making sense of employee engagement

The term employee engagement is the current term in the historic progression of the notion of employee morale and job satisfaction. This generally represents the degree employees are positive about their organization, their supervisor, their co workers and their job and thus willing to commit themselves to some degree towards their success. The consequences of high job satisfaction are not so much the effort one puts on their job tasks as it is the employee’s psychological attachment to the organization, less job stress, and helping behaviors towards co workers.  This leads to less turnover and absenteeism for employees and the desire to be proactive for the benefit of their team and organization.

Low morale on the other hand will result in employees leaving the organization when given the opportunity and withholding effort beyond what is minimally necessary to keep their jobs. Employees with low morale are less likely to trust management. Lower trust results in resistance to change and employees withholding information from management and other units within the organization. Most importantly, low morale affects customer service as employees who engage customers feel no need to represent the company favorably to them. In that respect low employee engagement can result in declining performance of an organization through lack of collaboration, creative ideas and problem solving efforts required for innovation, and contributing to a positive image for customers.

There can be many reasons employees do not feel engaged. To increase employee engagement organizations focus on their internal practices, such as reward systems, benefits, workplace facilities, employee picnics and recognition policies. However, research has found that what organizations do is not as important for employee satisfaction as how they do it. The way organizations do what they do influence the sense of fairness and uncertainty among employees.

The main principle of improving employee engagement is to drive fairness up and uncertainty down. This requires that, regardless of what choices management makes, organizational practices be characterized by procedural justice. Employees respond better, regardless of the outcome, when they are provided advanced notice, are allowed to provide input, are not surprised by management with a decision, are given a rationale for the action and are treated with respect.

When an employee’s supervisor includes coaching activities, such as those provided by LMX Concierge, employees will begin to see they are more included and have more perceived control of their destiny. This perceived control occurs when employees feel the organization, and especially their supervisor, cares enough about the employee to listen to them and to support them with effective feedback and counsel. The ultimate outcome of bosses becoming leaders is that employees perceive the organization to be fair and they are likely to have more certainty about their career with the organization.