Organisation Behaviour

Assignment-1

Employee Engagement

Kumar Abhishek PGPIM (2012-13)

Table of Contents
Inroduction ....................................................................................................................................... 3 Organizational Commitment ............................................................................................................. 3 Job Involvement ............................................................................................................................... 4 Outcomes of Engagement ................................................................................................................. 5 Customer loyalty ........................................................................................................................... 5 Employee retention ...................................................................................................................... 5 Employee productivity .................................................................................................................. 6 Manager self-efficacy .................................................................................................................... 6 Key points ................................................................................................................................. 6 Variations in Employee Engagement ................................................................................................. 7 Are some people more likely to engage than others? .................................................................... 7 Generation Y ................................................................................................................................. 7 Differences in employee lifestyle expectations .............................................................................. 7 Measuring Employee Engagement .................................................................................................... 8 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 8 LEARNING ....................................................................................................................................... 10 Past work experience ...................................................................................................................... 11 Bibliography.................................................................................................................................... 12

Inroduction
Employee engagement has emerged as one of the most important topics in the sphere of human resource management. It stands for the extent to which the employees are committed to the vision, mission and goals of the organization and involved with the work they do. Employee engagement has become a hot topic in the world of human resource management. An engaged employee is the one who is fully involved in and enthusiastic about his work and thus will act in a way that furthers his organization's interests. Engaged employees care about and are loyal to the future of the organization. They are willing to put in extra efforts to ensure that the organization is led to growth and development. According to Gallup(2006)1 there are the following three types of people in terms of their level of engagement: (a) Engaged employees are builders. They perform at consistently high levels. They want to use their talents and strengths at work every day. They work with passion and they drive innovation and move their organization forward. (b) Not Engaged employees tend to concentrate on tasks rather than the goals. They want to be told what to do. Employees who are not-engaged tend to feel their contributions are being overlooked. (c) Actively Disengaged employees are the "cave dwellers." They are consistently against virtually everything. They sow seeds of negativity at every opportunity. Every day, actively disengaged workers undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish. To sum up, the concept of employee engagement is an amalgam of essentially two well-known constructs, namely, organizational commitment and job involvement.

Organizational Commitment
The concept of organizational commitment has attracted considerable attention over the past many years but has become the central objective of contemporary human resource management (HRM). Meyer and Allen(1991)2 have identified three types of commitment: affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment. 1) Affective Commitment: is defined as emotional attachment, identification and involvement that an employee has with his organization and its goals.

2) Continuance commitment: is the willingness to remain in an organization because of the investment that the employee has made with nontransferable investments. Nontransferable investments include things such as retirement benefits, relationships with other employees and the benefits that the employee may receive that are unique to the organization. 3) Normative commitment: is the commitment of the person to the organization or his feeling of obligation to the workplace. The three types of commitment characterize the employee's relationship with the organization, which has implication for, among other things, his decision to continue or discontinue membership in the organization. Employees with a strong affective commitment remain with an organization because they want to; those with a strong continuance commitment remain because they have to; and those with a strong normative commitment remain because they feel they ought to. Kassahun(2005)3 found employee age as the most important predictor of organizational commitment. Gupta' found that the number of promotions received was significantly related to the continuance commitment. Kumar and Giri(2007)4 have argued that it is important for organizations to examine the policies they implement to increase commitment. In a study of 88 managerial employees from two manufacturing organizations belonging to the .same industry, Mohapatra and Sharma(2008)5 found organizational commitment to be influenced by three dimensions of organizational climate (progressive management, participative management and interpersonal harmony) and one of the personal attributes (need for power). Together these four variables explained 66.7 percent of the variance in organizational commitment.

