Measures Of Employee Engagement Research Articles

A Phenomenological Investigation on Ethical Leadership and Workplace Engagement from a Multi-Cultural Perspective

Despite continuous attempts to introduce employee engagement measures, leaders worldwide have been increasingly concerned about diminishing employee engagement levels. The issue of workplace engagement continues to be a source of contention for academics and practitioners alike. There is still a need to comprehend this phenomenon since previous research lacks a thorough understanding of employee work engagement concerning ethical leadership. This qualitative study explores the perceptions of the leaders working in service organizations regarding ethical leadership on employee work engagement in three countries, i.e., Malaysia, Turkey, and Pakistan. The phenomenon of work engagement was explored in this study. The theory of self-determination supports the proposed theoretical framework of the current study. Purposive sampling was applied to select 28 leaders in the service sector. Semi-structured interviews were performed to understand employee engagement better using participant observations, opinions, strategic perspectives, and the employee handbook and recordings of interviews and meetings with service sector leaders. The findings highlighted eight major ethical leadership themes suggested by 28 managers in the interviews. Eight themes of ethical leadership are (1) Role Modeling, (2) Trust, (3 Honesty, (4) Integrity, (5) Justice, (6) Religiosity, (7) Responsibility, (8) Intellectual competence. The present study found that leaders applying different strategies and understanding the importance of employee engagement could improve employee engagement and have a more robust workforce and beneficial organization.

Weathering the COVID Storm: The Effect of Employee Engagement on Firm Performance During the COVID Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated need for remote work has required organizations to adapt and demonstrate resiliency in order to continue to deliver on their purpose. Since employee engagement is key to organizational effectiveness and adaptation, in this study, we examine whether there are differences in the financial performance during the pandemic across firms with different levels of pre-pandemic employee engagement. Using novel machine learning methods on Glassdoor.com reviews of leading software industry firms to create measures of employee engagement and their perception of their firm’s remote work practices, we show that firms with higher levels of pre-COVID employee engagement exhibited significantly higher financial performance during the critical months of the pandemic. Additional analysis of post-pandemic reviews revealed that employees of firms with higher levels of pre-pandemic engagement reported an alignment of their firms on strong leadership and customer focus, while employees of firms with lower levels of pre-pandemic engagement reported concerns regarding bureaucracy and lack of consistency in management and work practices.

Sense of community, sense of community responsibility, organizational commitment and identification, and public service motivation: a simultaneous test of affective states on employee well-being and engagement in a public service work context

ABSTRACT The present study has two aims. First, we examine sense of community, sense of community responsibility, organizational commitment and identification, and PSM in predicting measures of employee engagement and well-being. Second, we examine if PSM acts as a direct or indirect predictor of the employee measures. The findings highlight that community experiences are powerful predictors and that the role of PSM is more indirect than direct. The study provides a step forward in understanding the utility of psychological predictors when simultaneously compared, and offers hope for future studies where we continue to conduct comparative analyses beyond the boundary of public management.

Relationship between employee engagement scores and service quality ratings: analysis of the National Health Service staff survey across 97 acute NHS Trusts in England and concurrent Care Quality Commission outcomes (2012–2016)

ObjectiveThis research explores measures of employee engagement in the National Health Service (NHS) acute Trusts in England and examines the association between organisation-level engagement scores and quality ratings by the...

Employee engagement at a higher education institution in South Africa: Individual, team and organisational levels

We examined the levels of employee engagement among staff members at a higher education institution in South Africa at the individual, team, and organisational levels. The participants (N = 202) completed a validated measure of employee engagement (females = 62.4%; academic staff = 28.2%). Data analysis indicated that the highest level of employee engagement was at the team level. The lowest level of employee engagement was at the individual level. Findings suggest a need for interventions to increase employee engagement at the individual level, in order to allow for the comprehensive implementation of mission aligned strategies at higher education institutions.

The comparative analysis of employee engagement measures: a theoretical perspective

Employee engagement has been a popular and prevalent idea among business professionals, where as in the scholastic writing; it remains a topic of debate. This study lay out to understand the contending measures of employee engagement keeping in mind the end goal to give a more profound comprehension of its theoretical framework, measures and their dimensions. The current paper tries to analyse the academic path of engagement and investigates the overlapping of different dimensions of the engagement scales and identification of uniqueness of each scale to come across the 'one definition and one measurement approach' for engagement construct. An integrative review and relational analysis was performed throughout the wide spread database in scholarly field. The findings of the study state that despite of the overlapping between the measurements of employee engagement, there are some vital contrasts between these scales. The research contributes to existing body of knowledge in the area of engagement by investigating the multiple conceptualisations and estimations of employee engagement which provide better comprehension of the construct. Implications are taken into the consideration for further enquiry into the engagement procedure. Overall the study opens a new door in the engagement research by considering all models of measurement under one roof.

