Employee Engagement Benefits to Employee and Employer
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT: BENEFITS TO EMPLOYEE AND EMPLOYER
Introduction
The
survival of corporate industries is dependent on maximizing profits from
existing capabilities, while recognizing and adjusting to the fact that what
may work today may not necessarily work in the future (Kortmann et al. 2014).
To make or maintain their companies’ profitability, leaders of companies must
work hard to engage employees (Kortmann et al. 2014). However, leaders may
sometimes struggle to adapt their organization in response to change if they
limit their focus to existing products and processes (Hill & Birkinshaw,
2012). Understanding how to manage the balance between employee relations,
adopting innovation, and maximizing short-term profits is critical to business leaders
ensuring a viable future for their corporations (Hill & Birkinshaw, 2012).
The
use of advanced technologies, skilled labor, best practices, and education has
helped to increase the efficiencies in many major organizations and firms.
However, disengaged employees who have lowered productivity since the 2008
financial meltdown have affected the financial performances of many U.S.
organizations (Purcell, 2014). The longevity of an organization is affected by
employee engagement, which is a factor on the financial performance of the
organization (Bersin, 2014). In contrast, improved employee productivity had a
positive effect on organizational financial performance.
Organizational
productivity is determined by employees’ efforts and engagement (Musgrove,
Ellinger, & Ellinger, 2014). Interpersonal behaviors affect productivity;
consequently, organizational
Positive
Organizational Culture and Individual Adaptability
Positive
psychology is concerned with people’s strengths and how they grow and thrive(Luthans,
Youssef, & Avolio, 2007). The term Positive Organizational Behavior (or
PositiveOB) is used when applying the concept of positive psychology to the
workplace (Luthans, 2002).Positive OB is thought to be the application of
positively oriented human resource strengths and psychological capacities that
can be measured, developed and effectively managed for performance improvement
(Avey, Wernsing, & Luthans, 2008). Companies with a positive.
Organizational culture focus on rewarding employees and creating an environment
where employees can develop, grow and operate at their full potential (Robbins
and Judge, 2012).Sok and colleagues (2014) found that supportive organizational
cultures reduce negative work-home spillovers, allow for more flexible
work-home arrangements and attract and retain more high quality valuable
employees. Positive organizational cultures were also found to buffer the ill
effect of bad news (French and Holden, 2012), which is particularly
instrumental during
Benefits of Employee Engagement to Employer
According to Robins
(2017) benefits of employee engagement to the employer is as follows
1. Higher Employee Satisfaction
2.
Higher
Retention and Lower Turnover
3.
Higher
Productivity
4.
Increased
Profitability
5.
Less
Absenteeism
6.
Increased
Employee Loyalty
Benefits of Employee Engagement to Employee
According to Steffon(2016) benefits of
employee engagement to the employee is as follows
Companies Getting
Employee Engagement Right
1. Full Contact
These "paid paid" vacations also supposedly eliminate the issue of people thinking they're the only one who can solve a problem. Once people return from their holiday relaxed and find things running smoothly, they will feel less pressure to handle everything themselves and develop a heightened sense of trust for their coworkers.
If it's not quite in your budget to be giving out large amounts of holiday cash, it's always possible to instead let people take a couple of extra days paid leave, or a long weekend once in awhile, where they can also leave their work responsibilities behind and really get away. People will appreciate their hard work being recognized and be thankful for the chance to disconnect from their responsibilities, even for a short time.
2. Southwest Airlines
The company allowed employees from any department to apply to collaborate on new uniform designs, with results really reflecting personality and company culture in a way that wouldn't have been achieved had employees not been given a say. Employees were responsive to this, describing it as an "unforgettable experience." The company encourages employees to stay inspired to do things differently. The viral video of one flight attendant rapping the safety information goes to show the kind of attitude the company has towards keeping things fun and unique, creating a great experience for customers and employees alike, and giving a great company image. Recognizing those employees who really go the extra mile is another key factor of Southwest's engagement practices. Each week, the CEO gives a "shout out," publicly praising employees who have gone above and beyond at work. There's also a monthly recognition in Southwest's magazine, featuring an employee who shined that month.
