HR5053QA: Analyzing Employee Engagement and its Stakeholder Impact

This essay explores employee engagement in contemporary firms, focusing on its implications for organizations and stakeholders, using Cisco as a case study. It defines employee engagement, highlights its importance in boosting productivity, retaining employees, and fostering a positive work culture. The essay details Cisco's approach to employee engagement, including its business conduct code and Pulse Survey, which assesses employee feedback across various categories. It discusses the implications of these engagement modes on the organization, such as improved performance management and increased workforce capacity, as well as on stakeholders, including employees, shareholders, customers, and suppliers. The essay also touches upon relevant motivational theories, such as reward management theory, to further enhance employee performance and commitment.

ORGANIZATION DESIGN
AND MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY.......................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Organization design and management refers to the procedure of positioning the structure of
the organization with its business's objectives and with the eventual aim of rising the effectiveness
and efficiency (Daft., 2020). For every organization its employees are the precious assets that the
organization holds. Cisco is an American multinational technology corporation which is
headquartered in California. The company deals in developing, manufacturing and selling software,
networking hardware, telecommunications equipments and many other high technology products
and services. This essay will comprise the explanation on employee engagement, importance of the
employee engagement and description of the mode used by Cisco in order to manage its employee
engagement in the organization. Further, the implications of the mode of engagement used, in the
organization and stakeholder with empirical evidence and relevant theories are addressed.
MAIN BODY
Every organization that takes place in the market or already exists in the market has a
workforce working for them, in order to help the organization achieve its goals and objectives. For
each organization its workforce is the most crucial factor without which the organization can not
perform in the market. Keeping the employees engaged with the work and their interest aligned
within the work is the foremost responsibility of a business (Sun and Bunchapattanasakda., 2019).
Employee engagement refers to the level, to which the employees are ready to invest in their
cognitive, behavioural energies and emotional face towards the constructive organizational
outcomes. It is a concept of human resource that showcase the dedication and enthusiasm of the
employee towards the job.
Once the employees become engaged with the organization, they start caring about the
work, their performance and the productivity of the company which gives them a sense of
accomplishment. An engaged employee do not care about the pay check, but are more focused
towards the company's success and their performance in it. There are various reasons for which the
employee engagement plays a crucial role in the workplace but it can be very critical as well, when
it comes to the job satisfaction. Here are some examples of why the employee engagement holds an
important factor; it boosts the productivity of the company, helps the company to retain its best
employees, promotes a good work culture, helps to increase the customer satisfaction and build
good relationships at work (Alaimo., 2022).
These examples are the underrated factors behind the company's success, but these are also

some small factors which, when kept in mind and taken into consideration, can make the company
reach new heights. The more the workers are engaged with the organization's work and interest, the
more will be the productivity of the company. Company's way of keeping the interest of the
company and workers aligned, have a positive relationship with the success of the company. There's
a saying, that the workers who are confident about the work they do and who are very passionate
about their job, often are the best people to retain the customers for the company and turn out to be
the person who brings maximum sales to the company (Young, And et.al., 2018).
Thus, employee engagement boosts the confidence of the workers and help them to perform
better, their daily operations. A good work culture of an organization attracts good candidates
towards it. With the great degree of employee engagement in the workplace, the employee amongst
themselves tend to maintain good relationships with each other and together perform to give a great
result to the company. Cisco's definition of its employee engagement is the connection which their
employees feel towards its strategies, business execution and Cisco's vision with the continuous
realization of the company's objectives overtime. For the company, it's business conduct code is a
resource on which the employees of the company can rely for the guidance as all the employees of
the company wish to attempt their operations with integrity.
The code focuses on the ethical and honest conducts, including the actual ethical handling or
battle of interests between professional and personal relationships. It also focuses on the accurate,
full, timely and fair understandable documents and reports that the company file or put forward in
front of the government agencies during public communications. The company concentrates on the
protection of the propriety and confidential information about itself, its employees, customers,
contractors, vendors and partners. It has a compliance with applicative governmental rules,
directives, regulations and laws. With all the modes to keep the employees engaged with the
organization the company is very punctual and it also takes care of every code to be followed. It
keeps a watch over the rules and regulations and instantly deals with the violations of the code if
found, any.
The company has held each employee working in the business accountable to the Cisco code
of business conduct. Cisco also has a census survey named as Pulse Survey, which is concerned
with the employees feedback on the organization, through which the company can keep their
employees excited for the work they do. Pulse survey has 54 main questions belonging to 10
different categories. The 10 categories are in context to an understanding about the employees
opinion and what are the things which they need the company to change (Alikhanova., Mineva and
Smirnova., 2020). For example, Cisco as a workplace, engaged with what is the perspective of the
employees towards the company, Career development, engaged with what scope of career

