Key Drivers of Employee Engagement

1. Introduction

The idea of ​​engaging with employees is already in demand right now, as many drivers have been identified, which affects employee performance and their well-being in the workplace. As companies and corporations strive to survive and thrive in strong competition, the physical and mental well-being of employees will be an important part of what HR executives should focus on (Jeffrey, 2015).  

Through the following video we can get an understanding on the key drivers on employee engagement (Bython, 2018). According to same, the leadership of any organization plays a vital role towards driving employee engagement. Secondly it states that employee performance and evaluation system on same by leaders is also essential since it is linked to defining employees job role, development and reward mechanism. Talent management is also an important aspect as it improves employee skills and clear goals has to be established which are achievable. Clearly defining employee tasks or goals is also essential as it drives the employee in the correct part towards reaching the expectations of the company when conducting routine operations   (Bython, 2018).

Video 1.0 – Key Drives of Employee Engagement

https://youtu.be/T9dStyQIex8

 (Source :   Bython Media 2018)


2. Key Drivers of Employee Engagement

Employers know that “working employees” are more productive than ever, and every organization should evaluate the drivers of engagement. There are a number of drivers and practitioners involved in this study considering three drivers, namely communication, Work Life Balance, Leadership. As stated by Sharma (2018) , there are ten main components which have to be taken into consideration when identifying the key employee engagement drives. (Sharma N, 2018). According to Timothy (2012) , the same could be conceptualized into six main groups as shown in the following graph (Timothy, 2012).

Figure 1.0 : Key Drivers of employee engagement


 




(Source :  Timothy 2012)

As per the above figure, there are six main factors as explained by Timothy (2012), which are stated as the six key drivers of employee engagement (Timothy, 2012).  It is important to deeply analyze on same in order to identify how the same contributed towards employees being engaged. Moreover among other factors, leadership has been identified and could be stated as the vital factor when identifying factors on the drivers of employee employment.

2.1 Leadership

If employees do not feel that leadership is connecting with people at work or providing themselves, they may begin to question confidentiality and question high - level business decisions. This driver measures whether or not employees feel that their leaders are committed to doing what is best for the company, and how well they are pursuing those commitments (Madhura B, 2014). Integrity, in this context, refers to the sense that employees have trusted and trusted leadership, and will continue to do what they say they are going to do.

 

2.2 Value Employees:

Gaining meaning at work is one of the most important aspects of employee engagement. When this driver is at play, employees believe that being immersed in work gives them value. Sometimes that means they feel a sense of purpose. Other times they get meaning from factors such as status, compensation or influence. How or why a person finds meaning in their work is unique to each person, but it has a major impact on the level of participation of each employee (Timothy, 2012).

 

2.3 Meaningfulness of work and communication:

Gaining meaning at work is one of the most important aspects of employee engagement. When this driver is at play, employees believe that being immersed in work gives them value. Sometimes that means they feel a sense of purpose (Richard E, 2015). Other times they get meaning from factors such as status, compensation or influence. How or why a person finds meaning in their work is unique to each person, but it has a major impact on the level of participation of each employee. Many employers and managers of various businesses use spiritual rules on how to deal with employees and others in the business to improve product ranking, improve contacts with your audience and increase performance (Richard E, 2015).

 

2.4 Co-Worker relationships and shared values:

 This driver refers to employee relationships with co-workers. When staff members have mutual respect for each other, the result is a “positive relationship” that builds trust. Coworker relationships are especially important when colleagues work closely together, and can be nurtured by a company culture that is largely supportive. If they share values ​​at work, employees can share common attitudes and work principles with their colleagues (William, 2014). This can foster a sense of friendship and mutual interest in success. This driver also demonstrates how well an employee’s personal values ​​align with the organization and the work they are performing.

2.5 Positive future outlook and career progression:

This driver refers to the existence of growth opportunities, provided by managers and leaders who support the professional development of employees. It is important not only to offer the right resources, but also to encourage teams to take advantage of those opportunities. This includes all factors such as career growth, financial growth, professional growth and personal growth (Ashwin, 2017). 

 

2.6 work-life balance and room towards Innovation

This driver plays a very important role in motivating employees to do their best of work as the employees have confidence in making decisions about how best to do their jobs. As stated by Jeffery (2015) ,when employees are given the freedom to choose how to manage their time and where to apply their expertise, employees are more likely to feel invested in the company and its mission (Jeffrey, 2015). Organized life and personal life are important to each other. Great way to attract and retain its employees is in fact, it promote the idea that an organization can provide a decent workplace for its employees and create job satisfaction for its employees (Jeffrey, 2015).

 

Conclusion

 

The results of many surveys are to determine the capacity of employees and to allow growth and development opportunities, which is one of the most important tasks of managers in any organization. This term enables managers to inevitably create a meeting to select the appropriate goals for the desired employees and create motivation for them. For this purpose, it is necessary to classify the needs and try to meet them. The main challenge of the organization is to create a balance between the general and organizational objectives and the principles of the employees of the organization.

