Disengaged Workers

When employees decide to leave your company, do you know why? Turnover is costly for any organization, and if your top performers decide to leave, it is a definite concern. Conducting exit interviews with each employee who leaves can uncover problem areas and reasons these people were dissatisfied with their jobs. You can then address these issues to reduce future turnover.

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.

The CIPD (2014) factsheet states that Employee Engagement is a concept that ‘is generally seen as an internal state of being – physical, mental and emotional – that brings together earlier concepts of work effort, organisational commitment, job satisfaction and ‘flow’ (or optimal experience)’. An engaged workforce willingly demonstrates discretionary effort within their roles; their goals and values reflect that of their employers/organisation; they express a passion for work, feel valued and that their work has meaning.

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

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.

Employees who are “not engaged” exude the feeling that they are just there for a paycheck. This type of person is not contributing and just goes thru the motions in the performance of their job duties. The worst type of employee is an “actively” disengaged employee. That type of person is also known as a trouble maker. Whatever good that an engaged employee accomplishes, an actively disengaged employee tries to destroy. Disengaged employees are unhappy and they want everyone they come in contact with to know it. Organizations with disengaged employees are more vulnerable to lower productivity, higher absenteeism, higher turnover and lower product or service quality.

Engagement is more than just happiness. It involves commitment and helping others accomplish goals, whether it’s personal or for work. When people are engaged they do everything possible to complete that task, take full responsibility of the projects that is at hand, stay positive, deliver great work, and go above and beyond to make sure that they do great at the goal that was set. Engagement is the most important factor needed of any person for the achievement of any company in order to succeed.

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.

The second aspect suggested by Macey and Schneider (2008) refers to the positive conditions encountered at work. This aspect implies that behavioral engagement is more likely to take place when some conditions such as the nature of the work people do and the leadership encountered at work yield positive attitudes; therefore behaviorally engagement. In conclusion, there is no single definition of employee engagement that can encompass the full meaning of the term. Employee engagement is simply a combination of the facets explained above; employee engagement is the key to create and yield positive results at the work place, is the treasure any organization wants to possess in order to create competitive advantage and success in general. According to studies made by Gallup, engaged workplaces yield a 38% in productivity and a 27% increase in profitability. Promoting an engaged workforce should be one of the first goals the organization sets. Maximizing the innate talents by taking into consideration the psychological state engagement, behavioral engagement and personal traits engagement of every individual will bear a sustainable organizational growth.

In this era of advanced technology and increased competition it is very important for a company to be stable in the competitive market. Employees are the prime source of the company to gain profit, the hard work of employees depends on their attitude towards the organisation that is how they feel working in the company, their trust and pride towards the firm (Mishra, Boynton & Mishra 2014). The companies now days are not only strengthening the external environment for example, customer focus , stakeholders partnerships, but also the internal environment of the firm as well which involve employee engagement through motivation (Mishra, Boynton & Mishra 2014). In other words it can be

Crim and Seijts (2006, p.1) define employee engagement as “a person who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about, his or her work”. Employees that are engaged are inspired and go above and beyond their job functions to support the company and help the company achieve its goals. The lack of engaged employees are a major problem in the United States. According to Gallup, in 2014 only 31.5% of employees were engaged (Adkins, 2015). Even though this sounds low, it is actually the most engaged the United States workforce has been since 2000. The author’s research is important because if there is a link between leader’s

Employee engagement has become a top priority for most companies and is a heavily used buzz word in the corporate world. With all the focus centered on this topic research shows that most employees are still not engaged. Recent surveys conducted by Gallup showed that active disengagement of employees is at a record low (Adkins, 2015). In our current economy companies need all the help they can get being profitable and maintaining a good company image. Good employee engagement can play a big part in that process. Employee engagement can positively or negatively affect a company on numerous levels:

Employee engagement is a relatively new concept. According to Stairs (2005, p.8) research into engagement has completely being ignored and a Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) report (Alfes et al., 2010, p.4) supported this view by stating that while academia became silent on the concept of employee engagement, the concept was actually placed on the discussion board by Human Resources (HR) professionals, practitioners, and consultants. Kular et al (2008) further state that there remains a paucity of critical academic literature on employee engagement. However, with the advent of concerns given to engagement in modern times, the concept has seen new faces of definitions and explanations given to it. The very first definition was given by Kahn (1990, p.694) 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”. The aspect of engagement that is cognitive concerns employees’ beliefs about the organization itself, the leaders and the conditions under which employees work. The emotional side of employee engagement is about how employees feel of each of the three factors and whether they have positive or negative attitudes toward the organization and its leaders. The physical aspect of employee engagement concerns the physical energies exerted by individuals to accomplish their roles. Form this background, Kahn (1990)

Employee engagement is the emotional commitment an employee shows for the organization and its goals (Kruse 2012). It can also be defined as the act of an employee being involved in, enthusiastic about and satisfied with his or her work (Seijts et al.., 2006). An engaged employee is one who actually cares and is passionate about his job and company goals. He or she does not work just to get a paycheck rather they work to ensure the organization’s goals are met.

Employee Engagement is made up of two words, Employee and engagement. In simple words, it can be defined as an engagement or commitment of an employee towards its organization. It is not entirely clear when the term “engagement” was first used in relation to work, but generally the Gallup Organization is credited for coining the term somewhere in the 1990s( Schaufeli, 2013 p.2).