Challenges with
Employee Engagement in Fast Growing Organizations
Most organizations realize that the most productive employees are those who are intellectually and emotionally bound to their employer (Snell, A. 2009). Employees who are engaged in their work and committed to their organizations give companies crucial competitive advantages—including higher productivity and lower employee turnover (Vane, R. 2006). The strongest driver in achieving this is a sense of feeling valued and involved. It can be argued that HR departments are tasked with facilitating the commitment, loyalty and passion within employees and new candidates necessary to get them fully onboard and to build their motivation. This is what makes the difference in a working environment, however, achieving high levels of employee engagement is becoming increasingly challenging (Snell, A. 2009).
The rise of the Internet has
also brought more visibility to alternative employment outside of the
organization Northouse (2007). Online
recruiters, job boards, career sites and salary checkers increase awareness of
what competitors are offering, providing a constant tease to employees. Too
often organizations are better at making external opportunities more visible
than those internally. However, despite the threat that technology brings, the
following are examples of how it can be used by organizations, along with
talent management processes, to improve employee engagement: (Snell, A. 2009)
1. Recruit and onboard
the right people
2. Proactively drive
internal mobility
3. Improve the line
manager’s ability to manage
4. Empower employees
to manage their own careers
There is a clear correlation between the size of
the organization and the percentage of engaged employees, according
to research by Gallup (2017). The larger the organization, the lesser the
percentage of engaged employees is. Figure 01 makes this point very clear -
there is a 12% drop in employee engagement level, as the size of the
organization goes from less than 25 employees to 5,000 or more.
Another way to interpret Figure 01 is, in organizations with
less than 25 employees, about 51% are disengaged or actively disengaged while
for organizations with 5000+ employees, this percentage rises to 71%. This
becomes even more alarming when the percentages are converted to numbers – the
71% totals to 3,550 disengaged or actively disengaged employees for
an organization with a workforce of 5,000 people.
Though these numbers are concerning, the reason why larger organizations have a
lesser percentage of engaged employees is not so difficult to understand. In a
small sized company, the chances are that most of the employees would know each
other, the leaders of the organization would know each of the employees.
Further, the employees would have a clear understanding of the organizational
mission & vision as well as how the role they play within the organization
fits into the big picture – according to Armstrong (2009), the employees’
understanding of their role and how it fits in the holistic view, is one of the
two key elements that must be present for engagement to exist.
If the employees have
questions, they have the privilege of being able to reach out to the leaders
(Gallup, 2017). According to Northouse (2007), leadership has a strong
influence on the level of engagement of an employee. As the number of employees
increase, the employees and the leaders would grow apart and the organizational
leaderships ability to stop an employee feeling like just another brick in the
wall, would decline hence the higher rate of disengagement.
Video
1: How to measure employee engagement
Source : (Brown, A. 2020)
Armstrong, M. (2009). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. 11th ed. London: Kogan Page, pp 338-340.
Brown, A. (2020) Quantum, How to Measure Employee Engagement the Right Way https://www.quantumworkplace.com/future-of-work/the-right-way-to-measure-employee-engagement
Gallup (2017) State of the American
Workplace. [Online] Available at: https://news.gallup.com/file/reports/199961/SOAW_Report_GEN_1216_WEB_FINAL_rj.pdf [Accessed 16 September 2019].
Northouse,
P. G. (2007). Leadership Theory and Practice. 7th ed. California: SAGE Publications,
pp.170-172.
Snell, A. (2009), "Tackling the challenges of employee engagement", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 8 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr.2009.37208baa.002
Engaging employees is a highly effective business strategy. While your new team will likely appreciate a new benefits package, these do more to increase job satisfaction than boost engagement, two related but different concepts. Some of the widely used and effective employee engagement strategies are
ReplyDelete1. Uphold your core values.
2. Carve out career paths and provide opportunities for growth.
3. Recognize top performers.
4. Promote transparency.
5. Allow for honest feedback.
6. Hold employees accountable.
7. Hold yourself accountable.
8. Revamp your office space.( Heinz. K. 2020)
Thank you so much Melissa for your comments. I do agree with you in full that engaging employees is a highly effective business strategy and noted the widely used strategies in engage employees effectively. I would further like to add that employee engagement as an “engine” in talent management drive draws its resilience from the effectiveness of various environmental factors from within and outside an organization. Strategic employee engagement initiatives support organizational branding and also reputation among employees. Thank you once again.
