Tthe Importance of Employee Engagement in the IT Industry - Case Study Example

Employee Engagement Name: University: Date: Table of Contents Employee Engagement 1 Table of Contents 2 1.0 Executive Summary 3 2.0 Introduction 4 2.1 Report Aims and Scope 4 2.2 Context and industry information 5 3.0 Research Design 6 3.1 Nature of the problem 6 3.2 Research Approach 7 4.0 Review of the evidence 7 5.0 Findings and Implications 10 6.0 Conclusion 12 7.0 References 13 Employee Engagement 1.0 Executive Summary Employee engagement has in the last two decades gained popularity given that its positive outcomes have enabled organisations to develop engagement culture at work as an organisation priority. Although much has been written about employee engagement within the multinational companies, little is known concerning engagement of IT workers in the IT industry. For IT organisations, engaging employees is very important because it significantly influences the tone, style, and manner of the whole organisation. The report established that employee engagement is a crucial source of competitive advantage and it generates a strong connection between business outcomes and employee performance. Basically, employee engagement is about the beliefs of the employees concerning the organization, the working conditions, and the leaders. It has been established that contemporary organisations are placing a lot of emphasis on employee engagement practices with the view to the benefits associated with having employees that are highly engaged within the organizations. For this reason, it is imperative to identify employees who are low engaged and replace them with those who are highly engaged to create the organization and employees as one. The purpose of this report is to examine the essentials of IT staff, factors that could influence their engagement as well as to investigate the importance of engaging employees and how to improve it. The aim of the report is to analyse the existing literature findings with the view to the existing theories and models on engagement. The knowledge that will be achieved from the report’s theoretical analysis together with the research results can be utilised by Huawei’s head of HR so as to address issues concerning employee engagement at the company. 2.0 Introduction In the last two decades, employee engagement has turned out to be a very popular concept of HR management. Organisations are utilising different tools of engagement in to remain competitive and enhance both performance and productivity. The aim of this report is to investigate the importance of employee engagement in the IT industry and to provide evidence why Huawei’s head of HR must be concerned about employee engagement. 2.1 Report Aims and Scope Currently, engagement from an HR point of view is a crucial consideration. The economic climate has become more challenging for MNCs; therefore, organisations have been forced to restructure as well as resize. This has made some organisations to look for new approaches to maintaining and increasing employee engagement. Considering that the IT industry is very competitive, organisations are struggling to recruit talented employees; therefore, the hold onto their best talent through employee engagement. In view of this, it is important for organisations to find the right balance between enhancing and fostering levels of employee engagement while simultaneously ensuring that their competitive position is not compromised. This report’s primary aim is to investigate why employee engagement is necessary and the factors that must be considered to drive it. This is in view of the fact that employee engagement has been associated with improved performance. The objective is to measure the importance of employee engagement in the IT industry and to identify what should be improved so as to increase the engagement level. The report will be divided into four sections; part one offers a brief overview of Huawei context and industry.; the second part provides the nature of the problem at Huawei as well as the approach that will be used to collect and analyse evidence crucial to the problem. The third and fourth part provide a review of the evidence and the key findings, respectively. The last part offers conclusion and recommendations for Huawei. 2.2 Context and industry information Huawei belongs to the IT industry, which plays a key role in supporting the growth of the global economy. There are different leading IT companies in the globe such is Apple Inc., IBM, ARM Technologies and many others that compete with Huawei. The IT industry has numerous challenges such as the low number of new talent in areas like cyber security as well as service management. Companies in the IT industry find challenges in recruiting JavaScript and C++ developers. The IT industry is defined as well as redefined by new products and innovation’ therefore, the industry is constantly shifting. Therefore, IT companies are progressively re-examining their businesses’ structures and looking for ways to improve their financial performance. Competition in the industry is very high, and this has consequently made customers become more and more demanding. Customers are looking for superior performance, flexibility, and better features at cheaper prices (Hazelwood, 2014). Still, the industry is booming and has scores of opportunities for employment, but retention of talent has become more challenging. The sponsor for this report is Huawei, a global company that offers IT solutions. The company innovates continuously so as to meet the needs of the customer and always seeks to improve the customer experiences and generating maximum value for its consumers. To improve performance, Huawei needs to leverage its expertise and experience in the IT sector through employee engagement. Huawei supports socioeconomic sustainability by ensuring that its network operations are stable and secure and ensures that the industries and customers improve efficiency. The company has localised its operations so as to help local innovators to capitalise on its global value and enjoy the win-win outcomes (Huawei, 2015). 