HR assignment essay help: Employee Engagement, Empowerment and motivation
Introduction
In contemporary scenario, some significant changes in business environment have been noticed. Different issues such as stiff competition and dynamic business conditions have become integral aspects of the business practices of business organizations. These issues are driving business organizations to make some intensive changes in their organizational trends and practices. Increasing concern regarding significance of the employees in strategic decisions is one of the rapidly emerging phenomena in the organizational behavior perspective (Evans 2010). Nowadays employers have started to link success and sustainability of business organization with the involvement of employees within the organizational management. This tendency of employers has made the concept of employee engagement and empowerment more intensive and crucial for business organizations. The notion of employee engagement is a relatively new and influences the level of job satisfaction and productivity of employees at the workplace. Moreover, employee empowerment and their engagement with the organization can also be linked with the total quality management practices (Stander and Rothmann 2010).
In direction to this, the prime objective of the paper is to throw some empirical light over the concept of Employee engagement and empowerment. The paper also aims to establish relationship between Employee engagement and empowerment practices and total quality management in the context of the organization.
Employee engagement and its scope
The term employee engagement refers to the extent by which, an employee is involved with, committed and motivated to, and passionate and enthusiastic about his tasks and job at the work place. Moreover employee engagement is a phenomenon that describes the degree to which employee is ready to contribute in organizational successes through applying discretionary and sincere efforts. The scope of the concept of employee engagement is quite comprehensive as it includes both explicit as well as implicit engagement of the employee with his organization. In the conditions of high employee engagement with the organization, the employee employs and expresses physical, emotional, and cognitive involvement and commitment towards his/her job and the organization. Moreover, emotional and intellectual commitments of employees towards their organizations and the quantum of volunteer efforts exhibited by employees in the wellbeing of his organization can also be categorized under the scope of employee engagement (Swindall 2011).
In existing period of time, changing status and intensity of the relationship between an employer and his employees has also enhanced the scope of employee engagement related activities. It is worth emphasizing here that the level of engagement can vary at different hierarchical positions in the same organizations, and the demand of employee engagement at different levels should be addressed with appropriate strategies (Richman 2006).
Nowadays, the engagement of employees with the organization has been reached to the strategic level, which was limited to the operational level in earlier period of time. In addition to this, the engagement of employee can also be reflected in different core and crucial functions of the management such as decision making, strategy formulation, planning and controlling (Ryan and Deci 2001). There are two types of engagement can be sighted at the workplace, namely job engagement and organizational engagement. These both the phenomena are interrelated, but deal with different dimensions of employee engagement. The first one deals with dedication of employee towards his job profile, while the later one is related with the commitment of the employee with his organization. In this way, it can be stated that concept of employee engagement has a comprehensive scope which includes a number of different aspects (Schriesheim and Neider 2012).
Significance of employee engagement
The significance and effectiveness of the concept of employee engagement can be judged in the context of employee’s performance and his efforts towards the long term success of the organization. In this competitive business environment, success and survival has become a challenge and demand for efficiency and productivity at the workplace has increased manifold. In such conditions, an organization needs to enhance the existing level of employee engagement. Business organizations are now making some intensive amount of money, time and efforts in the employee engagement practices as employee engagement is closely interrelated with business outcomes (Sonnentag 2003).
The positive relationship between employee engagement and organizational performance can be judged in terms of productivity, profitability, safety, customer loyalty, and high employee retention. An engaged employees constantly demonstrate three general behaviors and these help in improvement of organizational performance. These behaviors include spreading positive word-of-mouth among co-workers and customers. This helps in approaching potential employees and customers. The second behavior reflects that an employee is more likely to work with the current organization although he/she may have an option to work with other organizations. The third behavior of employee engagement is concerned with efforts and initiatives made by the employees towards organizational success (Wiley 2010).
Another important significance of the employee engagement can be seen in the context of quality improvement within the organization. From the perspective of total quality management within the organization, employee engagement phenomena act quite significantly. High degree of engagement of employee with organization results into two qualities among employees. These qualities are job satisfaction and continuous improvement. These both the factors are closely related with the quality of products and customer services produced by the business organization. It is due to the reason that only a satisfy employee can deliver his maximum efficiency and dedication at the work place, which leads to high quality products and services delivered by the organization. Moreover, employee engagement also motivates employees for continuous improvements that shows in the product and service delivered by him (Thomas 2010).
