Employee Engagement: Literature Review

Employee Engagement: Literature Review

Running Head: Literature Review
Contents
Literature review..............................................................................................................................2
Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
What is Employee Engagement?.................................................................................................3
History and Evolution of Employee Engagement........................................................................6
Antecedents of Employee Engagement and their impact............................................................8
Importance of Employee Engagement.......................................................................................11
Practitioner and Management Tools for Employee Engagement..............................................13
Immigration and its Antecedents...............................................................................................16
Need for Immigration.................................................................................................................19
New Zealand Statistics of Immigration.....................................................................................21
Good v/s Bad Consequences of Immigration............................................................................22
Migrant Employees v/s Local Employees.................................................................................24
References......................................................................................................................................28
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Running Head: Literature Review
Literature review
Introduction
To survive in the modern-era organizations the employees have to be enthusiastic and should
even take initiatives at work. The firms are not only concerned about their own development, but
also compel the employees to work for their personal career development also. In other words,
the company wants their employees to be engaged and this could only be attained when the
employees know that their leaders and their company on a whole respects their work and the
services they are discharging are eventually contributing to the overall development of the firm.
An employee is engaged when his personal ambitions of pay, rewards and growth are met by a
firm.
In these increasingly competitive markets and global corporate world, the companies are
working hard to keep the employees satisfied and determined and obtain necessary business
results. However, in order to obtain higher performance, the satisfied employees are not enough
because they will just meet the work demands in a given time frame. To be highly competitive an
employer needs to work beyond the satisfaction attainment of the employees and should
motivate them to deliver services with full energy (Allen M. , 2014). So to survive in the modern
organizations an employee needs to be enthusiastic at the workplace, excited about the services
they deliver, show creativity at work, accept challenges and remain competitive while delivering
services at work.
If a company manages to maintain high morale among the employees, it receives a number of
benefits as the active staff members are more productive and they remain loyal to a firm for a
longer duration. It is believed that the production level of companies with high level of
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Running Head: Literature Review
engagement is quite higher than their counterparts with low level of employee engagement
(USC, 2015). This concept has emerged as a popular organizational concept among the
practitioner audiences. The engaged workforce has become the prime asset and the topmost
priority for corporate executives. The employee engagement can also be a deciding factor for the
effectiveness of the organization as this factor has not only a capability to affect the retention and
loyalty of the employees, but it has a positive impact on the level of customer satisfaction also.
The reputation of the company is also improved and there’s a noticeable change in the overall
value of the stakeholder. Thus, to survive in this highly competitive environment the managers of
the firm are turning to the HR to set agenda for the improvement of the employee engagement
practices and commitment strategies (Wachter & Yorio, 2014).
What is Employee Engagement?
Employees are considered as a crucial asset of any organization and in the last few decades, there
has been a “talent war” which has compelled the organizations to not only attracts the topmost
talent, but also to retain it for a longer duration. One of the toughest challenges faced by the
CEOs, Human Resource Managers and other leaders in an organization is to connect the
employees not only physically in the workplace, but to compel them to establish an equal
emotional and mental connection with their work and the services they deliver on the daily basis.
The engaged employees contribute positively towards achieving the organizational
goals(Sanders, 2012).
Employee Engagement is a complex and a broad construct that includes ideas such as
commitment, loyalty, satisfaction, motivation and extra role behavior. An employee, who is
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Running Head: Literature Review
highly engaged, extends himself to meet the specific needs of the organization, take initiatives
when the firms are stuck and have to take crucial decisions, reinforces and creates the culture of
a firm, stays focused and vigilantly deliver his/her services and even possess a belief that their
services could make a huge difference in the firm’s status and brand identity in the current and
prospective markets. At a practical level, a firm usually defines Employee Engagement as an act
where employees consider themselves as an integral part of the company and usually have pride
and loyalty to the company. To make the strategies of the firm successful such employees
usually go “above and beyond the call of duty” (Kamau & Sma, 2016).
As the concept of Employee Engagement has gained a lot of popularity, there have been a
number of changes in its definition, conceptualization and measurement. The researchers in the
academic community have, however lagged in defining the term engagement as it is entirely a
new concept. Different researchers have given different definitions of this term. For instance,
Kahn (1900) who was considered as the “father of employee engagement movement” defines it
as the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles. He also stated that “in the
engagement people involve and express them physically, cognitively and emotionally during role
performances” (Knight, 2012). This means an employee has to be present both physically and
psychologically in order to discharge his/her duties in an effective manner and also undertake
organizational roles and responsibilities. According to Mortimer, employee engagement can be
defined as the commitment towards the firm and its values and also the willingness of the
employees and leaders to provide a precise guidance to the coworkers and subordinates.
