International Journal of Research and Development - A Management Review (IJRDMR)
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Emerging Trends of Employee Engagement: A Review of Selected Studies
1Bhagyasree Padhi, 2Aruna Kumar Panda
1Gandhi Engineering College, Bhubaneswar
2International Society for Social Services (ISSS) Sahid Nagar, Bhubaneswar-7 (Odisha) Abstract : The present study aims to discuss about the
significance of employee engagement practices of various firms and industries operating in the competitive global scenario over a considerable period of time. Attempts have been made here to focus upon the critical role of employees for the viability, sustainability and overall competitiveness of the organization, and therefore, the significance of employee engagement as the most valuable asset for every organization. For the purpose of investigation, a significant number of research works conducted both in India and abroad are discussed on a selective basis out of numerous past literatures available in the area, keeping in mind their vital linkage with the theme of employee engagement. It is expected that a review study of this capacity would trigger the analytical minds of the World wide researchers and policy makers of this area in scientific decision making and furthering the research.
Key Words : Employee engagement, review of literature, Human resource management, work engagement, competitive advantage, organizational effectiveness, transformational leadership, communication, employee development, reward and recognition, corporate culture.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the world literature the origin of human resource management in a raw form could be traced as back as to 3000 B.C. However over the decades it developed a multidisciplinary organizational function there by embodying several theories and ideas from major fields like management, philosophy, sociology, economics etc.
(Senyucel, 2009: Panda, 2015: Mahapatra and Panda, 2008).
Human resource management in its mature form could gain its momentum only during the mid of 1980‟s that resulted in to an increase in product-market competition like privatization and non-unionism that ultimately forced the government to reorganize employment relations more from an industrial relation prospective to people based human resource management (Guest, 1989; Stredwick, 2005; Ivo, 2006).
The recent global recession imposed a greater strain on employees and witnessed a pay freeze; benefit cuts and lay-off industries that imposed a severe challenge for the concerned employers to develop, motivate and maintain a highly engaged work force (Aon Hewitt, 2012).
II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
In this section, an attempt has been made to make a review of the available literature on different dimensions of Employee Engagement. The review includes mainly the empirical studies on different aspects of Employee Engagement.
The research paper of Saks (2006) entitled “Antecedents and Consequences of Employee Engagement” focused to test a model of the antecedents and consequences of job and organizational engagement based on social exchange theory (SET) which argues that obligations are generated through a series of interactions between parties who are in a state of reciprocal interdependence.
Thus, it supports engagement as a two-way relationship between the employer and employees that satisfies most of the social, economic, emotional and organizational obligations. As a part of research design, survey method was executed and 102 employees working in a variety of jobs and organizations having on an average of 12 years of experience were participated. The average age was 34 and 60% of the employees were female. Further the participants had been in their current job for an average of 4 years and in their organizations an average of 5 years. The survey includes the majors of job and organizational engagement as well as the antecedents and consequences of engagement. The findings of the study stated that there is a meaningful difference between job and organizational engagement. Further it came to notice that the job and organizational engagement play a pivotal role in facilitating the relationship between the pre-existing traditions of employee engagement and job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intention to quit and organizational citizenship behavior.
Dicke (2007) in his research paper entitled “employee engagement: I want it, what is it?” tried to find out what exactly employee engagement is, keeping in mind the confusion and misdirection associated with it. His paper further identified the primary causes of such problems as lack of congruity in to the definition and measurement of employee engagement, and the concept of employee engagement rarely having a concrete distinction from other concepts that are closely related with it. The paper
elaborates these issues in detail and provides meaningful suggestions for the human resource leaders regarding employee engagement.
Holwerda’s (2007) research work entitled
“Communicating for Engagement” highlighted the impact of the nature of internal communication within the organization on the conduct of business. Further, the paper identified a greater linkage between the methods of communication and the manner in which they are communicated to the work force engagement strategies of the company. This investigation explores as to how to leverage the engagement efforts of the organization by enhancing the effectiveness of communication.
Kontakos (2007) carried out a research work entitled
“Seeing Clearly: Employee Engagement and Line of Sight” where he elaborately discussed the concept of engagement and identified its relationship with a number of dimensions like: (i) developing a clear line of sight and building an employer brand around it from inside the organization while leveraging leadership (ii) communication (iii) employee development and (iv) corporate and social responsibility. The research paper identified these dimensions though not entirely new to the strategic human resource management but significant enough as much as the case of employee engagement is concerned, and therefore, offers meaningful suggestions for HR practitioners.