In this way, it can be stated that employee engagement is one of the most crucial and signified phenomena for a business organization that can lead the organization towards long term and sustainable success in existing highly dynamic and competitive business environment.
Principles of successful empowerment
Along with employee engagement, employee empowerment is also one of the crucial phenomena considered by a business organization for the purpose of achieving long term success in the market. Employee empowerment refers to the activity of the organization to provide more authority and freedom to its employee regarding makes decisions and undertake the activity which is in the favor of the organization. There are different factors such trust of the management upon its employees, employee’s efficiency and skills, and situational and conditional factors, which drives the organization to make its employees empowered and capable enough to take some crucial decisions (Stander, and Rothmann 2010).
By empowering employees, the management can not only enhance skills of employees but it also make its employee more engaged with the organization. For a successful business organization, it is quite crucial and essential to have proper engagement and support of its employees as organizational success positively correlates with the productivity and efficiency of its employee. In this context, it is quite essential for the organization to drive a feeling of belongingness and responsibilities in employees. Providing authority and making the employee responsible is one of the most effective solutions of this problem (Evans 2010).
There are some crucial principles that are related with the successful empowerment of employee within a business organization. These principles can be discussed as below:
(1) Empower sincerely and completely:
If the management of the organization wants to make its employee empower, it should undertake some sincere and comprehensive efforts. In direction to this, in the process of empower, there should be equal and fair distribution of responsibilities and authorities among employees.
(2) Establish mutual trust:
Before empowering employee, there must be mutual trust between organization and employee. For this reason, the management must gain adequate amount of trust over employee’s skill and competencies before making him empowered. It is due to the reason that empowering the employee means that employee is provided with the right of taking decisions on the behalf of the entire organization. Owing to this reason, the employee must be trustworthy enough to ensure that authority provided to employee will not be misused in any case (Schriesheim and Neider 2012).
(3) Provide employees with business information
Another important principle of employee empowerment is to provide some adequate and desired business information to the empowered employee. While making decision and formulating strategy, it is quite crucial to have some complete and crucial business information. In this regard, the management must share all the relevant and important business information (Schriesheim and Neider 2012).
(4) Ensure that employees are capable
Before providing power and authority to the employee, the management must be ensured about his skills and competencies of handling the responsibilities assigned to him. The success of the strategy of employee empowerment depends upon effectiveness of the allocation of responsibility. Only capable employees must be empowered and given authorities (Evans 2010).
(5) Don’t ignore middle management
For the long term success of the any policies and strategies of the organization, support from the side of middle level management is quite required. Middle management acts as bridge between top level management that formulates strategy and low level management upon which, the strategy is employed. While empowering the employees, the management of the organization should keep the welfare and interest of middle level management in mind.
(6) Change the reward system
Empowerment should be accompanied by changes in the rewards system. As per the principle, reward and appraisal system of the organization plays some crucial role in the employee motivation. The reward system of the organization must be quite advanced and attractive for employees (Evans 2010).
These principles can be proved quite effective and crucial while employing the strategy of employee empowerment.
Real life examples of firms practicing employee engagement
There are some crucial real life examples of different world class business organization theory in which, there are different practices related with employee engagement followed quite effectively.
In this context, first and foremost example of organization using employee engagement practices is Wal-Mart. The company is recognized as one of the largest employers of the USA. From the perspective of employee engagement phenomena also, the management of the company is quite concerned. Within the company, all the important employee engagement programs are run, owned, coordinated and managed by employees themselves. In relation to this, at the global level the company has run the campaign called global engagement platform through which the company tries create a community of its all the employees across different countries. This initiative of the company is directed enhance the closeness among employees so that they can closely engaged with the company (Husted and Allen 2010).
