Literature Review On Defining Employee Engagement

Literature Review On Defining Employee EngagementThe purpose of this review is to present the definitions of employment found in the literature and list the pokingrs of affair that read been identified by many authors. The Sunday Times 100 Best companies to Work For surveys eighter from Decatur employ factors wholeow for also be explained in detail along with their impinging to elaborateness. Subsequently, authors views on the factors that turned out to be more sensitive for Addleshaw Goddard will be reported along with authors recommendations on how to leverage them in order to boost employee liaison.IntroductionIn the midst of economic crisis and with its unavoidable electronegative raise on employee morale and motivation, it is principal(prenominal) that musical arrangements take steps to maintain, if not increase, employee day of the month IDS report, April 2009, Vol. 892, pp2 around studies conducted around the topic shows its link to company per progress toance an d sustain capacity, as Bates et al. claimed that employee particular date predicts employee outcome, brass instrumental success and financial performance Bates, 2004 Baumruk, 2004 Harter et al, 2002 Richman, 2006.Lockwood 2007, in her report pointed out that it is a blusher telephone circuit getr for organisational success and that high levels of engagement in firms produce retention of talent, foster customer loyalty and improve organisational performance and stakeholder value. The grandeur of engagement is that it has an effect of what people do and how they behave in their jobs and what makes them act in meanss that further some(prenominal)(prenominal), the organisational objectives and their individualized goals.Defining Employee EngagementEmployee engagement is growing as a concept within the business world due to shew and research that points out that an diligent pruneforce performs better and hence creates a strong employer brand Leigh and Roper, 2009. This pr omotes organisations as good employers hence recruiting and retaining key talent becomes slight problematic, as evident from the IDS report 2009, where they state, effective employer branding captures the essence of an organisation and sells it to the labour market and employees. A strong employer brand embraces an organisations vision, values and progress toing culture. IDS Report, April 2009On the subject of engagement, the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) registers that Employee Engagement, or passion for figure, involves employees relishing positive about their job, as well as being vigilant to go the extra mile CIPD, 2010.Macey et al. 2008 argues that engagement has been used to refer to a psychological state (e.g., involvement, loyalty, attachment), performance (e.g., either effort or observable behaviour), office (e.g., positive affect), or a combination of the above. For example, Wellins and Concelman 2005 suggested that engagement is an amalgamat ion of commitment, loyalty, productivity and ownership. It is personified by the passion and energy employees have to give to the organisation. It is all about the willingness and ability of the employees to give constant discretionary effort to help their organisation succeed Cook, 2008.Furthermore, Towers Perrin Talent Report 2003 which is a study that tracks views and attitudes of employees to understand the elements of the work experience that drive attraction, retention and engagement has defined engagement as a factor that involves both emotional and rational factors relating to work and overall work experience, where the emotional factors atomic number 18 linked to peoples personal satisfaction and the sense of inspiration and affirmation they get from their work and from being part of their organisation. Engagement croupe be seen as a combination of commitment to the organisation and its values plus a willingness to help out and support colleagues (i.e. team work)Improveme nts in engagement can be do in many aras and the key concepts argon religion, listening, flexible working and the avoidance of the long hour culture.However, this is not in itself a new concept, and highlighting this, Rankin 2008 refers to engagement asembracing the older concepts of job satisfaction, motivation and attachment that describes individual employees attitudes to their employer, but goes beyond them to provide a complete model of the psychological kin between individuals and organisations. Rankin 2008This suggests that employee engagement is inextricably linked to the Psychological, or unwritten contract which exists and concerns discretionary effort, having many positive effects. For example Leigh and Roper 2010 highlighted that psychological contract is a subjective behaviour where employers and employees have their own perception of what is expected of each other. Hence, it is obvious that engagement is any(prenominal)thing that employees have to offer and that i t is impossible to require engagement as part of the employment contract. It is rather an emotional link to the organisation, its purpose and its people.When an organisation delivers on its commitments (when by their actions they transact employees expectations), this reinforces employees sense of fairness and trust in the organisation and generates a positive psychological contract between employers and employee.There are many reported examples of employers who have executed strategies to improve employee engagement by dint of business transformation, which in turn improved employee morale, retention and ultimately business performance. Rankin 2008 suggests that management are more likely to embrace gaps to drive employee engagement, rather than simple retention strategies, owing to the extra benefits of such strategies, such as improved business performance, profitability, focus on customer service and organisational efficiency, of which retention is a positive by-product.What are the Key Levers of Employee Engagement?Defining engagement is crucial but the real value is in determining what creates engagement. Therefore, where studies have been conducted on