Mauno, Kinnunen and Ruokolainen (2007) research work entitled “Job demands and resources as antecedents of work engagement: A longitudinal study”
investigated the experience of work engagement and its antecedents in a public health care organization (which includes seven hospitals) of Finland. The study mainly focused on three different types of job demands that include: (i) time demand at work, (ii) work-to-family conflict and (iii) job insecurity. In addition, it also highlighted three types of job resources: (i) job control, (ii) organization-based self-esteem and (iii) perceived management quality. For the purpose of investigation, necessary questionnaires were designed and administered on healthcare personnel like doctors, nurses, researchers, cleaning and catering staff etc. over two different time periods i.e. 2003 and 2005. The total number of respondents was 409 that represented 65.7%
of response rate. The study revealed that work engagement (especially vigor and dedication) was frequently experienced among the participants and on an average it remained the same across the follow up period. The experience of work engagement also remained reasonably stable during the two year period under study. Further, job resources narrated earlier predicted work engagement comparatively better than job demands. The outcome further proved that job control on dedication remained statistically significant.
Molinaro and Weiss (2008) in their study entitled
“Driving Employee Engagement” elaborately discussed about how the employee engagement has emerged as a critical leadership challenge and, therefore, highlighted
the need for creating inspiring workplace by leaders to engage employees for enhancing organizational productivity. Over the past few years, they conducted interviews of hundreds of employees at all levels, and in a cross-section of the sectors and identified six important factors that actually drives engagement namely (i) Being part of a winning organization (ii) working for the admire leaders (iii) having a positive working relationship with the colleagues (iv) doing meaningful work that has an impact to the organization (v) Recognition and appreciation for the employee and (vi) work-life balance. In addition, the researchers stated that it is crucial for the leaders to understand the factors that drive employee engagement for the overall organizational growth and success.
The research work of Moss (2008) entitled “Cultivating Regulatory Focus of Followers to Amplify their Sensitivity to Transformational Leadership” emphasized the relationship between transformational leadership and engagement in selected public and private sector establishments. For the purpose of the investigation, a sample of 160 employees from the public and private sectors were taken into account. The major findings of the study indicated that in both the sectors the positive association between the vision and vigor becomes more prominent with increased focus on promotion.
Whit ford and Moss (2009) penned a research paper entitled “Transformational Leadership in distributed work groups: The moderating role of follower regulatory focus and goal orientation” and studied the relationship between individual characteristics and leadership style.
A total of 165 employees belong to small, medium and large public and private organizations in Australia, North America, Europe, Asia, South Africa and South America were taken as the sample for the investigation.
The findings of their study suggested that the visionary leadership has a positive association with work engagement. In addition, personal recognition also correlated positively with work engagement.
Zhu, Avolio and Walumbwa (2009) made a study entitled “Moderating role of follower characteristics with transformational leadership and followers‟ work engagement. For the purpose of investigation a sample size of 188 top management personnel from various industries of South Africa were selected. Out of which 48 were top executive leaders and 140 were following senior managers. At the end, the study revealed the fact that the follower characteristics did significantly predict the transformational leadership-follower engagement.
Desai, Majumdar and Prabhu (2010) conducted an empirical investigation entitled “A Study on Employee Engagement in Two Indian Business”, namely, the manufacturing organizations and IT organizations and tried to find out (i) the depth of employee engagement, and also (ii) compared the underlying reasons indicating high or low employee engagement in the said concerns.
For the purpose of investigation a sample of 50 middle level executives of a car manufacturing unit and 50
employees of an IT firm located in and around Bengaluru city of India were taken as samples. The characteristics of the collected samples were based on certain parameters like age (30-45 years), education (Graduation and above), Income (5-10 Lakhs per annum), marital status (Married only) and social class (middle and upper middle class). The statistical models of correlation analysis, two-way analysis of variants and t-test were carried out for the investigation purpose. The outcomes of the study indicated that the degree of employee engagement was significantly high in manufacturing organizations in comparison to the IT firms. Further, it came to light that various causes like the impression that the firm cares for and values the employees, easy and smooth communication with the immediate supervisor, empathetic attitude of the supervisor for his subordinates, recognition of the employees‟ meaningful contributions towards the organizational goal and freedom to participate in the decision-making process, etc., remained responsible for a higher engagement in the manufacturing process.
