Exactly What is Employee Engagement?
The Case of Many Definitions In Search of Clarity
The concept of employee engagement is increasingly becoming popular as the main pre-occupation of people management. It has become conventional wisdom that effective employee engagement is the key sustainable performance driver for the organization concerning productivity, profitability, shareholders’ return, employee retention and customer loyalty.
Employee engagement is responsible for corporate success from within the organisation when transforming it to align with the digital age in the modern world. It is the new competitive advantage manifested as the definitive value proposition of a customer-centric, people-centric and stakeholders-centric organisation.
Through employee engagement, companies come to understand better the possible driving and hindering factors of success at the level of engagement. The driving factors of engagement have included achievement, recognition for achievement, work itself, responsibilities and growth or advancement. Likewise, the hindering factors include supervision, interpersonal relationships, working conditions, salary, status, security and personal life. The roots of these ideas can of course be traced to Herzberg’s 2-Factor Motivation Theory of Hygiene vs Motivators.