The comparative analysis of employee engagement measures: a theoretical perspective

The comparative analysis of employee engagement measures: a theoretical perspective

Lean production and supply chain innovation in baked foods supplier to improve performance

PurposeService industries are currently facing an excess of overproduction that results in extra inventory and waste levels. With the prospect of methods such as lean production, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impacts of lean production methods towards enhanced performance of service-based industries through the study of a local baked foods supplier.Design/methodology/approachThe paper highlights the first stage of research study through current world literature and a critical review as inputs of research findings. The research applies a descriptive research framework within a semi-structured questionnaire survey method which was implemented within three different companies, the baked goods manufacturer, the cafe purchasing the baked foods products and the end users, hence covering the overall supply chain cycle and its entities.FindingsThe research study identified that one of the major challenges facing the baked food company when adopting the lean practices was the lack of commitment from the top management, continuous training, and hence, employee engagement measures were necessary towards performance improvement of the organisation.Originality/valueThe research novelty is to develop an early understanding of lean production practices within the baked goods manufacturer and its upstream and downstream stakeholders. This paper would be considered by the food manufacturer companies in order to require their key suppliers to adopt the most common lean tools identified as Just in Time, Value Steam Mapping and the 5S methods.

Lean Production Practices to Enhance Organisational Performance

Service sector organisations are constantly overcoming the challenges facing the over-production and waste reduction within their environments. Industries are also becoming very competitive thus forcing them to seek suitable production organisation strategies with the aim towards enhancing their competitiveness and efficiency. The aim of this research study is to investigate the impact of lean production practices on the performance of service based businesses through the case study of a local baked goods supplier. The research framework adopted consists of questionnaire survey method implemented with different end users, thus covering the overall production – retail – customer cycle. The research results and analysis justify the objective of the research that lean production practices enhance the performance of the supplier company and the common tool identified were JIT (Just in Time), Value Steam Mapping (VSP) and the 5S methods. The results also suggest that JIT method has a higher impact towards improvement on performance relating to quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost of the supplier. However, the research study also identifies that one of the major challenges faced by the organisation while adopting lean practices was the lack of commitment from top management, continuous training and employee engagement measures.

Organisational Culture and Employee Engagement within the Ghanaian Public Sector

The paper examines the relationship between corporate culture and employee engagement among employees in public sector organisations of Ghana. A review of the relevant literature indicates that corporate culture as a measure of employee engagement especially in the public sector of a developing country in Africa such as Ghana has been given limited research efforts. To address this, the study adopted Handy’s cultural framework as limited efforts have been geared toward investigating the effect each of Handy’s four pillars of culture has on employee engagement. The multiple regression technique was used to test the hypothesised relationships between the variables in the study. A sample of two hundred and sixty-seven (267) employees was randomly drawn from selected public-sector organisations in Ghana. Findings from the study established that, achievement and support cultures significantly cause employees to be engaged in the public sector of Ghana whilst power culture has a significant, but negative relationship with employee engagement. The relationship between role culture and employee engagement is not significant. The study recommends that, in order for the skilled employees in the Ghanaian public sector organisations to be highly engaged, management of such organisations should increase the extent of achievement and support cultures and minimize the extent of power culture while paying only a little attention to role culture.

Exploring Different Operationalizations of Employee Engagement and Their Relationships With Workplace Stress and Burnout

Many empirical studies of employee engagement show positive relationships with desirable work-related outcomes, yet a consistent understanding of the construct remains elusive (Saks & Gruman, 2014). We propose that this lack of clarity is leading to an increased risk that employee engagement is becoming overly generalized and that, as a consequence, its utility in both theory and practice is compromised. Indeed, our study of 472 information technology (IT) professionals working in community hospitals reveals that, even though the two measures of employee engagement examined in this study are conceptually based on Kahn's (1990) needs-satisfaction framework, they are nomologically different, evidence different predictive properties (with regard to workplace stress and burnout), and suggest different workplace interventions. As hypothesized, both measures of employee engagement reveal negative relationships with workplace stress, and burnout has a mediating effect on those relationships. Further, the relationships are significantly different, but these differences are understood only when examining the dimensional levels of each engagement measure. Our findings also clarify the highly debated relationship between employee engagement and burnout and challenge those engagement measures that are conceptually grounded in a burnout-antithesis framework. Implications and avenues for future research are presented.

The Employee Engagement Scale: Initial Evidence for Construct Validity and Implications for Theory and Practice

Interest in the employee engagement construct has gained increasing attention in recent years. Measurement tools focused on nuanced areas of engagement (i.e., job engagement and organizational engagement) have been offered; however, no measure of employee engagement has been advanced despite persistent calls in the research. We present the development, method, and results of a three‐dimensional employee engagement measurement tool developed for use in the human resource and management fields of study. Across four independent studies, the employee engagement scale (EES) was found to consist of three subfactors (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral) and a higher‐order factor (employee engagement). Across a series of four studies, we explored the factor structure and reliability of the EES (Study 1), then refined the scale, confirmed the factor structure, and examined reliability and both convergent and nomological validity evidence (Study 2). Next (Study 3), we completed a final reduction in scale items and examined additional evidence of reliability and nomological validity as well as evidence of discriminant validity. Finally (Study 4), we tested for evidence of incremental validity. In the implications for theory and practice section, we discuss the importance of an employee engagement measure aligned alongside an agreed‐upon definition and framework. Limitations and future directions for research—such as the need for further psychometric testing and exploring issues of measurement invariance—are discussed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Investigating the incremental validity of employee engagement in the prediction of employee effectiveness: A meta-analytic path analysis

The current study used meta-analytic estimates and path analysis to examine whether the construct of employee engagement (EE) shows incremental validity in the prediction of employee effectiveness (a broad measure of performance-related behaviors) over other job attitudes such as job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment. Meta-analytic estimates between EE and various employee effectiveness indicators were computed from 49 published correlations representing a total of 22,090 individuals. We combined these estimates with published meta-analytic estimates between employee effectiveness and job attitudes to produce a meta-matrix representing 1,161 unique correlations. Using this meta-matrix, a series of path model comparisons produced two results: (1) EE bears low to moderate incremental validity over individual job attitudes (R2 change of 0.02 to 0.06), and (2) EE bears low incremental validity over a higher-order job attitude construct representing the combination of other job attitudes in the prediction of a higher-order employee effectiveness construct (R2 change of 0.01). Given the brevity of popular EE measures, the results suggest EE is better conceptualized as a higher-order measure of job attitudes that is an effective and concise predictor of employee effectiveness.

Construct Overlap Between Employee Engagement and Job Satisfaction: A Function of Semantic Equivalence?

The evidence for employee engagement as a distinct construct, separate from related work attitudes such as job satisfaction, has been contradictory. Despite a growing inventory of research, current statistical techniques fall short in providing additional answers beyond those previously documented through discriminant and incremental validity, among others. Understanding the semantic similarity between scales however could uncover the potential bounds of current evidence and highlight areas of further exploration. This study examined the semantic similarity between three measures of employee engagement frequently found in the research literature and a commonly used measure of job satisfaction. Examining a relatively new indicator of validity, manifest validity, semantic relatedness between items from employee engagement and job satisfaction instruments was assessed using latent semantic analysis. Semantic similarity between employee engagement and job satisfaction items predicted moderate to high amounts of variance (R2 = 25–69 %) in corresponding correlations of survey responses. Findings suggest that high correlations between certain employee engagement measures and job satisfaction scores may be a function of semantic equivalence rather than individual perceptions of separate theoretical constructs.

What Do We Really Know About Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement has become one of the most popular topics in management. In less than 10 years, there have been dozens of studies published on employee engagement as well as several meta‐analyses. However, there continue to be concerns about the meaning, measurement, and theory of employee engagement. In this article, we review these concerns as well as research in an attempt to determine what we have learned about employee engagement. We then offer a theory of employee engagement that reconciles and integrates Kahn's () theory of engagement and the Job Demands–Resources (JD‐R) model (Bakker & Demerouti, ). We conclude that there continues to be a lack of consensus on the meaning of employee engagement as well as concerns about the validity of the most popular measure of employee engagement. Furthermore, it is difficult to make causal conclusions about the antecedents and consequences of employee engagement due to a number of research limitations. Thus, there remain many unanswered questions and much more to do if we are to develop a science and theory of employee engagement.

