Factors Influencing Employee Engagement, and the Impact Employee Engagement Has on Performance - Literature review Example

Employee Engagement

Introduction

What influences the success of the organization? Once, the famous screenwriter, comedian, and director Woody Allen said, “Approximately, eighty percent of the organization's success is showing up." However, if this notion was true back then, right now is not true. Therefore, for the modern business to be successful, it demands more than showing up, most types of research conducted have proven that a minority of the employees are passionate about their job; they are highly engaged (Breevaart et al., 2013). It is rather discouraging when the employee engagement statistics are reviewed since the business world had evolved from the traditional era when ‘personal management’ existed. The past two decades have focused on the trend of empowerment, recognition, talent development, performance management, teamwork, and advanced leadership styles. Additionally, it is rather critical to acknowledge that there is a huge disparity between developing initiatives and earning profits from the success of the efforts. Therefore, this report will address comprehensively the issue regarding employee engagement, the factors influencing employee engagement, and the impact employee engagement has on performance.

Employees are the significant catalyst towards achieving the business success; their absence creates a vacuum while assigns the business into obscurity. However, the success of the organization cannot be reached by employee attendance only; employee engagement into achieving a worthy goal is the engine that draws resilience for effectiveness from both the internal and external environmental forces. According to Kaliannan and Adjovu (2015, pp. 161), states that ‘committed' employees are an asset to the organization rather than ‘satisfied' employees because they are focused on achieving the objectives of the organization and hence, are considered as a greater force behind the success of the business. Therefore, employee engagement can be described as “the scope to which individuals enjoy and have belief in the things they accomplish and feel valued and appreciated for performing it." The crucial notion that most organizations should acknowledge is that no matter the size of the company, they cannot succeed without committed and energized employees who have engaged themselves to achieve the firms' mission and comprehend on ways to make it.

Employees who are committed to their organizations are extensively committed to their work and offer their companies significant competitive advantages that include high revenues and low staff turnovers. Therefore, most businesses have capitalized in policies and procedures that encourage engagement and commitment of public servants to their respective responsibilities. According to Vance (2006, pp.1), the company health can be determined foremost by employee engagement before the customer satisfaction and free cash flow. Various factors define the employee engagement, but the most common are the employee's gratification with their duties. The employee engagement motivates him or her to work extra hard to achieve the business goals and objectives; the notion of submitting an excellent job influences them. Additionally, committed employers prefer mostly to work for their current organizations since they are high performers. The employee engagement and commitment can be potentially translated as viable assets to the team.

Factors Describing Employee Engagement

Our research proved that individuals are mostly contented when they are in a workforce that gives more pleasure and satisfaction especially if it is matching their interests and skills. For instance, most salespeople tend to fail when they are promoted to the ranks of becoming a sales manager. They result in failure because their skills do not match with those of management, and hence, it is discovered that most of these people enjoying selling than coaching other people to sell (Shuck and Wollard, 2010, pp.89). The organization should identify the strengths of their staffs because some employees tend to thrive as a team while others enjoy their workforce independently. Enjoyment is one of the key factors that will influence employee engagement.

When the individuals feel appreciated and acknowledged by the organizations and the society as a whole regarding their contributions, they are motivated to be engaged and go an extra mile to accomplish greater things. There is a crucial connection between what people do every day and the objectives of an organization. Individuals are rather passionate when they comprehend the goals and mission of the organization; they tend to find a solution to any challenge that might hinder them from achieving the organization goals. For instance, most trainers are passionate concerning what they do because they like seeing other people flourish in growth and development. Therefore, the employees based on their grounded beliefs; they might honor the organization integrity and hence, assist in maximizing its investments and returns.

Individuals are drawn towards working hard and more efficiently when they are rewarded for their profound contributions. Recognition and rewards can be done in several gestures such as vacations, salary increment, and healthy working life. However, the best form of appreciation is by ensuring the employees are guaranteed of their self-worth in the organization (Shuck, Rocco, and Albornoz, 2011). The leaders in the organization should take a few minutes to appreciate the employees efforts and let them know how exceptional their contributions are and how much they are valued.

