Drivers of Employee Engagement

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According to the Towers Perrin Talent Report (2003), three main work place attributes which will drive the engagement of employees

Sense of feeling valued and involved

After surveying 10,000 NHS employees in Great Britain, Institute of Employment Studies (Robinson et al., 2004) points out that the key driver of employee engagement is a sense of feeling valued and involved, which has the components such as involvement in decision making, the extent to which employees feel able to voice their ideas, the opportunities employees have to develop their jobs and the extent to which the organization is concerned for employees’ health and well-being.

Communication 

CIPD (2006) on the basis of its survey of 2000 employees from across Great Britain indicates that communication is the top priority to lead employees to engagement. The report singles out having the opportunity to feed their views and opinions upwards as the most important driver of people’s engagement. The report also identifies the importance of being kept informed about what is going on in the organizatio

Senior management’s interest in employees’ well-being

Gallup has found that the manager is the key to an engaged work force. James Clifton, CEO of Gallup organization indicates that employees who have close friendships at work are more engaged workers (Clifton, 2008). Vance (2006) explains the fact that employee engagement is inextricably linked with employer practices. To shed light on the ways in which employer practices affect job performance and engagement, he presents a job performance model. According to him, Employee engagement is the outcome of personal attributes such as knowledge, skills, abilities, temperament, attitudes and personality, organizational context which includes leadership, physical setting and social setting and HR practices that directly affect the person, process and context components of job performance.

The BlessingWhite (2006) study has found that almost two third’s (60%) of the surveyed employees want more opportunities to grow forward to remain satisfied in their jobs. Strong manager-employee relationship is a crucial ingredient in the employee engagement and retention formula.

Development Dimensions International (DDI, 2005) states that a manager must do five things to create a highly engaged workforce.

  • ·       Align efforts with strategy
  • ·       Empower
  • ·       Promote and encourage teamwork and collaboration
  • ·       Help people grow and develop
  • ·       Provide support and recognition where appropriate

But, all the drivers explained above are non-financial in their nature. This does not mean that managers should ignore the financial aspect of their employees. In fact, performance should be linked with reward.

Buckingham and Coffman (2005) said, pay and benefits are equally important to every employee, good or bad. A company’s pay should at least be comparable to the market average.


List of Reference

Buckingham M., and Coffman C. (2005). First, break all the rules. Pocket Books, London.

(Blessing White. (2006). Employee Engagement Report 2006 Blessing White, Inc. Princeton, New Jersey. [Online] Available: www.blessingwhite.com.

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. (2006). Reflections on employee Engagement: Change agenda. CIPD: London. [Online] Available: http://www.cipd.co.uk/changeagendas.

Coffman C. (2000). Is Your Company Bleeding Talent? How to become a true “employer of choice”. The Gallup Management Journal, 2000. The Gallup Organization, Princeton, NJ

Clifton, James K. (2008). Engaging your employees: Six keys to understanding the new workplace. 2002 SHRM Foundation Thought Leaders Remarks. Society for Human Resource Management

Development Dimensions International. (2005). (Predicting Employee Engagement MRKSRR12-1005 Development Dimensions International, Inc., MMV. [Online] Available: www.ddiworld.com

Perrin T. (2003). Working Today: Understanding What Drives Employee Engagement the 2003 Towers Perrin Talent Report U.S Report.

Penna (2007). Meaning at Work Research Report. [Online] Available: http:// www. e-penna.com/ newsopinion /research.aspx

Robinson D., Perryman S., and Hayday S. (2004). The Drivers of Employee Engagement Report 408, Institute for Employment Studies, UK

Vance R. J. (2006). Employee Engagement and Commitment SHRM Foundation, USA

 

  

 

Comments

  1. Uditha Wijethunga3 September 2022 at 11:17

    It is interesting how employee motivation and employee engagement go hand-in-hand. I believe that motivation results from the factors that you have mentioned; sense of feeling valued/involved, communication, and management's interest in employee well-being. The resulting motivation would increase employee engagement.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rinosha Prasanna7 September 2022 at 09:50

    Some researchers consider employee engagement and work engagement to be key terms in
    the HRD field (Lee et al., 2016). It is stated that the notions of employee engagement and work
    engagement are similar because they are interrelated with job demands and work resources (Bakker
    & Demerouti, 2007). However, in general, employee engagement and work engagement do not
    have significant differences in terms of theoretical and scientific findings (Bakker, Schaufeli, Leiter
    & Taris, 2008), so that in this article the author uses the term employee engagement to facilitate
    literacy.

    ReplyDelete

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