Employee Engagement in Contemporary Firms: Aspects and Implications

This report discusses the importance of employee engagement in contemporary firms and identifies different aspects of employee engagement in some contemporary firms such as leadership, motivation, outsourcing, organisational culture, corporate social responsibility, and change. It also discusses the implications of employee engagement on the organisation and its stakeholders.

Organisation Design
and Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Identify different aspects of employee engagement in some contemporary firms. What are the
implications for the organisation and its stakeholders?..........................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
References:.......................................................................................................................................8
Books and Journals.................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
One of the fundamental reasons for the existence of a business organisation is the profit earned
by the business. Organisations try to seek to build good working environment for the effective
management and order to maximize the productivity of their workforce (Ferzi and et. al., 2020).
In order to have efficient and successful business organisation and appropriate design and
management of an organisation are the most crucial factors that companies should consider.
Employee engagement is one of the most important factors for some of the contemporary forms
in order to maintain high quality of performance of the employees and to increase the
profitability and productivity of the business. Basically employee’s engagement is the workplace
approach in which employees engage themselves with the organisation and feel that their efforts
are valuable and recognised by the firm. Present report will identify different factors of employee
engagement in some different contemporary firms and its implications over the stakeholders in
the organisation using theory and empirical evidences.
MAIN BODY
Identify different aspects of employee engagement in some contemporary firms. What are the
implications for the organisation and its stakeholders?
Employee engagement is the most important concept and part of human resource
management within an organisation because employees are the lifeblood of an organisation. This
term basically refers the level of involvement and interaction of the workforce with the
organisation and for organisation (Palumbo, 2021). In simple words it the degree of enthusiasm
and dedication of an employees for its job. An engaged employees is the asset for an
organisation as its cares about their work and show their full efforts and give their best through
their performance for the company’s success. Different organisation has different factors of
employee’s engagement and each has its implications on organisations and its stakeholders that
are discussed below:
Leadership
Leadership is one of the most important aspects of employee engagement as a good
leadership within an organisation develops an open and communicative environment for the
employees to engage. For example for the contemporary firm like Tesco Plc- a British largest
supermarket chain follows this aspect very sincerely in order to create the employees
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engagement. In Tesco Plc there is incorporation different leadership style that helps the leaders
of the company to build an organisational structure and environment that maximizes the
engagement of the employees (Hannah and et. al., 2020). As employees are always desperate to
build a meaningful, friendly and healthy relationship with their leaders and managers for which
the compliance of appropriate leadership style in an organisation is essential. In Tesco the there
is incorporation of two types of leadership style transformational and transactional leadership
style. With the help of transactional leadership style the leaders and managers of the Tesco Plc
always tend to reward the employees to achieve their full efforts and optimality in their job
performance. This brings more productivity and better returns and success rate in organisation of
Tesco and the stakeholders of the company are able to look that employees are working with
their full potential. Also the stakeholders of the Tesco believes that through transactional
leadership style the company brings twice effective impact on employees motivation level and
this leadership style is the greatest predictor for the employees commitment for the organisation
and its objectives (Sobaih and et. al., 2020). Also for example will the help of transactional
leadership style the leaders of the Tesco Plc create an organisational structure that transparently
and clearly defines the job roles and responsibilities of the employees working in that particular
environment that makes easy for the employees of the Tesco to have better communication and
involvement. In Tesco Plc there is also compliance of transformational leadership style which
basically used to create high performance by allowing the employees to enhance their power of
idea generation for innovation and to adapt change easily. Transformational leadership style
always influences the organisational members to attend the form goes with the innovation and
higher performance in order to exercises sustainable development within an organisation. This
brings the implications of the organisation by increasing the competencies for improvement for
the organisational performance and also influences the stakeholders by exploiting and renewing
the new opportunities from the market (Alrowwad and Abualoush, 2020).