3.0 Research Design 3.1 Nature of the problem Employees that are disengaged are typically the type of employees who at one time were high performers, but for various reasons they have lost interest in the organization or their job. This result in poor performance and their negative attitude spreads throughout the organisation like a virus. The problem of disengagement can be solved by implementing new management practices and policies at the place of work that makes sure workers are fully engaged and are satisfied with their job. The organisation has to fix the problem by first ensuring that the disengaged employees are quickly identified and eliminated. There are talent shortages in the IT industry, and this has increasingly become a problem for the company due to the ongoing war for talent. Therefore, the company needs a strategy of engaging its employees to avert any possibility of losing them to the competitors. Decisions associated with talent are important to the business strategy in terms of retaining highly talented employees; therefore, there is the need to reduce business risks that impact the organizational performance and resiliency in the current business environment that are very competitive and challenging. 3.2 Research Approach Evidence relevant to the problem will be gathered through the literature review, which provides a critical assessment and summary of the knowledge about employee engagement. The literature review will provide a framework that provides evidence why employee engagement is important at Huawei. The literature review information will be gathered from scholarly articles, white papers, working papers any other sources that are relevant to the topic. The literature review provides a summary as well as critical review of works associated with employee engagement. It will combine the old interpretations with the new and trace the intellectual progress as well as major debates with regard to engagement. The purpose of the literature review will be to describe the relationship between different works on engagement and reveal any existing gaps in the literature. 4.0 Review of the evidence In Markos and Sridevi (2010) study, they established a positive correlation between employee engagement and outcomes of organizational performance: profitability, productivity and employee retention. Furthermore, they established that employee engagement is positively associated with customer satisfaction. These arguments are echoed by Gupta, Ganguli, and Ponnam (2015), maintaining that when the number of engaged employees within a company is lower, then the company efficiency will also be lower. Therefore, it is important for all companies to understand the factors that affect employee engagement. Some of the factors that influence employee engagement as cited by reference include employee’s perception, rewards and job characteristics. Employees who take part in decision making as observed in Tangthong (2014) study often feel motivated at the workplace, because their basic needs of social relations and clarity are fulfilled. Employee engagement boosts motivation and performance of the employees. In her study, Schaufenbuel (2013) observed that the cost of employee disengagement for both economies as well as organizations is very high. For organisations, the cot associated with employee disengagement includes high employee turnover and lost productivity. Workers that are disengaged have high absenteeism rates and are more inclined to take part in the theft and demonstrate poorer customer service. Soni (2013) agrees that engagement is crucial for managers seeking to nurture talent considering that disengagement normally results in low motivation and commitment. Ram and Prabhakar (2011) in their holistic view of engagement established what can and cannot work in employee engagement. Through utilisation of engagement predictors’ matrix (organizational values, process, reward, work/life balance, and others), the employees according to reference can enable the organisation to successfully manage engagement and eventually improve productivity, motivation as well as retention. In his study, Gross )2011) introduced the term ‘psychological recession’ to expound how the changing environment and economic uncertainty and shape the attitudes of the workers. Some employees could have a pessimistic view of the company because of what they have experienced such as downsizing, corporate loyalties erosion, loss of jobs because of globalization and uncertainties concerning job instability. This can bring about negative impact on employee engagement. Employees should feel enthusiastic about their jobs and this can be achieved by engaging and rewarding them. Jilani and Juma (2014) study results exhibited an existence of strong relationship between employee engagement and rewards. Furthermore, engagement must be embedded strategically and supported across performance management, socialization as well as training and development systems, processes and practices. Albrecht, Bakker, Gruman, Macey, and Saks (2015) associates employee engagement with the physical, cognitive, and emotional aspects of work, and maintains that organization must promote the factors that positively impact engagement across all business activities. Even though low engagement or disengagement levels have been viewed extensively within the literature, only a few such as reference have examined the costs associated with employee engagement. According to Mehta and Mehta (2013), levels of productivity related to income inequality and work intensification is very high, and there is a probability that organisations are intentionally soliciting high levels of engagement but without rewarding the workers appropriately. Engagement model reviewed in Truss, Shantz, Soane, Alfes, and Delbridg (2013) study is sourced from the ‘burnout’ literature that considers job engagement as the burnout positive antithesis involves in eroding engagement with one’s job. Citing a number of studies, reference asserts that job engagement is related to feelings of control and choice, sustainable workload, suitable reward, and recognition, justice and fairness, as well as valued and meaningful work. Engagement was grounded in self-determination theory (SDT) by Meyer and Gagné (2008), and argued that when engagement is embedded in the motivation theory it can enable the