Employee engagement is an organisational approach which confirms the commitment and motivation of employee toward organisation. It ensures whether employees are encouraged to attain organisational goal and put their effort in reaching organisational success.
Further, it also ensures that whether employees are capable to meet their individual goals or not. An employee who is fully engaged has a sense of care and responsibility and he/she tries to seek best possible source to attain organisational success. In order to achieve greater quality performance at individual level, team level and organisational level, employee engagement acts as a most crucial element. Employee satisfaction and employee engagement looks synonyms of each other but the meaning of both the term varies a lot. Engagement means bringing each employee to work in order to meet organisational mission. On the Other hand, employee satisfaction means employees are happy and are able to fulfil their desires at work. An employee with higher degree to engagement loves to work in organisation and is always ready to favour their organisation. An engaged employee is self-motivated, takes responsibility, seeks solution to problems, etc. Further, this employee loves the organisation and is satisfied with the facilities and salary offered to him/her.
Principles of Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is so important that organisation give it much importance. There are different people working in organisation where few find it easy to reach engagement whereas for others it is hard to attain higher level of engagement. Some of the important principles of employee engagement are given as following:
Employees Must Have Capacity to Engage: To avail maximum employee engagement, organisation must have a demanding work environment and among employees it must promote exchange of information, maximum opportunities for learning, bringing work-life balance, etc. Employee must have goal oriented energy and they must be flexible enough to maintain this energy while facing hurdles on way to attain objective. Whereas, this energy flows in such people who possess competency and independence. It is also true that different people possess different level of independence. Those people who are independent, competent and motivated naturally possess high degree of engagement. Organisation helps employee to boost this energy by supplying them With information they need in order to perform their functions in a better way. Organisation also provides learning opportunities and feedback so that it can develop their confidence and finally it improves the energy level by maintaining work-life balance.
Employees Must have Motivation to Engage: Employee come to organisation for the purpose of doing job hence mostly employees spent their maximum time in doing their work. If employer seeks employee to use their entire energy at work then there must be a strong reason behind that. When an employee finds a work related to their interest areas or they find job as more challenging and important or the work offers them independence to design the process or it ask employee to take suitable decision, then it ultimately seeks high degree of employee engagement. When goals are difficult then it motivates employees and enhances the energy level to attain goal. Organisation must motivate their employees by showing respect and value to their commitment and it must also try to bring individual goals and organisational goal together. This motivation results in voluntary engagement of employee at work.
Employees Must have Freedom to Engage: When employees feel that their initiation and action will be appreciated by the employer then they actively indulge themselves in getting proactive. On the Other hand, when employees have fear of getting scolded in case they take any action or decision then they find no connection between their action and organisational strategies. In the present competitive environment, it is the need of time that employees must take the lead and must realise that both worker and organisation is at risk due to high competition. If organisation expects that employees will realise the need of time and significance of their actions then it will not work because employee may not be ready to bear the risk of loss occurring due to any wrong action or decision. Further, when employee lack management supports, then it became hard for organisation to seek proactive and adaptive employee’s attitude.
Focus of Strategic Engagement: Strategic engagement is a situation where employees are well familiar with the organisational strategic priorities. Further employees are also familiar with the conditions when organisational actions, culture and processes are aligned together in order to attain the goal. Employee engagement will work when employees can view a direct link between their work performance and organisational profit. In most adverse cases, employee engagement arises when both employee’s individual goal and organisational goal come together. On contrary to this, when organisation lacks alignment Of goals then they consider an appropriate behaviour which work consistently with the Strategy of organisation. Alignment Of individual goal and organisational goal starts from an appropriate organisational culture and it continues with observing and implementing it throughout the organisation. Developing and implementing such culture in organisation is not an easy task. It needs a deep attention on several employees related issues, like type of employee, process used in hiring, ways through which they are brought to board, training methods used, support Of their colleagues in clearing the focus Of employee, etc. All these activities are necessary to be performed in order to gain competitive advantages.
Degrees/Levels of Employee Engagement
The degree or levels of employee engagement are mentioned below:
Highly Engaged: When employees are extremely engaged then they act with full dedication to achieve organisational goal. A highly engaged employee is very much satisfied while working in the organisation. These employees try to bring better efforts and they are also ready to take the initiatives. Hence, these highly engaged employees come in the category of ‘A’ player. These employees possess the capacity to turn an ordinary organisation into an innovative and productive organisation. These employees also enhance the capacity of those reliable and productive employees who alone cannot deliver their entire efficiency. These employees are highly passionate and they are connected with their work and colleague. Therefore, they are emotionally capable to face the serious issues and bring creativity at work. Further, till the time these employees work on any project they also act as a source of motivator for their colleagues.
Almost Engaged: Employees under almost engaged criteria are considered as reasonably satisfied with their job. They deliver high performance and are focused, hardworking and honest toward work. These employees possess a positive perspective and believe toward their work and organisational objective. Highly engaged employees are inspiration for them and they feel fortunate to work with these employees. Further these employees are considered as the backbone of the organisation.
Honeymooners and Hamsters: New employees to the organisation or to particular function, who have not yet achieved the level of full productivity, come under the category of honeymooner. On the other hand, Hamsters are those employees who are either not working with efficiency or are working in wrong direction. Hence, both type of employees under the category of honeymooner and hamster deliver unsatisfactory performance to organisation whereas they gain all the benefits in a similar way other employees avail.
Crash and Burners: Employees under this category are among the high performers. They are among the good performer in the organisation but are unable to meet their individual goals.
Disengaged: These employees are detached from the priorities of the organisation. They are unable to fulfil their from work. Their engagement with work has reached to its lowest and they are only working in organisation to earn their salary. These employees feel that mission and vision of these organisations are inappropriate. Further these employees talk poor about the organisation and employers. But these employees only work to such level where employer doesn’t issue them pink slip.
Challenges of Employee Engagement
There are many challenges which are essential to overcome. Some of these challenges are given as following:
Vague Definition: In order to enhance organisational productivity, employee engagement is used as an important technique. But some employers misinterpret the meaning of employee engagement and effect negatively on employee’s motivation. Hence, to perform employee engagement effectively, initially degree of employee performance must be recognise then it must be communicated to that employee and finally employee’s personal goals must be recognised and aligned With organisational goal.
Emotional Tie Does not Guarantee Strong performance: When organisation is having a work culture where they work as a team then it develops personal and social relation among employees. Emotional relation among employee will grow their loyalty but ineffective management could result in loss to organisation. Organisation must be able to implement such strategies which can balance the relationship and result in achieving organisation success.
Results may not be Actionable: Changing employee engagement immediately is not possible and measuring it is harder. Communication between employee and employer is used as a technique to develop employee engagement which is not only a time taking process but it is also invaluable. The goal of employee engagement is to enhance organisational productivity and motivation among employees.