Robinson, Perryman and Hayday (2004) defined this concept as an optimistic attitude of an
employee towards the firm and a strong belief in its cultural values. An employee who has been
engaged for long is aware of all the changes that are occurring in the business world; hence he
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Running Head: Literature Review
delivers services in order to improve the sales and profits of the firm (Tran, 2018). According to
them a two-way relationship could be built between the employees and the employers hence the
organization must work to nurture and develop the engagement. The engaged employees are
more satisfied with the work they deliver and they not only have much energy, but they apply
this energy enthusiastically to work also. Saks (2006) defined “employee engagement” as the
extent to which an individual is attentive and absorbed in their jobs and role given to them in the
workplace (Kular, Gatenby, Rees, Soane, & Truss, 2008). According to the author, Employee
Engagement is also a positive attitude one develops for the company he/she is serving. This
concept also improves the relationships between the employees and their leaders by establishing
better communication among them. Mone and London (2010) defined employee engagement as a
condition of the employee in which he/she feels motivated, involved, committed and passionate
towards the organization and demonstrates those feelings in his/her working behavior. This
means if an employee is highly engaged, then he is happy and this would be eventually reflected
in his working behavior. Bhatla (2011) tried to establish a close relation between engagement of
an employee with the firm and his/her psychological state during that period. He even stated that
an employee is highly engaged when it has a psychological commitment towards the assigned
task and this reflects the employee’s dedication towards his/her work (MacLeod & Clarke,
2018). Mani (2011) states that an engaged employee is aware of the changes occurring in the
business environment and hence closely aligns with his/her colleagues and leaders to improve
his/her individual performance and create a number of benefits for the organization. The engaged
employees put a focus on the future of the firm and also over his/her own future career growth.
Johnson (2014) has described this concept as the workplace approach in which the managers and
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Running Head: Literature Review
other leaders ensure that the employees are highly committed towards the goals and objectives of
the firm (Mehta & Mehta, 2013).
History and Evolution of Employee Engagement
The Employee Engagement appears a relatively new concept, but it goes back to over 25 years
when the term appeared for the first time in the academic journals in the year 1990. In the period
of 70s and 80s the HR focused on Employee Satisfaction only. This concept had no connection
with the quality of services delivered by the employees and even with the performance of an
individual employee. This concept only considers an employee and its connection with the firm
and not about the organization as a whole. Till this period an employee was just considered as a
“personnel”. With the advancements in the thoughts and ideas, the focus shifted from
satisfaction towards commitment and at that moment the “personnel” actually became “human
resources”. The employee will be loyal and committed towards an organization in return of the
job offered to him/her. Although commitment is a crucial element of engagement, however, it
cannot replace engagement (Shuck & Wollard, 2009).
As the global competition began to increase at a rapid pace, there was a requirement that the
employers should become more flexible and competitive. As the traditional industries were
closed and employees were cut back, at that moment the people realized that they need to be
more flexible in their career choices and grab the opportunities wherever they find them. The old
contract of “job for life” was broken and people were free from to explore and move from job to
job. This was benefitting the employees, but the employers were losing their top talents and
along with that a good amount of money and crucial resources of the company too. In the midst
of all these events the concept of Employee Engagement rose and an important act in this period
was the publication of a paper in Institute of Employment Studies (IES) titled, ‘From People to
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Running Head: Literature Review
Profits, the HR link to the service-profit chain’ (Byrne, 2019). This paper showed that with the
improved behavior and attitude of the employees at the workplace, there could be an
enhancement in the customer satisfaction and retention level and at the same time in the overall
sales performance. For the service based businesses, the old mantra ‘Staff is your greatest attest’
was demolished and a new one ‘Staff is your only asset’ was adopted. Due to this the leaders
began to invest greater assets in the incentives of the staff and as a result, there was a drastic
increase in the level of the employee commitment, motivation, productivity and eventually the
profit rates of the firm (Sharma & Kaur, 2014).
There was acceleration in the adoption of the concept of employee engagement by the firms as
another seminal study was conducted in the year 2002 which showed a precise link between the
employee engagement and the profit rates of the firm. The concept that was introduced back in
1990 was confined only to the academic level, but now this new concept of employee
engagement was applied at the practitioner level (Harvard Business School, 2013). The leaders
began to observe that this concept has a capability to affect a number of business measures like
employee recruitment and retention, sales, profits, turnover, customer satisfaction, etc.
There has been a drastic evolution in the concept of Employee Engagement. Two decades ago
when this concept gained popularity, then the focus shifted on overall satisfaction of the
employees as the employers had a belief that satisfied employees deliver better services than the
unsatisfied ones. But, the employee satisfaction process did not work out which forced the
employers to adopt employee commitment. This was introduced to improve staff loyalty to
reduce employee turnover. But, this also failed during the economic crisis as the employers had
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