Revisiting the Validity and Reliability of the Gallup Workplace Audit in a South African Petrochemical Company

Satisfaction at work has become a widespread focus of researchers. The Gallup Q12 Workplace Audit is an instrument that measures employee engagement on a 12-item scale. The aim of this exploratory study was to revisit the validity and reliability of the Gallup Workplace Audit (GWA) as a measure of employee engagement in a petrochemical company. Furthermore, the study aimed to determine whether the GWA, which is an international survey, can be used effectively in South Africa. A cross-sectional survey design with an accidental sample (N = 2 588) was used. First results showed that none of the items needed to be eliminated from the scale, and that the scale itself had a very high reliability. Descriptive statistics such as frequency counts were used to describe the sample. Acceptable internal consistency was reached through an exploratory factor analysis which resulted in a one-factor model of work engagement. The results confirmed that this international survey can be utilised effectively in the South African context. Recommendations for future research conclude this article.

The Relative Importance of Employee Engagement, Other Job Attitudes, and Trait Affect as Predictors of Job Performance

We used univariate and multivariate relative weight analysis to assess the relative importance of a new job attitude (employee engagement), several longstanding job attitudes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job involvement, perceived organizational support, and work centrality), and trait positive and negative affect as predictors of 3 important components of overall employee performance: task performance, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and counterproductive (or deviant) work behavior. The results indicate that the best predictors of overall employee performance were trait negative affect, employee engagement, and job satisfaction. Moreover, the results were unaffected by the removal of a few behavioral items (akin to OCB) from measures of employee engagement. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Development and application of a new measure of employee engagement: the ISA Engagement Scale

Effective measure of employee engagement is relevant to human resource development (HRD) theory and practice. We build on Kahn's (1990, Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work, Academy of Management Journal 33: 692–724) theory and develop a model of engagement that has three requirements: a work-role focus, activation and positive affect. This model was operationalized in a new measure: the Intellectual, Social, Affective Engagement Scale (ISA Engagement Scale) comprising three facets: intellectual, social and affective engagement. Data from Study 1 (278 employees from a manufacturing organization) showed that the scale and its sub-scales have internal reliability. Study 2 examined data from 683 employees in a retail organization. The internal reliability was confirmed and construct validity was demonstrated. The new scale had positive associations with three theoretically and empirically important outcomes: task performance, organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and turnover intentions. Implications are considered for academic enquiry into the engagement process, and for HRD practices that enhance the experience of work.

Individual Factors and Work Outcomes of Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is emerging as a critical organizational issue especially as businesses are recovering from the trauma of the global recession. Employee engagement has been an area of interest among many researchers and it had received a greater recognition among consulting firms. Therefore, there is a need for academic research on the construct to ascertain the claims of the human resource consulting firms as well as to add to the existing knowledge of employee engagement in the literature. This study was conducted on 104 HR officers working at the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia with the purpose ascertaining the uncertainty about the influence of individual factors of employee engagement on work outcomes using the measures of employee engagement (job and organization engagements) as the mediating variables and the social exchange theory as the theoretical underpinning. The mean, standard deviation, t-test and multiple regression were employed for data analysis. The findings of this study showed a significant difference between job engagement and organization; with co-employee support as a major individual factor that influences both measures of engagement and the work outcomes.

Engaging People who Drive Execution and Organizational Performance

Problem statement: The construct of employee engagement had gained much reputation in recent years among reputable management and human resources consulting firms. Though there is an increasing contributions of few academic research on the construct of employee engagement yet there is a shortage of academic studies on the construct. This gap had made the construct an interesting area of research. Approach: The purpose of this study is to test a model of the drivers of employee engagement on two measures of employee engagement (job engagement and organization engagement) using the social exchange theory as a theoretical foundation.104 HR officers working at the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia completed the survey. The survey included measures of the drivers of engagement as well the measures of job and organization engagements. The t-test and the multiple regressions were employed for data analysis. Results: This study is among the pioneering work to support a distinctive difference between job engagement and organization engagement and to evaluate an array of the drivers of job engagement and organization engagement. The study addresses concerns on how to provide a framework to enable organization engage their employees to drive execution. Conclusion: The findings of this study showed a significant difference between job engagement and organization; with co-employee support as a major driver that influence both measures of engagement.