Employee Engagement and Absenteeism at Marks & Spencer: Report

This essay explores employee engagement at Marks & Spencer, examining the strategies implemented to reduce employee absenteeism and improve overall engagement levels. It discusses the importance of employee engagement for attracting and retaining talent, improving productivity, and enhancing profitability. The essay highlights various programs used by Marks & Spencer, such as internal social media networks and reward systems, while also considering both the positive and negative aspects of employee engagement, including potential burnout and the impact of employee personality. It concludes that while employee engagement is crucial for organizational success, a balanced approach is necessary to avoid negative consequences and ensure sustainable improvements in employee performance. Desklib offers similar essays and study resources for students.

Essay

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
Employee engagement............................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCE...................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Employee engagement is defined as the concept of human resource that describes the
level of dedication and enthusiasm of workers towards their job. Engaged employees perform
determined task with efficiency and contribute in attaining determined task in best possible
manner as well as reduce the absenteeism (Schroeder and Modaff, 2018). In this report chosen
organisation is Marks and Spencer which is founded in 1884 and headquarter situated in London,
England, UK. Organisation deals in clothing, home and food products. This report covers the
employee engagement programmes that are conducted by the organisation for reduce the level of
absenteeism of employees and improve their engagement level. Along with that positive and
negative factors of employee engagement are discussed in this project report.
MAIN BODY
Employee engagement
Employee engagement programme or activities are defined as the mechanism that is used
by the organisations define and priorities their actions for the purpose of improving employee
engagement. To improve employee engagement, various programmes are conducted by the
Marks & Spencer that make employees feel comfortable and improve their working
performance. Respective organisation analyses the major drivers like career growth, wellness &
balance, clear mission and purpose, benefits and compensation, recognition and rewards and
leadership that plays important role in employees happiness and satisfaction.
Employee engagement is important for business for attracting and retaining employees
with organisation for longer period of time (DO YOU UNDERSTAND EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT? YOU NEED TO, 2022). As strong workforce creates strong team that help
organisation in growth and development. Engagement of employees decrease employee turnover,
retain skilled and experienced employees and improve organisational productivity, efficiency as
well as profitability. Marks and Spencer adopts uses various employee engagement programmes
such as traditional cost cutting method and technology for the purpose of improving employees
morale and reduce their turnover rate. For an instance, organisational internal social media
network Yammer helps to bring workers together as well as congratulate them for their hard
work. Organisation also conducts various rewards and recognition programmes in the form of
announcing employee-of the month on its internal communication page that inspire employees

(RECOGNITION: THE KEY DRIVER IN EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT, 2017). Marks &
Spencer also acknowledge employees excellent work and offer incentives on the basis if their
performance (Marks and Spencer takes a mixed approach to staff motivation, 2021). Respective
organisation introduces innovative recognition method at workplace that helps organisation to
acknowledge the great work of each employees and share it with rest team of M&S that
motivated employees and engage them with organisation.
There are various steps are followed by the Marks & Spencer to develop employee
engagement programme such as in first step, managers directly communicate employees and
asked about their experience from job than provide them opportunities for learn and growth. In
next stage, organisation motivated employees to work hard and recognise their efforts as well as
check staff member's performance on regular bases for enhancing their engagement level. There
are various positive and negative factors that affect employee engagement (Rao, 2017).
Respective organisation analyses these factors and take suitable decisions for improving
employee engagement in organisation that helps business to attain determined goals and
objectives with efficiency and effectiveness.
On one hand, employee engagement is helpful for organisation to reduce employee absenteeism
improve their working performance as well as help organisation to accomplish defined goals and
objectives in specific period of time. The concept of employee engagement motivates employee
and retain them for longer period of time with organisation.
To support this opinion, recent study shows that engaged and dedicated employees plays
important role in the growth and success of organisation. Marks & Spencer creates various
programmes and policies such as rewarding employees, recognising their work and provide
benefits for their extra efforts and performance that motivate employees and enhance their
engagement with organisational operations activities. It reduces employee’s absenteeism as well
as retain them with organisation for longer period of time.
It is true that, employee engagement increase employee productivity, reduce employee turnover,
enhance customer satisfaction and lead business as well as employees towards growth and
development. Marks & Spencer emphasis on engaging employees so they perform business
operations in efficient manner and contribute to attain determined goals and objectives in
effective way.