This kind of recognition keeps employees aware that they're valued and that their hard work and commitment to the company doesn't go unnoticed. Providing praise is just as important as constructive feedback. People love to feel appreciated and motivated. It's helps them continue going that extra mile.
As the company founder points out, competitors can't simply adopt the levels of engagement and commitment found in the company - it takes a special kind of employee and company culture. "They can buy all the physical things. The things you can't buy are dedication, devotion, loyalty -- the feeling that you are participating in a crusade," -- Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines Founder.
3. Legal Monkeys
Ideas like this are great. They're not only simple to implement, and won't disturb daily workflow, but they build a real-time feedback culture, encouraging people to give positive feedback and show appreciation for their peers and coworkers
Draw up a strategy
Fortunately, it’s a fairly simple process, so investigate which employees are engaged and who isn’t, where there is disinterest and why engagement levels are where they are.
With the right people strategy and benefits programmes, employers can create an environment where employees are more engaged with their work
The Two Sides of Employee Engagement
Each year, companies are spending nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars in an effort to improve employee engagement — yet you’ll get wildly inconsistent answers if you ask managers however, managers know little, and provides inconsistent answers on the topic of employee engagement(Graber,2015). Academics, consultants, and leaders have been grappling with that question for decades. Their working definitions range from the simple (“discretionary effort”) to the mind-bending (“complex nomological network encompassing trait, state, and behavioral constructs”) (Graber,2015).
That murkiness is a problem, because there are still signs that engagement — whatever it is — needs to be managed. In a Gallup survey (2015), for instance, organizations whose employees reported high engagement had 25% to 65% less attrition than their peers (depending on whether they were traditionally low- or high-turnover organizations). They also received higher marks in productivity and customer satisfaction. Therefore defining engagement more clearly isn’t just a philosophical exercise. It has bottom-line implications
Suggestions for
Employee Engagement Improvement
According to Gundry(2015) Employee Satisfaction Survey
1 Acknowledge different branches and
Department on accomplishments
2 Better Communications
3 Bring Professional developments to
sites
4 Charging station for hybrids (Project
Underway)
5 More face time with managers,
Superintendents and Board members
6 More Social Events
7 More staff/career development and
Training opportunities
8 Tuition Reimbursements
9 Updated/Simplified regulations
This holistic approach to understanding engagement will yield more-detailed insights into what makes people stick around and do their best work. Instead of viewing engagement in terms of low, medium, and high, organizations will be able to understand how employees perceive them, how that perception relates to their behavior, and in aggregate, how those factors drive bottom-line performance. If organizations don’t dig deep like this, they risk misunderstanding their employees and missing out on all the benefits of high engagement
List
of References
Amiot, C. E., Terry, D. J., Jimmieson, N. L., & Callan, V.
J. (2006). A Longitudinal Investigation
of Coping Processes During a Merger: Implications for Job Satisfaction and
Organizational Identification. Journal
of Management, 32(4), 552-574.
Avey,
J., Wernsing, T., Luthans, F. (2008). Can Positive Employees Help Positive.Organizational Change? Impact of Psychological
Capital and Emotions on relevant.attitudes and behaviors, The Journal of
Applied Behavioral Science, 44(1): 48-70.
Ahmetoglu, G., Harding, X., Akhtar, R., & Chamorro-Premuzic,
T. (2015). Predictors of creative achievement: Assessing the impact of
entrepreneurial potential, perfectionism, and employee engagement. Creativity
Research Journal, 27, 198–205. doi:10.1080/10400419.2015.1030293 Albercht, S.
L., Bakker, A. B., Gruman,
Gundy,R.(2015)Employee Satisfaction Survey – Summary Results
Report,p.6, Country Superintend Schools
Graber,S.(2015)
The Two Sides of Employee Engagement. Motivating people [On Line]o4 December.
