Employee Engagement (EE)

Introduction

Today, Employee engagement (EE) is an important topic for HR professionals. Forming an engaged workforce is one of the highest prioritize tasks for many organizations in both private and public sectors (CIPD, 2009).Engaged employees perform better than others, they do not take more leave and        they are less likely to quit (CIPD, 2006).Above all those employees like to recommend their organization to others, at the same time they experience job satisfaction, positive attitudes, and emotions towards their work (CIPD, 2006).

Image Source

The Drivers of Employee Engagement

CIPD (2006) has suggested key drivers of employee engagement are:

·        There should be opportunities in the organization to employees to feed views upwards.

·        Employees should feel that they are well informed about what is happening in the organization

·        These should be an environment to think employees that their manager is committed to the organization.

These findings tell that the internal communication is very vital, and the organization needs to change its communication style from a traditional style to consultative or participation style (CIPD, 2009). Some of the major important roles of the managements are treating employees with respect and handling problems in a fair-minded way (CIPD, 2009). The psychological contract outlines the importance for morale of employees feelings that make them to keep faith in the employer and believing they are treated fair-minded way (CIPD, 2004).

The Key Barriers to Successful Employee Engagement

These barriers are according to CIPD (2009):

·        Employee experiences poor work–life balance because of a long-hours working culture.

·        Employee experiences a rigid communication environment or cultural norms when sharing knowledge or in communication.

·        Employee experiences unreliable management style based on the attitudes of individual managers, which may lead employees to think unfairness to them.

·        Employees experiences that the management practices reactive decision-making styles to the problems before it is too late.

·        Employees experiences the quality of downward communication and low awareness of senior management visibility.

·        Employee experiences the low levels of advocacy

Conclusion

If organizations are willing to achieve its objectives, then they have to have a well-organized strategy in employee engagement. There is an important role to play by human resource professionals and management in an organization to recognize the plan to engage employees.

References :

CIPD. (2004). Employee well-being and the psychological contract. CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND DEVELOPMENT : London.

CIPD. (2006). How engaged are British employees. CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND DEVELOPMENT : London.

CIPD. (2009). An HR director’s guide to employee engagement. CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND DEVELOPMENT : London.

CIPD. (2009). Employee engagement in context. CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND DEVELOPMENT : London.