Factors Influencing Engaging Work Environment

We identified that employees are deeply committed and engaged in their workforce when they have a deeper comprehension of what is required of them. Employers are needed to offer a comprehensive job description and the set standards of performance to the employees before they commence in their work. Furthermore, they should understand that their individual success and goals are deeply rooted in the organization goals (Wellins, Bernthal, and Phelps, 2015, pp.10). Unfortunately, most of the employees are dissatisfied with the systems utilized by the organizations to manage their performances. The companies are required to align effort with strategies and these demands for the efficient communication system and robust accountability. When employees are clearly informed concerning their responsibilities, it reduces any room for confusion and chaos especially when there are necessary changes to be applied. Additionally, when the employees are well informed, they can manage and utilize time, resources, and the allocated budget effectively since they have set priorities. When the employees are performing efficiently, it proves their engagement is top notch. Effective performance management helps the organization to pinpoint the weaknesses and the strengths of the employees.

Employee empowerment gives the individuals the feeling of job entitlement; it brings about commitment and the capability of making informed decisions rather than following decisions made by other people. Organizations encourage employment empowerment by selecting individuals who enjoy performing their duties and thus, giving them the responsibility of making the crucial decisions concerning their workforce (Kular et al., 2008, pp.15). When a task appears and it stands to add value to the employees, they end up feeling empowered. The employers are advised to use efficient measures of motivational and job fit during the recruitment period to ensure they select individuals who value their work. Empowerment is also fostered by the organization when the employees acknowledge that they are accountable for their actions instead of their self-determined perceptions being directed to others. Empowerment encourages trust between leaders and staff such that the leaders appreciate that the employees can make informed decisions when faced with a challenge.

Compensation helps and directly influences the employee engagement and commitment. Some of the compensation packages include generous retirement benefits and the robust performance incentives system (Vance, 2006, pp.16). Some of the compensation encourages commitment to employers while others encourage engagement in the job. Therefore, when companies are designing high compensation initiatives, it is necessary to consider employee engagement and commitment.

Most employees tend to perform exceptionally well when they receive support from other co-workers. Therefore, for teamwork and collaboration to work, the working relationship should be good both internally and externally the group. Fruitful cooperation and collaboration have been found to increase the organization productivity and effectiveness (Luthans and Peterson, 2002). However, the teamwork initiative to be successful especially in building employee engagement, trust is essential since it determines confidence and welfare of the group. Additionally, for the employees to be fully engaged, the job opportunity granted to them should ensure growth and development. The organization environment should create room for innovation and creativity to prevent the employees from looking for profitable employment opportunities.

Employee Engagement Impact on Performance

One of the significant advantages of the report is that the employee engagement has been acknowledged as the backbone of a successful organization. The association between effective business performance and employee engagement is visible since the results are overwhelming, and it is precise that employee engagement has an active role. When the employees operate in an environment that encourages engagement, their attention is entirely focused on their work, and they tend to work towards achieving higher levels of returns and productivity. Engage individuals are always looking for better ways to do their work and solutions to handle the challenges they might encounter (Simpson, 2009). Additionally, the employees opt to stick to an organization when there is room for growth and development and thus, ensure efficient performance since engaged, and happy staffs have satisfied customers. Engaged employees are more innovative and creative such that they look for ways to improve the significant factors that might influence the client satisfaction (Shuck, 2011). When the organization has more engaged employees, it has better financial performance . The graph representation below will provide more information concerning the matter.

Graph 1: Employee engagement representation (Sorenson, 2013)

Conclusion

In conclusion, the organization success was based on the employees’ attendance first, but recently employee engagement has been the backbone of the business performance. An engaged workforce leads to immense achievement regardless of the company size. However, it requires trust, confidence, teamwork, collaboration, compensation, and active recruitment for the engagement to be successful.