Literature Review : Employee Engagement

1.2 Analyse the three principle dimensions of employee engagement (the emotional, the cognitive and the physical)

Employee Engagement is a measurable degree of an employee's positive or negative emotional attachment to their job, colleagues and organisation which profoundly influences their willingness to learn and perform at work. Thus engagement is distinctively different from employee satisfaction, motivation and organisational culture.

Employee Engagement: It’s a known perception that an engaged workforce provides many intangible benefits that is linked directly to retention. HR policies should focus on employee engagement initiatives that stimulate motivation levels of employees to perform better and bond with organisation. This process should be initiated right from induction and continue throughout their tenure by opening channels of continuous communication and encouraging interpersonal relations. HR is responsible to incorporate methods to measure engagement and at regular intervals track engagement contribution to company’s success.

Engagement is a sign of satisfaction and loyalty to the firm which can be incurred by increasing job resources

Employee engagement, which reflects the emotional commitment an employee has to an organization is not just an organizational nicety but a business necessity due to direct ties to a number of performance outcomes, such as profitability,

Employee engagement has been a trend of management since 2004.(CMI 2015) ‘Some people may believe that engagement is just about employees ‘going the extra mile’, but it is much more.’(CMI 2014) Within globalization, how to apply employee engagement is significant for an organization to achieve their performance. A key aspect of employee engagement concerns how employees manage their position, performance and development in relationship to the company’s strategies. Therefore, according to Moenguc (2013), employee engagement has been personalized as a“persistent, positive affective-motivational state of fulfillment.” To demonstrate how this process affects the overall performance of an organization, John Lewis has been selected as the case study

Blessing white from the division of GP strategy defines employee engagement as “ the intersection of maximum contribution for the organization and maximum satisfactory for the individual,” (Blessingwhite.com,

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.

Employee satisfaction doesn’t necessarily mean employees are engaged. Employees can be happy, show up for work daily, but that doesn’t mean they are being productive or mindful of patient’s needs. When employees are engaged, they care. Examples would be a hospital employee making eye contact with visitors and patients, another would be a night shift worker being aware of quiet time during their shift. (Kruse, 2015) Leaders need to know what drives employees’ engagement. Leaders that behave consistently with the organizations core values and show a sincere interest in the employee’s well-being have been a link to improving employee engagement.

Maintaining and improving employee engagement are increasingly complex for company’s operations these days due to the instable environment and varied economic conditions (Aon Hewitt, 2012). However, if a company has a good performance in employee engagement, it would surely enjoy competitive advantage and better business outcomes than other companies.

An engaged employee feels involved in and excited about his work. Engaged employees produce at high levels individually, and contribute to improved business results. In fact, Gallup research shows employee engagement can be linked to increased productivity and profitability, along with benefits such as decreased turnover and absenteeism (Connolly, et al., 2013, p 48-52).An organisation with a higher number of engaged employees is likely to be more effective, efficient

Predictors of employee engagement are satisfaction with leadership, employee development, communication and innovation (Persson, 2010). Job demands and job resources foster contradictory psychological processes, one connecting to burnout and the other to employee engagement (Persson, 2010). Burnout is a process that occurs when job demands causes weakening of health and depleted energy as the negative outcome (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; Persson, 2010). Employee engagement develops from a motivational process dependent on job resources (Persson, 2010). The Intrinsic and extrinsic reasons that motive employees are feeling of belonging, competency, autonomy, financial compensation and benefits. These reasons are shown to enhance employee engagement, whereas the absence will weaken engagement and result in frustration and failure to achieve company objectives (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; Persson, 2010).

Employee engagement is a major issue for most of the organization even today, which needs to be resolved immediately. Employee engagement is fundamentally a

Employee engagement (EE) is an essential part of organizational life and of paramount interest to human resource management (HRM) professionals in the banking industry due to its influence on the organizational outcomes.

Robinson and Hay (2003) mentioned employee engagement as an evolution of past research which focuses on employee satisfaction, motivational approaches and commitment. This is a modernized version of job satisfaction. According to Robert J. Vance (2006), employees who are engaged in their work and committed to their organizations give companies crucial competitive advantage- including higher productivity and lower employee turnover. Now-a-days the companies’ objective is to retain the best talents and manage their performance for increasing company’s productivity and revenue.