Employee Engagement: A key to Organizational Success & Individual Success

“Employee engagement is the extent to which employees feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the organization, and put discretionary effort into their work.” (Rurkkhum & Bartlett, 2012, p2)

Introduction

As mentioned in the above, the employee engagement could identify as the passion of the people to involve with their respective job or role in an organization where it shows the commitment towards the company which is above the average work of an employee (Lewis, et al., 2012). It was understood that an organization required to accomplish a set of goals and objectives through the investments and execution of the business operations (Ariani, 2014).

When it comes to the operations, the employee or the human capital could be identified as one major resource for the business. However, the productivity of the humans is mainly different from other all resources where the motivation will drive the entire productivity levels of the business and it is obvious that the productivity of the human capital will lead to the success of the organizations (Shuck & Reio, 2011). Like the organization success, an individual could develop and go for the success with the higher level of commitment and the passion. Therefore, this blog will mainly look at the level of contribution of the employee engagement in order to lead to the business and employee success (Lewis, et al., 2012).

\\Comments by RickyGun

Hi, In the past several years, many authors have written on the topic 'Employee Engagement'. Kahn (1990) was the first to coin the term engagement as he described how people can "use varying degrees of their selves - physically, cognitively and emotionally in work role performances". One burning question of 21st century is that in spite of providing good pay packets and benefits, many organizations lose top performers to the competitors for no apparent reasons. According to Scarlett Surveys, "Employee Engagement is a measurable degree of an employee's positive or negative emotional attachment to his Job,colleagues and organization which profoundly influences his willingness to learn and perform at work." Schmidt et al (1993) defines employee of engagement as a modernized version of job satisfaction, which is basically an employee's involvement with,
commitment to and satisfaction with work. According to the Hay Group, engagement is comprised of two components: Commitment - affective attachment to and intention to remain with an organization and Discretionary Effort - the willingness to go above and beyond formal job requirements

\\Comments by Author

Hi RickyGun, Strongly agreed with your comment. As you mentioned correctly we have to look not only from the pay packers but several other motivational factors which could drive the employee commitment and motivation in order to deliver the success for the organization(Lewis, et al., 2012).

\\Comments by Niroshini Vijayaragavaraja

Dear Asela, as you have mentioned “involvement of the leadership team and immediate supervisors could drive the employee engagement in an effective and efficient manner will lead the business toward the success”. According to the Corporative Executive Board (2004), employee engagement is defined as the “extent to which an employee, commits to something or someone in the organisation and how long they stay as a result of their commitment. Vita (2007) mentions that the connection between the attitudes and behaviors of employees link to the organisations bottom line, which supports the extracted statement from the blog.

\\Comments by Author

Dear Niroshini, Yes it is one proven fact that employee engagement could drive the organizational success. However, it is essential to require a change in employee attitudes and the mindset about the employee engagement(Ariani, 2014). Therefore, management requires to see the stratgies to the change the employee attitudes by executing several initiatives which enhance the employee engagement level(Lewis, et al., 2012).

Employee Engagement is not same as the Employee Satisfaction

The term employee satisfaction is mainly looking at the happiness of the employees which do not directly shows the level of motivation, level of involvement and the emotional commitment of the employees towards the business and the job role (Mohapatra & Sharma, 2010). Furthermore, it was understood that the satisfaction is a difficult criterion to measure where the measurement of satisfaction will vary from one employee to another (Saks, 2011).

If an organization is looking at the improvement of satisfaction of the employees, it is not necessary to looking at the performance improvement where the employees could satisfy by offering various benefits and privileges to them (Sharma & Raina, 2013) However, the improvement of the employee engagement will require to ensure that the employees are satisfied with the work load and the recognition which increases the commitment towards the business.

It was understood that the high performing employees always looking at higher level of commitment and the top performers embrace the changes, searching for new ways to improve by themselves while enhancing the operational excellence of the business also (Sharma & Raina, 2013).

\\ Comment by Nilmini
 Employee engagement has a positive impact on attitude, work behavior and performance. One of the factors that drive employee engagement is believed to be Organizational culture. A culture that has good communication between the organization and its employees, believe in fairness and trust, openness and supportive attitudes create positive impact on employee engagement (Suharti and Suliyanto, 2012). Employee engagement is known as positive, rewarding and work- related state of mind. The characteristics of engaged employees are willingness to perform duties with high level of energy and flexibility at work, pride and enthusiasm, deeply engaged and attached with their job role (Allen and Rogelberg, 2013). There’s a strong link in between effective communication and employee engagement. Effective communication behavior enhances employee engagement which help to reduce turnover intention. Employee engagement affects organizational effectiveness and competitiveness. Effective and excellent internal communication vitally affect the ability to engage employees (Kang and Sung, 2016).

