Drivers of employee engagement.
Drivers of employee engagement.
Bailey et. al. (2015) have categorized antecedents of engagement in five groups, namely; psychological states; job design; leadership; organizational and team factors; and organizational interventions. They maintained that engagement is positively associated with individual morale, task performance, extra-role performance and organizational performance, and the evidence was most robust in relation to task performance. However, whilst Macey and Schneider, (2008) has highlighted the effects of job attributes and leadership on state and behavioral engagement, Markos and Sridevi, (2010) affirmed that organizational context such as meaning at work, sense of community, the opportunity to make a contribution and grow forward, strong manager-employee relationship are tested antecedents of engagement at workplace. Furthermore, they shed the light on; empowerment, promote and encourage teamwork and collaboration, help people grow and develop are expected antecedents of engagement. Other research have adopted a manager-employee perspective, maintained that providing support and recognition, senior management’s interest in employees’ well-being, challenging work (Nabil M. Eljaaidi 2016 )
This part of the paper illustrates a relational approach of antecedents and outcomes of engagement, which will open opportunities for empirical research to test relationships between variables. And decision-making authorities, communication, feed their views and opinions upwards. Nevertheless, other research have focused on individual characteristics such as personality, attitudes, motivation and self-development. In this meaning engagement is seen as non-financial in their nature (Naujokaitiene et.al. 2015; Markos and Sridevi, 2010; Rich et.al. 2010). Harvard Business Review (2013) highlighted several strategic actions such as; high performance recognition, clear individual understanding of the job contribution to strategy, senior leadership communications of strategy, well visualized business. They maintained that behaviors and actions taken by the top management are vital antecedents of engagement. For instance, assessments and performance reviews aligned with organizational goals, reward system linked to organizational goal achievement, training, and development organized around organization’s goals. Based on the interest of research regarding engagement, recent studies have found well-related antecedents of engagement both job and organizational. These could be summarized in table (1):
The table above shows different antecedents of job and organizational engagement. It shows that job characteristics, perceived organizational and supervisor support, reward and recognition and both procedural and distributive justice are anticipated motivators of employee engagement at work. Such antecedents may provide the evidence that engagement is a multi-faceted concept (job and organizational) and different perspectives could help with making employees more engaged at work. To develop a clear category of engagement antecedent Armstrong (2012) summarized them in groups; 1- Leadership that provide clear, solid and transparent structures, which help with making employees want to exert more efforts on their jobs. 2- Management style that holds appreciation for employees, clear job demands, constructive treatment for employees and working on efficiency and effectiveness principles. Such style is thought to lead to higher levels of employee engagement at work. 3- Organizations that appreciate and support employee’s voice and make strong effort to listen to them is seen as a driver for employee engagement. When managers give the opportunity to employees to express their ideas about how they do their jobs and participate in decision-making process, and sharing of vital issues for their department, they is fact driving their employees towards employee engagement. 4- When organizations adopt trust, integrity and values their employees, they drive the staff to exert behaviors of engagement. To sum up, research has highlighted that both organizations and jobs are main drivers of engagement. Organizations are required to provide a supportive environment including; knowledge sharing, learning opportunities, maintaining energy and personal initiatives. Furthermore, when organizations allow employees to effectively execute their skills, embrace their personal values and empower them to take decisions, employees will highly be engaged with engagement behaviors and hold engagement-related attitudes. In other words, individuals are engaged when they feel that their jobs are important elements of their beings.( Nabil M. Eljaaidi 2016 )
1. Armstrong Michael., (2012), “Armstrong’s handbook of management and leadership”, KoganPage, 3rd ed, London.
2. Bailey, Catherine., Madden, Adrian., Alfes, Kerstin., Fletcher,Luke., (2015), “The Meaning, Antecedents and Outcomes of Employee Engagement: A Narrative Synthesis”, InternationalJournal of Management Reviews, Article first published online: 29JUL 2015, DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12077.
3. Macey, William H. and Schneider, Benjamin., (2008) “The Meaning of Employee Engagement”; Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Volume 1, Issue 1, pages 3–30.
4. Markos, Solomon. Sridevi, Sandhya., (2010), “Employee Engagement: The Key to Improving Performance”, International Journal of Business and Management, Vol. 5, No. 12.
5. M.Nabil. Eljaaidi ( 2016 ) “Employee Engagement: Conceptualizations and work-Related Implications”https://www.researchgate.net /publication/328772874
6. Naujokaitiene, Justina. Tereseviciene, Margarita. Zydziunaite, Vilma. (2015). “Organizational Support for Employee Engagement in Technology-Enhanced Learning”. SAGE Open. October-December 2015: 1–9
Comments
Post a Comment