Murdoch University: MBS663 Employee Engagement Report Analysis

This report delves into the critical aspects of employee engagement within an organization, examining the barriers that hinder it and proposing actionable recommendations for improvement. The report begins by defining employee engagement and its significance, then identifies key barriers such as lack of clarity, poor work-life balance, toxic working environments, complicated software, and limited development opportunities. The analysis incorporates insights from the Shuck and Utrecht engagement scales, revealing an engagement score of 33 out of 60. To address these challenges, the report suggests strategies like connecting performance with engagement, fostering clear communication of objectives, and providing opportunities for employee development and recognition. The conclusion underscores the importance of employee engagement for achieving high productivity and long-term success. The report emphasizes the use of both engagement scales to assess the engagement level and the importance of providing training and development sessions to the workers to motivate them.

Part 1: Organizational
Context

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Barriers to employee engagement in organisation.......................................................................1
Recommendations to overcome those barriers............................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Employee engagement in the term of organisation is that extent up to which employees
feel passionate in order to perform their work or job and are completely committed to a particular
organisation (Shuck, Adelson, and Reio Jr, 2017). In other words, it is also defined as that
relationship which is between worker and enterprise itself. It plays extremely significant role in
order to motivating employees towards the task that has been provided to them and further
achieve high profitability and long-term success.
In the following report, barriers towards employee engagement is being discussed.
Further, various recommendations that would help the cited organisation will be analysed later.
In addition to this, two employee engagement scale named Shuck and Utrecht engagement scale
has been taken into consideration.
Barriers to employee engagement in organisation
In the organisation two employee engagement scale has been taken into consideration
where it has been analysed that employee engagement score is 33 out of 60 out of which
cognitive engagement score is 16 out of 20, emotional engagement score is 8 and behavioural
score is 9 out of 20. Further, Contextual ambidexterity is being measured with the help of
Utrecht engagement scale. Contextual ambidexterity therefore means choices is being done
between the exploitation oriented or the exploration-oriented activities in their day to day work.
In other words, it is termed as that ability of the management where they are efficient enough to
perform todays business and also try to adopt changing demands that might come in a way.
From the Utrecht work engagement scale, it has been stated that all the items are therefore scored
on seven-point frequency rating scale that ranges from never to always and it is the scale that
brings out the information related to work engagement.
Thus, some of the upcoming barriers that comes between employee engagement which
results in loss among particular enterprise as employees would not feel comfortable to work and
share their views and ideas easily which may help in increasing the profitability of a brand.
 Lack of clarity- This is the most basic barrier that comes between employee engagement.
There are some of them associate engagement with employee satisfaction, morale or even
mere happiness (Shuck, Nimon, and Zigarmi, 2017). It has been therefore stated that the
workers those who are engaged are basically satisfied with the jobs, they are also
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motivated to their best in order to perform their work. Further, they are also proud in with
their profile and work which is being done in that particular organisation. Lack of clarity
do not make employees feel valued and won’t be able in building up strong and powerful
connections with each other.
 Terrible work life balance- Terrible work life balance is also notable barrier towards
employee engagement. If the cited organisation encourages first in last out culture openly
and also if they discourage holidays or lunches then they are doing themselves a huge
disservice. Thus, workers need personal life and also requires personal time that too away
from professional life. This therefore helps them to work in motivated manner as they are
refreshed with the break (Martin, 2017). The employees therefore cannot make time for
himself and their family and can not also concentrate on the work which is been allocated
to them.
 Toxic working environment- There are number of elements that creates toxic
environment for all the workers in the organisation. this means that employees are forced
to work in the organisation which makes them feel heavy and over burden. In addition to
this, some managers or leaders use rank and yank employee rating system which
therefore lack in terms of employee engagement. Thus, it has been analysed that
company must try to make huge effort in motivating employees or workers that would
lead them in making them work with high performance level.
 Complicated software- the software that the stated organisation uses must be user
friendly. Further, it should be therefore spontaneous and also requires some training
session that would make employees increase knowledge regarding the particular
software. In addition to this, complicated software also increases struggle for the workers
in order to navigate and access it in easy and smooth way (Ho Kim, Park and Kwon,
2017). Thus, the firm must try to replace the software that they are using with simple
tools that will make employees feel free and easy to use and will also make them feel
happy.
 There is lack of Development opportunities for employees- There is a huge requirement
in terms of offering clear routes for career development and also for personal
