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For employment opportunities in India.

NO. 1 Bi - Weekly for vacancies abroad.
Published every Wednesday & Saturday
12 years of excellence.
  
 

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Employee engagement can make a big difference

AAT News Service

In a highly-competitive work environment when attrition is rather the norm than an aberration, keeping employees motivated has become a job in itself for employers. Gone are the days when employers focussed on just employee satisfaction. Today, what is being talked about is employee engagement.

What is employee
engagement?

This is indeed a complex phenomenon. It is the degree to which people express at work not only who they are, but also who they would like to be. It is a combination of heart and mind, sense of identity and feelings of belonging and being valued. It is the emotional and intellectual connection with colleagues.

Beyond that, more extrinsic factors come into play: satisfaction with the job itself and the level of support the organisation provides in performing it. Highly-engaged employees are aligned with organisational goals and with their colleagues.
They are confident, motivated for high performance and willing to put forth extra effort. Employees on the low end of the engagement scale lack of responsiveness, energy and motivation to come to work.

It is increasingly felt today that an organisation’s productivity is measured not in terms of employee satisfaction, but by employee engagement. Employees are said to be engaged when they show a positive attitude towards the organisation and express a commitment to remain with the organisation.

According to Wikipedia, engagement at work was conceptualised by William A Kahn (1990) as the ‘harnessing of organisational members’ selves to their work roles. In engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances.

Employee engagement was described in the academic literature by Schmidt et al (1993) using data from Gallup’s Q12 engagement survey. A modernised version of job satisfaction, Schmidt and others’ influential definition of engagement was ‘an employee’s involvement with, commitment to, and satisfaction with work’. This integrates the classic constructs of job satisfaction and organisational commitment.

Three components of engagement are readily identified:

Vigour

Highly-engaged people are physically energetic and mentally resilient. They put energy into their work and maintain this high intensity, despite obstacles and setbacks.

Absorption

Highly-engaged people are absorbed by their work and throw themselves into it, heedless of time or distractions.

Dedication

People who are fully-engaged become better in their own eyes, through the work they do. They are dedicated and passionate.

Now, what happens when employees are engaged? Fully-engaged employees are easy to spot.
They typically appear happier and busier. They have higher job satisfaction. They perform better in their jobs. They work harder. They have lower levels of absenteeism and higher loyalty. They have better relationships at work. They build better teams. They are more likely to meet or exceed the organisation’s standards for customer service.

Alignment

Alignment and engagement are closely linked. Aligned employees understand and identify with the organisation’s goals and link their own objectives and abilities to them. They direct their energies toward the common goals of the organisation.

Unfortunately, many top executives express little confidence that their employees understand their corporate objectives and are aligned with them.

In a 2007 survey, consultant company, Accenture found that only 20 per cent of top executives believe that 75 per cent or more of their employees understand their company’s strategic goals. Only 22 per cent believe that 75 per cent or more of their employees understand how they can contribute to achieving these goals. This low degree of alignment could contribute to low engagement.

Why is employee
engagement important?

Talent is the engine of modern organisations, and engagement is the fuel that drives the engine to high performance. Another survey linked a 5 per cent increase in engagement to a 0.7 increase in operating margin. In 2006, a global survey by ISR reported that organisations with highly-engaged workforces performed up to 50 per cent better than those with low engagement.
Do highly-engaged employees turn their companies into high performers? Or does company success result in high engagement? Both are almost certainly true.

What are the signs of lack of employee engagement?

The first sign of a lack of employee engagement is the high ratio of employee turnover. Whether staff is volunteering to leave or is being dismissed, only a small percentage of turnovers are due to factors unrelated to employee engagement. The simple truth is that if employees are engaged and have high job satisfaction, they just won’t quit.
Another sign is the fall in productivity. The stats have been slipping for a while now. If you were to chart the decline it would be a slope downward. Further, when employees are unmotivated and they are not working effectively as a team, deadlines get missed.
Another sign to watch out for is the low morale. Employees rarely walk around with a smile on their face. They are not interested in planning or being a part of social activities.
You also feel like a parent at times as their leader. One is complaining about another, so and so did this to that and so on. The conflicts are over small things, but the emotions around them are magnified. The maturity level has dropped to a high-school level. Employees turn clock watchers. As soon as they can, they are out of there. They arrive when they must and leave when they can.
Also, in such a situation, employees often fall sick and take leaves on slightest of pretexts. They call in sick, seem to be going to the doctor a lot, plan their vacation days carefully and use up all personal days.
Another problem is lack of punctuality. You may be seeing a problem with staff arriving late. It started off with one employee arriving late and now you are seeing others arriving late.
Are you working in similar situations? It’s your call whether to stay on or look for greener pastures.

 

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