Employee Engagement

Employee engagement and employee happiness are two different concepts. Thus happy employees do not necessarily be engaged employees. Employee engagement can be defined as “the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals” (Kruse, 2012). Therefore emotionally committed employees genuinely care about their work and goal achievement. 

An engaged employee uses discretionary effort in performing his tasks. For an example a Procurement Executive at a certain multinational company works overtime when needed, without being asked by the top management. It is his own choice to walk an extra mile when the organization needs him.

 

There are four main elements pertaining to employee engagement namely commitment, motivation, loyalty and trust. Commitment involves how much an employee associates himself with the organization. They are fascinated by their work and passionate to achieve organizational goals. A motivated employee puts the best effort in performing his job role and on the other hand organization too could reward and recognize this effort to further motivate employees. Loyal employees actively engage with the organization and are accountable for every task performed. Trust prevails in an organization when both the employee and the employer share the same emotional bond to foster the organization.

 

Figure 1: Elements of Employee Engagement (Juneja, 2019).

Employers need to be highly mindful about how much their employees are engaged to them. “If you focus on rewards that are effective, promote re-consumption and are memorable long after, now there's a winning impactful rewards program that keeps employees engaged now and in the future” (Reddy, 2019). Hence a successful engagement program is vital and needs the leadership team to be actively involved. Further “employees who provide education and training opportunities for their team members recoup those costs through greater employee loyalty and engagement” (Daisyme, 2019).

Engaged employees provide good quality service to all the stakeholders resulting in higher stakeholder satisfaction. This leads to higher sales and increased profits and outcomes. “According to Towers Perrin Research, companies with engaged workers have 6% higher net profit margins” (Kruse, 2012). As engaged employees are an asset to any organization, the employers need to focus more on building a culture that enhances employee engagement. This will ultimately result in creating a workforce that genuinely foster success and wellbeing of an organization.

References

Daisyme, P. (2019). Struggling to Engage Employees? Try Approaching That Goal the Old-Fashioned Way.. [online] Entrepreneur. Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/326347 [Accessed 19 May 2019].

Juneja, P. (2019). Elements of Employee Engagement. [online] Managementstudyguide.com. Available at: https://www.managementstudyguide.com/employee-engagement-elements.htm [Accessed 19 May 2019].

Kruse, K. (2012). What Is Employee Engagement. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2012/06/22/employee-engagement-what-and-why/#5fd451b7f372 [Accessed 19 May 2019].

Reddy, S. (2019). Five Mistakes that Hinder Employee Engagement. [online] Entrepreneur. Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/330099 [Accessed 19 May 2019].