Developing a strategy of job engagement.

  Developing a strategy of organizational engagement that organizations could develop a strong actions towards engagement. For example, organizations could adopt programs of effective leadership, positive organizational culture, supporting organizational values, management style that supporting employee well-being. This means, organizations must develop a holistic system of jobs those allow employees to participate to organization effectiveness through using their stock of knowledge and capabilities, such as; employee voice, resources and sufficient information. However, the following figure summarizes main process of the strategy. (Nabil M. Eljaaidi 201)

  Developing a strategy of organizational engagement requires integrated and shared values of engagement among managers and clear and united vision of desired outcomes of engagement. However, such prerequisites should be linked with positive attitudes, so the outcomes would be clear management intervention and clear decision-making process (Alagaraja and Shuck, 2015). On the other hand Armstrong (2012) considered the use of commitment and involvement. It means that each employee will exhibit high involvement with their given the opportunity to take decisions to manage their work. This management style refers to several numbers of management techniques; dealing with employees as partners, have voice, effective communication, and participation through dialogue between managers and subordinates and knowledge sharing in order to set organization’s vision, mission and goals. Thus, it means creating mutual understanding between employees and their organization. (Nabil M. Eljaaidi 201)

 

Figure (3) Aspect of Job Engagement Strategy

i) Work Environment This environment has to reflect a positive, constructive and attitudinal culture. This environment must support employees’ interests, emotions and behaviors. It must also, helps with reducing job stress and motivates social interaction among all staff. However, the importance of work environment is seen through focusing on employee’s feeling of respect and self-worth (Carasco-Saul et.al. 2015; Balain and Sparrow, 2009).

ii) Learning programs recent research in organizational studies has emphasizes learning and ends up with the concept of learning organization. Further, research affirms the fact that learning encourages and offering the opportunities for employees to develop their selves and quire high skills and more knowledge. However, learning has two ways at organizations; first, is the knowledge management by the organization, where knowledge is managed the controlled throughout the organization. Second, is the self-development aspect, where individuals seek to develop their selves by their own need and desire? Thus, in order to develop a job engagement, organizations must work on the two ways. They have to support the personal learning planning process as well as developing the performance and talent management practices. It is of vital importance for employees to have encouragement, guidance, to fulfil their career needs (Macey and Schneider, 2008; Carasco-Saul et.al. 2015).

iii) Job design it is important to consider job engagement, through motivation and commitment, when designing job systems at work. Designing motivating jobs means that jobs must be meaningful, provide opportunities for achievement and self-fulfillment. Moreover, jobs must include several characteristics such as; interaction, autonomy, knowledge and skills and responsibilities in order to be a sources of motivation to the employee. However, developing a strategy of job engagement should work on designing jobs to be; skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, feedback, as such characteristics are proven to influence job motivation, behaviors and attitudes (Alagaraja and Shuck, 2015). iv. Direct manager’s Organizational research has affirmed the vital role of direct managers in effecting a variety of work-related concepts and variables. Thus, this logic is also considered for engagement. When direct and line managers support, recognize and develop their subordinates, higher results of employee engagement is achieved. Furthermore, line managers are expected to exert effective leadership and help with role unambiguity as well as developing kills and knowledge required to fulfil the job duties of their employees. When right performance management systems are compatible with positive behaviors of direct managers such as, support, encouragement, constructive coaching, a solid strategy of engagement could be developed. Overall, direct manager have to work on providing their employees with full guidance of the best ways of doing their jobs, and assisting them with developing the required kills for those jobs (Markos and Sridevi, 2010; Rich et.al. 2010; Shuck et al., 2011). v. Reward There has been a prominent role of reward in affecting organizational behaviors at workplace. This role is considered as the first of motivating behaviors and supporting positive attitudes at work. Based on this notion, building employee engagement should start from this point, where research has highlighted that reward practices and processes are important to develop an effective strategy of job engagement. In addition, Armstrong (2012) summarized a model, which explains the relationship between reward and performance through engagement, as figure (4) shows: As we can see from the figure (4), different types and tools of rewarding system could have different effects on engagement-related

Figure (4) shows relational model of reward, engagement and performance

Source: (Armstrong, 2012)

References.

1. Alagaraja, Meera. Shuck, Brad. (2015). “Exploring Organizational Alignment-Employee Engagement Linkages and Impact on Individual Performance: A Conceptual Model”. Human Resource Development Review. Vol. 14(1) 17–37.

2. Armstrong Michael., (2012), “Armstrong’s handbook of management and leadership”, KoganPage, 3rd ed, London.

3. Balain, S., Sparrow., (2009), “Engaged to perform: a new perspective on employee engagement", Lancaster, Lancaster University Management School.

4. Carasco-Saul, Marie. Kim, Woo Cheol. Kim, Taesung. (2015).“Leadership and Employee Engagement: Proposing Research Agendas through a Review of Literature”. Human Resource Development Review. Vol. 14(1) 38–63.

5. Macey, William H. and Schneider, Benjamin., (2008) “The Meaning of Employee Engagement”; Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Volume 1, Issue 1, pages 3–30

6. Markos, Solomon. Sridevi, Sandhya., (2010), “Employee Engagement: The Key to Improving Performance”, International Journal of Business and Management, Vol. 5, No. 12.

7. M.Nabil. Eljaaidi ( 2016 ) “Employee Engagement: Conceptualizations and work-Related Implications”https://www.researchgate.net /publication/328772874

8. Rich, B. L., LePine, J. A., Crawford, E. R. (2010). “Job engagement: Antecedents and effects of job performance”. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 617–635.

9. Shuck, Brad., Wollard, Karen., (2010) “Employee Engagement and HRD: A Seminal Review of the Foundations”, Human Resource Development