advancement do the employees see in the organization, Recognition and results, associated with the
employees good result and recognition given to them for that, Cooperation and teamwork, linked
with what the workers of the company think about the place's teamwork and collaboration between
its co-workers, Business understanding, in context to the employee's belief in Cisco and their role
towards the company's success, Empowerment, engaged with how the workers regard their
authority and autonomy, Ethics and honesty, linked with trust employees hold towards the
leadership, Job satisfaction, associated with the employees feeling towards the work they do,
Manager, where they think is the direct intervention of manager is troubling them, and lastly, work
group, which helps to identify how the employees think about the groups and teams in which they
work. These are all the questions which the company take into consideration to determine the level
of the employee engagement and mend the organizational design accordingly in order to attain
maximum productivity from the employees and retain them for a longer period.
Implications of the modes of employee engagement for the organization: Every company
always try to improve their organizational environment to satisfy their employees. There are several
practices that the technological organization of Cisco employs for maintaining its employee
engagement such as recognition of employee's workplace efforts and rewarding them accordingly,
understanding their professional and personal requirements, empowerment, etc. It is very necessary
to build strong employee relationship for a healthy environment. The growth of the organization is
depended on the employees work. If the relation between the employees and their higher authorities
is not good it will affect the growth of company (Malhotra and Jain).
The employee experience in the Cisco tech-based firm holds a good amount of significance
in the organization for its growth. This means that the modes or uses of employee engagement
tactics have many implications on the working of the organization. It has been clearly identified that
the employees are getting their salary time to time, are also rewarded by the company, receive
necessary medical benefits, paid leaves, etc. Such intrinsic and extrinsic benefits provides job
satisfaction to the work personnel and also impacts the company itself. It can be seen in the form of
an excellent performance management of the organization (Shaik and Makhecha, 2019).
The management of the Cisco organization timely encourages their employees by providing
themn with rewards which motivate them to put in their best efforts keeping in line with the
company's goals and objectives. This has not only driven the technology firm's talent generation and
management but has also increased its workforce capacity to almost 140,000 persons both at its
offices and in work from home basis. By focusing and applying its major resources on its human
potential the company has witnessed more and more demands of engineering jobs, cybersecurity

applications and a lot of other customer engagement that has raised its sales and revenue growth.
The networking organization also employs its HR department and other management teams
for increasing the motivation of its desk personnel so that they remain contented with what they do
along with work commitment. One of the main elements that this company uses in its workplace is
Hybrid work zone. This provides flexibility of work time for their employees by allowing them
where to work and at what time. It reduces work pressure of employees and helps them to work in
shift as per their suitable hours from the comfort of their homes. Such and many other engagement
factors have positively impacted the Cisco organizational design and management (Turner, 2019).
Implications of the modes of employee engagement for the company stakeholders:
Stakeholders are those individuals who are either directly or indirectly involved in the
organizational structure and its business. These can be defined as those persons or entities who get
influenced by the company's position and success depending on the particular variability of their
importance. These are categorized in two groups – internal (employees, CSR leaders, etc.) and
external (customers, government, executives). Besides the organization itself, there are some key
stakeholders of Cisco company wo also get affected by its employee engagement methods.
Internal stakeholders: Employees are very important stakeholders for Cisco for their
business. As per the 2021 statistics there are more than 75,000 people working on different posts in
the IT firm. Employers are the face of their company. Cisco provides different pay level for the job
because there are large number of employees are working on different post. Good engagement
levels maintain a reputation of the organization in the market. Shareholders are another of the
internal stakeholders of the company because they invest in the firm to earn profit. Without the
shareholders its communication and collaboration business would not exist. Increase in its
shareholders helps the company's financial growth thereby expanding its business all around the
world. Shareholders purchase share to invest on Cisco and get good returns on their investment due
to a stable workmanship of the firm (Yazbek, 2022).
The management team is also an important stakeholder as it plays a major part in achieving
the organizational goals by maintaining good relation with their employees. The sales marketing
tries to understand customer need and always provide the best service to their customers. The HR
department focuses on the planning, recruitment, and training of the employees which is possible
due to a good level of workers' engagement.
External stakeholders: Customers always want innovative product with good quality and
lower price. Cisco has succeeded till now in taking care of its varied customers needs through a
strong and stable inter-relationship among its employees and other management teams. Satisfied
employees give better output that helps to increase its business sales and profit. Suppliers are also

