Driving growth through employee engagement

In today’s organization employee engagement has become one of the most powerful and effective tools that have been used to enhance the overall performance of employees which goes over and beyond their call of duty which can be called running that extra mile for its organization. Marcos, (2010) commented that compared to the three previous structures: job satisfaction, employee commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviours, employee engagement is a greater predictor of good organizational output, demonstrating the two-way link between employer and employee. Employees that are fully engaged are ardently connected to their organization and are fully embedded in their work, with a strong desire to see their employer succeed, going above and beyond the contract of employment  

When speaking about employee engagement there is another important factor that comes into play is employee commitment and which also plays a pivotal role in an organization’s growth and sustainability this can be called a hand-and-glove relationship between employee engagement and commitment. This has been stated by Shahid, (2013) “no organization in the current ambitious world can execute at peak levels unless each employee is committed to the organization’s objectives and performs as an effective team member”

Organizations must create a decent space for employee commitment and treat it as one of the highly required elements in driving organizational growth and development. The organizations that are finding it difficult to retain and replace experienced and skilled employees will find it hard to boost their organizational performance as per Shahid, (2013). Once the employees are fully committed to the task, the following benefits can be achieved.

Increased job satisfaction

Job satisfaction is a great feeling to have for any employee in any organization. If organizations have satisfied employees half of their job is done said by Zhao, (2019). Employee satisfaction will lead to happiness and ultimately happiness will lead to a high level of employee engagement both internally as well as externally. The outcome of these behaviors will deliver the following benefits for the organization

• Enhance overall growth and performance
• Able to retain talent
• Create a better working environment
• Make customers happy
• Employees will act as brand ambassadors due to high loyalty 

Kim-Soon (2015) states the importance of employee engagement “During the economic downturn, engaged employee with full workforce can make differences of survival or success of the business organization”

Decreased intention to leave

When employees are engaged, they feel valued and happy to work. So that they always tend to come to work because it makes them happy. Moreover, the research was done by Mary Lynn Berry, (2008) proves that the relationship between the antecedent, employee engagement factors, and the outcome variable, turnover intent, is mediated by job satisfaction. The study of the relationship helps to fill a gap in the literature as employee engagement is a new term and has been linked to both job satisfaction and turnover intent as described.

Increased job performance

Increased job performance leads to enhancing the quality and quantity of work, improves working relationships, provides a platform for employees to grow and shine and make the organization stronger and more stable stated by Martine Haas, (2016). With a study that has been done by Sekhar (2017) proves that Respondents opined that flexibility is highly valued and important for job performance. It enables them to balance the demands of work as well as personal life at home. Simultaneously, it transmits signals through which employees feel more valued and eventually affects job performance directly through engagement

 

Decreased absenteeism                                                                            

It will help organizations to reduce costs and increase productivity and some of the following can be introduced to motivate employees to return to work regularly

• Good working environment with better engagement
• Flexible working hours,
• Incentivize for attendance
• safety measures

“The present study examined the moderating role of job resources on the relationship between engagement and voluntary absenteeism, as measured by the Bradford Factor. The results showed that organizational trust and a high-quality Leader-member exchange relationship moderated the relationship between engagement and voluntary absence, such that they buffered the negative relationship between engagement and absence.” Concluded by Shantz (2015) emphasizes the above statement to prove there is a negative relationship between employee engagement and absenteeism rate. 

Sometimes above-mentioned factors could work the other way around such as high absenteeism rate, poor performance, high turnover etc. which can clearly see the bad side of having poor employee engagement. Therefore, it is ideal to set a very good platform and ground, where all line managers take a constant effort, to promote effective employee engagement in the organization.

 

References

Kim-Soon, N., 2015. EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND JOB, Malaysia: Universiti Tun Hussein.

Markos, S., 2010. Employee Engagement: The Key to Improving Performance. International Journal of Business and Management , 5(12), p. 89.

Martine Haas, M. M., 2016. Haverd Business Review. [Online] Available at: https://hbr.org/2016/06/the-secrets-of-great-teamwork [Accessed 27 April 2022].

Mary Lynn Berry, M. L. M., 2008. The Impact of Employee Engagement Factors and Job Satisfaction On Turnover Intent , Knoxville: The University of Tennessee.

Sekhar, C., 2017. Linking Work Engagement. Advances in Developing Human, pp. 1-16.

Shahid, A., 2013. Gaining Employee Commitment: Linking to. Journal of Management Research , 5(1), p. 250.

Shahid, A., 2013. Gaining Employee Commitment: Linking to. Journal of Management Research, 5(1), p. 253.

Shantz, A., 2015. Work engagement and voluntary absence: The moderating role of job. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 24(4), pp. 530-543.

to, G. E. C. L., 2013. Gaining Employee Commitment: Linking to. Journal of Management Research, 5(1), p. 253.

Zhao, A. C. D., 2019. Haverd Busniess Review. [Online] Available at: https://hbr.org/2019/08/the-key-to-happy-customers-happy-employees [Accessed 27 April 2022].