\\ Comment by Author

Hi Nilmini, As you mentioned it s correct we need to incorprate strong communication which will be a vital tool in achieving the employee engagement in more effective manner while driving the organizational goals and objectives (Sharma & Raina, 2013)

Furthermore, it was noted that the high performers always challenge the status quo (Saks, 2011). When it comes to the low performers, it was understood that they mainly avoid the accountability, cling to the status quo and they will create a higher level of resistance over the change. Therefore, employee engagement is not similar as the employee satisfaction.

Importance of the Employee Engagement

When it comes to the employee engagement, it is mainly looking at the activities, games and events in a traditional manner. However, the employee engagement will drive the performance and success of the company (Lewis, et al., 2012). It was understood that the engaged people or the employees are having better understanding about the business, the purpose for the existence off the business and the how they are fitting to the business operations (Ariani, 2014). This approach will ensure the better entry to the decision-making process of the company and it will improve the productivity of the business through the higher level of motivation of the people.

Furthermore, it was understood that the employee engagement and the effectiveness of the employee engagement process could be considered as one of key differentiator of a business and it could drive the growth and the innovation of the business (Mohapatra & Sharma, 2010). This is getting influenced through the level of motivation and the changes of the expectations of the people. It is understood that there are industries where the employee retention is one of key challenge (Bal, et al., 2015). For example, the technology-based companies are experiencing a higher level of employee turnover while the effective employee engagement will enable the retention of the key performers of the business while attracting the new talents to the business (Ariani, 2014).

Therefore, a company which is having an effective employee engagement strategy and a higher level of employee engagement will be more successful in terms of the retention and acquisition of the people with the business (Shuck & Reio, 2011). Furthermore, it was understood that the companies with higher level of success are following value driven and employee centric culture-based operations which enable the effective employee engagement accordingly.

\\Comments by Shanaka Fernando
Dear Asela, In addition to your explanations below factors also positively impacts the improve the employee engagement.According to Holbeche and Springett (2003), people used to share their destiny and
objective that connects them at an emotional level. These personal aspirations raises the high levels of engagement at the workplaces. Kahn’s (1990) describes in his study that there are the psychological conditions or antecedents that are compulsory for engagement, but they do not fully explain why individuals was
reacting to these conditions. Kahn (1990) also mentioned that at people were differently engage as per their experiences of psychological meaningfulness,security and situations. According to (Robinson (2006), Employee engagement can be achieved through the creation of healthy organizational environment.

\\Comments by author
Dear Shanka, Agreed with your comments. We need to see what really matters and could make an impact to the employees in terms of different needs

Components of the Employee Engagement

When it comes to the employee engagement, it was understood that there are two main components in relation with the employee engagement strategy of a business.

1.      Engagement with the Organization – This is mainly looking at the enterprise leadership and the confidence level of the company leadership and key concern areas such as the trust, fairness, value and respect (Saks, 2011). It was understood that the organization level engagement is mainly looking at holistic level employee engagement where it will drive the entire company in a common engagement strategy.

2.      Engagement with immediate supervisor – When it comes to the employee engagement, the level of engagement with the immediate supervisor is creating the most effective and influential impact to an employee (Shuck & Reio, 2011).

3.      It is mainly focused over the respect, value and recognition of the hard work of an employee. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the employee engagement could be improved through the fairness, equality and transparency where the employees will influence through the acts of the immediate supervisors (Lewis, et al., 2012).

Figure 1-Components of Employee Engagement Source: Customs Insights: 2018

In addition to the above, it was understood that the employee engagement or creation of the high performers could be driven through the following components.


\\Comments by Hamendra
Dear Ashela, As you are concluding blog by saying that,Employee engagement is an important element which should not be missed by any type of business organization. The employee engagement drives the organizational success as well as the individual success over the period with the higher level of commitment of the people (Lewis, et al., 2012).I would further ad that Employee engagement has emerged as a critical"driver of business success in today’s competitive
marketplace. Further, employee engagement can be a deciding factor in organizational success. Not only does engagement have the potential to significantly affect employee retention, productivity and loyalty, it is also a key link to customer satisfaction, company reputation and overall stakeholder value. Thus, to gain a competitive edge,organizations are turning to HR to set the agenda
for employee engagement and commitment (Nancy.R, 2017). also as per Amy.G (2011) It’s common knowledge that helping employees set and reach goals is a critical part of every manager’s job. Employees want to see how their work contributes to larger corporate objectives, and setting the right targets makes this connection explicit for them, and for you, as their manager. Goal-setting is particularly important as a mechanism for providing ongoing and year-end feedback. By establishing and monitoring targets, you can give your employees real-time input on their performance while motivating them to achieve more.