engagement, there has also be reports on the key enablers of engagement. There is a range of opinions on what the key drivers or enablers are, for example the findings of the UK Governments MacLeod Review into employee engagement have underlined the critical role play by an engaged workforce MacLeod and Clarke 2009 in both organisational success and individual well-being. As an example, ibid. 2009 suggested in their study that glide byership, Employee Voice, Engaging passenger vehicles and Integrity were strong levers in amiable workforce. In other words, without these factors, organisations would have disengaged staff which would lead to poor performance.Furthermore, Lockwood 2007 also underlines that engagement is influenced by many factors, from body of work culture, organisational conference and managerial styles to trust and respect, leadership and company reputation. For todays different generations, access to training and career opportunities, work-life remnant and empowerment to make findings have also become imperative.According to Towers Perrin report 2003 the factors that drive engagement are a combination of Macleod et al. 2008 and Lockwoods 2007 study such as, (a) Senior managements interest in employees well-being (b) Challenging work, (c) Decision-making authority (d) Career- getment opportunities (e) The companys reputation as a good employer (f) Collaborative work environment and (g) Clear vision from senior management about cartridge clip to come success, to name a few.1There is no classic list of engagement drivers. However, CIPDs 2010 research into employee attitudes found that the main drivers of employee engagement were communication and leadership, along with pay and benefits, learning and development, line management and work-life balance as key factors of measuring employee attitudes which can determine how engaged a workforce is.An alternative model of engagement comes from the burnout literature, which describes job engagement as the positive contrast of burnout, underlining that burnout involves the wearing of engagement with ones job Maslach et al 2001. According to Maslach et al, six areas of work-life lead to engagement workload, control, rewards and recognition, community and social support, perceive fairness and values. They argue that job engagement is associated with a sustainable workload, relishings of choice and control, appropriate recognition and reward, a supportive work community, fairness and justice, and importeeful and valued work. Like burnout, engagement is expected to intercede the link between these six work-life factors and various work outcomes. May et als 2004 findings support Maslach et als 2001 notion of meaningful and valued work being associated with engagement, and therefore it is weigh ty to consider the concept of meaning.The development of survey tools and questionnaires such as Gallups Q122and The Best Company Survey allow levels of engagement within an organisation to be measured.Most of the studies mentioned above have some common nucleotide. Similarly, bandage Purcell et al 2003 found a number of factors to be strongly associated with high levels of employee engagement, the one thing all of these factors had in common was that they were connected with an employees involvement in a practice related to their work. The Best Companies Survey has also done their share of research linking it to some of the existing researches and categorised the measurements of engagement into eight factors as mentioned earlier in Chapter 1.Critics of Employee EngagementEven though Employee Engagement has become such a normally used term within the organisational scene, as it is seen as a lever for business success Wiley, 2010 some studies have shown that organisations fail to u nderstand the true meaning of engagement as quoted by Macey et al.2008 numerous definitions of engagement can be derived from practice and research driven literatures but the literal meaning is still not clear among practitioners and academics Macey and Schneider, 2008 pp4An example of this could be seen from the study Cunningham et al. 1996 did on Empowerment. After the 1990s when empowerment was introduced in the business world, there was a hype about it for years where organisations wanted to Empower their people, without considering the true meaning of the word. While empowerment only represented the most recent manifestation of employee involvement practice Cunnigham et al., 1996 pp143. Also argued by Wilkinson 1997 that the term empowerment when first introduced was very loosely used Wilkinson, 1998 p40. Likewise, engagement is seen and known widely as beneficial for organisations yet engagement in the UK is verbalise to be critically low as employers are said to be barking up the wrong tree, as Holmes 2010 reports on personnel today. Also as witnessed in Wileys 2010 report he found that UK engagement results lag behind compared to the global results.This is mainly because of the lack of understanding the term as a whole. Hence the concept of employee engagement could be viewed as being faddish and might fade away in a few years when another concept is introduced in the business world.Employee Involvement versus Employee ParticipationAccording to CIPD 2010XEmployee involvement is a range of processes programmeed to engage the support, understanding and optimum contribution of all employees in an organisation and their commitment to its objectives. Whereas. Employee participation is defined as a process of employee involvement designed to provide employees with the opportunity to influence and where appropriate, take part in decisiveness making on matters which affect them.Farnham 1997 defines Employee Participation as one of four choices for managing the employment relationship. Cited in Rose 2008, p335 Farnham statesan employee has the right to question and influence organization decision making. this may involve representative workplace democracy.The other policy choices Farnham identifies are worker subordination via managerial prerogative, union incorporation via collective bargain and employee commitment via employee involvement.It is clear then