Employee Engagement

A global workforce study uses the definition “employees’ willingness and ability to help their company succeed, largely by providing discretionary effort on a sustainable basis.” According to the study, engagement is affected by many factors which involve both emotional and rational factors relating to work and the overall work experience.

Employee engagement can further be defines as the involvement with and enthusiasm for work, it relates employee engagement to a positive employees’ emotional attachment and commitment.

It can also be seen as “a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organization and its value. An engaged employee is aware of business context and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization. The organization must work to develop and nurture engagement, which requires a two-way relationship between employer and employee.”

To conclude the definition, employee engagement can therefore be described as a two-way relationship between employer and employee pointing out that engagement is about passion and commitment-the willingness to invest and expand discretionary effort to help the employer succeed, which is beyond simple job satisfaction with the employment arrangement or basic loyalty to the employer. Employee engagement has a positive impact on an organizations retention whereas job satisfaction cannot be relied upon to retain staff and can be viewed as superficial and transactional that will only last if the perks and benefits a company has to offer.

?The reasons most engagement efforts fail in organisations

For employee engagement efforts to be successful within organisations, employees must firstly have a positive attachment to the business and feel proud to work there, if engagement efforts are failing, it can be because employees do not feel proud to be part of the company and have no buy in towards achieving the companies’ objectives. As a result of this, employee commitment, involvement and organizational citizen behavior will in return be low, this can lead to further problems for an organization, such as higher absenteeism and labor turnover.

Employee engagement is also described as a two-way relationship between employees and management. The line manager or supervisor has a significant impact on the engagement levels, job a satisfaction length of service. Therefore, another reason why engagement efforts are not effective could be due to the management style and relationship with supervisors or management.

When employees don’t have a say in decision making, then they tend to disengage. As mentioned earlier, employee involvement promotes moving decision making downwards to the employees who are on carrying out the work and in return, it results to a more engaged work force.

Another reason why engagement is low could be because of poorly perceived rewards and recognition structure, employees might be feeling undervalued. ?People express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances meaning that employees want to identify with an organization on a more personal level so if they feel that there is a lack of work life balance, or the role does not give them the freedom to live their life then they will not engage. For example, if a company has long and strenuous shifts that does not allow employees to have a social or personal life outside of work, then they will not engage withing the organization.

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Retention Elements vs Engagement Elements

The difference between retention elements and engagement elements

There’s an obvious correlation between employee engagement and retention within an organization and these 2 concepts are often combined and seen as one initiative. Engagement has a positive effect on staff turnover and retention. When engagement is low, it can negatively impact retention and vice versa. However, even though these 2 initiatives are often seen as one, it can also be impacted independently. A company can have high retention and low engagement, employees might stay at a job for job security while they don’t enjoy the work. This aspect of the research paper will look at retention elements and engagement elements as individual initiatives and will conclude with the inter dependencies.

Retention Elements

To improve engagement, employee engagement strategies work interdependently with employee retention plans. Employee retention refers to the ability of a company to keep existing employees by using employee engagement as a retention tool. Employee retention initiatives are often introduced by a company, with the objective to develop and maintain a work environment and culture where existing employees feel supported and want to remain within the company. Retaining existing employees reduces the costs linked with recruitment and the resources it extends to train new starters. Retention is closely linked to job motivation and can therefore be categorized into 2 factors, namely intrinsic retention, and extrinsic retention elements.

Intrinsic retention elements

Employee retention is not only about money and most researchers argue that intrinsic retention elements are more important than extrinsic elements. Intrinsic elements refer to internal motivators that do not necessarily rely on monetary motivation, examples of such retention elements include career growth opportunities, giving employees increased responsibility as the working style of the current generation is much different and modern employees prefer to have meaningful work and autonomy in their roles. Another example of intrinsic elements is recognition for a job well done as tend to stay at a job for a longer period if they feel valued and appreciated.

Employees are more likely to stay at a job where they have freedom of expression within an organization.

Extrinsic retention elements

Extrinsic elements are based on external motivators and the work environment.

