Employee engagement is a property of the relationship between an organization and its employees. An "engaged employee" is one who is fully absorbed by and enthusiastic about their work and so takes positive action to further the organization's reputation and interests.

An organization with 'high' employee engagement might therefore be expected to outperform those with 'low' employee engagement, all else being equal.[1] There are, however, a range of definitions that have emerged around concepts relating to employee engagement. Research has looked at the involvement, commitment and productivity of employees. Organizations have often had a focus on how to generate engagement, rather than seeking objective ways to measure it. Care must therefore be taken when looking at some of the statistics presented around engagement.

William Kahn provided the first formal definition of personal engagement as "the harnessing of organisation members' selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances.[2]"

In 1993, Schmidt et al. proposed a bridge between the pre-existing concept of 'job satisfaction' and employee engagement with the definition: "an employee's involvement with, commitment to, and satisfaction with work. Employee engagement is a part of employee retention." This definition integrates the classic constructs of job satisfaction (Smith et al., 1969), and organizational commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1991).

Defining employee engagement remains problematic. In their review of the literature in 2011, Shuck and Wollard [3] identify four main sub-concepts within the term:

Definitions of engagement vary in the weight they give to the individual vs the organisation in creating engagement. Recent practice has situated the drivers of engagement across this spectrum, from within the psyche of the individual employee (for example, promising recruitment services that will filter out 'disengaged' job applicants [5]) to focusing mainly on the actions and investments the organisation makes to support engagement.[6]

These definitional issues are potentially severe for practitioners. With different (and often proprietary) definitions of the object being measured, statistics from different sources are not readily comparable. Engagement work remains open to the challenge that its basic assumptions are, as Tom Keenoy describes them, 'normative' and 'aspirational', rather than analytic or operational - and so risk being seen by other organizational participants as "motherhood and apple pie" rhetoric.[7]

Prior to Kahn's use of the term in the mid-1990s, a series of concepts relating to employee engagement had been investigated in management theory. Employee morale, work ethic, productivity, and motivation had been explored in a line dating back to the work of Mary Parker Follett in the early 1920s. Survey-based World War II studies on leadership and group morale sparked further confidence that such properties could be investigated and measured.[8] Later, Frederick Herzberg concluded [9] that positive motivation is driven by managers giving their employees developmental opportunities, activity he termed 'vertical enrichment'.

With the wide range of definitions comes a variety of potential contributors to desirable levels of employee engagement. Some examples:

Eileen Appelbaum and her colleagues (2000) studied 15 steel mills, 17 apparel manufacturers, and 10 electronic instrument and imaging equipment producers. Their purpose was to compare traditional production systems with flexible high-performance production systems involving teams, training, and incentive pay systems. In all three industries, the plants utilizing high-involvement practices showed superior performance. In addition, workers in the high-involvement plants showed more positive attitudes, including trust, organizational commitment and intrinsic enjoyment of the work.[10] The concept has gained popularity as various studies have demonstrated links with productivity. It is often linked to the notion of employee voice and empowerment.[11]

Two studies of employees in the life insurance industry examined the impact of employee perceptions that they had the power to make decisions, sufficient knowledge and information to do the job effectively, and rewards for high performance. Both studies included large samples of employees (3,570 employees in 49 organizations and 4,828 employees in 92 organizations). In both studies, high-involvement management practices were positively associated with employee morale, employee retention, and firm financial performance.[10] Watson Wyatt found that high-commitment organizations (one with loyal and dedicated employees) out-performed those with low commitment by 47% in the 2000 study and by 200% in the 2002 study.[12]

Employees with the highest level of commitment perform 20% better and are 87% less likely to leave the organization, which indicates that engagement is linked to organizational performance.[13]

In a study of professional service firms, the Hay Group found that offices with engaged employees were up to 43% more productive.[14] Job satisfaction is also linked to productivity.[15]

Increasing engagement is a primary objective of organizations seeking to understand and measure engagement.

Some additional points from research into drivers of engagement are presented below:

Commitment theories are rather based on creating conditions, under which the employee will feel compelled to work for an organization, whereas engagement theories aim to bring about a situation in which the employee by free choice has an intrinsic desire to work in the best interests of the organization.[20]

Recent research has focused on developing a better understanding of how variables such as quality of work relationships and values of the organization interact, and their link to important work outcomes.[21] From the perspective of the employee, "outcomes" range from strong commitment to the isolation of oneself from the organization.[19]

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Employee engagement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia