A Critical Assessment of Employee Engagement - Essay Example

A Critical Assessment of Employee Engagement Employee engagement entails an approach in organizations where, the management ensures employees contribute to the progress of the organization. This involves instilling commitment among employees to embrace the organizations targets and values. Further employee engagement involves employees themselves participating in enhancing their well-being at the workplace. However, attributes such as behaviours and attitudes tend to differ in terms of facilitating employee engagement. Engagement within an organization requires stable and authentic values. Organizations, however, experience difficulties engaging their employees. Most organizations rely on a mechanistic system of engagement where the management manipulates workers commitment and feelings. In the event that employees realize the manipulation, they become disillusioned. Extracting effort from workers through manipulation, rather than improving engagement, results in cynicism (Balain &Sparrow, 2009). This paper critically assesses employee engagement and why some organizations find it difficult to engage their employees. Employee engagement does not entail an initiative of the human resource, but a strategy that mainly targets an improvement of employee performance. Lack of interaction within most organizations makes it difficult to drive engagement. The choice to improve worker engagement depends on the entire staff within an organization exerting effort to improve productivity. Most organizations fail in this venture because of lacking a business strategy (Guthrie, 2001). Scores of organizations lack the ability to identify engaged employees and maintain these workers in their organization for a longer period. Engaging employees without any concrete business result indicates that the employees feel unaccountable in terms of measuring their performance. Further, organizations fail in terms of aligning organizational goals with aspirations of employees. Lack of effective communication, lead to a disintegrated workforce that falls short of practical goals. Without proper channels of communication, employees are denied information essential in terms of understanding organizational goals and priorities (Kanungo, 1982). Organizations fail in terms of facilitating managerial and leadership improvement required in enhancing employee performance. Organizations tend to pursue employee engagement in means that seem infective in many aspects. Employers often look at the effort of initiating worker engagement as strenuous and does not impact on the businesses bottom-line instantly. Organizations tend to experience flaws while implementing strategies for employee involvement (Craig & Silverstone, 2010). Organizations may view employee involvement as ancillary compared to the actual operations. For employee engagement strategy to work, organizations need to view their strategies meant to engage workers as, part of the whole organization’s business strategy. The engagement should focus on targets such as measurable business outcomes in relation to employee effort. What the management of most organizations fail to initiate, involves assessing employee efforts and accountability. The management further fails because they do not provide communication channel vital for aligning every worker’s actions in relation to the organization’s overall goals (Maurer, 2001). On another note, organizations fail to engage employees due to a lack of a mechanism geared at integrating workers and structures within the organization. The management may lack an understanding of the tools necessary to facilitate leadership behaviour. Organizations rely on structures that do not accommodate changes related to employee engagement. They lack strategies necessary to define responsibilities vital in effecting change process (Tartell, 2012). This involves neglecting employees as important part of the business’s overall goal. Employee engagement works effectively in an environment that accommodates behavioural change. The ability to engage workers is further affected by organizational bureaucracy and to extent, heavy workload. Bureaucracy affects organizations negatively in terms of paralyzing the potency to engage workers. On the other hand, an overworked staff experience stress and burnout. Poor management too, tends to affect organization’s ability to engage workers. Other factors that may strain worker engagement include job insecurity. Workers are affected by fear of losing their job as a result of anticipating economic recession which, impact on their performance at work. Unfairness practiced within most organizations acts as a de-motivator in terms of offering rewards and improving pay. Organizations engaging in repetitive work result in lack of space for workers to relate because of limited cycle times. Autonomy on the other hand, as practiced by some organizations leads to difficulties in terms of initiating employee engagement (Simon, 2011). Lack of trust among the senior managers tends to affect worker engagement and impacts on employee commitment to work. Employees on one hand, make it difficult for the organization to initiate worker engagement by focusing on responsibilities not related to work, this results in a reduced concentration and commitment to work. In essence, an increased recognition of employees within an organization is the antidote to improve worker engagement. The management within any organizations needs to look at structures such as salary structures as a strategy to make workers more engaged (Kalani, 2009). Organizations need to attach significance to every job specification and effect payment by factoring in performance, fringe benefits and other allowances. An empowered workforce is crucial in enhancing engagement. Through empowerment, workers feel appreciated and may engage more appropriately towards improving their work performance. Managers often fail to involve their workers in decision-making process. A workforce feeling neglected by the management tend to disengage in terms of commitment to the organization’s goals (Kalani, 2009). Performance management in most organization is power and impacts negatively on employee engagement. Organizations, while designing a system for performance management, short fall of linking work objectives and organizational objectives. On this note, it is important for organizations to set priorities that reflect each employee’s role within the organization. Further, organizations need to explore the outcome expected of each employee. The management should involve the employees in the process of setting goals. This creates awareness among employee concerning their commitment and performance at work. In addition, in relation to improving worker engagement, it is essential for works to understand the goals set within an organization (Baumruk & Marusarz, 2004). This will assist in terms of promoting the accommodation of challenging and difficult objectives. On this note, workers tend to relate to