Build A Culture Of Engagement
Pakistan like any other country has unique challenges of engaging its workforce in a manner which, optimally utilizes physical as well as mental resources. Pakistan has a young population (more than 73% of the 220 million residents are below 35 years of age) that is upwardly mobile, social media savvy, brand aware and on the lookout for quality products – and enjoyable experiences. This population demands a brand new approach to make it a productive part of workforce. Our today’s topic is emphasized at fundamentals of ‘Employee Engagement’ and its impact on organizational performance as well as productivity.
Employee engagement is a vast construct that touches almost all parts of human resource management facets we know hitherto. If every part of human resources is not addressed in appropriate manner, employees fail to fully engage themselves in their job in the response to such kind of mismanagement. The construct employee engagement is built on the foundation of earlier concepts like job satisfaction, employee commitment and Organizational citizenship behaviour. Though it is related to and encompasses these concepts, employee engagement is broader in scope. Employee engagement is stronger predictor of positive organizational performance clearly showing the two-way relationship between employer and employee compared to the three earlier constructs: job satisfaction, employee commitment and organizational citizenship behaviour. Engaged employees are emotionally attached to their organization and highly involved in their job with a great enthusiasm for the success of their employer, going extra mile beyond the employment contractual agreement.
Employee Engagement has become one of the most popular topics in management. In less than 10 years, there have been dozens of studies published on employee engagement as well as several meta-analyses. However, there continue to be concerns about the meaning, measurement, and theory of employee engagement. In this article, we review these concerns as well as research in an attempt to determine what we have learned about employee engagement. We then offer a theory of employee engagement that reconciles and integrates Kahn’s (1990) theory of engagement and the Job Demands– Resources (JD-R) model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). We conclude that there continues to be a lack of consensus on the meaning of employee engagement as well as concerns about the validity of the most popular measure of employee engagement. Furthermore, it is difficult to make causal conclusions about the antecedents and consequences of employee engagement due to a number of research limitations. Thus, there remain many unanswered questions and much more to do if we are to develop a science and theory of employee engagement.
The meaning of employee engagement is ambiguous among both academic researchers and among practitioners who use it in conversations with clients. We show that the term is used at different times to refer to psychological states, traits, and behaviors as well as their antecedents and outcomes. Drawing on diverse relevant literatures, we offer a series of propositions about (a) psychological state engagement; (b) behavioral engagement; and (c) trait engagement. In addition, we offer propositions regarding the effects of job attributes and leadership as main effects on state and behavioral engagement and as moderators of the relationships among the 3 facets of engagement. We conclude with thoughts about the measurement of the 3 facets of engagement and potential antecedents, especially measurement via employee surveys.
Our talent practices help us build and sustain a culture and leaders within an organization. We need to engage our employees to drive high performance. This reflects two concepts that we continually see in top-performing companies: 1) business and talent strategies are intimately connected; and 2) leadership and employee engagement are essential for success. The best companies build and sustain a culture of engagement, led by CEOs who understand that employee engagement is not just a “nice to have” but critical to achieving business results. Leaders in these elite organizations also understand that employee engagement is primarily their responsibility.
Further research shows Best Employers enjoy strong leadership, reputations, and performance orientation in addition to strong employee engagement. A latest research on 270 global organizations from 2013 to 2016 indicates that these additional cultural aspects of being a Best Employer drive incremental business performance in sales, operating margin, and total shareholder return beyond top-quartile employee engagement alone. Achieving these business outcomes is not easy in today’s global environment. Economic conditions continue to be a leading indicator for investments in talent and employee engagement
Global GDP grew in 2014 and is forecasted to grow 4% in 2015. Historically, GDP growth is generally followed by investments in people and a subsequent increase in employee engagement (the reverse appears to be true as well, as we saw engagement dip in 2010 following the Great Recession). Employee engagement levels have increased 1 point to 62% in 2014, and the graph on the following page suggests that the relative economic tailwinds in 2014 and those forecasted for 2015 should drive human capital investments and incremental improvement in global employee engagement in 2015 and 2016.