 

References;

 

Ashwin, K., 2017. Motivation Skill. First ed. Chennai: Nation Press.

Bython, 2018. What Really Drives Employee Engagement. Parkway: Bython Media.

Cook, S., 2008. The Essential Guide to Employee Engagement. London United Kingdom: Kogan Page.

Jeffrey, A., 2015. Strategic Human Resource Management. Forth Edition ed. Stamford: Change Learning.

M. Freedman, J. P., 2013. The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Leadership, Change, and Organizational Development. Puducherry, India: John Wiley & Sons.

Madhura B, D. P., 2014. A Study on the Drivers of Employee Engagement Impacting Employee Performance. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 133, pp. 106-115.

Richard E, K. R. T. N., 2015. The Impact of Shared Vision on Leadership, Engagement, Organizational Citizenship and Coaching. Clevland: Frontiers.

Sharma N, N. C. V. S., 2018. Management Techniques for Employee Engagement in Contemporary Organizations. Bihar: IGI Global.

Timothy, R., 2012. The Employee Engagement Mindset. Toronto: McGrow-Hill.

William, G., 2014. Practices for Engaging the 21st Century Workforce. Second ed. New Jersey: Pearson.

 

 

Comments

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Further to above 2.4 Co-Worker relationships and shared values: According to Professor Tuckman, there are five stages of small group development as forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (Tuckman, 1965; Tuckman & Jensen, 1977). "Forming" refers to the joining period to an organization or task when members familiarize themselves to the task and to team members. Moreover, after the novelty of the group has worn-off, the group moves to the second stage, otherwise known as "storming."

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    1. During this group development model by Tuckman ( 1965) he has also stated that ,"these phases are all necessary and inevitable in order for a team to grow, face up to challenges, tackle problems, find solutions, plan work, and deliver results".

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  3. Organizations must provide a psychologically safe workplace to improve employee engagement
    (Kompaso & Sridevi, 2010).
    Leaders that are authentic influence the engagement of employees (Nicholas & Erakovich, 2013).
    Balancing moral perspectives with interpersonal relationships can create a healthy leadership

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    1. Hi Janaka , I agree with your comment.Leader, by delegating authority and consulting,motivate the employees to work in a regular , accurate and desirable manner. Employee's engagement allows the leader to easily use intelligence , ingenuity and work experience of his staff." Leaders are benign in their attempts to influence employees,and that they are authentic _ that is, genuine in their intention and behaviour" (Truss, et al,2013).

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  4. As per the Erickson (2005, p. 14) “Engagement is above and beyond simple satisfaction with the employment arrangement or basic loyalty to the employer—characteristics that most companies have measured for many years. Engagement, in contrast, is about passion and commitment—the willingness to invest oneself and expend one’s discretionary effort to help the employer succeed” since employees physiological factor like character, commitment and willingness also must be consider for factors to employees engagement.

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    1. Thank you Rumesh, I agree with you. In addition employers nowadays are looking forward on employees who can be creative, ingenious , actively , and create a method to encroach clients' outlook ( Lowe, 2020).

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  5. According to Sahoo & Misra (2012)it identified professional development, empowerment, performance effective feedback, communication, fair treatment and equivalent opportunities, co-operation, pay and benefits, image, health and safety, and overall employee well-being as key drivers in employee engagement

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    1. Thank you Ranga, I agree with your comment. According to Bedarkar (2014) there are various key drivers identified at a study resulted that the main three drivers on engagement are namely communication, work life balance and importance of leadership skills(Bedarkar 2014).

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  6. According to many authors, there are many key drivers of employee engagement and some are; Mani (2011) stated four drivers, namely employee welfare, empowerment, employee growth and interpersonal relationships as key drivers of employee engagement. Seijit (2006) point out the 10 Cs of Employee Engagement, namely Connect, Career, Clarity, Convey, Congratulate, Contribute, Control, Collaborate, Credibility & Confidence. The three elements of employee engagement as per Wallace et al (2006), were contributions, connections, growth and advancement.

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    1. Thank you Chamila and I agree with your comment. There are many key drivers on engagement however in addition to main drivers there is one more drive in engagement which is the "sense of belongingness"( Sharma 2019).

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  7. According t Kahn ( 1990 ) the employee engagement is the harnessing of organization members selves to their work roles; in engagement , people employ, and express themselves physically , cognitively , and emotionally during role performance . The employee engagement has three main cores as intellectual engagement, affective engagement and social engagement according to Alfes et al ( 2010 )

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    1. Thank you Thusitha . The idea of engagement is based on logic that employees engagement in the decision making process that affects their destiny and have more freedom in administrative and organizational work. This ultimately increase efficiency and productivity in the organization (Sharma 2019).