goals that they contributed their input. However, difficulties in enhancing worker engagement continue to evolve because of the management not recognizing contributions that surpass expectations. Organizations need to implement a performance management as a continuous process; this will facilitate a continuous process in terms of facilitating employee engagement. Organizations to an extent, do not take performance appraisal as a serious matter related to assessing employee performance (Cartwright & Holmes, 2006). A lack of proper knowledge regarding an employee’s performance makes it difficult to facilitate compatibility between an employee’s commitment at work and outside commitments. Attending to performance appraisals results in a personalized relationship between the organization and each employee. This means, it will to extent provide the organization with an opportunity to appreciate contribution made by employees, and in turn, improve employee commitment. Organizations that fail in implementing worker engagement are not active in terms of appreciating the experienced employees. Such employees are significant in terms of understanding the intricacies related to improving work compared to a new manager or supervisor (Cartwright & Holmes, 2006). An approach such as “one size fits all” in implementing worker engagement is not effective. This is because levels related to engagement tends to vary with respect to individuals, the organization and employee groups. The engagement levels are influenced by personal attributes, characteristics within the organization and employee experience. Factors that need consideration in terms of employee engagement include the type of work that employees are assigned. This influences their level of involvement; as a result, it is important for organizations to integrate new and old skills. In addition, organizations need to convince employees that their effort is vital for the organization (Hirschfield & Field, 2000). Organizations tend to lack job specifications that provide meaning and purpose. This is a precursor in improving worker engagement, it is important for the organization to make employees feel they are making a difference in the organization. Organizations to extent, lack equal opportunities in terms of career development. To improve worker engagement, organizations should adopt an inclusive training opportunities for workers (Hirschfield & Field, 2000). In other instances organizations experience reduced worker involvement because of ill office practices by the management. Employers to extent are not comfortable in terms of allowing employees to exercise control over their work. In this regard, management within organizations seldom associates with other workers and inquire about their needs. In an example, a worker may need to attend other appointments such as childcare or medical treatment. However, the management within an organization may be inflexible to the needs of their employees (Alexandra, 2003). The result of such attitude is a demoralized workforce not ready to commit to the organization’s set goals. Improving worker engagement requires an environment where employees are able to articulate their needs to the management in a reciprocal interaction. Further, most managers do not appreciate the benefits of working as a team and prefer individual input to work (Alderfer, 1972). This may work against improving employee engagement; managers need to foster an environment that improves collaboration among employees. The management of organizations experiencing difficulties with worker engagement should rally workers to work collaboratively and in tandem with their organization’s targeted goals. As part of ill practices, there are organizations that do not uphold ethical standards. Employees respect organizations where integrity is held high. However, there are organizations where the management is complacent and not interested in promoting the organization’s image. Poor judgment among managers in any organization may affect employee performance. An example in this sense relates to the action of Boeing’s former CEO that impacted negatively on the company’s reputation (Tartell, 2012). According to self-determination theory and in relation to worker engagement, organizations are able to develop an understanding of crucial components required to implement worker involvement. Organizations need to adopt a strong and unifying strategy. Such strategy is possible through relying on the self-determination theory. SDT (self-determination theory) results in two types of motivation, this involves intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. SDT is significant in terms of enhancing employee engagement; the theory contributes towards an understanding of the mechanisms related to employee engagement. As described in the theory, autonomous regulation involves satisfying the psychological needs resulting from relatedness, autonomy and competence. Lack of satisfaction results in poor performance and diminished psychological and physical well-being. Need satisfaction is a vital element that mediates between environmental influences (Example in this sense includes leadership and job characteristics) and autonomous control. Where, organizations can identify the key mechanisms, a theory such as SDT serves as a guide in establishing strategies related to employee engagement. Organizations often mismanage the process of worker engagement. Example in this aspect involves interfering with family time. In this regard, embracing SDT and related theories, introduces a theoretical framework for tackling the outcomes of mismanagement (Baumruk, 2004). Individual difference also affects worker engagement as evident in psychological literature related to work performance. According to Kahn (1990), individual difference plays a role in one’s nature and in turn, may affect the ability to engage personally in a given role performance. Further, personality and perception influences individual’s commitment to work. Most employees concur that scores of organizations creates an environment that makes it hard to work. It is common for workers to complain about being emotionally unhappy. Personal relationships too affect worker engagement in terms of combining work and family responsibilities. Family stress often leads to stress at work, relationship issues also manifest themselves within the workplace and impact on employee engagement and such factors often take a toll on employee commitment to work (Bowditch & Buono, 2001). In conclusion, employee engagement as a concept requires further research. This should focus on the relationship between organizational outcomes and worker engagement. In terms of achieving success in relation to worker engagement, organizations need to maintain their employees satisfied with their work and personal needs. However, there is not an exact way for organizations to motivate their workers since each individual may well have different needs and at different times. 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