Employee Engagement & Organizational performance

Figure 2.0 Integrated Model of Employee Engagement

(Source: Bedarkar and Pandita, 2014)

According to Bedarkar and Pandita (2014), there are 3 specific factors which are assumed to lead employee engagement which ultimately result in higher organizational performance. Leadership research shows that positive leadership behaviors have a clear association with engagement constructs such as motivation, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, proactive behaviors and organizational citizenship behavior, Trust in leader, support from the leader, and creating a blame-free environment are considered as components of psychological safety, a condition proposed by Kahn, (1990), which leads to employee engagement (Bedarkar and Pandita, 2014). He further states, when employees notice their supervisors as being consistent between words and actions and holding moral perceptions, they are more likely to be engaged in their work. Leaders must develop their self-awareness , understand their own merits and demerits, show consistency between beliefs and actions and become role models for communication in the organization as trust depends mainly upon consistency of both communication and action and is the emotional glue that binds followers and leaders together as well as this facilitates a feeling of pride in their employees due to the employees’ dependence on the leaders’ professional competencies and affective behavior (Wang and Hsieh, 2013). Internal communication plays an important role in ensuring employee engagement, which effectively carries the organizational values to all employees and thus obtains their support in reaching organizational goals (Beauregard and Henry, 2009).

Work-Life Balance is an important driver of employee engagement whereas the ability of the employee to find time for his work and family was a crucial factor to the success of his performance at the workplace (Bedarkar and Pandita, 2014). Organizations can implement various work-life balance initiatives that may assist employees in better work-life balance such as  flexible working hours, job sharing, part-time work, compressed workweeks, parental leave, telecommuting, on-site childcare facility, as well as employers, may provide a range of benefits related to employees’ health and well-being, including extended health insurance for the employee and dependents, personal days, and access to programs or services to encourage fitness and physical and mental health (Ioan, Codruta & Patricia, 2010).

Those employees who were more favorable toward their organization’s efforts to support work-life balance also indicated a much lower intent to leave the organization, greater pride in their organization, a willingness to recommend it as a place to work and higher overall job satisfaction (Kompaso and Sridevi, 2010). But, Beauregard and Henry (2009) state that employees are often demonstrably concerned that using flexible working arrangements will damage their promotion prospects and perhaps their relationships with co-workers and managers.

The employee engagement significantly impact on financial results of organizations as several studies observe that employee engagement initially results in greater employee performance, which further leads to enhanced organizational performance (Tower Perrin, 2006; Gallup, 2006 as cited in Beauregard and Henry, 2009).

The organization which I work in is a leading multinational courier company and the company follows the following strategies according to figure 1.0 to engage company employees. The leadership of the organization much aware of the company goals & works by heart to active it while communicating it to the company employees clearly. As well as leaders of the company have created an open door & family culture where employees can easily approach their management in order to communicate their ideas or suggestions & resolve problems related to the organization. Leadership provides continues support to carry out more employee engagement actives with creating an environment where an employee can balance their work & personal life well of every employee in the organization.  Flexible working hours, work from home and telecommuting are introduced to employees by the leadership.

As well as the training program about “positive thinking” was conducted by the organization in order to create a positive mindset of employees. This may help to overcome the situation of employee dissatisfaction & demotivation. At the same time, leaders facilitated special training programs including foreign training to each department which enable employees to be experts in their tasks. This environment with engaged employees lead to improve the performance of the employees in line with productivity. High productivity eventually makes organization performance high & profitable. This company was ranked amongst the Top 25 Great Workplaces in Sri Lanka, by the Great Place to Work® Institute, for the 4^th consecutive year in 2019.

Video 2

(Source: Mountain Hawk Express Pvt Ltd, 2018)

List of References

·       Bedarkar, M. and Pandita, D. (2014). A Study on the Drivers of Employee Engagement Impacting Employee Performance. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 133, pp.106-115.

·       Kahn, W. A. (1990. Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), p. 692–724

·       Wang, D. and Hsieh, C. (2013). The effect of authentic leadership on employee trust and employee engagement. Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, 41(4), pp.613-624.

·       Ioan, A. Codruta, O and Patricia, R. (2010). The Role of Work-Life Balance Practices in Order to Improve Organizational Performance. European Research Studies, 10(1), 202-212.

·       Beauregard, T. and Henry, L. (2009). Making the link between work-life balance practices and organizational performance. Human Resource Management Review, 19(1), pp.9-22.

·       Kompaso, S. and Sridevi, M. (2010). Employee Engagement: The Key to Improving Performance. International Journal of Business and Management, 5(12 )