MTI HRM Solutions’ guide to employee engagement

With the growth of the services sector, the human element within organisations has received importance. This may be a reason for many practitioners as well as academics to believe that human resource is the most valuable asset for an organisation. However, is the human element treated as the most valuable resource within organisations?

This is why MTI questions “when was the time that you last measured the pulse of your people?” How sure are you that your employees are the ones who contribute most towards the value of your organisation? To what extent are they physically, cognitively and emotionally intertwined with their role, their job and the organisation? These are a few questions to which the senior management of organisations should pay heed to.

There is mounting interest shown in management concepts that bring about positive outcomes for organisations. A clear evidence of this is the increase in the studies on positive psychology and mental wellbeing.

Fields of Positive Organisational Behaviour (POB) and Positive Organisational Scholarship (POS) have emerged in this context. Organisations as well as scholars have identified the importance of recognising the positive side of employees and work. Therefore, lately, business organisations are interested in creating engaged workforces.

What is Employee Engagement (EE)?

There exist various definitions and explanations on Employee Engagement (EE). Many imply and refer to involvement, commitment, passion, enthusiasm, absorption, focused effort and energy when speaking of engagement.

When reviewing the practitioner and the academic literature, it can be seen that EE is something that goes beyond all the above concepts. However, they do have a few commonalities, such as, they are all desirable conditions, they have an organisation purpose and that it constitute both attitudinal and behavioural components.

It can be concluded that EE is multidimensional in nature and that the concepts of extra role behaviour/extra voluntary effort, personal initiative, job involvement, job satisfaction and workaholism are closely related to EE. However, it is believed that EE has added value over and above such related concepts.

Thereby, EE can be broadly seen as the voluntary, physical, emotional and cognitive attachment of employees to their jobs, roles and organisations.

Antecedents of EE

The antecedents of EE can by and large be broadly categorised into two areas, as organisational factors and personal factors. Some of the more obvious organisational factors are job resources; support from co-workers and from one’s superior; performance feedback; coaching, job control; task variety and training facilities.

All these are positively associated with EE. The more obvious personal factors that determine the levels of EE have been recognised as age, gender, marital status, tenure at organisation, job status, and the skills/resources possessed.

Consequences of EE

EE is a positive state which paves way for positive outcomes within an organisation. It has been researched and found that the values of engaged employees are often in line with those of the organisation that they work for.

Engaged employees have increased levels of mobility. They have the ability to respond to changes, surroundings and activities quickly. They also make a strong strategic asset which brings about sustained competitive advantage to any organisation. EE leads to in role performance and also extra role performance.

Further, engagement leads or builds up positive emotions within an individual which increases the amount of personal resources possessed. This enables him or her to accomplish his or her tasks in a more efficient and effective manner. Engaged employees are better able to mobilise their job and personal resources which in turn lead to enhanced future engagement of such employees.

Disengagement

Research has shown that EE levels are on the drop and that there is deepening disengagement among employees at present. It is stated that roughly all Americans in the workforce are not fully engaged which has resulted in an engagement gap, leading to a loss of productivity and thereby around US$ 300 billion a year.

Disengaged employees uncouple themselves from work roles and withdraw cognitively and emotionally. When employees are disengaged it leads to incomplete role performances and their task behaviours become effortless, automatic or robotic.

The role of HR

Jack Welch says, “If you’re running a business, whether it’s a corner store or a multi-product multinational, there are three key indicators that really work: employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow.”

It is also believed that EE can make or break the bottom line of a business.

Therefore, it is vital that the Human Resource Management function within an organisation plays a pivotal role in enhancing the engagement level of its employees. However, it is not merely the responsibility of the HR function and its managers.

Many studies have pointed out that practices such as work life balance programmes, telecommunications, compressed workweeks, reward programmes, and performance management systems can have an impact on EE. Further, participation, freedom and trust within the organisation, looking into employee wellbeing, the formulation of appropriate compensation management strategies, developing the careers of employees, etc., will also make employees feel obliged to repay the organisation. It will make them engaged in their work and also with the organisation. It is clear that the responsibility of ensuring that the above is in place lies with the HR Department and other strategic personnel of an organisation.

Therefore, it is crucial that organisations are aware of the level of engagement of its employees and that they have it measured. Thereby, they can make sure that the human element is in fact a strategic resource that they believe it to be, which is physically, cognitively and emotionally attached with their role, job and the organisation.

If the case is not so, what would have been the root causes of disengagement? What would enable the organisation to fuel up the levels of engagement of its employees? And what necessary further steps will have to be taken?

How MTI can help you

MTI HRM Solutions provides a customised engagement survey which can assist organisations in assessing the level of engagement of employees. The survey will also assess the employees’ perceptions on their work environment which is a key factor that determines the level of engagement of employees.

The key advantage of allowing MTI assess the level of EE within your organisation is that, MTI will bring its expertise on conducting employee surveys; it will reduce the dependence and reliance on managerial instinct; encourage open and true communication of employees by ensuring employee anonymity; unbiased evaluations and the reduced time and effort of internal employees on such a project.

(MTI HRM Solutions – www.mtihrmsolutions.com – is a subsidiary of MTI Consulting www.mtiworldwide.com. Dharshani Thennakoon of MTI HRM Solutions spearheaded this paper with her thought leadership.)