Available at< https://hbr.org/topic/motivating-people >[Accessed 25 April 2019]
J. A., Macey, W. H.,
& Saks, A. M. (2015). Employee engagement, human resource management
practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of
Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2, 7– 35.
doi:10.1108/joepp-08-2014-0042
Maier,S.(2016) 5 Companies Getting Employee Engagement Right [On
Line]Available at<https://bookstore.entrepreneur.com/product/entrepreneur-voices-company-culture/>[Accessed 22 April 2019]
Robins,A.(2017) 6 Amazing Benefits of Employee Engagement.[On
Line]Available at <http://www.gallup.com/reports/199961/state-american-workplace-report-2017.aspx>[Accessed 22 April
2019]
Robson,S.(2018) Employee engagement: how to achieve a
workplace benefits culture to be proud of, Motivating People[On Line]04
December, Available at< https://hbr.org/topic/motivating-people >[Accessed 23 April 2019]
Everyone who belongs to an organization always wants to know clearly where he or she belongs, from whom they receive direction and instructions and what kind of responsibility they are supposed to assume. They also want others around them to have sufficient regard for that responsibility. This is a condition in which employees can devote themselves entirely to their jobs with a stable and constant state of mind.
ReplyDeleteMarkoset et al. (2010) claims that employees that are not engaged will probably squander their endeavours on low preference jobs, neglecting to give their full effort to assignments and will just stay with the business for a brief time period. Robertson-Smith and Markwick (2009) define on what engagement is and uncovers that it is a vital yet complex test, and there remains a lot of extension for examining the different methodologies.
Agreed with your comments and Reinventing Performance Management.Deloitte's new approach separates compensation decisions from day-to-day performance management, produces better insight through quarterly or per-project "performance snapshots," and relies on weekly check-ins with managers to keep performance on course.
DeleteAt Deloitte we're redesigning our performance management system. This may not surprise you. Like many other companies, we realize that our current process for evaluating the work of our people-and then training them, promoting them, and paying them accordingly-is increasingly out of step with our objectives.
In a public survey Deloitte conducted recently, more than half the executives questioned (58%) believe that their current performance management approach drives neither employee engagement nor high performance. They, and we, are in need of something nimbler, real-time, and more individualized-something squarely focused on fueling performance in the future rather than assessing it in the past(Marcus and Ashley,2015)
As discussed in the article, high levels of expectations and recurrent performance reviews can increase employee participation and cooperation (Copper, et al, 2014). The scarceness of resources has lead organizations to react more about reducing costs and increasing productivity and efficiency. Reduced variation in processes can reduce cost over time as it relates to process improvement (Emrouznejad, Anouze, & Thanassoulis, 2010); however, this short-term cost cutting processes are not uniformly successful in long run of business as well cause to make lack employee engagement (McCuiston and DeLucenay, 2010). For instance, as according to a study done by Tower Watson about 50 firms over a period of one year he has found: organizations with high employee engagement had 19 percent increase in operating income and about 28 percent earnings per share (EPS) growth. Contrariwise, those with low employee engagement levels experienced more than 32 percent drop in operating income and 11 percent decline in EPS (McConnell, 2011).
ReplyDeleteTaking your comments and i addition,Gallup researchers studied the differences in performance between engaged and actively disengaged work units and found that those scoring in the top half on employee engagement nearly doubled their odds of success compared with those in the bottom half.
DeleteWork units in the top quartile in employee engagement outperformed bottom-quartile units by 10% on customer ratings, 17% in productivity, 20% in sales, and 21% in profitability. Work units in the top quartile also saw significantly less turnover (24% in high-turnover organizations and 59% in low-turnover organizations), shrinkage (28%), and absenteeism (41%) and fewer safety incidents (70%), patient safety incidents (58%), and quality defects (40%). (See graphic "Engagement's Effect on Key Business Outcomes.")
Employee Engagement's Effect on Key Business Outcomes.
Employee Engagement though recognized to be at three levels namely engaged, Actively engaged and disengaged, the findings of this study shows that disengaged employees
ReplyDeleteare rare organised by the top executives. Employees are also satisfied with the compensations given to them. Employer is not expecting the employees to work beyond what is given, nor thinking in a subtle way whether Employee engagement is really import for them. They are
satisfied with the output given by the employees. There is no special efforts made by the management to understand in depth the concept of Employee engagement and its presence
among the employees. This is a matter of concern. The capacity building of the HR personnel and top executives to be motivated and educated properly by the Employer.