\\Comments by author
Dear Hemendra,
Agreed with you comment. Employee engagement is not a simple area to explore. There are several vital areas which could directly impact to the employee engagement such as level of reputation of company, CSR activities of the company etc.(Mohapatra & Sharma, 2010) Therefore, we need to see not only the physical needs but also the emotional and social needs in this subject matter(Ariani, 2014)

1.      Culture of engagement – The culture of the organization should be able to motivate, influence and empowers the people while the acceptance of challenges by the employees are being valued and recognized (Ariani, 2014).

2.      Strategic alignment – it is essential to give the clear understanding to the employees over the strategic expectations of the company and level of contribution which is expected to get through the human capital (Shuck & Reio, 2011). This is one of key responsibility of the leadership team when it comes to the employee engagement and the success of the business.

3.      Motivating and relating – it is essential to have very strong relationships with the employees by the managers where they required to maintain higher level of trust among the parties which will drive the motivation of the people of the business (Ariani, 2014).

4.      Managing Execution – It is essential to create clear responsibility frameworks for the employees while creating adequate level of accountability of the work with the employees. This will create the adequate level of commitment by the employees towards the organizational success.

5.      Barriers to growth – it is required to identify any kind of barriers to the growth of the business and the employees and do the necessary changes for such barriers of the company (Saks, 2011).

Involvement of Employee Engagement Programs

Higher level of employee engagement could improve the financial results of the business in a strong manner. Therefore, it is essential to understand the way how the engagement affects to the profitability of the business and the approach or strategy to sustain such benefits with the company (Ariani, 2014).

\\Comments by Nipuni Wickramanayake
Dear Asela, as you gave rightly mentioned that it is essential to have an active engagement of the leadership. Leadership plays a major role in motivating and engaging employees. Followers of charismatic leaders practice heightened motivation, positive affect toward leader and job, self-assurance, agreement and support for leader policies, and low role conflict and ambiguity (Jacobsen & House, 2001; Shamir, 1991). Followers also trust in charismatic leaders more and apply extra effort for high work performance (Jacobsen & House; Shamir). Therefore, leaders have a great impact on their followers and leadership can have a great impact in engaging employees.

\\Comments by author

Dear Nipuni, Yes the leadership is the main driver for the employee engagement

High performers are required to be competitive while they required to survive with the business. It was understood that the employee engagement planning and strategy execution is a pure accountability and responsibility of the human resource management team (Rurkkhum & Bartlett, 2012). In addition to that, it is essential to have the active engagement of the leadership team which includes the higher level, middle level and lower level management teams in order to ensure that everyone is believing over the company operations.

\\Comments by Amakum
Asela it’s a vital topic to discuss and as per your document and adding more to what you have said Hard skills are the technical requirements of a job the student is trained to do and soft skills fulfil an important role in shaping an individual’s personality (Schulz, 2008). Employers expect graduates to have technical and discipline competences from their degrees but require graduates to also demonstrate a range of broader skills and attributes that include team-working, communication, leadership, critical thinking, problem solving and managerial abilities when they apply for an job opportunity (Lowden, Hall,Elliot, & Lewin, 2011). Schulz (2008) argues that what exactly are soft skills is a basic question, which is not easy to answer because the perception of what is a soft skill differs from context to context. Moreover, the understanding of what should be recognised as a soft skill varies widely. Employees need to be skilled at managing conflict and creating inclusion for improved team performance and for collaboration in generating innovative ideas(Sultana, 2014). Therefore employees that possess skills that allow them to negotiate solutions or reformulate work processes by taking a systems approach make them more effective contributors to the organisation (Davis & Muir, 2004)

\\Comments by author
Dear AmaKum, Agreed with your comments. We need to see what really matters and could make an impact to the employees in terms of different needs

Finally it was understood that the communication is an essential element for the success of the employee engagement (Saks, 2011). Therefore, it is essential to implement a communication strategy to ensure that all the employees are having an equal opportunity become a higher level of performer and commitment and passion to the job role.

Success Stories of Employee Engagement

In light with the employee engagement and its success stories, it was analyzed the success of the Brandix Group of Companies in terms of the employee engagement. The company is considered as the single largest apparel manufacturer in Sri Lanka where it has approximately 60,000 direct employees in Sri Lanka. The company is mainly engaged with the manufacturing of ready made apparels to leading apparel brands in the world and the human capital is one of key success of the business. (Brandix, 2018)

The employee engagement process of the company starts with the human resource planning where the company thinks involvement of the employees are essential to the planning of the future of the business. The company has given the opportunity to come up with better ideas in terms of the new product developments, process improvement of the operations where the employees are recognized in a strong manner. Furthermore, the involvement to the employee welfare activities and the CSR project enhanced the employee engagement of the company to a greater extent. The main highlights of all these key initiatives are the involvement of the employees and the employees are considered to be the key driver.

