Employee Engagement Report: Drivers, Benefits, and Strategies

This report delves into the multifaceted concept of employee engagement, analyzing its definition, dimensions, and components while differentiating it from related concepts like job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The study focuses on McDonald's, identifying the key drivers of employee engagement, such as management and leadership, pay and benefits, communication, meaningful work, and job design, and evaluating the resulting business benefits, including increased productivity, employee satisfaction, and improved organizational outcomes. Furthermore, the report explores the need to align engagement practices with broader corporate components, such as mission, vision, and values, and evaluates suitable diagnostic tools for measuring employee attitudes and engagement levels, including focus groups, periodic interviews, and attitude surveys. Finally, it examines the role of employee value propositions and HR strategies in fostering and raising employee engagement within the organization.

EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
1. Analysing the meaning, principle dimension and component of employee engagement and
comparing it with other related concept......................................................................................1
2. Identification of the principal drivers and evaluation of business benefit by employee
engagement..................................................................................................................................3
3. Explanation of the need for aligning engagement practices with other corporate components
.....................................................................................................................................................4
4. Evaluation of suitable diagnostic tools for measuring employee attitudes and level of
employee engagement.................................................................................................................5
5. Employee value proposition to promote levels of employee engagement..............................7
6. HR Strategies to raise employee engagement.........................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Businesses are being competitive, industries are looking new ways to encourage and
motivate employees to get engaged with the company. Employee engagement is one of the most
effective approaches that adopts by an organisation in order to ensure that employees within the
company have high dedication towards their work. Employee engagement can be defined as the
process of engaging employees and the level to which they feel committed towards their work.
The present study aims to analyse all the necessary elements related to the employee engagement
in the chosen company McDonald and will evaluate that how it differs from the job satisfaction
and employer involvement.
The key driver of employee engagement and evaluation of the befits from the employee
engagement to various stakeholder in the company will analyse. Furthermore, the study will
identify and evaluate use of analytical tool to measuring attitude of employees and the level of
engagement. Lastly, the study will help in understanding that how HR strategies and practices
can implement to raise a level of employee engagement in the organisation.
MAIN BODY
1. Analysing the meaning, principle dimension and component of employee engagement and
comparing it with other related concept
Definition of Employee engagement
Employee engagement defined as,
 “Employee engagement is about how we created the conditions in which employees offer
more of their capabilities and potential (Sengupta, Bamel and Singh, 2015).”
 “Employee engagement is a measurable degree of positive and emotional attachment of
an employee to their job, co-workers and the company that deeply influences their
willingness to learn and perform at the workplace.”
 Employee engagement can be defined as the level to the worker are passionate and
dedicated towards their work. This is an approach of workplace design to ensure that
employees are motivated towards the goal and objective of the company.
It can be refer to the strength of emotional and mental connection that employees feel
towards their workplace. Engagement is about creating opportunities for the employees to
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connect with their managers, colleagues and wider organisation. It is neither the happiness nor
the satisfaction and well-being (Cascio and Boudreau, 2016)
.
Organisational commitment and employee engagement
The difference between organisational commitment and employee engagement are the bond
and the passion. Organisational commitment defines the emotional bond of the worker
towards the company while employee engagement defines the extent to which employees
are passionate about their work. It has been seen that there is positive significant relationship
between the organisational commitment and employee engagement (Malik, 2016).
Job satisfaction and Employee engagement
Job satisfaction refers to the pleasurable and positive emotional state that results from many
factors such as; appraisal, promotion, own work experience. It can also be defined as
happiness feel by the employee about his/her job and engagement of employees defines the
extent of connection and commitment to work. It is possible that engaged employees are
also satisfied employees. An individual in the workplace can be satisfied without being
physically, cognitively or emotionally committed to the company (Sharma, Sharma and
Agarwal, 2016).
The Three dimension of employee engagement are;
 Emotional engagement
 Cognitive engagement
 Physical engagement
Component of employee engagement
 Employer engagement and the psychological contract- The concept of psychological
contract used to describe an inherent agreement between the employees and their
supervisor. This contract is a set of obligations and expectations that individual
employees have as work experience. This contract is different from concept of legal
contract of employment (Mone and London, 2018). The main aim of the psychological
contract is to address employee's perception regarding the engagement at the workplace.
 Career advancement/ improvement opportunities- Career improvement opportunity
plays an essential role in employee engagement and help in retaining them in the
organisation. It is essential for the company to ensure that the job assigning to the
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employees matches with their career goals. This results in satisfaction and engagement of
employees working in McDonald. Career advancement opportunities in the workplace
ensures the personal growth of the individual and further help in future opportunities
(Sengupta, Bamel and Singh, 2015).