I agreed your comments and more details in below,Employee satisfaction or job satisfaction is one of the key goals of all HR personnel irrespective of what their individual KRAs are. A satisfied employee is not just a retained employee but an ambassador for the brand, internally and externally. She can help dispel the apprehensions of others and can defend the company in various fora. Happy employees are more loyal to the company and its objectives, they go the extra mile to achieve goals and take pride in their jobs, their teams and their achievements(Zarin,2018)
DeleteEmployee Engagement though recognized to be at three levels namely engaged, actively engaged and disengaged, the findings of this study shows that disengaged employees are rare organized by the top executives. Employees are also satisfied with the compensations given to them. Employer is not expecting the employees to work beyond what is given, nor thinking in a subtle way whether Employee engagement is really import for them. They are satisfied with the output given by the employees. There are no special efforts made by the management to understand in depth the concept of Employee engagement and its presence among the employees , Carl 2009. This is a matter of concern. The capacity building of the HR personnel and top executives to be motivated and educated properly by the employer.
DeleteStorey et al. (2008) claims that employee engagement increases when employees receive financial benefits from their engagement. Remuneration sends communication signals about what matters, serves as a scorecard for performance, and also meets the needs of some employees. Profit sharing and share ownership can be very useful in sensitizing employees to the state of the business. It is a moot point, however, whether they do a great deal for involvement and participation on a day-today basis .Arguably, they need to be raised to the levels available to senior managers to have a serious impact.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAccording to your comments can give more addition information,Most managers would agree that motivated, productive employees are crucial for organizational success, regardless of company size, industry, or corporate strategy. The question is how to motivate them. Offering employees performance-based incentive pay is one common approach, and it usually takes one of two forms: bonuses are offered to individuals based on assessments of their performance, or bonuses are offered as organization-wide incentives, such as profit-related pay or share ownership(Chidiebere,Kevin and Karina,2017)
DeleteIn addition to what you’ve stated before, career development plays an important role in engaging and retaining employees. Employers, not just employees, therefore benefit from offering employees career development support. The employees, armed with better insights about their occupational strengths, should be better equipped to serve the company. Supporting your employees career development may also boost employee engagement and support your recruitment and retention efforts. As one expert said, “the most attractive proposition an employer can make today is that in 5 years the employee will have more knowledge and be more employable than now. That should be the acid test for any career development program”(Dessler, 2013).
ReplyDeleteFurther more agreed your comments and i propose new addition about carrier development.High employee turnover should be worrisome to any employer. Simply consider the expense to recruit, interview, and train new employees, not to mention that these employees may be less adept at their jobs than the experienced workers they are replacing. And as the economy improves and the job market grows, employees have more options-making employee retention even more challenging.
DeleteWhen asked why they are looking for jobs at new companies, employees are most likely to explain that they want better pay and benefits, are unhappy with their career prospects with their current company, or want more challenges. Career development programs can address these concerns to reduce turnover(Monica,2014).
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ReplyDeleteIn addition to what you have discussed above I would like to share something about Employee Engagement.
ReplyDeleteHewitt Organization (2001) referred to employee engagement as the extent employees are
willing to stay in the company and work hard for the company, reflected in three aspects:
1) Say : employees use a positive language to describe their company, colleagues, and their
jobs.
2) Stay: employees strongly hope to be a member of the company, want to stay in the
company for a long time, instead of using existing jobs as a temporary transition.
3) Strive:employees are willing to devote extra effort to work for the success of the company.
Towers organization (2001) defined employee engagement as the degree of willingness and ability of employees to help companies succeed, dividing it into rational engagement and sensuous engagement. Rational engagement generally involves the relationship between individuals and companies, such as the degree of employees’ understanding of their roles and
departmental roles.
Taking Your point and in addition to employee engagement research model covers the four dimensions of employee engagement (Rational, Emotional, Motivational and Devotional) that have just been discussed(Gonzalo,2017)
DeleteEmployee’s engagement include employees’ satisfaction with their work and pride in their employer, the extent of enjoy and self-confident in what they do for work and the perception that their employer values what they produce. Highly engage employee deliver excellent performance on the job (Bartley et al., 2007). A part from that engaged employee more like to retain in current organization even with unexpected endeavors. Therefor employer must understand, employee motivation factors and the ways to develop their emotional intelligence which helps them in improving the ability in understanding people (Allwin & McCammon, 2003;Bolman & Deal, 2014).
