discussed. The challenges facing the companies regarding the employees lacking engagement, different strategies which companies use and above all there will be psychological models discussing the employee engagement will also be used so as to make the argument much stronger and thoughtful. As the importance of employee and employee engagement has been discussed previously, therefore the essay will consider some of the positive examples which can further add to the importance of the employee engagement. The essay is divided into three sections. First section discussed the broader aspect of the topic, second section includes body in which psychological models along with other points mentioned at the start of this paragraph will be discussed and in the end the topic will be concluded.

Taking into account the employee engagement as a construct, it is a broad construct as it encompasses almost all facets of human resource management. When different facets of HR are not addressed properly, then an employee fails to engage in their job. Employee engagement construct is built on different concepts such as Organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction and commitment, but the scope of employee engagement is broader (Endres and Mancheno-Smoak, 2008). It is considered to be a strong predictor of organizational performance. It depicts a clear relationship of employee and employer. It is said that the employees who are engaged tend to be emotionally attached to their organization and show high involvement in their job by showing enthusiasm such that employer can get success. In such organizations, employees behave beyond the employment, contractual agreement (Markos and Sridevi, 2010).

The major challenges faced to the companies is employee retention. In order to retain good employees, employee engagement is one of the ways through which employees can be retained. There are different drivers of employee engagement which have been identified in different research works. According to a study by the Blessing White (2006), in order for employees to grow in their organization, it is important to have strong relationship between employee and managers. This is an important characteristic of employee engagement and with this employee can be retained. In the contemporary business, employers believe that a strong relationship between management and employees is very crucial for the success of the business. Organizations such as Ford, McDonalds, Apple, Virgin Group, Emirates and many other multinational companies are utilizing this strategy and they have developed strong relations with the employees. This is the reason employees are more engaged and they are more committed to the organizational goals.

Development Dimensions International (2005) has identified some other drivers of employee engagement, namely aligning efforts with organizational strategy, empowering employees, promoting and encouraging collaboration and teamwork, growth and development, providing support and recognition. All of these drivers are linked to performance management. These are non-financial ways through which the performance of the employees can be improved. These principles are most commonly observed in project management companies. Example include construction projects and IT projects which are short term and for the success of project collaboration, teamwork, support and recognition are important.

Three other drivers were highlighted in the research of Towers Perrin Talent Report (2003). According to this report interest of senior management in the well-being of employee, decision making authority and challenging work were the most important drivers of employee engagement. Example of Virgin Group can be quoted here. Under the strong leadership of Richard Branson, employees are free to perform their duties. Input is taken from employees and they are fully involved in decision making. Rischard Branson has designed three principles with the help of which employees are retained. These are freedom in decision making and performing tasks, foresight, and don’t panic (Preston, undated). All these principles add to employee engagement.  Other drivers of employee engagement have been identified in many research reports. These include a sense of feeling valued and involved (Robinson et al., 2004), communication (CIPD, 2006), the manager role in making employees engaged (Clifton, 2008). These drivers are also very important so as to develop strong relationships with employees. Employee needs motivation which is said to be gained by rewarding employee but in the current era things go beyond financial benefits. Employee need recognition, they want to be motivated. Hence, these are some of the drivers through which employee can be engaged.

Taking into account the psychological dimension of employee engagement, one of the most common approaches used to explain the link is Kahn’s Need satisfying approach. Employee engagement was first time mentioned in an article named as “Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work” in Academy of Management Journal by Kahn (1990). In this article it was defined as personal engagement. Personal engagement was defined as employment as well as personal expression of a person’s “preferred self” as in a task where behavior is shown towards the promotion of connecting between work and others, personal presence and active role performance. There were three levels of personal engagement, namely emotional, physical and cognitive levels. These levels tend to be affected by safety, meaningfulness and availability. These domains develop an influence on the perception and performance in the roles of the employees. Safety was defined as the fearlessness of negative concerns to self-image of employee, career or status (p. 705). In other words, it can be said that when safe environment is provided to the employee, then employee shows full engagement. Meaningfulness deals with an employee investment of self in the role employee is performing. The meaningfulness is experienced by the employee when they feel that they are valuable and the duties which they are performing are valuable. Availability refers to the person’s availability of physical, psychological and emotional resources for the task to be performed. It measures the readiness of the employee.  Considering the application of this approach to the current essay topic, it fits appropriately. This is the approach which fully considers the employee engagement in the emotional, physical and cognitive levels. It checks out the application of the employee engagement concept in every possible facet where an employee wants to look for satisfaction and motivation which leads towards increased performance levels. Kahn’s Need satisfying approach is the very first approach that identified employee engagement and to date this is the most appropriate approach which links up employee engagement and psychology behind the employee engagement.

The employer practices used for employee engagement significantly impacts on the employee performance (Ellis and Sorensen, 2007; Hewitt Associates, 2004; Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina, 2002). This can be explained by job performance model. This model is well- explained by Vance (2006). According to this model employee engagement is the result of personal attributes, namely KSA (knowledge, skills, and abilities), attitudes, temperament and personality. Organization context is also important in this respect and it includes physical settings, leadership, social setting and HR practices, creating a direct impact on job performance which includes processing, person and context. This model shows that everything in an organization is interconnected. It is the role of HR as how it incorporates everything.  In addition to this, there are some outcomes of organizational performance, such as productivity and profitability, employee retention, safety and customer loyalty. These are positively related to employee engagement because when an employee is engaged, he/she will be satisfied, committed and motivated and then an employee will show high involvement in job and this will contribute in organizational performance (Coffman, 2000; Towers Perrin Talent Report, 2003; Heintzman and Marson, 2005).