Markos and Sridevi (2010) study entitles “Employee Engagement: The Key to Improving Performance”
explained ten strategies of employee engagement namely: (i) start it on day one, (ii) start it from the top, (iii) enhance employee engagement through two-way communication, (iv) give satisfactory opportunities for development and advancement, (v) ensure that employees have everything they need to do their job, (vi) give employees appropriate training, (vii) have strong feedback system, (viii) incentives have a part to play, (ix) build a distinctive corporate culture, and (x) focus on top performing employee, and suggested that these strategies can be highly relevant for organizational success and growth.
Robertson and Cooper (2010) conducted an empirical investigation on “Full Engagement: The Integration of Employee Engagement and Psychological Well-Being”, and proposed that the sustainability of employee engagement is highly related to employee well-being.
While conducting the research they reviewed various concepts on employee engagement, provided several brief-case studies as illustrations and extended a model to revitalize full engagement in organizations. The major findings of this study stated that most current prospective on employee engagement has least direct relevance to well-being which is nothing but a narrow commitment-based view of engagement that is heavily meant for the benefit of the organizations only.
However, there should be a broader perception of engagement that should take in to account the employee well-being, including his psychological well-being.
According to these researchers, this concept of full engagement is a better basis for building sustainable benefits both for individuals and organizations at large.
The investigation of Sengupta and Ramadoss (2010) on “Employee Engagement: Unlocking the secrets to nurturing a productive workforce” focused on the concept, importance and application of employee
engagement. The study identified the role of strong corporate culture as a vital growing media for nurturing engagement across the companies.
Their research work was both textual and contextual in nature that included eight theoretical chapters and eight business cases related to Taj Hotels, Titan, Tata Consultancy Services, Oliver Wiman, Google, Bharti Airtel, and finally a real life story of a working couple in a metro and their work demands to unwittingly compromise on the safety of their baby. All the cases included and discussed in the research provided a practical and application-based insight to employee engagement in different business scenarios.
Siddhanta and Roy (2010) carried out an empirical study on “Employee Engagement - Engaging the 21st Century Workforce”, where they observed that different factors of employee engagement such as: employee performance, productivity, safety, attendance and retention, customer service and satisfaction, customer loyalty and probability, etc., lead to business success. It is, therefore, crucial for the management to keep the employee engaged so that the net worth of the shareholders can be optimized. However, the study further emphasized about the significance of the corporate culture that is expected to have a greater influence on employee engagement.
Aon Hewitt (2011) conducted a research study entitled
“OCL Employee Engagement Survey” with a motive to find out the employee engagement practices prevailing in the Orissa Cement Limited (OCL) in its cement and Refractory divisions. In their survey 721 employees were covered across five locations, namely: Rajgangpur, Bhubaneswar, Kapilas, Kolkata and Ranchi. Apart from this pen and paper survey, the organization emailed to 67 employees to participate in the survey. Out of which 31 employees responded. The findings of this survey focused on the parameters like basic psychological needs of job security, safety and in time payment of salary, familiar working environment providing flexibility and freedom in work and good brand name that works well in OCL. Further it identified pay and benefits including (i) lack of facilities for accommodation, healthcare, schooling, recreational facilities, (ii) salary differentials between the employees of cement and refractory divisions and inequality of salaries between the employees, (iii) lack of clarity in salary slabs and entitlement and grades that needs further development in the company. It came to light that the HR department of the organization was not good enough to handle the basic needs of the employees.
Hardly the employees were aware of the company‟s HR policy that needed an improvement. Further initiatives are required and policies should be made regarding the future career of the employees as most of them expressed their view against the lack of career opportunities in the organization as a whole.
Mishra, Sahoo and Das (2011) carried out an investigation entitled “The Real Essence and Key
Drivers of Employee Engagement: An Evidence of Organizational Effort” that emphasized the relationship between the management and employee. Further, it reiterates the importance of fair and equitable environment for improvement in service, organizational performance and customer satisfaction. The study narrates „employee engagement‟ as the level of commitment and involvement that an employee has towards the organization and its value. Furthermore, the paper indicates that effective and positive engagement of the employees with their organization results in to an emotional connection with the company, better harmony among the colleagues and the company‟s clients, and improves customer satisfaction and service levels. The researcher made a critical analysis of employee engagement initiatives that are taken by Rourkela Steel Plant which include: (i) vision, culture and core values of the organization (ii) role of top management (iii) employee socialization (iv) redeployment strategies (v) employee involvement (vi) training initiatives (vii) performance management, performance linked pay and other reward systems, and (viii) top performing employees that further adds to the performance of the organization.
