Effectiveness of employee engagement

Employee engagement

 “Engagement is a fundamental human need. It is a power that resides in most people, waiting to be unlocked. People want to be engaged in what they do. If employers build the foundation, employees will do the rest” (Maylett and Warner, 2014, p.4). Employee engagement is the motivation and commitment of the staff towards the work of the organization (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). Moreover, according to Mathis and Jackson, (2008) extent of the employee’s devotion and augmentation define as the employee engagement. As an illustration, the topic can expound as a conception where the employees are involving by spending time and draw the commitment through willingness (Macey et al., 2009).

Alternatively, employees expect value and recognition from employer for the job which they complete. In the event of such, they work and confident. Nevertheless, employees reach an extra mile and deliver excellent on the job performance (Vans, 2006).

Importance

Fully engaged and motivated employee with high morale will always leads to great efficiency and maximum level of productivity in the organization (Robbins, 2013). Be sides, many organizations now taken the employee engagement as a high rated measurement to read the assessment of the organizational performance (Whittington et al., 2017).

The topic treat as the primary driver of profitability, employee loyalty and customer loyalty. Nevertheless, companies which are performing with high level of employee engagement mark their accounting books with low cost entries due to low employee turnover, man-made operational loses and accident. Furthermore, it is not required to have lengthy HR policies to control the behavior of the employee as they are emotionally attached to produce the maximum energy for the organization (Reck, 2016).

(Source : Blessing White 2018)

Road to employee engagement

Employer needs to ensure to create a self-motivate culture in the organization while defusing work place disagreements. Apart from that it is important to elevate work place excellence. At this juncture it is not required to fully concentrate the bonuses and other compensation benefits since the positive culture already impacted on the ground (Friedman, 2014). Moreover, Joshi (2013) demonstrated that there are different ways of strategies which can apply for all organization to have high employee engagement. Accordingly, few of such steps can be decorated as follows,

Empowering employees

Empowerment take place when employees are allocated with authority, faith and encouragement to complete a specific task. This makes the individual more responsible in the duties.

Providing an effective rewarding system

In order to motivate the behavior of employees it is essential to have a proper rewarding system in the organization and it persuade the employees to be consistent on what they do. Further, to get the best from them organization needs to evaluate their contribution by offering bonus, time off and promotions.

Redesigning jobs

Many employees get bored on their job due to absence of new face for same over a period. Hence, restructuring and redesigning of the job profile also a valid fact to enhance the performance of them.

Job enlargement

This will create an additional task to the individual. However, such employee presume that he/she has been recognize as a responsible person in the organization. That presumption assists to create a positive mind set.

Job rotation

Through effective job rotation high enthusiasm can be created among all the staff as they are being allocated in different job roles time to time. Further, employees are compelling to learn and study the co department duties as well. As such, they have a better understanding how the co-workers are engaged to achieve goals of the firm.

Creating flexibility

“Flexi time” permits employees to set and control their own work hours. Due to family needs to staff are not prefer to perform in the time frame of 9-5. Therefore, based on the job profile some are prefer to work under flexi-time. E.g. Marketing staff.

Harter and Wagner (2006) confronted few facts which will assist to build an engage employee such as, to do the best in every day, material and equipment to do the work right, recognition and praise for the good job they do and the employee opinion seems to be considered. Similarly, superior needs to care of the subordinates. Encouraging the development of the staff, evaluate the progress in regular intervals are vital aspects in the move to make a platform for learn and grow.

Thus, according to Paxton (2015) there are two factors which are mainly impact for the engagement of the employees. Those are hygiene and motivation factors. Hygiene factors are also announcing as maintenance factors. These factors are not direct course to the job profile but such conditions assist to execute the job properly. When these facts are not in order it persuade employees to be get dissatisfy. The motivator factors pertain to the job and intrinsic to the job itself. The same do not resulted from carrot and stick incentives. It includes the physiological need for growth and recognition and it create sentimental value for the employee. The absence of these factors does not caused to highly dissatisfaction. However, when it present strong bond will create with employer which will ultimately furnish good job performance.

(Source : Paxton 2015)

Real life examples from the organization which I work for…

Hygiene factor

In the year 2017, National Development Bank shined up with a special benefit to all the confirmed staff under the medical scheme. Prior to 2017, staff were facilitated with a blanket hospitalization cover of Rs. 300,000/- includes the family members. However, in accordance to the revised medical policy all permanent carders and their family members are entitling to the individual cover of Rs. 300,000/- irrespective the number of members.