2. Identification of the principal drivers and evaluation of business benefit by employee
engagement
Key drivers of employee engagement
Employee engagement has transcended from being the latest business buzzword to the
real practices in the organisations that lead the company towards the success and sustainable
growth. There are many drivers that influence employee engagement;
 Management and leadership- This is one of the most essential driver that help in
motivating and leading the workforce by the manager and leader of the industry that
result in higher performance of the employees (Cascio and Boudreau, 2016). In order to
engage workers, manager is responsible for developing policies, strategies and practices
that is able to carry out the working pattern of employees in collective manner.
Leadership is a strong narrative that provides a clear and strong vision and lead the
employees effectively that drive is essential to drive the engagement.
 Pay and benefits- This is the most influencive driver of the employee engagement. Pay
and benefits can be tangible and intangible that decided by the leader and manager of the
company. The benefits work as reward in the company that motivates employees. The
major role in this driver is of HR of the company.
 Communication- Leader is responsible to communicate the vision, purpose and mission
of the company that help in to make the employees feel an integral part of the
organisation and drive their engagement with the enterprise and with the co-workers in
the company (Noe and et.al., 2017).
 Meaningful work- To build healthy relation with the employees in the workplace,
employees are also plays a major role in driving the engagement of them with the
authorities and with the company. If employees work efficiently and with their effective
working pattern they contribute in the success and growth of the company. It can be
consider as the driving factor in building healthy relation within the organisation.
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 Job role/job design- Employees are required to understand a link between their role and
bigger organisational goal (Sengupta, Bamel and Singh, 2015).
Benefits of employee engagement
 Employee satisfaction- If employees are engaged their job satisfaction level is high.
Engaged and satisfied people in the company have high level of contribution in the
success of the business and also they have high level of loyalty and commitment
(Åkesson and et.al., 2016). Thus, employee engagement is beneficial for both employees
and for organisation.
 Productivity- The most seen and equal benefit of employee engagement is the driving
productivity of employees, organisation and other people as well in the company.
Engaged employees are often top performers and those are committed to 'going the extra
mile' to achieve purpose of the business. It has been seen that as an employee become
more engaged their absenteeism lowers down and their motivation raise that increased
productivity. The going of extra mile can also be consider as discretionary behaviour of
employees in employee engagement.
 Organisational outcome- Employee engagement is the degree to which an employee is
passionate and dedicated about the company (Payne, Frow and Eggert, 2017). It has been
seen that more engaged employees are better in the organisational outcome. Discretionary
effort of an employee results in the engagement-profit-chain. Because engaged
employees care more, so they are more productive, provide good services to the
consumers and stay in the job for longer. Overall the chain leads in happier and satisfied
consumer that is ultimate goal of the industry and they purchase more and refer more
which drive the sale and profit of the company.
 Absenteeism and staff turnover- One of the biggest problem of the companies
nowadays is higher staff turnover rate and increase in worker absenteeism that has been
affected from the work to consumers in negative way (Mone and London, 2018).
Employee engagement are beneficial to lower down the absent rate of employees. The
practices of employee engagement are proven to reduce the staff turnover and improve
productivity and make more profits.
3. Explanation of the need for aligning engagement practices with other corporate components
Employee engagement practices and purpose value and mission of the company
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Organisational success is often linked to clear mission, inspiring vision and strong values.
But without employees these are worthless. Employees and their working behaviour and
engagement is essential for achieving the goals and objectives of the company and to attaining
the setted vision and mission of the industry by leaders and managers (Sharma, Sharma and
Agarwal, 2016). The employee engagement practices and vision, vision company plays a role of
vice versa in the industry.
For example; employees engagement build by shared vision and value by the company
and engaged employees work enthusiastically to achieve the vision, mission and objective by
maintaining the ethics in the industry. Organisation need to align the vision, objective, mission of
the company with the employee engagement practices that help in make the employee feel like
an integral part of the business. It is essential to ensure that employees understanding objective
of the company or not and they should aligned with the bigger goal of business. The alignment of
the practices help in business strategy for sustainable growth or development.
There are various practices that need to align with other corporate components such as;
training and development practices, recruitment practices, performance management practices
and appraisals, etc. Corporate component can be describe as company’s culture that have many
elements such as; core values, attitudes, beliefs, standards that characterise members of an
organisation that relates to various stakeholders of the company and to maintain the standard of
the organisational culture it is required to aligning the employee engagement culture (Mone and
London, 2018).
4. Evaluation of suitable diagnostic tools for measuring employee attitudes and level of
employee engagement
Employee engagement is the best approach that is beneficial for the company as well as
employees. When employee are engaged with each other than they are more likely to committed
with to their company's goals. McDonald's uses various diagnostic tools in order to increase
employees engagement. With the help of tools it can motivate their employees by which workers
of the company contribute to company's success. Following are some measurement tool to
evaluate attitude opf employees and their level of engagement;
 Focus group: This type of too brings all the workers of the company together. In this
group, employees are free to share their views and are safe to speak up and express their
concerns. It is the best and quick way of identifying and analysing employees' feeling for
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the company. It also helps McDonald's to take actionable suggestions for better
improvement (Sharma, Sharma and Agarwal, 2016).
 Periodic interviews: It is another tool that helps the manager of McDonald's to identify
the level of employee engagement. This type of engagement can be used at any time and
point during an employee's tenure. The main aim of conducting this interview is to
identify factors which make workers loyal and motivate them to stay in the company. It
also finds out those factors which cause them to leave.
 Attitude survey: Attitude survey is the best and effective tool. There is a way of finding
and analysing that what employees are thinking for the company. In this attitude survey a
manager of McDonald's finds out that how their employees feel in the company. There
are some factors which need to be identified in this survey includes job satisfaction level,
cooperation, turnover, motivation, job performance etc. In this survey employees are
being asked to answer some questions in yes or no. For example:
 Satisfaction: For knowing employees job satisfaction they are being asked that how
would you rate your satisfaction with the company? This will help in measuring the
feeling and values of the job for the employees at the workplace. For understanding the
satisfaction regarding job or other aspects in the company the best suitable measuring
way is taking the survey.
 Retention: In this type of question manager wants to know their willingness to stay in
the company. They are being asked to say yes or no in I rarely think about shifting and
looking for a new job. The measuring technique help in understand the retention of
employees and their engagement regarding the work and towards the organisation.
 Stay/Exit interviews: Structured interviews for workers I the best way which a manager
of McDonald's to collect feedback and find out that what factors makes them engaged. N
stay interview employees are being asked that what makes them happy at work (Mone
and London, 2018). On the other hand in exit interviews manager tries to find out about
the issues and problems which leads to employees to leave the company. The main
purpose of exit interviews is to find the ways of improving engagement and remove all
the issues and barriers which increases labour turnover. Aim of using stay interview is to
find out the strengths of the company in order to more improve and focus on them.
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 Employee Net Promoter Score: It is also an effective tool and way of measuring
employees engagement. In this type employees are being asked to recommend and
suggestion for making an organisation a good place to work. This is an open ended
measurement technique where employees can give feedback and reviews as they feel and
want to bring a change.
5. Employee value proposition to promote levels of employee engagement
Employee Value Proposition
Employee value professional is everything that the employer and management is doing to
retain and engage their employees in the organisation by attracting them with different benefits.
It includes all different benefits related to salary, reward, perks, promotions that come being an
employee in organisation. And basically these are the main reasons why any employee want to
work in an organisation and also seeking for job in any other organisation.
EVP is the idea that is taken from the marketing and also apply by the MacDonald
company that make it unique and make differentiate from the competitors (Payne, Frow and
Eggert, 2017). EVP has the unique value hat company provides to their employee and brings
them in the organisation and try to retain them in the organisation by providing good salary
package and benefits. Having an effective EVP helps the MacDonald to attract the new
employees and engage the existing employees that have a big goal and value that are aligned
with organisational goal and values which aids in employee retention.
Components of EVP that helps to increase employee engagement
Mainly EVP has divided in three parts salary, compensation and benefits that MacDonald
company provide their employees to increase the employee engagement in their organisation.
Following are some components of EVP that help in enhancing employee engagement.
 Salary – Salary is often is key selling point for the any organisation and for the
MacDonald as well. Salary is all about more money and the most important part of the
EVP of MacDonald in the price factor of the marketing Mix 7ps, salary of the employee
can be adjustable or set at the level which MacDonald able to pay willingly as
comparison to the competitors (Åkesson and et.al., 2016). Inflation in the salary is the
reason to employees switch their job to another organisation. No company solely can
compete with their competitors with salary and talent. Salary has huge importance to
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retaining employees. As MacDonald use this EVP component by providing salary on the
bases on the talent and skills to their employees.
 Compensation – Compensation is separate from the salary, it is what an employer pay to
their employee for their good job. It is performance related pay which is paid by the
MacDonald management. It could be a bonus as well. MacDonald gives a good bonus to
their employees occasionally like on the Christmas and new year and on their good work.
Salary does not really encourage the employees or people to join organisation or to retain
in the organisation] for longer time. But other benefits and compensation do. It could be
a prize bonus or family trip which is provided by the MacDonald company to increase
employee engagement in organisation (Sengupta, Bamel and Singh, 2015).
 Benefits – Benefits can be come in different forms like supplementary compensation,
value, mission and purpose, people and culture of organisation. Other supplementary
benefits are like health insurance, vehicle and home facility, flexible time, work from
home, canteen, good office location. As the MacDonald is the largest fast food chain in
the world, generate large amount of revenue provide these facilities to their employees.
Company provide the health and safety insurance, flexible timing and culture in the
office. This culture and people also consider in the EVP top retain the employees in the
office. Good and motivating people and staff, office culture affect the employees to be
engage it MacDonald (What is an Employee Value Proposition,2016).
These components of EVP helps the MacDonald to be engage with their organisation for
longer time and this way EVP helps to MacDonald to increase the employee engagement in the
organisation that could help the organisation to grow more and fulfil their objective within time
and sustain brand image in the market. Along with it, EVP enable he business to develop
effective strategies that effectively build a relation between the industry and employees.
Effective EVP
6. HR Strategies to raise employee engagement
Employee engagement is the source of concern for any organisation. An active employee
is willingly done their job and get benefits from the employers and helps the organisation to
obtain its goal. To0 maintain and raise the employee engagement in the MacDonald, company
HR apply some strategy to sustain the employee engagement in the organisation. Some strategies
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that are also relevant to the EVP are as follows which are applied by the MacDonald organisation
(Noe and et.al., 2017).
 Ensure proper compensation and benefits – HR management of the MacDonald make
the strategy to provide the good benefits like extra wages, bonus and provide the other
benefits like leave and hike salary time to time on the basis of their work. This strategy
helps the MacDonald to retain their employees by attracting them through good benefits
that the other company do not provide (The best strategies for employee
engagement,2017).
 Good salary package – HR management of the MacDonald also offer the good salary
package to the experienced employees and to the freshers as well. They make the strategy
to provide the good salary and hike in the existing salary. As the MacDonald is the
largest food chain also generated revenue is high so it little easy for the MacDonald
management to provide the good salary and give benefits to the employees. That help the
organisation to retain in the organisation and increase the engagement in the organisation
to0 achieve the target (Malik, 2016).
 Provide employees opportunity – HR management also make strategy to give different
opportunity to the employees like. Promotion and opportunity to get extra wages and
bonus and to meet with the different people and develop relation with people and
employees and employer. This relation with people encourage the employees to retain
same organisation and help EVP also to give value to the employees. From this,
employee are able to build a strong relation with the co-workers in the company.
Barriers in HR strategy
There are some barriers that create the problem to implementing HR strategy in the
organisation (HR STRATEGIES, 2019). The barriers can be arises from the outside of the
organisation or within the organisation.
 Failure to understand the strategic need and objective of the organisation.
 Failure monitor and evaluate the performance of the employees. On the basis they can
make strategy (Barriers and Initiatives of Human Resource Strategy Implementation,
2010).
 Inadequate assessment and analysis of the environmental and cultural factors that affect
the organisation.
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 Inadequate amount and capital in the organisation to provide the benefit to employees.
 Organisation negative image in the market that the people hesitate to enter in the
organisation and leave the organisation. The negative effect of the company in the market
can be a barrier in the Human Resource strategy.
 Not obtaining target that is the reason of loss and because of this company not able to
provide good working condition culture and training program to the employees (Cascio
and Boudreau, 2016).
CONCLUSION
From the present study it has been evaluated that organisations that follow employee
engagement practices on regular basis in the industry are very successful. In the today's scenario,
it is essential for the company to measure engagement level of employees in order to enhance
and maintain the satisfaction level of the worker of McDonald. Furthermore, engaging
employees help the industry in gaining competitive advantage in the market place by improved
productivity of employee's performance. It is not so easy to achieve employee engagement but it
not impossible either. In the process and practice, HR policies, strategies, leaders and managers
plays an important role.
There are various tools used by McDonald to measure employee attitude and level of
employee engagement such as; turnover of the revenue and profit, various surveys has been
taken by the company from its employees to understand.
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REFERENCES
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management: A practical guide for managers. Routledge.
Åkesson and et.al., 2016. Value proposition test-driving for service innovation: How frontline
employees innovate value propositions. Journal of Service Theory and Practice. 26(3).
pp.338-362.
Cascio, W.F. and Boudreau, J.W., 2016. The search for global competence: From international
HR to talent management. Journal of World Business. 51(1). pp.103-114.
Malik, A., 2016. The role of HR strategies in change. In Organizational change management
strategies in modern business (pp. 193-215). IGI Global.
Noe and et.al., 2017. Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New
York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Payne, A., Frow, P. and Eggert, A., 2017. The customer value proposition: evolution,
development, and application in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science. 45(4). pp.467-489.
Sengupta, A., Bamel, U. and Singh, P., 2015. Value proposition framework: implications for
employer branding. Decision. 42(3). pp.307-323.
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