Motivation
Another aspect of the employee’s engagement within the organisation is the motivation
among the employees to work collaboratively with the each other to work appropriately for the
firms benefits (Ryan, and Deci, 2020). For instance in the contemporary organisation like
Sainsbury for the employees engagement they are regularly motivated and encouraged to work
hard in order to develop personally and also for the growth of the firm. In order to motivate the
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employees of the Sainsbury the leaders of the Sainsbury determine the factors of two types of
motivation that is intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. The intrinsic motivation is a type
of motivation in which a person is motivated because of the personal growth or awards where is
in the extrinsic motivation the person complete the task for get motivated to complete the task in
order to earn the reward. Example Sainsbury complains of the Maslow needs of hierarchy which
is intrinsic motivational theory that satisfy the internal needs of an employee thereby motivating
employees to work harder for the personal recognition and satisfaction. There are different
intrinsic motivational factors that are considered by the Sainsbury such as curiosity, challenges,
recognition, corporation, competition etc. Through this employees feel engaged as the gold come
from within and their outcomes satisfy their psychological needs and make them competent and
profitable for the business of Sainsbury (Chang and et. al., 2020). But when working in business
organisation the most important motivational factors are the extrinsic motivational factors order
to keep the employees engaged with the business objectives. Sainsbury offers their employee’s
different extrinsic motivational factors surcharge financial rewards, praise and recognition,
appraisals, peer pressure etc. In order to complete the task with highest potential and best
performance the company drives a reward system in their HRM policy which motivates the
employees to give their best in order to on that reward in terms of monetary value or other
beneficiary. Thus, therefore the motivation is the key aspect of the employee engagement as this
allows employees to have personal satisfaction with the fulfilment of intrinsic motivation and
also help in earning rewards and recognition through extrinsic motivation. Therefore the Reward
and recognition system, continuous motivation is the part of contemporary business world
(Sansone and Tang, 2021). This helps the firm to keep the employees interactive and active
within firm as the employees like to gain extra benefits apart from salary in order to stay in firm.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is one of the business activity in which the organisations hire a party for a
company from outside in order to perform their services such as creation of goods or to train the
people. This activity of a business is human resource management practice that may bring
negative implication on the organisation and its stakeholders. Basically this practice is done to
cut the cost but sometimes due to this already working employees feel less recognised and
valuable for the company that produces their reduction in engagement with the organisation (Lee
and Lee, 2020). When Business like Rolls Royce a British automobile company that deals with
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the manufacturing of motor cars outsource the external companies for the manufacturing of the
engines are different technology oriented current employees engineers and technicians of the
company feel betrayed and invaluable for the organisation. due to this employees make
themselves less engaged for the business objectives and goals as they are not treated as important
as the outsourced staff. This creates ineffective management within an organisation due to which
there are the rise and disputes between the employees and the management of an organisation
thereby creating the reduction in the employee’s engagement which brings the negative
implication on the profitability and productivity of the Rolls-Royce. Due to this the stakeholders
are able to face the challenge of confidentiality and security thereby instability in the business.
The most negative implication of this aspect of the employees engagement is that the employees
feel less talented also there is less growth of the employees as they don’t feel welcomed to
perform outstanding for new challenges (Robert, Giuliani and Gurau, 2020). This form of
employee engagement brings the competition within the firm as the current working employees
feel more competitive therefore, work with more energy and passion in order to showcase their
best performance. This helps the firms like Rolls Royce to increase the efficiency of their
workforce and sometime the outsourcing is to train the employees for the new technology, new
techniques of designing the cars, engine functioning etc. to meet the customer requirements is
helpful to rolls Royce in increasing the level of satisfaction of employees are learning, training
and development is the important part of employee engagement as through this the employees
feel that they needs are recognised by the management of the company (Arsadi, 2020). This
increases the employee’s turnover in the company and employees feel more responsible for
completing the objectives of the company.
Organisational culture
The structure, design, management, policies etc. are the factors that integrates together to
construct an organisational culture. Every firm has different organisational culture which
completely depends on their product they offer in market, number of employees, in which
countries they exist etc. A productive, flexible, communicable and employee friendly
organisational culture is important for the firm to gain the most out of their employees (Erthal
and Marques, 2020). For instance the Unilever is the multinational organisation that is located in
many countries and has different organisational culture for the employees in order to keep them
engaged with the company’s centralized objectives. Unilever has a diversified workforce due to
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which for company it is very essential to have multi-culture organisational culture every
employees is been respected by their mangers and leaders without any biasness or differentiation.
A business psychologist Edgar Schein developed an theory to understand and analyse the
organisational culture of the firm which is followed by the Unilever in its firm. As per this model
the organisational culture is dived into three distinct level i.e. artifacts, values and assumptions.
Artifacts are the obvious part of the firm. It is basically an outer structure and elements of the
organisation such as layout of firm, furniture, dress norms, games and foods in office are all the
part of the artifacts. All this important for an employee’s when entering into workplace therefore
these are considered under the part of organisational culture. The second and most important
element of the organisational culture of Unilever is Espoused values which means the norms and
values that company follow and wants their employees to follow in order to create a good
organisational culture. Values are very important part of Unilever in order to build employees
engagement as the values of an employee’s affect the member’s interaction and representation
within the organisation (Advantage, 2020). Therefore the Unilever has strict rules and norms for
the Espoused values in order to avoid discrimination and also to respect each other’s believes,
cultures, and values. At last, the shared basic assumption is considered as the bedrock of the
Unilever’s organisational culture. They are the beliefs and behaviour’s that are embedded in the
person that are not visible sometimes easily. But these are the essence of the organisational
culture by which employees are engaged together with each other and with the organisation and
then share a strong belief of providing a best service to their customers. there are many other
dimensions of the organisational culture that multinational organisation’s like Unilever consider
while expanding in order the employees trust for the company such as collectivism, power
distance index etc. Hence, a healthy and friendly organisational culture is the key to high
employee engagement.
