Employee Engagement and HRM

Figure 1 - Employee engagement (Amling, 2017) 

Organizations have realized that in today’s constantly changing business scenario, the most valuable recourse which needs to be leveraged is Human. This means not just attracting and retaining employees, but also keeps motivated and committed for organizational goals achieving which is employee engagement.Many authors have defined employee engagement as below.

Figure 2- Employee engagement definitions (Smith & Markwick, 2009)

By considering all above definitions, according to author’s perspective, Employee engagement can be defined as an emotional commitment employees feel towards organization and the actions taken to ensure organization’s success. Gallup (2012) research done UK workers has identified,

Figure 3- Employee engagement level percentages in UK (Gallup, 2012)

It can be analyzed that there are three types of employee engagement, engaged, not-engaged and actively dis-engaged. 

Impact of Employee engagement on HRM 

According Graen (2008) research in Procter and Gamble Company, actively disengaged employees directly impact company under performances. It can be analyzed that actively disengaged employees might change company culture even to reduce commitment of engaged employees and can be figures as cost sources for HR, as company is not able to get high commitment out of them though company give wages and other allowances. This will pull HR for being a cost center though goal is to become a profit center. 

According Baumruk (2006) research done in international passenger airline Jordan, company had lower turnover rates and higher company performances due to high commitment of employees. It indicates that if employees’ commitment and engagement towards company is high, company will be able to achieve high performances and obtain competitive advantage. But employees will not give their maximum contribution if the company procedures do not match with their requirements. In order to fulfill their expectations, HR will have to take the main role on motivating employees in order to maintain good employee engagement, which has become a contemporary issue and a hot topic in HR agenda today.

According Harter (2000) research done among US 36 companies, it has been identified 70% of highly talented and engaged employees inside the company was built due to management style of the company. It can be analyzed that, monetary rewards are not only the answer for increase employee motivation. Employer-employee relation is also an important to increase employee engagement level, and ensuring it is a great contemporary challenge for HRM in today.  

References 

Baumruk.R. (2006). Why managers are crucial to increasing engagement, Strategic HR Review, Melcrum Publishing, Jordan. pp. 180-186.

BT (2008), Employee Engagement. Accessed by; www.btplc.com/Societyandenvironment/

Ourapproach/Sustainabilityreport/se ction.aspx?sectionId=29A70D7A‐BD69‐4A24‐BA54‐C1BBA56CE841. Accessed on 9th June 2018 at 10.07 am.     

Catteeuw F, Flynn E, and Vonderhorst. J (2007). ʹEmployee engagement: boosting  productivity in turbulent timesʹ, Organization Development Journal. 25 (2), pp. 151– 157.  

Gallup (2006), Gallup study: engaged employees inspire company innovation. The Gallup Management Journal.pp.6-15. 

Graen GB (2008), Enriched engagement through assistance to systems change: A  proposal, Industrial and Organisational Psychology, 1, pp.74–75.

Harter. J.K. (2000), Managerial talent, employee engagement, and business‐unit level  performance, Psychologist‐Manager Journal, 4(2), pp.215–224.

Smith G. R & Markwick. C. (2009). Employee Engagement A review of current thinking. Employement study journel, pp.12-18.

Suff.  R. (2008), Vodaphone’s entertaining employee‐engagement strategyʹ, IRS  Employment Review, pp.896.