ReplyDeleteI add more sides of Employee satisfaction,"Employee satisfaction" is the term used to describe whether employees are happy and fulfilling their desires and needs at work. Many measures purport that employee satisfaction is a factor in employee motivation, employee goal achievement, and positive employee morale in the workplace(Susan,2019)
DeleteEngaged employee offer his or her maximum to achieve organizational goals. Thus organizations are more consider about the process of enhancing engagement of employee, which is never ends and it rests on the foundation of a meaningful and emotionally enriching work experience (Towers Perrin, 2003).
ReplyDeleteWhen developing employee engagement process, need to consider about rational and emotional drivers including unmet expectations about the workplace or job, a poor match between skill set and the person, lack of coaching and the job requirements and lack of advancement opportunities, lack of recognition or not feeling valued, the stress resulting from an imbalance in work-life, or lost trust in senior leadership (Buchannan, 2004).
Agreed with Your comments and in addition to The employee-work contract has changed: People are operating more like free agents than in the past. In short, the balance of power has shifted from employer to employee, forcing business leaders to learn how to build an organization that engages employees as sensitive, passionate, creative contributors. We call this a shift from improving employee engagement to a focus on building an irresistible organization(Josh,201)
DeleteEmployee engagement explains the level of employees use of their intellectual, emotional, and physical resources to perform the assigned job. It is also noted that engaged employees have an active, pleasant, and effective connection with their job (Kahn, 1990; May et al., 2004). Organizations can directly benefit from the improved return on assets, earning per employee, performance, sales growth, and lesser absenteeism through improved employee engagement. Employee engagement can further beneficial to the organizations to achieve lessened direct costs, cost of goods sold, and also reduced quality errors (Banks, 2006).
ReplyDeletePsychological meaningfulness, availability and safety, and provide opportunities for intervention are the three forerunner conditions identified by Kahn (1990) to increase levels of engagement. Supportive supervisor and line manager relations were positively connected with improved employee engagement, since that relationship facilitated by psychological safety (Kahn, 1990). Supportive supervisor and line manager relationships, as well as co-worker relations and norms, lead to a positive work environment where employees can engage fully in their job (May et al., 2004; Saks, 2006).
Bakker et al. (2007), argued that supervisor support defended the likely possible negative influence of employee engagement. Moreover, is the supervisors and line managers exhibit relationship-oriented approach, higher levels of employee engagement on such organizations.
Considering your comments,Positive psychology is a branch of psychology which has been around for about the last twenty years or so. Positive psychology as a movement within the academia of psychology was born out of Martin Seligman’s research on learned helplessness, which in turn led to a focus on learned optimism. Positive psychology does not claim to have discovered the value of a positive approach and thinking, but helps us to understand under what conditions individuals flourish and thrive. And whilst we can debate exactly how we define employee engagement, it is difficult to argue against the idea that engaged employees flourish and thrive(Designers - i,2014).
DeleteDear Kasun, As stated in your blog employee engagement benefits both the employee and employer if it works of well for both parties . According to Armstrong et al (2010) higher level of Employee engagement produces organizational benefits such as higher productivity / performance, Low staffs turn over, Better attendance. Employee engagement improves Safety level of the organization (Vance, 2006 cited in Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). Further high levels of engagement results in lower absenteeism and higher employee retention , increases in employee effort and productivity , improvement of quality and reduction of error rates , increase of sales, higher profitability, earnings per share and shareholder returns, enhancement of customer satisfaction and loyalty , faster business growth and higher likelihood of business success (Stairs and Galpin , 2010 , cited in Armstrong and Taylor , 2014 ) .
ReplyDeleteI read an interesting statistic on project failure, "Fuzzy business objectives, out-of-sync stakeholders, and excessive rework" mean that 75% of project participants lack confidence that their projects will succeed.
DeletePeople are not afraid of hard work they are afraid of failure, and when people lack confidence, this not only has the opportunity to become a self-fulfilling prophecy that will lead to failure, but it can also be the cause of their disengagement.
When we can get teams engaged, and increase their belief and confidence that they can be successful, not only are the pulling in the same direction and the right direction, but they will also pull much harder(Gordon,2017).