Drivers of Employee Engagement Development Dimensions International (DDI, 2005) states that a manager must do five things to create a highly engaged workforce. They are:
- Align efforts with strategy
- Empower
- Promote and encourage teamwork and collaboration x Help people grow and develop
- Provide support and recognition where appropriate.
The Towers Perrin Talent Report (2013) identifies the top ten workplace attributes which will result in employee engagement. The top three among the ten drivers listed by Perrin are: Senior management’s interest in employees’ well-being, challenging work and Decision making authority.
The oldest consulting organization in conducting engagement survey, Gallup has found that the manager is the key to an engaged work force. James Clifton, CEO of Gallup organization indicates that employees who have close friendships at work are more engaged workers (Clifton, 2012). Vance (2016) explains the fact that employee engagement is inextricably linked with employer practices. To shed light on the ways in which employer practices affect job performance and engagement, he presents a job performance model. According to him, Employee engagement is the outcome of personal attributes such as knowledge, skills, abilities, temperament, attitudes and personality, organizational context which includes leadership, physical setting and social setting and HR practices that directly affect the person, process and context components of job performance.
CIPD (2016) on the basis of its survey of 2000 employees from across Great Britain indicates that communication is the top priority to lead employees to engagement. The report singles out having the opportunity to feed their views and opinions upwards as the most important driver of people’s engagement. The report also identifies the importance of being kept informed about what is going on in the organization.
Engaged employee consistently demonstrates three general behaviours which improve organizational performance: 1. Say-the employee advocates for the organization to co-workers, and refers potential employees and customers 2. Stay-the employee has an intense desire to be a member of the organization despite opportunities to work elsewhere 3. Strive-the employee exerts extra time, effort and initiative to contribute to the success of the business
Employee Engagement Strategies (Tablets) So far we have discussed the evolution and definition of employee engagement, the factors that affect it and importance of employee engagement explaining how it is linked to business performance. Now, at this stage any inquisitive reader may ask a question: So what? Employee engagement strategies listed below answer this question. In order to have engaged employees in any organization, managers need to look at the following ten points. We can call these points “tablets” because it is believed that they will cure employee disengagement disease. Take these ten tablets:
- Start it on day one: Most organizations do have clear new talent acquisition strategies. However, they lack employee retention strategies. Effective recruitment and orientation programs are the first building blocks to be laid on the first day of the new employee. Managers should be careful in pooling out the potential talent of the new employee through effective recruitment. The newly hired employee should be given both general orientations which is related to the company mission, vision, values, policies and procedures and job-specific orientation such as his/her job duties, and responsibilities, goals and current priorities of the department to which the employee belongs in order to enable him/her to develop realistic job expectations and reduce role conflict that might arise in the future. After the hiring decision is made, the manager has to ensure role-talent fit when placing an employee in a certain position and exert all managerial efforts needed to retain that talent in the organization.
- Start it from the top: Employee engagement requires leadership commitment through establishing clear mission, vision and values. Unless the people at the top believe in it, own it, pass it down to managers and employees, and enhance their leadership, employee engagement will never be more than just a “corporate fad” or “another HR thing”. Employee engagement does not need lip-service rather dedicated heart and action-oriented service from top management. It requires “Leading by Being example”
- Enhance employee engagement through two-way communication: Managers should promote two-way communication. Employees are not sets of pots to which you pour out your ideas without giving them a chance to have a say on issues that matter to their job and life. Clear and consistent communication of what is expected of them paves the way for engaged workforce. Involve your people and always show respect to their input. Share power with your employees through participative decision making so that they would feel sense of belongingness thereby increasing their engagement in realizing it.