impacted by the company's personnel engagement. The government and other regulatory bodies are
major entities at stake in the business. The committed employees of Cisco follow the work and legal
guidelines cautiously due to which the firm is able to maintain its reputation (Groeger and et.al.,
2019).
Every business organization is made up of its personnel, management teams, external
stakeholders, and its end users. An employer recruits people based on their understanding and intent
of achieving the desired goals and objectives. This is accomplished with proper employee
management. There are many workplace challenges that threatens company's productivity such as
strategy execution, change management, etc. These can be mitigated by an understanding and
application of relevant motivational theories/models among Cisco's workforce personnel to drive
high performance encouragement.
Reward management theory: Employees of the Cisco organization should be motivated
intrinsically thereby increasing their self-confidence and potential to work efficiently. The
performance index of the staff members rises with good motivational policies. This leads to an
increased efficiency in improved work performance abilities and the overall business output gets
benefited. The UK based technological firm continually initiates new development programs to get
peak performance out of its workforce. This includes addressing budget reductions with increase in
salaries, training forums, and incorporating several gender diversity pledges (Perkins and Jones,
2020).
Appreciated and motivated employees tend to remain loyal to the organization by reaching
the workplaces on time and taking minimum to no leaves at all. This motivated environment makes
the work enterprise more attractive to the workers. They will work harder, smarter, faster, and better
than before. The Cisco company faces a reduced rate of absenteeism of its workers. Every
individual possesses a distinguished skill-set which should be recognized and rewarded as per
employee performance.
Maslow's heirarchy of employee motivation: There exists an array of motivational theories
that offers invaluable insights into driving workplace motivation and is critical for robustly
engaging employees to the company's goals. One such theory is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Theory which was developed by Abraham Maslow which outlines five basic requirements for every
individual that should be met either personally or professionally This framework is highly
recommended among all management teams including the Cisco organization for keeping their
employees satisfied (Acquah and et.al., 2021). In Maslow's hierarchy theory the physiological
factor is at the lowest rung of the ladder. This covers the basic survival needs such as provision of

food, water, warmth, and rest which must be addressed before moving on to the next level. In the
organizational context of Cisco, this includes good pay, cafeteria and recreation time given to its
employees.
Next above the survival needs is safety or security which includes protection from external
threats and ensures emotional well-being. Here employees can be given safe working conditions
with job security benefits. The third level comprises socialization aspects catering to people's love
and belongingness needs. This consists of friendships, healthy acquaintances, etc. to elevate a sense
of kinship. Professionally it includes good work relations and decent associations. The remaining
two needs make up the higher level hierarchy starting with self-esteem and confidence.
When a person feels acknowledged then it leads to a positive self-image. The Cisco firm's
employees avail this as the management helps maintain their prestige, status, and job title. Self-
actualization comes at the top of this pyramid and contributes to a person's motivational drive. This
need helps in the growth and advancement of an individual. In workplaces, this can mean enhancing
an employee's potential with a challenging job and praising achievements. These theoretical models
for employee encouragement can be successfully used in various contemporary firms including
Cisco company for gaining more work commitment out of their employees. Some other empirical
theories and models that can be used for shaping a good organizational design are scientific
management, social exchange theory, psychological contract, etc.
CONCLUSION
The above essay report has comprehensively identified the multiple aspects of employee
engagement in the context of Cisco information technology firm. It has expressly stated the
implications of various engagement methods on the company's organizational and management
structure along with its impacts on its key stakeholders. The report has succintly defined and
explained what is meant by employee engagement in conjunstion with its purpose and significance.
It has also identified the several modes of engagement methods that the organization uses to keep its
employees motivated and committed. The essay study has further demonstrated the useful
application of certain relevant theories such as Maslow's heirarchy of needs and reward
management models for the specific benefit of the chosen firm.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Acquah, A., and et.al., 2021. Literature Review on Theories of Motivation. EPRA International
Journal of Economic and Business Review. 9(5). pp.25-29.
Alaimo, C.J., 2022. Understanding How the Company Got Here and the Importance of Employee
Engagement. In HR Leadership During Bankruptcy and Organizational Change (pp. 11-
21). Springer, Cham.
Alikhanova, L.H., Mineva, O.K. and Smirnova, D.S., 2020, May. Employee online surveys:
Satisfaction, engagement, loyalty, and readiness for personal branding. In International
Conference on Economics, Management and Technologies 2020 (ICEMT 2020) (pp. 553-
559). Atlantis Press.
Daft, R.L., 2020. Organization theory & design. Cengage learning.
Groeger, L., and et.al., 2019. Adapt fast or die slowly: Complex adaptive business models at Cisco
Systems. Industrial Marketing Management. 77. pp.102-115.
Malhotra, S. and Jain, I., JOB SATISFACTION AND EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT: BPO
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Perkins, S.J. and Jones, S., 2020. Reward management: Alternatives, consequences and contexts.
Kogan Page Publishers.
Shaik, F.F. and Makhecha, U.P., 2019. Drivers of employee engagement in global virtual
teams. Australasian Journal of Information Systems. 23.
Sun, L. and Bunchapattanasakda, C., 2019. Employee engagement: A literature review.
International Journal of Human Resource Studies. 9(1). pp.63-80.
Turner, P., 2019. Employee engagement in contemporary organizations: Maintaining high
productivity and sustained competitiveness. Springer Nature.
Yazbek, A., 2022. Implementing a Custom ERP in Nine Months and on Budget With Cisco
Systems. Available at SSRN 4113315.
Young, H.R. And et.al., 2018. Who are the most engaged at work? A meta‐analysis of personality
and employee engagement. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 39(10). pp.1330-1346.