Further, commencing from the same year, Management decided to enhance the DSCR eligibility when consider credit facilities for the staff. This assisted to the staff to obtain additional credit facilities from the bank at the public rate, though their staff loan quota is over. These new steps stood as a post to persuade the employees to get engaged in with NDB. In addition to the above the bank provides good working conditions with clean and comfortable office environment, with healthy relationships with superiors and subordinates, the salaries are good and slightly above industry standards, and employees work with minimum supervision.

Motivation factor

Till early 2015, “National Development Bank PLC” failed to have a proper KPI system to evaluate employee performance. Hence, there were many concerns over the selection process to promotions and increments from staff end. This situation led to anchor high staff turnover from different forums from middle management to clerical level. As such, top management implemented a new KPI system named “HCM Cloud”. As a result of that during the year of 2016 to till now a significant reduction of employee resignations can be observed. As per HR sources and calculations it is a drop of 38% compared to the years prior to 2015. 

Moreover, Bank conducts a ceremony in every year called “Retail Banking Awards”. The purpose of organizing this event is to reward the best employees & branches who achieved the assigned targets during the calculated year. Best individuals and units are getting awarded by trophies with cash prices on a big stage in presence of all the employees. These moves created a positive thought in the mind of the staff to be engaged with employer.

Organizational culture makes a considerable impact towards the employee engagement. Though it’s carry out by the HR personals, it’s the responsibility of everybody in the organization. This is one of the important issues in the global context (Jaramillo and Richardson,2017).

Typical HR decision frame works also strike as a sample which block the engagement process. Mostly, when a new proposal comes out to enhance the engagement level, the usual slogan would be “we already have it”. Salary grade system in one of the major fact which elaborate the resistance to engagement. There should be a common architecture system to build the bride and the same should be easily understandable for all the employees of the organization (Cascio and Boudreau, 2011). Moreover, the compensation polices of HR limits the outcome of the employees as the same are outdated. This leads to lift the staff resignation volume. Hence, having a smooth and cured HR policy create the momentum to high employee engagement (McGuire and Brenner, 2015).

Establishing a healthy communication approach is much needed to take the message of the employer to the staff. Organization require to deliver the accurate message to the employees though, the same not reach to them in the accepted way due to the barriers of the messenger. Mostly, this is the duty to the middle management. Hence, in the event of passing the inaccurate content will change the mindset of the staff and the results would be varying with the expected. Accordingly, particularly employee has to face some negative consequences on the performance. In order to prevent from same, a clear communication approach is required and it will be assisted the employee to get engaged with the organization (Ryerson University, 2011).

Hoyle (2013) emphasis, Complete training actualizes the brilliance of creating a workforce. Accordingly, workplace training enables the employees to do things differently and do different thing. When the employer in need to communicate or do a behavioral run in the employees, they use this as a silent killer as the impact will get not expose instead the results. Further, changing behavior is a questionable offence which is hard to read from the eye of the organization. However, when new activities become very often employees hug it from both hands as practice becomes law in real terms. As such, communicating a change in the environment via a complete training session will be a definite plus in the employee engagement.

The experience of the employees also a fact to consider when creating or enhancing employee engagement. This is justifiable and in the discussion of the eye of employee and organization. In the perspective of staff, the experience is the skill and knowledge to work in the organization. However, organization defines the experience as what they really want the employee to be. This is a challenge in day to day life. Hence, just because the organization does something thing will not help the employee to peruse the same (Morgan, 2017).

Availability of positive model to create employee engagement sound good. This assist always to identify organization strength based on the employee feedback. This elaborate where the company needs to be improved and it shows the improvement in level of engagement. Elements of the strategy should be prioritizing as per the best understanding of the institution. However, the clean vision, mission and objectives should be purely based in terms of the organization which suits to the employees (Cook, 2008).

Fast track approach should be shown to all the employees to reach for the higher position in their carrier. This is a resource base thinking and a technique presented in many ways. It is required to present the same in short and understandable way. Then it persuades the employee to accelerate their performance to reach the expected the seat (Ross, 2010).

Conclusion and recommendation

Employee engagement cannot be solely interpreting as a simple human activity. It’s a clean combination of a strategic management and human behavior. Further, Organization productivity, Customer service excellence is driven by the employee engagement. The organization should create an environment for employee engagement to strive by satisfying both hygiene and motivational aspects as per Herzberg’s two factor model.

REFERENCES

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