Job Involvement
Job involvement refers to a person who is fully involved in and enthusiastic about his or her work. Job involvement is how people see their jobs in terms of a relationship with the working environment, the job itself and how their work and life are balanced. Having low job involvement reflects employees' feelings of alienation of purpose and alienation from the organization, that is, a feeling of separation between what the employees see as their life and the work they do. Work alienation and job involvement are, therefore, the opposite poles of the continuum. Mishra and Gupta6 examined the effect of motivation, alienation and job involvement on performance of blue collar workers and found that motivation and alienation emerged as the most important predictors of work performance. Joshi7 compared public and private sector employees in terms of job satisfaction,
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job involvement and work involvement and found that public and private sector employees differed in terms of the above mentioned factors. Joshi8 also found that the employee's age, job experience and monthly income were significantly related to job experience and monthly income were significantly related to job involvement.

Personal attributes

Employee Engagement

Organizational Performance

Situational factors

Outcomes of Engagement
Customer loyalty
Levinson (2007a)9 suggests that employees who are happy in their work are more likely to create loyal customers. Engaged employees tend to have a better understanding of how to meet customer needs (Right Management, 2006)10 and, as a result, customer loyalty tends to be better in organizations where the employees are engaged (Pont, 2004)11. Levinson (2007b)12 claims that in departments where [highly] engaged employees sell to engaged customers, customer loyalty, repeat purchases and recommendations to friends are double that of companies with average employee engagement. Ultimately, this may lead to what is sometimes termed customer engagement, where there is a mental and emotional connection between the organization and the customer (Bates, 2004).

Employee retention

Levinson (2007a)9 also suggests that employees who are happy in their work are more likely to stay in the organisation, and Demourouti et al. (2001, cited in Sonnentag, 2003) found that work engagement is indeed positively related to organisational commitment. BlessingWhite (2008) reports that 85 per cent of engaged employees plan on sticking around compared to 27 per cent of disengaged employees. In addition, 41 per cent of engaged employees said that they would stay if the organization is struggling to survive.
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Employee productivity
Engagement affects employee performance (Kahn, 1990)13. Engaged employees work harder, are more loyal and are more likely to go the extra mile for the corporation (Lockwood, 2007, p. 3)14. Wellins and Concelman suggest that engagement is an illusive force that motivates an individual to achieve higher levels of performance. A study of 50,000 employees found that the most engaged and committed perform 20 per cent better than their colleagues (Corporate Leadership Council, 2004). Sonnentags (2003)15 survey of employees from six public service organizations found that high levels of engagement at work support employees in taking initiative and pursuing learning goals. Likewise, Watson Wyatts (2007)16 survey of 946 companies across 22 countries found that employees who are highly engaged are more than twice more likely to be top performers than are other employees.

Manager self-efficacy

Academic research by Luthans and Peterson (2002)17 found employees who are engaged in their organization and their work are more likely to respond positively to their managers, demonstrate good performance and achieve success. This then helps their manager to be more effective and successful, which in turn increases the managers selfefficacy. Research has shown that selfefficacy is positively linked to work performance, in that individuals with higher self efficacy are more likely to be proactive in initiating work, and show sustained effort and determination in their pursuit to achieve the task, even when problems occur.
Key points

Research suggests a positive relationship between engaged employees and customer engagement, expressed in customer loyalty and recommendations to others. Engaged employees are more likely to stay with the organization, perform 20 percent better than their colleagues, and act as advocates of the organization. Engagement can have a significant impact on the performance of the organization, driving bottomline profit and enabling organizational agility and improved efficiency in driving change initiatives. Engagement may enable individuals to invest themselves fully in their work, with increased selfefficacy and a positive impact upon the employees health and wellbeing, which in turn evokes increased employee support for the organization. Boosting engagement may have negative repercussions for retention of the almost engaged.
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Variations in Employee Engagement

Are some people more likely to engage than others?
The survey done by Robinson et al.s (2007)18 revealed differences in levels according to gender, age, ethnicity, disability and those with caring responsibilities: Gender: women appeared slightly more engaged than men in some organizations. Age: engagement was highest in those under 20 years old and those 60 years plus, but dropped between 20 and 39 years old, before climbing again. Ethnicity: ethnic minority groups reported slightly higher engagement levels than their white counterparts. Disability: generally, disabled individuals reported higher engagement than those without a disability or medical condition.