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMany researches have tried to identify factors leading to employee engagement and developed models to draw implications for managers. Their diagnosis aims to determine the drivers that will increase employee engagement level.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Penna research report (2007) meaning at work has the potential to be valuable way of bringing employers and employees closer together to the benefit of both where employees experience a sense of community, the space to be themselves and the opportunity to make a contribution, they find meaning. Employees want to work in the organizations in which they find meaning at work. Penna (2007) researchers have also come up with a new model they called “Hierarchy of engagement” which resembles Maslow’s need hierarchy model. In the bottom line there are basic needs of pay and benefits. Once an employee satisfied these needs, then the employee looks to development opportunities, the possibility for promotion and then leadership style will be introduced to the mix in the model. Finally, when all the above cited lower level aspirations have been satisfied the employee looks to an alignment of value-meaning, which is displayed by a true sense of connection, a common purpose and a shared sense of meaning at work.
The fundamental currency of high performance is not the time spent at work, but the energy put into work and the actual productivity during the hours worked. Skilful management of energy will lead to higher performance at work, better health and happiness too. More responsivity has taken on the energy we put to our work more productive and empowered we will be at work. “To be fully energized, we must be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused and spiritually aligned with the purpose beyond our immediate self-interest” (Loher and Schwartz, 2005).
ReplyDeletePerformance shall be measured at three levels and they are;
1. Strategic level: Top management value commitment, Supportive business strategies and voice for HR in strategy making and governance, are important.
2. Functional level: Training and development investments, increased participation and contribution by staff members, employment stabilization in terms of staffing.
3. Workplace level: Staff selection standards, extensive task design, involvement in problem-solving by staff members, trust level, corporation, and teamwork
Leiter and Bakker (2010) statement says that the job performance directly linked with employee’s engagement towards work, also they said it has wide range of implications for employees performance.
ReplyDeleteBased on various research of Demerouti and Cropanzano (2010) reported that engagement towards any work can lead to increased performance, by the result of number of new methods. The results are based on growing number of studies that clearly because of positive relationships between engagement and individual performance towards work .Their conclusions are supported by a growing number of studies demonstrating a positive relationship between engagement and individual performance (Xanthopoulou et al., 2008).As a result of employees commitment towards work ,employees health status, turnover intentions and individual performance are directly related to engagement towards work. (Halbesleben, 2010). Research also concluded that negative results that is decreasing in productivity and performance was occurring because of less engagement towards work by employees. (Maslach et al., 2001). So, this clearly shows that employees’ engagement towards work of employees was ultimate platform to get result in better performance. Thus, the relationship between engagement of work and performance is consistent (Gruman and Saks, 2011).
Dear Dasun I strongly believe provide work life balance to workers in an organization will drive more engaged employees other than following advance strategies to drive highly engaged employees.
ReplyDeleteThere are three main drivers of employee engagement, leadership, communication and work life balance. Once a company has these three things right the organisation will have an engaged workforce and overall better organisational performance. Mainly workers should be provided work life balance, otherwise the employees could become disengaged and this would overall affect the organisation’s performance (Bedarkar & Pandita, 2014).
There is a direct relationship between work-life balance and employee engagement. The negative effect of a work-life conflict leads to a reduced effort at work, lower performance and increased absenteeism and turnover (Anderson et al, 2002), reduced health and energy (Frone, et al,1996), and increased stress and burnout (Anderson et al, 2002).
So While HR managers are focusing to employee engagement to increase company revenues meantime provide work life balance to employee is must
According to Kumar and Pansari (2015), five dimensions of employee engagement are employee satisfaction, employee identification, employee commitment, employee loyalty and employee performance.
ReplyDeleteEmployee satisfaction is the positive reaction employees have to their overall job circumstances, including their supervisors, pay and coworkers.
Employee identification refers to the emotional state in which employees identify as part of the organization.
Employee commitment is much higher for the employees who identify with the organization than for the employees who don’t.
Employee loyalty to an organization creates a positive attitude about the organization, which can motivate employees to do more than they are expected.
Employee performance can be seen in the quality of goods and services the company produces and in customer interactions and feedback.