development. Further, there is also great requirement of training and development
opportunities. The cited organisation therefore has to make possible to improve the skills
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and abilities of the employees that they lack in so that they can perform well on the work
which is been therefore allocated to them and must also have conversation with them so
that they can help them in developing their skills accordingly (Taylor, 2019). If the
opportunities in terms of development is low than it would affect the employee
engagement towards the firm and the workers would quit the position and move for other
such opportunities that would lead them towards growth.
 Employees lack of clarity about the SMART objectives- If the cited organisation wants
their employees to get engaged then it is very much important that they are aware about
the SMART objectives and also its goals. In this, the particular organisation or enterprise
must have to make them share their own objectives and also try to discuss the skills,
strengths and passions that is owned by them which would further result the employees in
feeling free and valued for that organisation. In addition to this, it would otherwise won’t
be possible to fulfil those goals that has been targeted by them.
Thus, it has been analysed that the cited organisation is being using Shuck employment
engagement scale and Utrecht in order to notice the employee engagement of the worker
towards the enterprise as it plays extremely important role in achieving long term success and
high productivity. Further, it has been stated through this scale that the employee engagement
is 33 out of the total score 60 which has to be further improved by taking up various
recommendations and approaches into action (Ladyshewsky and Taplin, 2017).
Recommendations to overcome those barriers
Some of the recommendations has been discussed as per below context-
 Connecting the dots between performance and engagement- The main and important way
to overcome the barriers that comes between the way towards the success and employee
engagement is to link it with the results of the business. This is because it is being
analysed that high - level engagement of worker means high performance level and
therefore equals to high productivity and profitability.
 Further, they must also provide the workers of the organisation with true and fair
information about what is being expected from them so that they can manage and work
accordingly (Loerzel, 2019).
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 In addition to this, they must also try in order to connect employees with the vision,
mission and objectives of the enterprise so that they can work accordingly to fulfil those
targeted objectives.
 The managers and leaders must try to take action in such way that they would further lead
in improving the process that is involved and solve problems accordingly.
 They must also try to support their workers in terms of improving their skills and abilities
with the help of training and development sessions. This would help the stated enterprise
in increasing the score level of the employee engagement scale and also the level of
employee engagement would be increased. This would lead the business to reach the
boost (Tucker, 2017).
 Furthermore, they can also try to reward the efforts that is being used by the worker and
motivate them with increments and various awards that would further lead them in
increasing the satisfaction level of the employee and make them work in positive and
adequate manner by using their specialised skills (Mone and London, 2018).
 They must also try to conduct employee surveys and focus groups in order to feel and
bring out clear information regarding culture of a particular company and also the
employee experience (Popli and Rizvi, 2016).
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it is being analysed that cited organisation goes with both Shuck
employee engagement scale and Utrecht work engagement scale. Further, it has been analysed
that employee engagement is very much important in order to achieve high productivity and
long-term success. There are number of barriers that creates hurdles in the way towards success
which can be resolved or overcome by providing training and development session to the
workers which would motivate them in working harder.
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REFERENCES
Ho Kim, W., Park, J. G., & Kwon, B. (2017). Work engagement in South Korea: Validation of
the Korean version 9-item Utrecht work engagement scale. Psychological
Reports. 120(3). 561-578.
Ladyshewsky, R., & Taplin, R. (2017). Employee perceptions of managerial coaching and work
engagement using the Measurement Model of Coaching Skills and the Utrecht Work
Engagement Scale. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and
Mentoring. 15(2). 25.
Loerzel, T. (2019). Smashing the barriers to employee engagement. Journal of
Accountancy. 227(1). 28-32.
Martin, P. (2017). Job performance and employee engagement-the validity of utrecht work
engagement scale (uwes-9). Journal of Social and Psychological Sciences. 10(2). 56-69.
Mone, E. M., & London, M. (2018). Employee engagement through effective performance
management: A practical guide for managers. Routledge, UK.
Popli, S., & Rizvi, I. A. (2016). Drivers of employee engagement: The role of leadership
style. Global Business Review. 17(4). 965-979.
Shuck, B., Adelson, J. L., & Reio Jr, T. G. (2017). The employee engagement scale: Initial
evidence for construct validity and implications for theory and practice. Human Resource
Management. 56(6). 953-977.
Shuck, B., Nimon, K., & Zigarmi, D. (2017). Untangling the predictive nomological validity of
employee engagement: Partitioning variance in employee engagement using job attitude
measures. Group & Organization Management. 42(1). 79-112.
Taylor, M. (2019). Overcome the barriers to successful team and organisational change-part
two. HR Future. 2019(Aug 2019). 36-37.
Tucker, E. (2017). Engaging employees: Three critical roles for managers. Strategic HR
Review, London.
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