organisation to understand the essence of leadership, commitment, and job design .since these factors contribute largely on the employee sustainable growth as well as profitability of the organisation. Batista-Taran, Shuck, Gutierrez, and Baralt (2008) concur with this assertion, argue that understanding how to manage talent so as to improve engagement is a skill that all heads of HR must have. For this reason, transformational leaders exhibit behaviours such as supportive management crucial for increasing levels of engagement. Employee engagement according to Albdour and Altarawneh (2014) is represented in two dimensions organizational engagement and job engagement, the latter has been studied extensively as compared to the former. Still, employee engagement can be categorised into two basic approaches: the pragmatic approach whereby a ‘dedicated program’ is created by the company for engagement in an attempt to measure and articulate engagement, and the ‘philosophical approach’ wherein engagement is viewed as a management philosophy that must be considered when making HR decision. Still, both approaches do not offer a clear winner in achieving a workforce that is engaged; therefore, engagement needs a two-way relationship between employee and the leaders (Dicke, Holwerda, & Kontakos, 2007; Pavaravadhana, 2011). Furthermore, high employee engagement levels in the organization have been associated with improved retention of talent and individual performance of the employees, which consequently positively impacts the organisational performance (Isa & Ibrahim, 2014; Saunders & Tiwari, 2014). 5.0 Findings and Implications From the review of the evidence, the factors that drive employee disengagement that Huawei should avoid include: poor work/life balance and working environment, role ambiguity, lack of confidence and trust, bad behaviours, overutilization and underutilization of talent, inadequate resources, and unmet job expectation (Pillai, 2013). Engaging employees should include inter-linked aspects that can move employees further than satisfaction; thus, improving employee engagement knowledge as well as practical strategies are important for the development of workplace engagement culture. As cited by Gichohi (2014), job resources saliences, and personal resources, are the main drivers of employee engagement. Therefore, employee engagement can be strengthened through effective leadership, compensation and career development. In view of this, Huawei management should be very dynamic so as to increase employee happiness by engaging them in tasks that please them. Discrimination at work should be avoided by treating all employees as valuable assets. The employees should not feel monotonous while in the workplace and should be allowed to celebrate some occasions like Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, International Women’s Day, and so forth. A number of the reviewed studies have pointed out that employee engagement reduces the turnover intention significantly and results in increased business outcomes. Therefore, by engaging its employees, Huawei will successfully improve employee motivation, productivity and organisation performance. Employee engagement will benefit Huawei in a number of ways: Increased profitability; improved customer loyalty and satisfaction; more creativity as well as innovation; high motivation; improved business growth; and generates a sense of loyalty. For this reason, engagement at Huawei can be driven by creating positive attitudes amongst workers towards their job as well as clarifying employees concerning the expectations of their job. Other drivers to employee engagement include creating positive attitudes concerning the organisational values and ethics and providing rewards so as to engage employees. 6.0 Conclusion In conclusion, the report has investigated the importance of employee engagement in the IT industry and has provided evidence why Huawei’s head of HR must be concerned about employee engagement. From the discussions above it can be concluded that employee engagement is a relationship outcome between employees and employers. Therefore, an engaged worker is one who has been absorbed completely by the organization and is motivated by his job and is ready to take positive action so as to improve the interests and reputation of the organisation. As evidenced by the reviewed studies, organisations with engaged employees have authentic and strong values, with fairness, co-operation and openness. If Huawei has a 'high' employee engagement it can outperform other companies with low employee engagement in the IT industry. When employees feel valued by the employers they become more satisfied, more productive and more fulfilled. When employees are satisfied the customers also become satisfied, which results in high profitability. For this reason, it can be recommended that employee engagement at Huawei must be a continuous process of measurement, perfection, learning as well as deed. The company can generate a favourable environment for innovation by rewarding highly engaged workers. They should introduce strategies for engaging employees, ensure engagement is measured, and make managers responsible for engagement. 7.0 References Albdour, A. A., & Altarawneh, I. I. (2014). Employee Engagement and Organizational Commitment: Evidence from Jordan. International Journal of Business, 19(2), 192-212. Albrecht, S. L., Bakker, A. B., Gruman, J. A., Macey, W. H., & Saks, A. M. (2015). Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(1), 7-35. Batista-Taran, L. C., Shuck, M. B., Gutierrez, C. C., & Baralt, S. (2008). The Role of Leadership Style in Employee Engagement. Proceedings of the Eighth Annual College of Education & GSN Research Conference (pp. 15-20). Miami: Florida International University. Dicke, C., Holwerda, J., & Kontakos, A.-M. (2007). Employee Engagement: What Do We Really Know? What Do We Need to Know to Take Action? 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Truss, C., Shantz, A., Soane, E., Alfes, K., & Delbridg, R. (2013). Employee engagement, organisational performance and individual well-being: exploring the evidence, developing the theory. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(14), 2657–2669. Read More