Delete
ReplyDeleteThis is where the managers come into place. Larger the organization, the responsibility of keeping the workforce engaged falls into the manager’s job description. This is further established by the research conducted by Gallup that identified, managers account for 70% of variance in employee engagement scores (Robison,2020). A positive relationship with the immediate supervisor will improve the engagement levels of an employee (Radda, Majidadi & Akanno,2015).
Thank you Sonali for your comments on my blog. I do agree with your comment. Nyhan (2000) has proposed that one of management’s critical tasks is to develop trust where front line employees interact with service users. The role of the supervisor is crucial in ensuring that employees are able to competently perform their jobs (Rowold, 2008). For employees, this means that they have to be able to trust that their supervisor will ensure they have sufficient training so that their job performance will be of a high caliber. In addition, their perceptions of their supervisors also affect the trust relationship. The ability, benevolence, and integrity of a supervisor can enhance or diminish the trust employees have in them (Butler, 1991; Mayer & Gavin, 2005).
DeleteAmit Verma (2018) in his linkedin article elaborates, employee engagement is a direct outcome of a high-performance company culture. Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) found that engaged employees have a greater attachment to their organisation. According to Amit Verma (2018), employee engagement is a change in culture – a change in how leaders lead, what they do and the decisions they make. Organizations that create a culture defined by meaningful work, deep employee engagement, job and organizational fit, and strong leadership are outperforming their peers and will likely beat their competition in attracting top talent in 'Fast Growing Organizations'.
ReplyDeleteEmployee engagement is all about people being interested and excited to work and willing to go out of their way to perform better (Armstrong, 2009). Lack of understanding of the engagement concept is seen as one of the major issues and not having a proper matric is also a problem (Murlis and Watson, 2001).
ReplyDeleteThank you Shenali for your comment. employee engagement policy indicated that leaders should (a) focus on discussing and addressing the root causes of issues, (b) strive for steady progressive improvement, and (c) avoid focusing on an arbitrary, absolute engagement score. A six-steps data analysis approach was used: (1) read through all the data, (2) organize and prepare the data for analysis, (3) begin detailed analysis with a coding process, (4) advance how the description and themes will be represented in the qualitative narrative, (5) use the coding process to generate a description of the setting or people as well as categories or themes for analysis, and (6) develop an interpretation or meaning of the data (Johnson, 2015; Lalor et al., 2013; Yin, 2013).
DeleteDedicated and meaningful work enables employees to realize how valuable they are within the organization and makes them engaged. Bolman and Deal (2014) suggested there is an opportunity for employees’ autonomy when Self-Determination Theory is leveraged, and furthermore, employees can influence those around them. This influence transcends to the benefits of intrinsic rewards. Meaningful work will allow for an increase in employees’ participation; however, it does not guarantee that the employee will be engaged. The need for autonomy, intrinsic rewards, and influence are required to achieve employee engagement (Osborne & Hammoud, 2017).
ReplyDeleteThank you Mihiran for your comments on my blog. Organizations must provide a psychologically safe workplace to improve employee engagement (Kompaso & Sridevi, 2010). The culture of psychological ownership and engagement begins when leaders create a psychologically safe workplace (Dollard & Bakker, 2010). The manner in which an individual feels satisfied and enthusiastic in work-related activities fosters employee engagement (Nasomboon, 2014). Organizations should develop training programs that focus on skills to influence employee performance and engagement. Kompaso and Sridevi (2010) described engaged employees as those who have an emotional connection with the organization. Service training increases engagement and has a direct effect on the organization’s profits (Granatino, Verkamp, & Parker, 2013).
DeleteAccording to Towers Perrin ( 2003) shows that enhance the engagement is a never ends process and its rests on the foundation of a meaningful and emotional work experience enrich. Its not about making people happy or paying more . Pay and benefits and retaining also important .
ReplyDeleteThank you Thusitha for your comments on my blog. Employee engagement is critical to any organization. Deci and Ryan conducted the most influential study on employee engagement in 1985 (Berens, 2013). Deci and Ryan (1985) expanded on early work by differentiating between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Competence, autonomy, and psychological relatedness which are psychological needs, motivate the individual to initiate behavior essential for psychological health and well-being of an individual and if satisfied may lead to optimal function and growth (Deci & Ryan, 1985). The basic needs of satisfaction have been found to directly relate to dedication of employees (Vandenabeele, 2014).
DeleteDigital employee engagement platform - SOS helped organizations to build a digital platform to help the corporate employees be more productive through positive engagement and brand connection.
ReplyDelete