that there are differences between employee participation and employee involvement. The literature suggests that employee participation is a pluralist/collective approach with a range for employees from no involvement to full control Blyton Turnbull, 1998. Hence, it may involve processes and mechanisms such asCollective bargaining Employee share schemesWorks councils Worker directorsJoint Consultative Committees European Works CouncilsWhereas, Employee involvement, is more of an individualistic and unitarist approach which aims to harness commitment to organisational objectives.De fining LeadershipLeadership is about the ability to influence people by personal attributes and behaviours CIPD, 2010a. Leaders need to act out and communicate organisational values otherwise this endangers trust in organisations leading to poor performance. Hence, the Best Company measures how people rule about the head of the organisation, the senior management team, and organisational values.Rayner and Adam-Smith 2007 have pointed out that leaders are key players in devising and implementing organisational strategies. And high level of engagement depends in the way employees are led and managed, as quoted by Armstrong 2009degree to which jobs encourage engagement and positive discretionary behaviour depends upon the ways in which job holders are led and managed on any formal process of job design. Armstrong, 2009140There is considerable evidence from prior research that perceptions of managerial processes fix on engagement Wildermuth and Pauken, 2008. Evidence suggests that emp loyees level of engagement and other work responses are affected by their perceptions of management or leadership style. For example, opportunities for upward feedback increase engagement done greater participation, which, in turn, relates to better understanding of broader organisational issues as well as personal involvement Robinson et al 2004.3.4.1 Role of leaders in engagementIn Macleods engagement report 2009 he stressed that leadership provides a strong strategic narrative which has widespread ownership and commitment from managers and employees at all levels.However, it has been proven through Hays Group research findings 2010 that 56 per cent of leaders were disengaging the staff that they led and only 26 per cent of the leaders achieved in creating an engaging environment that encouraged high performance. In order for employees to be engaged, it is crucial that leaders themselves be engaged they need to work and succeed in both their pith and non-core job roles reference attention from the top to the bottom of the organisation should be committed leaders and key role of the immediate line manager/ executive program is recognised as one of the most important channel to achieving effective employee engagement.Leadership plays a vital role in influencing levels of employee engagement. Goal clarity and direction are identified as factors that can influence an employees level of engagement Rayner and Adam-Smith, 2007. Staff perform well when they are clear about their goals and objectives, and know how to go about achieving them, an example could be Latham and Lockes Goal- position Theory 1979 where they suggest that by establishing goals individuals are motivated to take action to achieve those goals. As a result, employees tend to be motivated and committed to it. Hence, communication of clear goals and direction from the leader becomes crucial. Leaders also help employees develop personal accountability for their goals and help achieve them. Setting performance expectations and instilling personal responsibility among employees are critical for getting results. The biggest challenges which leaders face is how to effectively motivate, initiate change, and sustain improved performance among employees i.e. Employee engagement has emerged as a critical leadership challenge Molinari and Weiss, 2005. Leaders should provide challenging work with opportunities for career growth. Good leaders challenge employees but at the same time they should create confidence that the challenges can be met Seijts and Crim, 2006.3.4.2 Dealing with Professionals/Leaders reluctance from leaders to learnAs mentioned above, leaders play a vital role in communicating the firms strategy, values and culture. Leadership style and support are also said to be crucial for encouraging employee engagement. historic period of occupational health psychology research have revealed that a transformational leadership style is effective for this task Barling, 2007, w here leaders lead to positive changes in those who follow. However, Leadership development proves to be a big challenge for HR professionals. HR professionals continue to wrestle with understanding the best ways to retain talent and develop leaders for future succession planning. Increasingly recognised as becoming strategic business partners within their organizations, HR professionals are expected to provide the demand frameworks, processes, tools, and points of view needed for the selection and development of future leaders. Across the globe leadership development has been identified as a critical strategic initiative in ensuring that the right employees are retained, that the culture of the organization supports performance from within to gain market position, and that managers are equipped to take on leadership roles of the future so that the organisation is feasible in the long term.Even though they play such an important role in engagement and instilling HR policies, researc h has shown that senior managers can be a challenge and be reluctant to their responsibilities as HR mediators. As Pech 2009 quoted in his research that what may be good for the organisation may not be perceived to be quite as good to the organisations senior managers. Research in Europe emphasises the negative impact these defensive managerial behaviours have on organisations and performance in general. The Towers Perrin consulting groups survey showed that 42 percent of employees felt that their senior managers dont have a guileless interest in their well-being and another 37 per cent believed that