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  8. I am in agreement with your points in your blog post. If I may include further that employee engagement is a concept gaining significant importance in the past 10 years. Organization today use engaged employees as a tool for strategic partner in the business. The concept of employee engagement has now gained even more importance, since many drivers have been identified, which impact employee performance and well-being at workplace. As companies across industries strive to survive and rise above the stiff competition, physical and mental well-being of employees will be one of the important aspects that HR managers need to tend focus on (Bedarkar, M. 2018)

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  9. Agreed, more talent management strategies such as growth and learning, incentives and appreciation and help result in more dedicated workers and improve the outcome of the company (Alias, Noor & Hassan,2014).

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    1. In fact talent management is defined as a system for identifying, hiring , nurturing , promoting , and retaining talented people , with the aim of optimizing the organization's ability to achieve business results ( Deb,2005).

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  10. Many have attempted in recognizing the factors leading to employee engagement and developed models to draw implications for managers to determine the drivers that will boost employee engagement levels (Kompaso and Sridevi, 2010). Job challenge, rewards and recognition, variety, autonomy, feedback, and developmental opportunities are some major drivers (Crawford, et al., (2013). Engagement does links substantially to leadership and once the ideal is applied, the results touch the skies. Correct leadership matters a lot since the trust factor increases engagement. Cognitive trust between team members and between team leader is a major player in enhancing performance and commitment (Chou, H et al. 2013).

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    1. According to Risal (2010) "Employees who are dissatisfied with the kind of leadership behavior the organisation have with people, are more dissatisfied. Similar to genuine leaders encouraging employees by fulfilling important plans and creating commitment in the organization, it leads to reducing behaviors "Employees become deviant."

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  11. In your article you have identify the major drivers of employee engagement. However according to According to (Armstrong, 2006) reward is anything that could retain an employee in an organization could be in the form of benefits, increments, training and developments or complements.

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    1. Thank you Sohan , I agree with you. In fact reward system is one of the most popular methods organizations use. Through this the level of productivity will increase, and ogranization will be expand, which is main desire of any organization ( Armstrong, 2002).

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  12. Employee engagement is a key factor which drives organization performance and engaged workforce outperform their competition (Osborn and Hammoud 2017). To be more engaged with the employees the organization must create a better and safe working environment which also will help to improve the motivation of employees. In current pandemic situation the employees are keener on their safety mashers within the organization and they expect a better return of their hard work. The employees are more look forward on Strategic Alignment and Managing Execution while they engaged with the organization and management must implement and identify the best ways to improve the engagement with subordinates (Sun and Bunchapattanasakda 2019).

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    1. Sahoo (2018) has identified that the variables namely "interpersonal relationships, a safe and healthy work environment and employee walfare were significant predictors of cordial employee relations".In order for employees to get engaged in the activities of the organization, making a profit must come from theories and ideas. In the age of presentation, according to the opening and necessity of the environment, the organization must be innovative in contemporary ( Sahoo , 2018).

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  13. Executives and non-executives alike, were relatively more satisfied with the job and perceived a high sense of involvement and commitment in their work and the organization (Sodhi, 2011)

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  14. Hi Bakshi, adding more to work-family balance is central to human resource development. Grzywacz and Carlson (2008), implicitly or explicitly, demonstrate that work-family balance is at the core of the key functions of the human resource development sector and can be a powerful leverage point for promoting personal and organizational productivity.

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    1. Thank you Eranga , I totally agree with you . Neglecting this an important phenomenon causes the destructive effects of work-life imbalance which always remain strong and secretly leads to a reduction in the components of individual and organizational health and wellbeing. On the other hand, proper and effective performance of employees has been mentioned as one of the keys to the success in organizations. Good performance means productivity, quality, profitability and customer orientation. That is why successful organizations in the world make great efforts to identify and manage the factors that affects the performance and behavior of employees and achieve the success of providing these factors to increase the performance of their employees ( Bhatnagar, 2010).

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  15. Hi Bakshi, adding more to the contents, the potential drivers of engagement or those work conditions that might be related to employee engagement might not be important for all employees, in other words, the best approach for improving employee engagement might depend on each employee rather than aggregate levels of various working conditions (Klie, 2007).

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    1. Employee engagement is the level of mental and emotional commitment an employee has towards their job , the organisation and its goals. The fact is that ,"Employee engagement is more a psychological contract than a physical one " (Cook, 2008).

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  16. A good way of driving employee engagement is to commit towards social and environmental responsibilities as an organization as it affects the satisfaction level of employees which leads to a more positively engaged workforce. This gives advantages to the organization in many ways as it fulfils employees as well as it creates a positive brand image among the customers/ general public (Intelligence, 2007).

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    1. Many significant researchers indicates that "support towards employees at work place may result into desired outcomes like lower staff turnover rate , improved task performance and increase organizational commitment" ( Rhoades 2001).

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  17. It is a valuable topic you have shared since we, as professionals too need to know the drivers of engagement. Singh (2016)emphasise that career growth and the opportunity for it holds a big part in the degree an employee can be engaged.

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  18. Bhatla (2011) in a study of employee engagement and its effects on employee performance with respect to Indian banks has identified organizational culture and organizational communication as prominent driver.

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