Mohanty (2011) conducted a study entitled “Employee Engagement and Retention Strategy” and discussed about the „engaged employee‟, the one who is intellectually and emotionally bound with the organization with a positive attitude and committed towards the organization and its values. In addition, the paper discussed the importance of employee engagement and the role of organization to make the process successful by keeping the employees engaged.
Further, on a context the paper focused on a case namely HCL technologies and elaborately discussed the various employee engagement strategies in the organization, namely: (i) smart service desk (ii) 360- degree feedback (iii) opinion polls (iv) directions (v) U&I Initiative (vi) CEO‟s blog (vii) Natasha (viii) IGen (ix) innovation at HCL.
Panda (2011) conducted an investigation entitled
“Entrepreneurship under threat: A case study on KICH Group of companies, Rajkot, Gujarat (India)” with an objective to identify various operational issues prevailing in the organization like the threats of product duplication, brand dilution in general and challenges related to employee engagement, higher attrition rate and unethical market competition in particular. The various key issues pertaining to employee engagement like compensation, employee participation in management, conducive working environment, wage and salary administration, etc., were highlighted in the study. Necessary questionnaire and schedule were prepared and an unstructured interview was conducted with the management of the company for collection of data. The author suggested that the management should adopt several remedial measures for retention of employees such as effective grievance handling procedure, better scope for workers‟ participation in
management, reforms in the training and wage and salary administration to cope with the challenge of higher attrition rate. The researcher also suggested both monetary rewards for the target achievers and get- togethers of management and employees in various cultural events, pujas and celebrations to boost the morale and organizational commitment of the employees as the strategies of retention and engagement.
Panda, Singh and Sahoo (2011) conducted an empirical investigation on “Employee Engagement Initiatives in India - A competitive study with reference to IT and ITes Organizations” that focused on how employee engagement is an antecedent of job involvement. The study conducted in three major private organizations - TATA Tele Services, Infosys and MindTree explores that an engaged employee is supposed to be the one who is aware of business context and work dynamics with colleagues and peer groups to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization and makes a comparative analysis of employee engagement strategies adopted by these organizations.
Parida and Hota (2011) research paper on “Employee engagement: A study at NTPC, Kanhia” narrated how employee engagement is critical in ensuring success and sustainability of the organization in challenging times.
The study aims to find out the level of employee engagement in the organization and discussed about the existing framework for employee engagement at NTPC, Kanhia. Major findings of the study also highlighted about the efficiency of various people-centric initiatives of the organization such as (i) recruitment and training (ii) employee development center and (iii) power management institute, etc., and recommended suggestions that can further strengthen the hidden potential of the organization.
The research paper of Patro (2011) on “Real Time Employee Engagement: Concept and Strategies” dealt with real time engagement as a human resource utilization strategy and discussed about its importance in the context of global competition. The paper briefly highlighted three vital strategies that focused on (i) individual employee (ii) the groups, and (iii) the organization. The paper described several strategic prospective like HR practices, team building processes, organizational culture, knowledge management, communication systems, etc., as possible action plans for real time employee engagement in an organization.
Rath and Rath (2011) investigated on “Employee Engagement: In the Indian Context” and explained that an effective and positive employee engagement plays a vital role in the current era. Therefore the programmes related to employee engagement are important as they have to align the human activities to the company strategy. However, an engaged employee also have certain expectations from the management like a healthy environment within the organization. Major findings of the study identified that in comparison to workers in
Asia-Pacific, Europe or North America, Indian employees enjoy higher level of job satisfaction and connect more strongly with the objective of their organization. They concluded that the overall work environment prevailed in the Indian organizations seems to be more conducive than that is prevailing in the organizations belonging to Asia-Pacific, Europe or North American countries.
In their study on “How can leaders achieve high employee engagement?”, Xu and Thomas (2011) investigated the relationship that exists between the leadership and engagement. The sample size for their research was 414 employees belonging to New Zealand.
The outcomes of the research indicated that relationship- oriented leadership factors were positively associated with engagement.
Kumar and Sia (2012) carried out an empirical research entitled “Employee Engagement: Explicating the Contribution of Work Environment” with an objective to investigate the contribution of various dimensions of work environment (otherwise called antecedent variables) towards employee engagement.