Employees engagement helps business to motivate employees through engaging them in
meetings and decision-making process. It motivates employees to perform defined operations in
best possible manner that helps in the growth of employees as well as organisation. Marks &
Spencer engage employees in decisions that improves the overall effectiveness of decisions that
enable business to deal with problems with efficiency and lead all efforts and activities towards
success (How to Start an Employee Engagement Program, 2022). Through employee
engagement strategies and programmes, organisation retain skilled, experiences and talented
staff members that reduce the requirement of hiring new employees again which reduce overall
cost of business. The activity of employee engagement provides a platform to employees to
prove their potentiality and add their value through improve their participation in decision-
making process. Along with that, other positive factor of employee engagement is that it
increases the capacity of employees as well as sense of responsibility that improve their
contribution towards attaining determined goals and objectives.
On the other hand, Employee engagement has dark side as well because it pushing employees
into burnout and giving them unfair edge to certain personality types and put pressure in
employees to perform determined operations in efficient manner that lead them towards
dissatisfaction from organisation.
As in the case of Marks & Spencer, Organisation creates various strategies and develop planning
for improving employee engagement that improve their performance level. as positive mind-set
brings openness as well as creativity that make employees focused towards their activities. On
the other hand, it put stress on employees to become more focused and target driven that enable
them to drive positive performance outcomes (The Dark Side of High Employee Engagement,
2022). In this case employee feel that negative moods are more persistence than those who have
positive mind-set. If organisation pushing their employees towards high engagement than they
become frustered and their working performance also reduced at the same time. Employee
engagement depends employee’s personality, if employees are pessimistic, introvert moody and
demanding it impact them negatively because they are not ready to understand organisational
policies and work as per their conditions.
Marks & Spencer managers understand employees thinking and mind-set than motivates
them accordingly that improve their engagement as well as performance level. Organisation
provide various benefits to employees that enable them to attain the objective of higher

performance and contribute in attaining organisational determined goals and objectives. As the
idea of implementing employee engagement programme is good for Marks & Spencer because it
helps business to retain employees with organisation and improve their working performance and
morale that helps business to attain determined goals and objectives with great efficiency and
effectiveness.
There are some other disadvantages of employee engagement that effect business
performance in negative manner. Sometimes, there are some policies which are not necessary to
discussed by the organisation with subordinates for the purpose of secrecy. In this case,
employee engagement relives top management policies and affect its performance (Saks, 2019).
In some situations, it is difficult for organisation to making things understandable by
subordinates that could be happened due to job positioning and differences in experiences of
employees that waste manager time and efforts as well. It is important for Marks & Spencer to
provide proper training to employees to engage them in important decisions which is quite time
consuming and expensive process (Mone and London, 2018). Sharing valuable information of
organisation to employees also creates the risk for business because there are high chances of
getting information leaked that impact overall performance level of business.
CONCLUSION
As per the above report, it can be concluded that employee engagement is the emotional
commitment of employees towards their organisation and actions that lead business towards
growth and success. Engaged employees are dedicated, enthusiastic, accountable and result-
oriented. It helps business to handle the issue of employee absenteeism in proper manner.
Businesses conducts various employee engagement activities such as providing rewards and
recognition to employees, appraise their work as well as provide them incentives according to
their performance. Most people agree that there are various methods of improving employee
engagement that help business to improve employee’s motivation level as well as working
performance. Support of employees lead business in the direction of attaining determined goals
and objectives with efficiency and effectiveness. There are positive and negative factors of
employee engagement that impacts overall performance and functioning of business. It is
important for organisation to consider both aspect of issue than develop effective employee
engagement programme that help business to solve the issue of employee turnover in efficient
manner.

REFERENCE
Book and journal
Mone, E.M. and London, M., 2018. Employee engagement through effective performance
management: A practical guide for managers. Routledge.
Rao, M.S., 2017. Innovative tools and techniques to ensure effective employee
engagement. Industrial and Commercial Training.
Saks, A.M., 2019. Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement revisited. Journal of
Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance.
Schroeder, S. and Modaff, D.P., 2018. Exploring employee engagement through
communication. Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, 19(1), pp.35-43.
ONLINE:
DO YOU UNDERSTAND EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT? YOU NEED TO.2022 [Online]
available through:<https://www.cornerstone.edu/blog-post/do-you-understand-
employee-engagement-you-need-to/>
Marks and Spencer takes a mixed approach to staff motivation.2021 [Online] available
through :<https://employeebenefits.co.uk/issues/may-2015/marks-and-spencer-takes-a-
mixed-approach-to-staff-motivation/>
RECOGNITION: THE KEY DRIVER IN EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT.2017 [Online]
available through:<file:///home/user/Downloads/NPS_ART_03_enGB_Employee
%20Engagement%20-%20A%20Culture%20Change.pdf.pdf>
How to Start an Employee Engagement Program.2022 [Online] available
through:<https://www.applauz.me/resources/building-an-employee-engagement-
program>
The Dark Side of High Employee Engagement. 2022 [Online] available through:<
https://hbr.org/2016/08/the-dark-side-of-high-employee-engagement>