Another important example in this category is Intel Corporation, which one of the most prominent multinational business organization. Intel Corporation is quite concerned regarding their performance and support in the long term success of the organization. In the efforts of the management of the organization regarding employee engagement, the company calculates the annual bonus on the basis of corporate profits earned by organization. As per this policy of the organization, in which year, the organization earns more profits, employees also get more profits. In contrast in the year, in which the company earns lesser profits, the employees also receive lesser bonus. In this way, employee engages with the organization quite closely (Clark 2012).
In addition Google Inc. can also be considered as one of the major business organizations operating with a large workforce, which undertakes the concept of employee engagement quite prominently. In this context, for the purpose of making the employees more closely engaged with the organization, the management has created an informal and creative working environment. In the organization, employees can feel like home at the work place and work without any stress (Williams and Windebank 2012).
These examples reflect that modern business organizations are quite concerned about the practices related with employee engagement.
Relation of engagement and empowerment with the theories of motivation
Different theories related with the motivation can be connected directly with the concept of employee engagement and empowerment. This relation can be presented with the help of different theories discussed as below:
(1) Job Characteristics Theory
Job characteristic theory was proposed by J. Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham in 1976. As per this theory, there are some crucial characteristic of a job profile that attracts and motivates the employees towards the job profile. As per the theory, five important characteristics have been classified, which decides the attractiveness of the job (Griffin and Moorhead 2011).
Skill verity
Verity of skills required at the job is one of the most crucial factors that decide the attractiveness of the job. The job that requires variety of skills provides more scope of future learning to the employee. Monotonous and repetitive job does not motivate an employee in the long run.
Task identity:
The task assigned to the employee must be clearly identified and well defined. Proper information regarding tasks such as what to do; when to do and how to do, should be clearly defined to the employee (Griffin and Moorhead 2011).
Task Significance
Job profile that has substantial impact generally motivates the employee to employ his sincere efforts for accomplishing the job.
Autonomy
Power and authority provided to the employee at the work place is also an important factor regarding employee motivation. This factor is closely associated with the phenomena of employee empowerment (Daft and Marcic 2010).
Job feedback
The management must provide a regular feedback on the performance of the employee. It motivates employee to perform better in future (Daft and Marcic 2010).
(2) Acquired Needs Theory
Another important theory through which employee motivation can be related with their engagement and empowerment within the organization is Acquired Needs Theory. As per this theory, there are three different types of needs pursued by an employee:
Achievement: Achievement need drives the individual to undertake only low risk activities. In this need, the person always seeks frequent appreciation and recognition regarding how well he has accomplished the activity (Rauch 2007).
Affiliation: In this need, an individual always seeks for harmonious relationship with people in his surroundings. The disposition of this need is towards taking approval than recognition before undertaking any task.
Power: the power need shows the desire of the person to control other person or have some significant power or authority. For the purpose of accomplish this need the management of the organization is required to empower the employee at work place (Lussier and Achua 2009).
(3) Goal-Setting Theory
Goal setting is also one of the most crucial theories that direct employees to put their best of efforts in the success and growth of the organization. As per the theory, there should be clearly defined and realistic goals or targets for employees. As per the theory, the objective of the organization must be follow S.M.A.R.T criteria. The S.M.A.R.T criteria can be presented as below:
| Criteria | Requirement |
| S | Specific and well-defined |
| M | Measurable and meaningful |
| A | Attainable and achievable |
| R | Relevant and realistic |
| T | Time orientated, and tangible |
For the purpose of achieving and formulating such type of objectives employee engagement with the organization is quite essential (Rauch 2007).
Conclusion
On the basis of in-depth review of the entire paper, it can be concluded that level of employee engagement in an organization is directly related to the business outcomes. The paper has reflected that the presence of positive commitment and adequate support of every employee of the organization helps it in integration of organizational competencies and channelizing them for attainment of organizational objectives. Employee engagement is the centre of organizational behavior and organizational culture and has long term impact upon organizational success in the marketplace. Organizational culture provides a foundation for high engagement, which has the ability to sustain the workforce through opportune times and turbulent times. There are some crucial theoretical underpinning of employee motivation which is proving the significance of the phenomena of employee empowerment and engagement.
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