T
he HR profession has focussed on engendering employee motivation, commitment and loyalty for many years. Today though HR’s focus goes beyond these concepts, setting out
increased employee engagement as the ‘holy grail’ of HR endeavours. There are significant benefits to organisations
when they have an engaged workforce. For example, engagement leads to employees ‘going the extra mile’ for their employers, putting in discretionary effort to help to boost organisational performance. Engaged employees are invested in their organisation’s success and work collaboratively with colleagues to achieve a common goal. They also typically display high communication and performance levels. In addition, engaged employees can help to create a friendly, supportive and approachable workplace environment. Excellent working relationships with line and senior management are also usually in evidence where there is high employee engagement.
WHAT IS EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT? Employee engagement exceeds motivation, commitment and loyalty. Improving employee motivation concerns employer actions taken to support employees’ desire to reach particular goals. Employee commitment suggests dedication to a task or work-related objective and loyalty highlights organisational allegiance, reflected in low levels of turnover. Employee engagement, however, refers to the positive emotional connection an employee has with their organisation, linked to both an employee’s state of mind and behaviour. Work engagement is thus considered to have three main elements: vigour (encompassing energy, resilience and effort); dedication (including enthusiasm, inspiration and pride); and absorption (being engrossed in one’s work). An employee’s state of engagement will of course vary
over time – individuals are unlikely to be fully engaged every working moment. Nonetheless, organisations will wish to maximise engagement as it links to increased
productivity and performance. This is because the concept of employee engagement comprises three key dimensions all of which contribute to organisational outcome improvements:
• Intellectual engagement – this refers to employees thinking how to do their job better and being absorbed in their work;
• Affective engagement – this refers to employees feeling positive emotional connections in relation to doing a good job;
• Social engagement – this concerns employees making the most of opportunities to discuss work-related improvements with colleagues at work.
WHAT DRIVES EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT? There are a number of antecedents to employee engagement. These include senior management vision and integrity, and good two-way communications between management and employees, where employee voice is listened to and action is taken in response to employee feedback. Engaged line managers who encourage employees to feed their views upwards also play an important part in driving forward employee engagement. In addition, a supportive work environment, a good fit between the employee and their job role, and appropriate job resources to support the employee to do their job well act together to promote a climate that facilitates employee engagement. The characteristics of the job role are also of importance in driving engagement. For example, employee engagement is enhanced when employees are given work that is challenging and varied which enables them to use a number of different skills. Engagement is also supported when employees can display autonomy and personal discretion, and can make a meaningful contribution. A further point concerns the relevance of value
congruence – this refers to the extent to which the values and behaviours expected by an organisation align with the behaviours that individuals themselves value as part of their own self-image. Hence, when an employee is expected to behave in a way which is similar to how they see themselves, they are more likely to find their job roles valuable and worthwhile and so are more willing to engage themselves with them. Indeed, the CIPD comments “employees who have good quality jobs and are managed well, will not only be happier, healthier and more fulfilled, but are also more likely to drive productivity, better products or services, and innovation. This mutual gains view of motivation and people management lies at the heart of employee engagement”.
RAISING ENGAGEMENT DURING THE PANDEMIC Employee engagement can, however, have a dark side. If employees become “over-engaged” this can lead to stress and burnout. This can be especially true when employees have a poor work-life balance, being unable to separate out work life from home life. When the spill- over between work and personal life becomes too high, this creates conflict and can damage relationships both at work and within the family. During the pandemic many employees are working from home. As such, there is the potential for a greater
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