Generation Y

Blessing Whites19 survey of over 7,500 individuals and interviews with senior human resource and line managers found that at least a quarter of Generation Y employees globally are disengaged with the exception of India, where all generations have higher engagement levels than other regions. They suggest that the older the employee, the more engaged they are, with employees born since 1980 being the least engaged members of the workplace. Generation Ys apparent low engagement with their organizations, compared to their older colleagues, may be a result of their different values, their different attitudes towards work and the different demands they have of their work and their employers. If the organization does not respond to these, then non engagement or even disengagement may be almost inevitable.

Differences in employee lifestyle expectations

Organizations need to realize that they are not managing the same world as they were five years ago. The technology, people, and the overall work environment have moved on, meaning that todays organizations need to be flexible (Johnson,2004)20. Employees now define themselves not by the work they do but by the lifestyles they have chosen to lead. Engagement now begins with employees lifestyles and what they consider is worth investing themselves in; the choice to engage lies with the employee (Johnson, 2004). It is something that is given, not taken, by the employer.

Measuring Employee Engagement

The lack of a clear definition of employee engagement and the differing requirements of each organisation means there is likely to be considerable variation in what is measured in engagement surveys. Institute of Employment Studies (IES) has developed a statistically reliable measure of engagement which focuses on organizational citizenship, commitment, aligning individual and organisational values, and the extent to which the organisation enables the individual to perform well. Other measures available include The Gallup Workplace Audit (q12), Roffey Park Institutes Engagement Diagnostic Service21, Net Promoter, The Towers Perrin Rapid Engagement Diagnostic Survey and The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale22. To achieve employee confidence and trust in the actions taken as a result of a survey, feedback needs to be transparent and shown to be directly related to the feedback received.

Conclusion

According to a study done by Sharma Baldev R and Raina Anupama23, objectivity and recognition are the critical determinants of organizational commitment. The main objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between job involvement and organizational commitment as the dependent variables and certain personal attributes and various situational factors as the independent variables. An 80-item "structured" questionnaire was used for collection of data. The questionnaire was designed to cover the following 14 variables: A. Personal Attributes 1. Locus of Control 2. Work Ethic B. Situational Factors 3. Benefits 4. Career opportunity 5. Communication 6. Job Content 7. Objectivity 8. Participative Management 9. Pay

10. Recognition 11. Training and Development 12. Work- life Balance . Employee Engagement 13. Organizational Commitment 14. Job Involvements Out of the 12 independent variables used in this study, only two (objectivity & recognition) emerged as the critical determinants of organizational commitment. Together these two variables explained 93.9 per cent of the variance in organizational commitment. Similarly, only two independent variables (career opportunity and pay) emerged as the critical determinants of job involvement. These two variables together explained a little over 91 per cent of the variance in job involvement. Hence, as far as this organization is concerned, only the following four situational factors are important in influencing employee engagement: (a) Determinants of Organizational Commitment (1) Objectivity (2) Recognition (b) Determinants of Job Involvement (1) Career Opportunity (2) Pay IES proposed that attempts to increase levels of engagement are likely be ineffective, unless several factors are present in the organization: Good quality line management. Twoway communication Effective internal cooperation. A focus on development. Commitment to employee wellbeing. Clear, accessible HR policies and practices and visible commitment by managers at all levels.

Source: IES Survey, 2003

LEARNING
Employee engagement is a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organization and its values. An engaged employee is aware of business context, and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization. Although money or pay is an important aspect for job satisfaction, but cash is not the sole factor that drives engagement. Three non cash motivators: praise from immediate managers, leadership attention, and a chance to lead project, are the more effective motivators than the cash bonuses or increased base pay. Hence organizations need to design flexibility into their reward solutions to attract different types of talent. A talent strategy that emphasizes the frequent use of the right financial and non-financial motivators would benefit most companies in bleak times. Generation Ywhose members are yet to touch the age of 30 want their recognition and they want it now. They are

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not ready to wait till the annual performance appraisal for feedback and recognition. A good worklife balance features overwhelmingly high in their idea of a preferred working environment.