their senior managers fail to lead by example in demonstrating company values Towers Perrin Report, 2004.My ManagerEngaged managers are at the heart of this organisational culture as Macleod 2009 said they facilitate and empower rather than control or restrict their staff they cut across their staff with appreciation and respect and show commitment to growth, increasing and rewarding the capabilities of those they manage.Role of Managers in engagementAs Lowe 1992, cited in Blyton and Turnbull148, highlighted that a consistent theme of the HRM literature is about the responsibility given to line managers for the management of the human re denotation. While Poole 1990 emphasises that HRM involves all managerial personnel especially general managers. All the studies on motivation and retention of talent identify the critical role of line managers and the quality of the relationship with the boss as a key factor. According to Gallup Management Journal study, line-managers play a critical role in employees well-being and engagement. Macleod 2010 also points out that having able managers is critical as engaged managers lead to an engaged workforce Macleod, 2010 as there is a positive impact on managers treating people as individuals. Managers are critical of the quality of management training they achieve from their company.Senior management need to have a sincere i nterest in employees well being Towers and Perrin, 2006 whereas line managers play the vital roles in foothold of employee engagement as they are responsible for the most of the front line employees and the day-to-day activities Cook, 2008. Line managers are also responsible for bringing reward policies to life, organisational commitment and job satisfaction Purcell, CIPD, 2007. The line manager clearly has a very important role in fostering employees sense of involvement and value Robinson et al. 2004. Employee engagement is seen as a direct reflection of how employees feel about their relationship with the boss Seijts and Crim, 2006.One of the biggest challenges for HR is to support line managers in their role of managing and developing people. A majority of line managers seem to be failing in many or most of the basic elements of good management including providing regular feedback or offering to help improve individuals employment CIPD, 2010.Importance of Internal Communicatio nTrue Communication builds a bridge between two people or within a group via which real understanding and contact occur. Leary-Joyce 2004pp53.Internal communication is known as the most obvious method of generating and maintaining engaged employees. Punjaisri et al. 2008, in his research identified that employees mentioned training and internal communications as the major methods of internal branding. The authors also quoted although training and internal communication can help employees to fulfil brand promise, the strength of their relationship with the brand is predominantly down to employee attitude.The discovered that brand identification, commitment and loyalty were all partial indicators between internal communication and employee brand performance. ibid., 2008Whenever there has been research on engagement, communication has always been a big part of it. It has been long-established that communicating with employees effectively is important in making them feel valued and thi s is particularly the case in the current economic climate when staff may feel more uncertain and require some extra reassurance IDS, April 2009. It is also said to be a mechnism for enabling every aspect of a great company culture Leary-joyce, 2004What is Employee Voice?The concept of employee voice focuses on opportunities for employees to be involved in decisions collectively, whether through trade unions or by other means. Gradually this process of two-way communication became known as employee voice. It appeals both to those seeking greater business efficiency and to those looking for employee rights.CIPD research suggests that organisations that seek to promote voice are those that believe that employees want to contribute to the business and that for employees to have an effective voice, the important part of the communication process is not what the employer puts out but what it gets back. Good managers recognise that much of the knowledge required for businesses to be fr ee-enterprise(a) is actually in employees heads. Voice is defined most typically in terms of two-way communications, an exchange of information between managers and employees or having a say about what goes on in the organisation.However, there are differences in interpretation. Some managers see voice as enabling all employees to represent their views to managers, and for those views to be taken into account. Other managers take the more limited view that voice is not so much a dialogue or two-way exchange of ideas as a mechanism for employees to transmit ideas to managers in order to improve organisational performance.Mechanisms for employee voiceThere is a range of different and often complementary mechanisms for employee voice. The CIPD research referred to above put them into two broad categories upward problem-solving and representative participation.Upward problem-solving which refers to any technique that managers use to tap into employee ideas and opinions, either through two-way communications take or through specific systems that are set up for employees to express their voicethe structures are management-initiated and operate directly between managers and employees rather than through employee representatives. Techniques allow Electronic media, Two-way communications, Suggestion schemes, Attitude surveys, etc.Representative participation refers to schemes under which employee representatives meet managers on a regular basis in the case of scheduled committees, or through more ad hoc arrangements. The essential characteristicis that participation is not direct between individual employees and their managers but is mediated through representatives. Partnership schemes, Joint consultation, Collective representation are known as a few techniquesAll these mechanisms are