\\Comments by Chathurika Gunarathna
As you have rightly said Asela, employee engagement is an area where any organization cannot neglect. According to Kumar and Pansari (2015)area of employee engagement is one of the interesting topics among scholars and organizations. They have further stated that there are five dimensions in employee engagement such as employee satisfaction, identification, commitment, loyalty and performance. A manager in an organization can enhance employee engagement through empowering, promoting teamwork, providing support and recognition, aligning efforts with strategy (Development Dimensions International, 2005). Further, Robinson et al. (2004) states that sense of valued and involvement are the main drivers of employee engagement. Therefore, both organization and managers have to take necessary steps to increase employee engagements to reduce costs.

\\Comments by author
As you mentioned, it is clear that the employee engagement could be improved through the employee empowerment, promoting the team work and the support and recognition(Ariani, 2014). It is clear that the support and recognition not required to be in only monetory term where it could be in terms of the learning and development support or the recognition through awards etc. (Mohapatra & Sharma, 2010)

In addition to them, the “Rasadiya Mangalya” (Brandix, 2018) which is a talent show where all 48,000 employees (Brandix, 2018) are eligible to participate and the inter division sports tournaments are mainly focused over the employee engagement. Furthermore, the training and development enhance the commitment of the people towards the company while improving the skills and capabilities of them further.

With all these initiatives, the company was able to grow the business over the period of last 20 years and to become the single largest apparel exporter in Sri Lanka and it has crossed the total revenue of USD 1 Bn which was a great achievement for a Sri Lankan Company. The company’s success is mainly depending over the employee engagement and commitment which is driving through the above discussed key strategies.


\\Comments by Jancy Roy
Employee engagement is the level of commitment and involvement an employee has towards their organization and its values. An engaged employee is aware of business context, and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization. It is a positive attitude held by the employees towards the organization and its values. The paper focuses on how employee engagement is an antecedent of job involvement and what Manager or Boss should do to make the employees engaged.

\\Comments by author
Dear Jancy, The employee engagement is mainly impacting the level of performance of the employees since it is expected to have a higher level of commitment to the job or the job involvement of the employees(Ariani, 2014).

Conclusion

Employee engagement is an important element which should not be missed by any type of business organization. The employee engagement drives the organizational success as well as the individual success over the period with the higher level of commitment of the people (Lewis, et al., 2012). However, employee satisfaction and engagement are two different aspects and elements which should be managed in a careful manner (Bal, et al., 2015). Finally, employee engagement could be influenced by several components such as managing execution, motivating and relating, culture of engagement, strategic alignment and barriers to growth. It is identified that the involvement of the leadership team and immediate supervisors could drive the employee engagement in an effective and efficient manner which will drive the business towards the success.

\\Comments by Shameer Sahir
Dear Asela, human resources are vital for an organization, human resource management function is also going up in organizational hierarchy. Human resource management aims to ensure that the organization obtains and retains the skilled, committed and well-motivated workforce it needs. The term engagement refers to an “individual’s involvement and satisfaction with as well as enthusiasm for work” (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002, p. 269). Engaged employees have consistently shown to be more productive, profitable, safer, healthier, and less likely to leave their employer (Fleming & Asplund, 2007; Wagner & Harter, 2006.

\\Comments by author
Dear Shameer, It is clear that the HR is a function which required to go through entire organization and it is vital to focus over the basic needs of employees as well as other emotional and social needs as well(Mohapatra & Sharma, 2010)

List of References

• Ariani, D. W., 2014. Relationship Leadership, Employee Engagement, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior. International journal of business and social research, , 4(8), pp. 74-90.
• Bal, P. M., Lange, A. H. d. & Lange, A. H. d., 2015. From flexibility human resource management to employee engagement and perceived job performance across the lifespan: A multisample study. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, , 88(1), pp. 126-154.
• Lewis, A., Thomas, B. & Bradley, O., 2012. Employee socialisation: A platform for employee engagement?. International journal of employment studies, , 20(1), p. 25.
• Mohapatra, M. & Sharma, B. R., 2010. Study of Employee Engagement and its Predictors in an Indian Public Sector Undertaking. Global Business Review, , 11(2), pp. 281-301.
• Rurkkhum, S. & Bartlett, K. R., 2012. The relationship between employee engagement and organizational citizenship behaviour in Thailand. Human Resource Development International, , 15(2), pp. 157-174.
• Saks, A. M., 2011. Workplace spirituality and employee engagement. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, , 8(4), pp. 317-340.
• Sharma, B. R. & Raina, A. D., 2013. Employee Engagement Predictors in the Indian Segment of a Global Media Organization. The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, , 49(1), pp. 1-12.
• Shuck, B. & Reio, T. G., 2011. The Employee Engagement Landscape and HRD How Do We Link Theory and Scholarship to Current Practice. Advances in Developing Human Resources, , 13(4), pp. 419-428.