Past work experience

I worked for about 3 years in one of Indias largest private sector electrical engineering company. Having done my graduation in electrical engineering, it was like a dream job for me. The pay was also quite good. I was appointed as a production engineer and had to work on shop-floor, dealing with technicians who were ITI holders or diplomas. Gradually I got frustrated as I had to constantly shout at them to get the work done, there was not much scope of learning. I had expected that after engineering I would get a cabin or at least a cubicle to work, will be working on computers, doing some calculations or applying my mind etc. I started searching for jobs. But after 6 months, a new plant manager was appointed. He started giving me some other assignments for productivity improvement, sent me for trainings (Six-Sigma, MOST, ISO), vendor development, also used to talk to me regularly. This motivated me to do my work in a more effective manner. I soon got engaged in the shop-floor activities too. Also I observed that the some of the senior or older technicians on the shopfloor were less engaged as compared to the juniors. They always used to compare the past management with the present and how the past managers were far better than the present one. They had got a vast experience and were less inclined to do routine work. But when I used to tell them that only you can do this particular task, they used to get pumped up and used to put extra efforts to achieve it.

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Bibliography
1) Gallup, "Gallup Study: Engaged Employees Inspire Company Innovation" , The Gallup Management Journal, http: gmj.gallup.com-(2006). 2) Meyer J.P. and Allen N.J., "A Three-Component Conceptualisation of Organizational Commitment", Human Resource Management Review, 1 (l), 61-89 (1991) 3) Kassahun T., "Level of Organizational Commitment: Its Correlates and Predictors," Indian Journal of Industrial Relations ,41(1), 29-63 (2005) 4) Kumar B. and Giri P.N., "Examining the Effect of Job Performance on Organizational Commitment," Management and Labour Studies, 32 (1), 123-135 (2007) 5) Mohapatra M. and Sharma B.R., "Drivers of Organizational Commitment among Managers of Industrial Organizations: A Case Study," Global Business Review, 9 (1), 51-63 (2008) 6) Mishra P.C. and Gupta J., "Employees' Morale as a Factor Related to the Job Performance of Blue-Collar Industrial Workers", Proceedings of the 82"^ Sessio'n -of the ISCA, Calcutta (1995) 7) Joshi G., "Job Satisfaction, Job and Work Involvement among the Industrial Employees: A Correlation Study," Journal of Indian Academy of Applied Psychology. 25 (1-2), 79-82 (1999). 8) Joshi G., "Job Satisfaction, Job Involvement and Work Involvement among the Employees of Private and Public Sector," Psychological Studies, 43 (3), 85-90 (1998) 9) Levinson E (2007a), Developing High Employee Engagement Makes Good Business Sense 10) Right Management (2006), Measuring True Employee Engagement, Right Management 11) Pont J (2004), Are they really On the Job?, Potentials, 37, 32 12) Levinson E (2007b), Authentic CSR Creates Higher Employee Engagement 13) Kahn WA (1990), Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work, Academy of Management Journal 14) Lockwood NR (2007), Leveraging employee engagement for competitive advantage: HRs strategic role, Society for Human Resource Management 15) Quarterly Sonnentag S (2003), Recovery, work engagement, and proactive behaviour: a new look at the interface between nonwork and work, Journal of Applied Psychology. 16) Watson Wyatt (2007), Playing to Win in a Global Economy: Global Strategic Rewards Report and United States Findings, Watson Wyatt Worldwide
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17) Luthans F, Peterson SJ (2002), Employee engagement and manager self efficacy implications for managerial effectiveness and development , Journal of Management Development 18) Robinson D, Hooker H, Hayday S (2007), Engagement: The Continuing Story, Institute for Employment Studies 19) BlessingWhite (2008), The State of Employee Engagement, BlessingWhite

20)Johnson M (2004), The new rules of engagement: lifework balance and employee commitment, The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
21) Roffey Park Institute (2008) 22) Employee Engagement A review of current thinking, Gemma Robertson-Smith and Carl Markwick 23) Sharma R.R. and Sharma B.R., "Organizational Commitment and Motivation among Managerial Staff," Productivity, 44 (2), 251-257 (2003)

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