formal. But informal mechanisms in effect, exactly having a word about a problem to a manager who listens and takes action if necessary can be a very effective form of voice. Infor mal mechanisms may be relatively more important in smaller organisations where fewer formal structures are needed.2.5.3.1 Two-way communicationsIDS Report, 2009 has highlighted the fact that while it is important to keep employees well-informed, an organisation seeking to engage employees should also encourage upward communication. For example, carrying out surveys or holding discussion groups as a way of encouraging employees to provide feedback which would involve employees in a dialogue with the company. The very act of carrying out research on engagement within the organisation can be engaging particularly where employees are directly involved in discussions. IDS, Apr 2009Encouraging people to have their say and this emphasised as a core value of the organisation that management at all levels must be prepared to listen and respond to any contributions their people make. Employee involvement and participation are (EIP) are regarded by Marchington and Wilkinson 2008 as a key feat ure of high-commitment HRM.Excellent leadership and management are built of effective communication and is a source of creativity and innovation.2.5.4 TrustImportant determinants for achieving trust are demonstrations of managerial passion for the work and managerial concern for employee welfare, hiring the right employees in the first instance, and then providing them with a sense of control over their lives. Employees will ask for trust and a sense of control in order to be engaged in their work Pech 2009 (See Figure 2).Managerial passion for the workEmployee sense of trust and control=Employee EngagementManagerial concern for employee welfareEffective recruitmentSource Pech, J. 2009Fig. 2 Determinants for establishing and sustaining employee engagementWell-BeingIn the Best company survey well-being is used to measure stress, pressure, the balance between work and home life and the impact of these factors on personal health and performance.It has been reported that employee engage ment is more likely to be sustainable when employee well-being is also high Robertson and Cooper, 2009. CIPDFlexible workingperceived flexibility and supportive work-life policies were related to greater employee engagement and longer than expected retention. Richman, et al., 2008Guest1987, in his model of flexibility, underlined that the three components of flexibility are (a) related to the organisational design, (b) job design and (c) employee attitudes and motivations. cited in Legge, 2005.Flexible work practices have been viewed by employees as valuable workplace tools to facilitate work-life management. Employees report that workplace flexibility influences decisions to join an employer, satisfaction with their jobs, and plans to abide with their employers. Recently, some employers have come to recognise that workplace flexibility positively influences valued business outcomes such as attracting, motivating, and retaining key talent in competitory labour markets, increasing employee satisfaction and engagement, as well as improving efficiency and effectiveness. However, although several studies have examined the role of organizational characteristics and work experiences as antecedents of engagement and retention Burud Tumolo, 2004 Gibbons, 2006 Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, Topolnytsky, 2002, few have investigated the influence of workplace flexibility in particular.Work Life BalanceEmployee-focused initiatives such as implementing work-life balance initiatives are important in order to connect with employees Seijts and Crim, 2006.Employers seek to promote work-life balance by introducing policies that fall within three broad categories flexible working, including reduced and compressed hours time off and special leave and staff support, such as employee well-being programmes and childcare provision IDS, April 2009.The mere existence of work-life policies and is associated with positive outcomes for the individual and the organisation. Employees who worked for organisations that had family-friendly policies in place, had high levels of commitment towards the organisation and lower intentions to leave Richman et al. 2008Organisations are better able to portray an image of being a caring employer if they show an obligation and importance to work-life balance. Work-life balance initiatives should seek to improve employees working lives together with their personal lives to the mutual benefit of both employees and employers. Employees should have greater flexibility to pursue their interests outside work and to fulfil any caring responsibilities at home. In the workplace, they are likely to be more in control of their workload and, as a result, feel a greater sense of well-being. In turn, employers may benefit from greater employee engagement. IDS, Apr 2009Stress at workStress has been moving steadily up the workplace agenda in recent years. Any stress can reduce employee well-being and excessive or sustained work pressure can le ad to stress CIPD, 2010. Hence, it is important to develop a culture that encourages positive attitudes to work, reducing stress and promoting interest and excitement in their jobs (role of top and line managers and leaders). Also communication, involvement, work-life balance are key feature of high-commitment HRM Marchington and Wilkinson 2008.Personal GrowthLearning is a satisfying and rewarding experience that makes a significant contribution to intrinsic motivation. Alderfer 1972 as cited in Armstrong 2008 emphasised the importance of giving employees the opportunity to grow and develop as it is said to be a motivating factor that directly impacts on engagement when it is an intrinsic element of the work Armstrong, 2008. IDS report points out that designing roles that are challenging and giving employees varied responsibilities can help make work more intrinsically engaging IDS, 2009.3.7.1 Career ProgressionProviding clear and transparent career paths can be vital to engaging em