Employee Engagement
The vital importance of employee engagement in boosting organizational performance and well-being of the employees emphasizes the necessity to develop an effective strategy towards promotion of engagement among employees. The purpose of this paper is to identify the principle drivers for employee engagement and suitable tools for measuring it; propose relevant people resourcing, development, performance and communication strategies to raise levels of employee engagement; identify barriers to the acceptance of employee engagement strategies and the ways to overcome or minimize them; and outline an ‘employee value proposition’ to promote high levels of workforce engagement.
Principle Drivers for Employee Engagement
The key drivers for employee engagement identified in the research literature are effective communication within the organization and employees’ perception of being well-informed, employees having opportunities to feed views upwards, and employees’ belief that their manager is committed to the organization (CIPD, 2009; Kular, Gatenby, Rees, Soane, & Truss, 2008). The study conducted by Robinson et.al in 2004 suggests that the strongest driver of employee engagement is the feeling of being valued and involved, which comes from a variety of components. These are effective leadership, two-way communication, a focus on employee development though training, development, and career, high levels of internal co-operation, a commitment to employee wellbeing and family friendliness, clear human resources policies and practices, pay, benefit and appraisal (Ahlowalia, Tiwary, & Jha, 2014). A metaanalysis of the drivers of employee engagement conducted by a global consulting non-profit organization, The Conference Board, in 2006 identified eight drivers: trust and integrity, which refers to the manager’s communication of truth and demonstration of company’s values though their personal behavior; nature of job, in particular how varied and challenging it is; the understanding of relation between personal and organizational performance; opportunities for carrier growth; pride about the organization; team members and co-workers and personal relations with them; employee development, which refers to the perceived efforts of the organization to develop employee’s skills; comfort in relationships with one’s manager (Ahlowalia, Tiwary, & Jha, 2014). It is important to note that the relative strength of each driver varies depending on the organization and particular individuals.
Suitable Tools for Measuring Employee Attitudes
Employee attitudes are measured by a structured survey. The great advantage of surveys is that they provide data revealing not only the level of employee engagement, but also the factors contributing and leading to it in a particular organization, which is sustained by appropriate statistical analysis. The results of the surveys can be used together with other data such as absenteeism and turnover rate, sales figures, customer satisfaction, quality measures to explain the variances (Purcell, 2010). Due to linkage research, employee engagement has got a framework, with the help of which employers assess levels of employees engagement with company-wide attitude surveys. The key themes linked to employees engagement, which are included in the survey questions are: pride in employer; satisfaction with employer; job satisfaction; challenging work and opportunity to perform well at it; …
