Assessment brief/activity
Your Chief Executive is committed to having a more engaged workforce and has asked you to brief the executive team on how this could be accomplished. She has informed you that not all of the executive team understand what it means, what the benefits are and what is involved.
You have been asked to develop and deliver an informative and persuasive presentation which includes:
An analysis of the meaning, principal dimensions and components of employee engagement and how it differs, if at all, from related concepts such as organisational commitment, employer involvement, job satisfaction.
An identification of the principal drivers and business benefits of having an engaged workforce and a signposting of some of the steps an organisation can take to create a culture of employee engagement e.g. through job design, discretionary behaviour etc,
A brief explanation of the need for aligning engagement practices with other corporate components.
An evaluation of suitable diagnostic tools for measuring employee attitudes and levels of employee engagement.
An example of an employee value proposition (EVP) to promote levels of employee engagement making reference to what makes a ‘good’ EVP.
Examples of relevant HR strategies to raise levels of employee engagement and address barriers.
Solution/Answer:
1.1 Analysis of Meaning, Principal dimensions and components of employee engagement and comparing with other related concepts
Employee engagement is formally defined as the level of employees feeling passionate regarding their jobs, organisation commitment and putting extra efforts (discretionary behaviour) in their roles. This is defined in Custom Insight (2021) as the extent in which the employees are happy or contented to their assigned job functions.
For the principal dimensions, these include;
Intellectual/Cognitive– This is defined as “thinking hard about the job and how to do it better”. This means that it focuses on the employees held beliefs on their organisation, the leadership and workplace culture. Linking this dimension with employee engagement, Mark Terry (2020) noted that for engagement to be high, employees ought to be aware of their employer’s vision, set strategies and performance level for contributing to their assigned organisation functions.
Affective/Emotional– This principal dimension is defined as “thinking positively about doing a good job”. To achieve this, Forbes (2019) had recommended the necessity of encouraging the employees in trusting and buying in to existing value and mission of an organisation. Hence, depending on the existing management strategy and also teamwork strategies in place, it is possible to define the scope of employee relations which represent the engagement.
Social/Physical– This is defined as “actively taking available opportunities for discussing work-linked improvement with others in their work environment”. Hence, CIPD (2021) note that this is dependent on the level in which the employees execute their job roles with maximum efforts, physically and mentally as they progress with their assigned job roles. An increased connectedness of the employees both physically and mentally is an indicator of increased employee engagement.
Further, the employee engagement differs from other organisational concepts. These include;
Organisational Commitment
The level of employees commitment to their organisation is evidenced by the scope in which the employees are satisfied in their roles. According to Stoyanova and Iliev (2017) this is identified the employee engagement as being an intrinsic factor evidencing on the level of the employees enthusiasm for their assigned job roles. This is nevertheless distinct from organisational commitment which evidence on the existence of an increased employee enthusiasm for the organisation they normally work for. In order to link the two concepts, Effectory (2020) organisational commitment means that employees are significantly committed but rather not engaged in their work roles. This means that for the employees who are not engaged or committed, they are not a must committed or engaged in their job roles, and neither commitment in organisation evidenced.
Employee involvement
As defined in CIPD (2021a) the employee involvement is “an environment where the employees are encouraged in, and impacting directly, the decision and practices in their business environment”. Nevertheless, it is not all the employee engagement measures which are applied in evidencing on the level of involvement of the employee. A case example is in Saudi Aramco Organisation which is my current organisation where employees who resign from the organisation is not as a result of not being committed.
Job Satisfaction
As noted in CIPD Community Group (2020) while the job satisfaction is a critical factor, it is just a single factor of employee engagement. From an individual experience, it is evident that the employees with a high-level engagement are substantially included in their organisation operations, manifesting a high-level job satisfaction and enthusiasm in their assigned functions. The outcome of this is an organisation driving the organisation in attaining its set goals with satisfaction implying the employees are only ready in executing their functions and not more than this. Conversely, CIPD (2021b) noted that it is not that all the satisfied employees are directly engaged. This is since the employees could be as a result of other aspects and not necessarily due to being satisfied.
2.1 Principal Drivers of Employee engagement & Evaluating Business Benefits for the Organisation and Different Stakeholders
Principal Drivers
Strategic Narratives– In regard to its link with the employee engagement, this is identified as “strong strategic narrative of the organisation, including where it has come from and where it is going”. As evidenced in PeopleLab (2021), this is since the strategic narratives provides an in-depth description of the future of the organisation and reason. This is by offering the employees with compelling purposes and meaningfulness at work leading to increased engagement. For instance, for Saudi Aramco, their strategic narrative is tailored towards becoming a global leader in oil and gas sector. As a result, their employees are engaged towards this strategic narrative in a successful manner.
Engaging Management– This is identified as “ a strategy of ensuring that the managers are giving a special focus on their teams and scope on their work. This is by treating their employees in accordance to their varying needs individually and coaching the employees and challenging their people”. By linking this to management development, CIPD (2021c) identified this as establishing skilled managers for the organisational success and national economic wellbeing. In Saudi Aramco organisation case study, this indicates development of the managers as a critical process of skills enhancement, competency development and relevant knowledge acquisition.
Employee Voice– This principal driver of employee engagement is defined as “employees being seen as central to the solution and participating in finding it”. In CIPD (2021a) this is identified as the employees being best positioned in communicating on their varying views of the employers and influencing issues affecting them as they are executing their functions. This was further identified in CIPD (2021d) as being challenging owing to the changing face of workforce becoming more adverse and complex. This also have a direct implication on the employees level of engagement and their roles in the organisation successful practice.
Integrity– Integrity is significantly accepted in an entity evidenced by the organisational values which are clearly evident and appreciated in terms of an entity behaviours. As noted in Engage for success (2020) the integrity is a factor that is supposed to be harnessed in the entire organisation and not only in the senior management. In the case of Saudi Aramco, this is manifested by rewarding the employees evidenced by appropriate values and behaviours. In my position as a HR professional, I never rewards those not exhibiting specific behaviours and values. Hence, employees are always engaged to ensure that they successfully achieve their job functions.
Stakeholders Benefits
In order to demonstrate the varying benefits of the employee engagement to various stakeholders, this can be evidenced in table 1;
| Benefit 1 (example) | Benefit 2 (example) | |
| Entire business | Reduced employees turnover with the retention of most qualified talents evident | Improved productivity and performances |
| Clients | When the employees are significantly satisfied, the customer care is also high-level in their practices | Employees having the will in working beyond their job description leading to clients satisfaction as the employees are satisfied |
| Employees | Investing on the employees through being a learning organisation/ training and development strategies | Existence of an elaborate, transparent and active communication |
| Managers | All the teams significantly motivated and engaged in their roles execution | Sharing the entire mission and vision, core purpose and to strive to attain set goals |
Table 1: Employee engagement benefits
As evidenced in the Quantum Workplace (2020), the employee engagement is identified as a “miracle drug” for challenges in workplace. In overall, the employee engagement increase the achieved profitability levels, decreasing the entire turnover and improving the most qualified employees retention in their working environment. This is passed to the employees and also to the organisation in a general context. For the Saudi Aramco organisation case, through a high employee engagement, the organisation has been regarded as the best in KSA and leading as an employer of choice. Their customers reviews of the services offered by the employees is always positive hence an evidence of increased benefits of the employee engagement levels.
2.2 Steps an Organisation can take to create a culture of employee engagement