- Give satisfactory opportunities for development and advancement: Encourage independent thinking through giving them more job autonomy so that employees will have a chance to make their own freedom of choosing their own best way of doing their job so long as they are producing the expected result. Manage through results rather than trying to manage all the processes by which that result is achieved.
- Ensure that employees have everything they need to do their jobs: Managers are expected to make sure that employees have all the resources such as physical or material, financial and information resources in order to effectively do their job.
- Give employees appropriate training: Help employees update themselves increasing their knowledge and skills through giving appropriate trainings. Generally it is understood that when employees get to know more about their job, their confidence increases there by being able to work without much supervision from their immediate managers which in turn builds their self-efficacy and commitment.
- Have strong feedback system: Companies should develop a performance management system which holds managers and employees accountable for the level of engagement they have shown. Conducting regular survey of employee engagement level helps make out factors that make employees engaged. After finalizing the survey, it is advisable to determine all the factors that driving engagement in the organization, then narrow down the list of factors to focus on two or three areas. It is important that organizations begin with a concentration on the factors that will make the most difference to the employees and put energy around improving these areas as it may be difficult to address all factors at once. Managers should be behind such survey results and develop action-oriented plans that are specific, measurable, and accountable and time- bound.
- Incentives have a part to play: Managers should work out both financial and non-financial benefits for employees who show more engagement in their jobs. Several management theories have indicated that
- When employees get more pay, recognition and praise, they tend to exert more effort into their job. There should be a clear link between performance and incentives given to the employees.
- Build a distinctive corporate culture: Companies should promote a strong work culture in which the goals and values of managers are aligned across all work sections. Companies that build a culture of mutual respect by keeping success stories alive will not only keep their existing employees engaged but also they baptize the new incoming employees with this contagious spirit of work culture.
- Focus on top-performing employees: A study conducted by Watson Wyatt Worldwide in 2004/05 on HR practices of 50 large USA firms shows that high-performing organizations are focusing on engaging their top-performing employees. According to the finding of the same research, what high-performing firms are doing is what top-performing employees are asking for and this reduces the turnover of high-performing employees and as a result leads to top business performance.
CONCLUSION
Companies with engaged employees have higher employee retention as a result of reduced turnover and reduced intention to leave the company, productivity, profitability, growth and customer satisfaction. On the other hand, companies with disengaged employees suffer from waste of effort and bleed talent, earn less commitment from the employees, face increased absenteeism and have less customer orientation, less productivity, and reduced operating margins and net profit margins. Most researches emphasize merely the importance and positive impacts of employee engagement on the business outcomes, failing to provide the cost-benefit analysis for engagement decisions. As any other management decisions, engagement decision should be evaluated in terms of both its benefits and its associated costs, without giving greater emphasis to neither of the two, not to bias the decision makers. Thus there is a need to study the cost aspect of engagement decisions. The remarkable fact is, the findings of today’s researches, can be used as corner stone for the building of complete essence to the construct. Furthermore, much of the works related to “employee engagement” construct is attributed to survey houses and consultancies. Therefore, there is a need for academia to investigate this new construct and come up with a clear definition and dimensions that will be used for measuring employee engagement justifying the importance of engagement concept. Otherwise, it will pass away shortly as many other human resource fads did.
Findings of various researches suggest their own strategies in order to keep employees engaged. Here in this article ten points or strategies called ‘the ten tablets” were suggested to keep employees engaged. For managers, work of employee engagement starts at day one through effective recruitment and orientation program, the work of employee engagement begins from the top as it is unthinkable to have engaged people in the organizations where there are no engaged leadership. Managers should enhance two-way communication, ensure that employees have all the resources they need to do their job, give appropriate training to increase their knowledge and skill, establish reward mechanisms in which good job is rewarded through various financial and non-financial incentives, build a distinctive corporate culture that encourages hard work and keeps success stories alive, develop a strong performance management system which holds managers and employees accountable for the behaviour they bring to the workplace, place focus on top-performing employees to reduce their turnover and maintain or increase business performance.