Corporate social responsibility
CSR has become the most important part the today’s contemporary business environment
as through this business are running and operating them ethically and legally correct. When any
organisation is committed to operate ethically and legally correct and also contribute to society
through their products and services their employee engagement is double as they are proud of
their workplace and also feel proud that their contribution in firm is good for community (Islam
and et. al., 2021). Successful organisation like Tesla is effectively addressing their
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manufacturing; services of car sustainability by developing the sustainable development goals
that will reduce the impact of their services on environment and out lift the community
standards. Such successful companies are always good in corporate social responsibility and are
highly connected with the society. Through the Tesla also encourage employees to participate in
the good causes that will make the world and community in which they live a better place. This
message of Tesla is the big reason for high employee engagement in the company. thus, the
employees engagement and its definition is changing with the time of modernization as now
people are not only engaging for their benefit but also to contribute in society (Boff and
Cardwell, 2020).
Change
Change is essential and part and parcel of the business. Every contemporary organisation such as
Morrison’s feels that with the changing employee’s needs, expectation and with e diversified
workforce the change is essential in order to keep engaging the employees with the company’
changing environment, policies, product creating techniques etc. One of the famous Scientist
Kotter’s has derived the change management model to maintain the employee’s engagement
after and in process of change. According to this change model there are 8 steps to make the
change stick and adaptable by the employees of the Morrison’s. The first step is increase urgency
for employees to relate with change it is important for firm to build an environment that will help
the employee’s analyse that needs change to exploit opportunity or reduce threat etc. Building a
interactive, communicative and productive team is also part of change and this stage builds
relationship of management with employees. Developing a vision for employees to work hard to
adapt change is essential (Korzhova, 2020). Also such things will help employees to stick with
changes and empower the actions that will increase the performance in order to meet
organisational goals as per the changes.
Hence, it is analysed that all these aspects of employee’s engagement are implicating an
organisation and its stakeholders by informing a firms about the factors that can increase a level
of engagement of employees for the firm. As this is important for the company to increase their
profitability and also to maintain their work balance ad employees relationship.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded form the above information that for the organisation to foster its performance in
market and to gain utmost competency the company must pay attention to very need of the
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employees keep them highly engaged with the organisation. There are different ways by which
contemporary organisations or firms are building the concept of employee’s engagement through
their HR policies, leadership styles, business practices like CSR, motivation, organisational
culture etc. One the most important aspect o all thus that every company must follow is the
appropriate motivation factor as through motivation employees feel more recognised and
involved with the company feel to work more harder to bring best in firm. Thus for this leader of
the business must choose best leadership style, should pursue ethical and sustainable developed
goals and keep adapting change for the betterment.
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References:
Books and Journals
Advantage, C., 2020. Corporate Social Responsibility. CSR and Socially Responsible Investing
Strategies in Transitioning and Emerging Economies. 65.
Alrowwad, A.A. and Abualoush, S.H., 2020. Innovation and intellectual capital as intermediary
variables among transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and organizational
performance. Journal of Management Development.
Arsadi, A., 2020. The Differences in Work Discipline between Permanent Employees and
Contract Employees (Outsourcing) Based on Rewards, Punishment, and Leadership Style in
Service and Manufacturing Companies in Tangerang Regency, Banten–
Indonesia. International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding. 7(10).
pp.108-119.
Boff, C.T. and Cardwell, C.A., 2020. Anchoring Change: Using the Kotter Change Management
Framework to Analyze & Facilitate Change in Academic Libraries.
Chang, Y and et. al., 2020. Effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on social loafing in
online travel communities. Computers in Human Behavior, 109, p.106360.
Erthal, A. and Marques, L., 2020. Organisational culture in lean construction: managing
paradoxes and dilemmas. Production Planning & Control, pp.1-19.
Ferzi, N and et. al., 2020. The Reasons for Outsourcing Employees Engagement and its
Consequences in Indonesia. Productivity management. 25(4). pp.141-154.
Hannah, S.T and et. al., 2020. Bolstering workplace psychological well-being through
transactional and transformational leadership. Journal of Leadership & Organizational
Studies. 27(3). pp.222-240.
Islam, T and et. al., 2021. The impact of corporate social responsibility on customer loyalty: The
mediating role of corporate reputation, customer satisfaction, and trust. Sustainable
Production and Consumption. 25. pp.123-135.
Korzhova, A., 2020. Change Management and Sustainability in a Business Context.
Lee, G.R. and Lee, S., 2020. How outsourcing may enhance job satisfaction in the US federal
bureaucracy: Exploring the role of knowledge sharing. The American Review of Public
Administration. 50(4-5). pp.387-400.
Palumbo, R., 2021. Engaging to innovate: an investigation into the implications of engagement
at work on innovative behaviors in healthcare organizations. Journal of Health Organization
and Management.
Robert, M., Giuliani, P. and Gurau, C., 2020. Implementing industry 4.0 real-time performance
management systems: the case of Schneider Electric. Production Planning & Control, pp.1-
17.
Ryan, R.M. and Deci, E.L., 2020. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination
theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary
Educational Psychology. 61. p.101860.
Sansone, C. and Tang, Y., 2021. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and self-determination
theory. Motivation Science. 7(2). p.113.
Sobaih, A.E.E and et. al., 2020. The impact of transactional and transformational leadership on
employee intention to stay in deluxe hotels: Mediating role of organisational
commitment. Tourism and Hospitality Research, p.1467358420972156.
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