Altogether eight antecedents variables including two relationship oriented variables (co-worker cohesion and supervisor support), three personal growth variables (autonomy, task orientation and work pressure) and system maintenance variables (clarity, control and physical comfort) have been taken in to account and their contribution towards three specific employee engagement dimensions, namely, cognitive engagement, emotional engagement and physical engagement have been identified. The study focused upon 100 semi- skilled employees from food processing organizations situated around Patiala, Punjab. The findings of the study indicated that two personal growth variables, namely, „work pressure‟ and „autonomy‟ have significant contribution towards cognitive as well as emotional engagement, followed by the contribution of relationship-oriented variables. Further, it has come to light that except „peer cohesion‟ there is no significant contribution of any other variable towards the physical engagement of the employees.
Shuck and Herd (2012) conducted an investigation on
“Employee Engagement and Leadership: Exploring the Convergence of Two Frameworks and Implications for Leadership Development in HRD” with a purpose to examine the relationship between leadership behaviour and the development of employee engagement. The study was conceptual in nature that focused more on leaders‟ emotional intelligence approach. Further, it came to light that the engagement can be improved provided ample attention is given to the sub-ordinates‟
basic needs. The findings of the study reiterate the fact that management should have a willingness to respond the followers positively under a conducive working environment.
A global survey on “The Impact of Employee Engagement on Performance” was conducted by the
Harvard Business Review Analytic Services (2013) where a total of 568 respondents representing companies from North America (54%), Asia (18%), Europe (16%), MEA (7%) and South/Central America (5%) were participated. The respondents belonged to organizations with 500 or more employees and were from a variety of industries, like IT/Tele Communication firms (16%), financial services (14%), Manufacturing (12%), Energy/utilities (9%), Health care (8%), Education (8%) and other sectors (33%). The respondents included a mix of executive management or Board members, senior management, middle management and other grades. The outcome of the survey revealed that while most leaders understand the importance of the engagement, around 75% of the total respondents came up with a view that most employees in their organizations are not highly engaged. The report revealed a significant gap in the views of executive managers and middle level managers in this area. The top executives were much more optimistic about the level of employee engagement in their organizations that significantly differed from those of middle management as much as their front-line worker‟s engagement was concerned. Further, the report identified that many companies find it challenging to measure engagement and its impact on financial results.
Whereas for a fewer it was effective and measurable with parameters like customer satisfaction or increased market share.
The research work of Khan (2013) on “Employee engagement drivers for organizational success” has been accepted by the World-wise researchers as a vital piece of knowledge which proposed that employee engagement should be a continuous process in every organization. Further the researcher suggested that the concerned management of the organization must implement this concept of engagement from the day one by helping employees and by creating a conducive work environment.
Swaminathan and Aramvalarthan’s (2013) research paper entitled “Employee Engagement of Managerial Staff in Hospitals – An Indian pilot study” focused on different drivers of employee engagement namely: (i) employee empowerment (ii) communication (iii) team work (iv) training and development (v) recognition (vi) leadership quality, and (vii) work-life balance. Their study indicated that employee engagement is an antecedent of job involvement.
Kadamand and Thakar (2014) carried out a research work entitled “ A Study of Health and Safety Measures with reference to Selected Co-operative Sugar Factories” and indicated that proper implementation of health and safety measures in the organization lead to productivity, task effectiveness, job satisfaction, motivation etc. among the employees, and the same leads to employee engagement.
A research paper penned by Myilswamy and Gayatri (2014) entitled “A Study on Employee Engagement:
Role of Employee Engagement in Organizational
Effectiveness” that elaborately discussed about the dynamism of global economy and the need for the organizations to address the evolving technological developments. Their study specifically underlines the necessity of having high performing and committed work force for the survival and the growth of the organization. The authors stated that engagement is nothing but the willingness and ability of the employees to give their best to the organizational success and therefore employee engagement should be considered as a key factor which is powerfully linked to range of organizational success factors and overall organizational effectiveness.
Strom, Sears and Kelly (2014) investigated on “Work Engagement: The Roles of Organizational Justice and Leadership Style in Predicting Engagement among Employees”, having the primary objective to examine the transactional and transformational leadership styles as serving the role of moderators in the relationship between organizational justice and work engagement.
For the purpose of study, an online survey was conducted and administered to a randomly generated group of 10,000 individuals via email communication.
However usable data were obtained from 348 customers of US yielding a response rate of 3.48%. In this regard four hypotheses were formed that stated (i) the positive relationship between distributive justice and work engagement will be stronger for employees reporting low as compared to high transactional leadership (ii) the positive relationship between procedural justice and work engagement will be stronger for employees reporting low as compared to high transactional leadership (iii) the positive relationship between distributive justice and work engagement will be stronger for employees reporting high as compared to low transformational leadership, and (iv) the positive relationship between procedural justice and work engagement will be stronger for employees reporting high as compared to low transformational leadership.
