Introduction to employee engagement
“A positive attitude held by the employee towards the organization and its value. An engaged employee is aware of the business context and works with colleagues to
improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization. The organization must work to develop and nature engagement, which requires a
two-way relationship between employer and employee” (Robinson et al., 2004,
P.9).
As stated by
Robinson et al. (2004) employee engagement has become a widely used popular
term though surprisingly only very few academic and empirical research has
been done. However, a greater extent about employee engagement can be found in
practitioner journals where it has its footing in practice rather than
experimental research. As a result, some might call employee engagement as
"old wine in a new bottle." Organizational commitment and
Organizational citizenship behavior (Robinson et al.,2004) are better known and
established concepts out of which employee engagement has been defined.
Intellectual and emotional commitment towards the organizations is the most
often used definitions among the rest (Baumruk, 2004: Richman, 2006: Shaw,
2005). Or the various actions which they take towards the progress of the organization is within the scope of their jobs (Frank et al., 2004).there is
plenty of definitions in academic studies on this topic out of which, Kahn
(1990, p.694) defines personal engagement as “the harnessing of organization
members selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express
themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances”.
Personal disengagement refers to “the uncoupling of selves from work roles in
disengagement, people withdraw and defend themselves physically, cognitively,
or emotionally during role performances” (Kahn,1990,p.694). According to it an
employee reaching an organizational goal with full psychological concentration
is called engagement Kahn (1990, 1992).
The components of employee engagement
In the below-mentioned model which was produced by the Institute for employment studies (Armstrong et al, 2010) it describes having the motivation, commitment and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) as the main three overlapping components that can be observed in engagement.
Figure 1: IES Model of employee engagement
Source: (Armstrong et al, 2000)
References
Armstrong,
M, Brown, D and Reilly, P (2010) Evidencebased Reward
Management, London, Kogan Page
Baumruk,
R. (2004), “The missing link: the role of employee engagement in business
success”, Workspan, Vol. 47, pp. 48-52.
Frank, F.D., Finnegan, R.P. and Taylor, C.R. (2004), “The race for talent: retaining and engaging workers in the 21st century”, Human Resource Planning, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 12-25.
Kahn, W.A. (1990), “Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 33, pp. 692-724.
Kahn, W.A. (1992), “To be full there: psychological presence at work”, Human Relations, Vol. 45, pp. 321-49.
Richman, A. (2006), “Everyone wants an engaged workforce how can you create it?”, Workspan, Vol. 49, pp. 36-9.
Robinson, D., Perryman, S. and Hayday, S. (2004), The Drivers of Employee Engagement, Institute for Employment Studies, Brighton.
Shaw, K. (2005), “An engagement strategy process for communicators”, Strategic Communication Management, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 26-9.
Hi Mark, Robinson et al. (2004) state that neither commitment nor Organizational Citizen Behavior reflect sufficiently two aspects of engagement-its two-way nature, and the extent to which engaged employees are expected to have an element of business awareness, even though it appears that engagement overlaps with the two concepts. Rafferty et al. (2005) also distinguish employee engagement and the two prior concepts- Commitment and Organizational Citizen Behavior , on the ground that engagement clearly demonstrates that it is a two-way mutual process.
ReplyDeleteHi Vianlo thanks for commenting, Commitment in the earlier model of Allen and Meyer (1990) was highlighted and reviewed by Tamkin(2005) and three types of commitments were defined as mentioned below. 1.Affect commitment -Emotionally attached to the organization
Delete2.Continuance Commitment -The realization of the cost involved in leaving an organization 3.Normative Commitment - the moral obligation to remain with the organization
As stated by Macey and Schneider (2008) Engagement might be a result of both environmental conditions and dispositional qualities and their connection. Not all interests in job design as well as the training and performance the board of pioneers in organization with the objective of enhancing engagement levels will be gainful for all workers.
ReplyDeleteHi, Shiromi thanks for commenting, further illustrating on your view, As stated by Bakar (2012) various studies have proven that financial benefits are not the only aspect that drives motivation. Not all the individuals remained after making the money by doing work but instead work itself is their purpose of life. The assigned task itself gives them a great deal of motivation and diversion. employees are motivated by activities, culture, work attitude, and behavior of other employees, According to Crabtree (2004) engaged employees are the drivers of the business and the builders hence they know what the organizations expect from them, they are keen to utilize their potential and talent in the best interest of their organization.
DeleteAdding more on Engagement and Job satisfaction, was defined by Locke (1976: 1304) as ‘a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job and job experiences’. Engaged employees are more likely than not to be satisfied with their jobs. Job satisfaction, like commitment, is regarded by Yalabik et al (2013: 2805) as an antecedent of work engagement. It has been shown to be related to other attitudes and behaviors. Positively, it is related to organizational commitment, job involvement, organizational citizenship behaviors and mental health. Negatively, it is related to turnover and stress.
ReplyDeleteInformative Blog! SOS is the leading employee engagement platform that works but doesn't feel like work! Boost your work from home employees productivity with our Online employee engagement activities social, fun and engaging workplace experience activities.
ReplyDelete