Employee
Engagement

…defending the target

Employee Engagement…

“…a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption”

a relatively enduring state of mind referring to the simultaneous investment of personal energies in the experience or performance of work (Christian, Garza, and Slaughter 2011)

Role…

1. Organizational Sustainability (viability)
2. Threats – environmental volatility, economic conditions, competitors
3. Engaged Workforce

Organizational performance and engagement relationship (Harter, Schmidt, and Hayes 2002)

Role as target defender

Role as target defender

Employee-level Outcomes

• Job Performance
• Citizenship Behaviors

• Job Satisfaction
• Organizational Commitment
  

• Stress
• Burnout

Bailey et al. (2017); Crawford, LePine, and Rich (2010); Halbesleben et al. (2010)

Market

• Most global employees exhibit disengagement (Albrecht et al. 2015)
• Cost in US is billions (lost productivity; Johnson (2004))
• \(\frac{2}{3}\) US companies measure engagement
  • \(\frac{3}{4}\) utilize third-party administration
    
  • Cost estimates vary widely:
    • $3,000 to $30,000
    • £10,000 to £100,000

Anecdotally $7,000 seems to be a low number for smaller (~500 employee) organizations. Market pricing on smaller organizations seems disconnected from fully IS integrated large organization operations.

eRg Engagement

Actionable Components & Motives

• Dedication – strongly involved in one’s work and experiencing a sense of significance, enthusiasm, and challenge
• Energy – high levels of energy and mental resilience while working
• Focus – fully concentrated and engrossed in one’s work

• Thinking – thoughts about work
• Feeling – attitude toward work
• Doing – actions at work

Indicators

Indicator	Substantive	Attitudinal
I'm able to concentrate on my work without distractions	Absorption	Cognitive
Time passes quickly while I'm working	Absorption	Cognitive
I enjoy thinking about work even when I'm not at work	Absorption	Affective
I love starting my workday	Absorption	Affective
I have to be reminded to take breaks while I'm at work	Absorption	Behavioral
I never miss a work deadline	Absorption	Behavioral
Thinking about work saps my energy	Vigor	Cognitive
I'm able to maintain good levels of energy throughout the workday	Vigor	Cognitive
I enjoy spending time completing my job tasks	Vigor	Affective
I feel motivated to go beyond what is asked of me at work	Vigor	Affective
When work is slow I find ways to be productive	Vigor	Behavioral
I express enthusiasm for my job while at work	Vigor	Behavioral
I believe this company cares about my career goals	Dedication	Cognitive
This organization challenges me to work at my full potential	Dedication	Cognitive
I feel proud of my accomplishments within this organization	Dedication	Affective
My job makes me feel like I'm part of something meaningful	Dedication	Affective
I embrace challenging situations at work	Dedication	Behavioral
I speak positively about this organization to others	Dedication	Behavioral

Employee Experience

Hit the “Start” button if you would like a preview of the EMPLOYEE survey experience…

Employer Experience

Note

Command Central dashboard and HTML Report currently unhosted (only available on local computer). Company-wide pdf report template can be accessed here.

Central command dashboard from which 2 reports can be generated: + filtered unit-specific - example here + company-wide

Why eRg…

…Evidence-based
…Outcome-oriented
…Cost efficient
…Audience-tailored
…Immersive

• Agile as 6th feature – consider dashboard with responses being presented as a real-time update of “completeness” of survey (can put value-box with response rate keyed to colors (red, yellow, green))

Empirical Support

Albrecht, Simon L, Arnold B Bakker, Jamie A Gruman, William H Macey, and Alan M Saks. 2015. “Employee Engagement, Human Resource Management Practices and Competitive Advantage: An Integrated Approach.” Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance 2 (1): 7–35.

Bailey, Catherine, Adrian Madden, Kerstin Alfes, and Luke Fletcher. 2017. “The Meaning, Antecedents and Outcomes of Employee Engagement: A Narrative Synthesis.” International Journal of Management Reviews 19 (1): 31–53.

Christian, Michael S, Adela S Garza, and Jerel E Slaughter. 2011. “Work Engagement: A Quantitative Review and Test of Its Relations with Task and Contextual Performance.” Personnel Psychology 64 (1): 89–136.

Crawford, Eean R, Jeffery A LePine, and Bruce Louis Rich. 2010. “Linking Job Demands and Resources to Employee Engagement and Burnout: A Theoretical Extension and Meta-Analytic Test.” Journal of Applied Psychology 95 (5): 834–48.

Halbesleben, Jonathon RB et al. 2010. “A Meta-Analysis of Work Engagement: Relationships with Burnout, Demands, Resources, and Consequences.” Work Engagement: A Handbook of Essential Theory and Research 8 (1): 102–17.

Harter, James K, Frank L Schmidt, and Theodore L Hayes. 2002. “Business-Unit-Level Relationship Between Employee Satisfaction, Employee Engagement, and Business Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Applied Psychology 87 (2): 268–79.

Johnson, G. 2004. “Otherwise Engaged.” Training 41 (10): 4.