“You can buy retention; you cannot buy engagement.” A key example of extrinsic motivators are monetary rewards, increases and bonuses.

The work environment and working conditions is another example of extrinsic retention. In modern days, employees expect working conditions that are comfortable and socially enhancing; boundary less and open with break out spaces; technological innovation, encouraging development and learning and in modern days, entertainment and social media is another aspect that promotes a fun atmosphere.

“People don’t leave organizations; they leave bad managers’’ Studies have indicated that employee’s commitment to an organization is largely based on their relationship and interaction with management, mutual respect, fairness, collaboration, and leaders who are open-minded are likely to build a more committed team.

Work life balance usually involve alternative work hours, flexibility, and are often established with the goal of reducing tensions between competing work and non-work demands. Findings from several studies demonstrate that work-life balance is directly is associated with employee retention, turnover and important for engagement and retention.

Engagement Elements

Since retention has been discussed and we understand that retention is about creating an atmosphere that makes employees feel that they want to stay within an organization through intrinsic and extrinsic element, lets take a closer look at engagement elements.

Engagement has an emotional element to it and is concerned about employees displaying positive behaviors and attitudes towards a company and states that employees want to work for an organization within which they find meaning and encourages them to be themselves and experience a sense of community. The workplace environment is the place where employees can learn, collaborate, and socialize.

To create this kind of work environment and culture, managers should investigate engagement elements and should align engagement efforts with strategy of the business. Engagement elements include, empowering staff, promoting teamwork and collaboration, grow and develop employees and provide support and recognition where appropriate. As we have already picked up throughout the paper that there are many elements to employee engagement, we touched on some like work life balance, leadership, motivation, culture, and employee accountability.

I will be discussing 3 engagement elements that can assist to improve staff turnover. Although there are many elements of employee engagement, I will be discussing the importance of organizational culture, communication as a vehicle that enables engagement and leadership as an engagement element.

Creating an engaged culture

The word culture has come up frequently throughout this working paper and is defined by Robbin & Judge as a system of shared meaning held by members of an organization that distinguishes the organization from other organizations.

The culture of every organization is unique and is based on its core values, it can also be described as the personality of the organization and is largely influenced by top management.

To drive successful employee engagement, company culture must be considered as an engagement element and should focus on changing the business culture by establishing strategic vision and creating core values for the business as well as encouraging initiatives that will influence the company’s culture. The established culture should form part of the integrated engagement strategy and engagement system to succeed.

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Employee engagement and communication

Communication is a very important element that enables employee engagement and is an organizational practice that is used to relay the vision, values, and culture of an organization. This helps employees identify the company goals and in return obtains their support and buy in, it furthermore helps employees link their own roles to organizational goals and therefore organizational goals are reached more effectively.

To push employee engagement through the element of communication, consider creating a communication strategy to ensure employees are informed and that they know what the organizational goals and values are, of course this strategy should be integrated with other company procedures and practices. Communication programs can include company updates, newsletters, and meetings. Conducting collaborative work shops with employees and supervisors can make employees feel heard and valued and can assist with making better quality decisions. Poor communication can also be seen as a barrier to engagement.

Employee engagement and leadership

Leadership plays a very important role in any organization, Executive leaders are responsible for setting the strategic vision, organizational goals, and culture of the business. The type of leadership that occurs within a business is just as important and heavily relies on communication. Another key leadership role is ensuring that a communication strategy is in place and that employees are well informed and understand the goals and objectives of the organization.

Leadership is an important element that determines the level of engagement that occurs within a particular organization. ?Many studies suggest that there is an association with positive leader behavior and follower behavior and attitude in relation to engagement.

The way leaders behave have a direct impact on engagement constructs such as employee motivation, satisfaction, organizational citizen behavior and employee commitment. Employee engagement is made of 3 aspects of which one refers to a cognitive need, for employees to feel engaged, they need to feel a sense of psychological safety. When leaders display a positive management approach and encourage mentoring behavior like building confidence in employees, creating work life balance, power sharing, communication and an inclusive, fair, and collaborative approach to decision making then employees are more likely to engage.