The outcome of the study indicated that the positive relationship that both distributive and procedural justice held to work engagement would be more pronounced among employees experiencing low transactional leadership than among employees experiencing high transactional leadership.
Albrecht, et al. (2015) in their research work entitled
“Employee Engagement, Human Resource Management Practices and Competitive Advantage - An Integrated Approach” elaborately discussed about four key HRM practices, namely, selection, socialization, performance management and training, and their impact on (i) organizational climate (ii) job demands and job resources (iii) the psychological experience of safety (iv) meaningfulness and availability at work (v) employee engagement (vi) individual, group and organizational performance, and (vii) competitive advantage. On the basis of their study, the researchers proposed a model that integrates several frameworks which have been cited previously and executed independently in the HR
and engagement literature. The major findings of the study revealed that the practitioners in the HRM area need to focus more on engagement in HRM policies and practices like selection, socialization, performance management, training and development than on the traditional routine administration like conducting annual engagement surveys to facilitate and improve employee engagement and help organizations to achieve competitive advantage.
Panda (2015) made an empirical study of the strategies related to Employee Engagement as the part of HRM practices in East-Coast Zone of Indian Railways. For the purpose of investigation necessary schedules have been prepared for the management and union officials. In addition, the techniques of interview, observations and discussions were also used to collect the primary data.
Further, a questionnaire has been designed and administrated to a total sample respondents of 416 employees belong to various department of East Coast Railway (ECoR). Major findings of the study indicated that the factors related to employee engagement were highly fulfilling in the organization, giving an impression to the employees as valued and involved in the work culture. The opinion survey revealed the fact that more than 90% of the respondents were satisfied in the areas related to procurement, pay benefits, welfare measures, performance appraisal, reward system and career advancement. However, it came to notice that a few areas like organizational communication, discipline and grievance redressal procedure needed further improvement as these factors could satisfy merely 64%
of the total sample respondents.
Selvarani and Punitha (2015) made a study on
“Employee Engagement in Chettinad Cement Corporation Limited, Puliyar, Karur” and the objective was to understand the level of employee engagement and its impact on the organization. For the purpose of investigation, data was collected from both primary and secondary sources. The technique of random sampling method was adopted, and a questionnaire was prepared and administered on a sample size of 200 employees of the organization. The technique of Percentage Analysis, Chi Square test and Karl Pearson Correlation methods were adopted and statistical package of SPSS was used for the purpose of interpretation. After examining the various factors influencing the employee engagement, the authors suggested that giving more emphasis on employee ideas and opinions, improving employee motivation, maintaining a more productive and satisfying work environment, providing reward and recognitions to the employees, initiating profit sharing programmes, effective communication between managers and employees, etc., would be helpful in improving the productivity of the organization.
III. CONCLUSION
Employee engagement has generated a great deal of interest in recent years characterized by an unique construct that consist of cognitive, emotional and
behavioural components at individual level of role play, where the employees deeply, attentively, positively and emotionally connected with their work resulting higher productivity, profitability and security in the work place (Fleming and Asplund, 2007; Macey and Schneider, 2008; Shuck and Wollard, 2008; Saks, 2011). There should be ample growth opportunities in several dimensions for the employees of the organizations to keep them engaged and arrest the attrition rate. In addition, healthy fun and entertainment should also go side by side with the culture of employee engagement to keep them stress free and revitalized. For example, we can consider the work culture of companies like
“Google” or “Yahoo”, who do not follow the traditional model of engagement; rather working there is full of freedom, happiness and flexibility (Stewart, 2013).
Further examples are the BPO companies (like
“Brigade” at Hyderabad, India) who follow innovative HR strategies to retain employees and promote employee engagement. They promote transparent work atmosphere and appoint “fun officers” who would ensure ways to motivate and release the stress of the employees. The similar strategies can also be considered and tested in the core industries. A few companies also following the strategy of making tie-up with key Universities to train, explore and build high potential within the employee, for example, the tie-up of
“Wipro” with Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, “HCL” with VIT University, Chennai, etc (Panda, 2012). Adoption of such innovative strategies with ever changing dimensions of global business scenario is expected to keep the employee inspired, motivated and engaged for the benefit of self and the organization as a whole.
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