Employee Engagement And Team: A Literature Review

The Literature Review

Discuss about the Employee Engagement and Team for a Literature Review.

Employee engagement has been discussed as one of the major prerequisites in the organizational success by a number of researchers. Here, in this literature review the relation and importance has been explored between employee engagement and organizational teams.

The research papers and the results: 

Research papers	Author/ authors Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper	Topic of discussion	Comment or inference
Team performance in learning organizations: mediating effect of employee engagement	Hoon Song, J., Hun Lim, D., Gu Kang, I., & Kim, W. (2014)	How employee engagement facilitates in increasing team performance	employee engagement increases team performance
The influence of job, team and organizational level resources on employee well-being, engagement, commitment and extra-role performance: Test of a model	Albrecht, S. L. (2012)	Influence of the organizational issues in employee engagement	Team interaction is influential in employee engagement and vice-versa.
Employee engagement: A literature review	Kular, S., Gatenby, M., Rees, C., Soane, E., & Truss, K. (2008)	Factors related to employee engagement	Employee engagement is important in team performance
How can leaders achieve high employee engagement?	Xu, Jessica; Helena Cooper Thomas (2011)	Importance of leadership in employee engagement	Positive
Özaralli, N. (2003). Effects of transformational leadership on empowerment and team effectiveness	Özaralli, N. (2003)	Implication of leadership in employee engagement	Positive
A case study exploring leadership, work team engagement, and safety performance in a high-risk work environment	Caldwell, C. (2016)	Interrelation of team work, employee engagement and leadership	All are closely related

Figure 1: Some relevant literatures on the topic of “Employee engagement and team”

Source: Developed by the authors

These above-mentioned literatures have mainly been studied in developing the following literature review. Credible researchers do these studies and the conclusions of these studies have thrown substantial light on the relation of employee engagement and its relation to organizational teams.

However, more other research papers have also been reviewed for the successful completion of this literature review. Those are specified in the reference list.

Employee engagement can be identified as one of the key variables in the organizational success. It is a major concern for the companies in their strategies for human resource management. Various research conductors have provided a number of definitions for this particular term.

As mentioned by Xu & Cooper Thomas, (2011) employee engagement can be identified as the employee commitment to the organization and its team. It is essential for the companies to ensure better commitment from its organization to achieve an organizational success and increased production level. As mentioned by Albrecht, (2012) employee engagement is directly connected to the organizational values and vision. Employee engagement can be described as the level of employee’s commitment to the organizational values and perceived goals. On the other hand, as mentioned by Hoon Song et al., (2014) “Employee engagement” is the degree to which an employee is ardent towards his/ her job, and put a voluntary effort to increase the brand value of the organization.

As opined by Özaralli, (2003) the employee engagement is typically synonymous to employee satisfaction. According to his opinion, it can be said that “Employee engagement” is an organizational approach obtained by providing the right working conditions to all the members of the organization. It directs the employees to give their best, makes them committed to the organizational values and goals, motivated to take active part in organizational success; inspired by an enhanced belief of personal well-being.

On the other hand, as mentioned by Macey et al., (2011) the employee engagement can be described as a tool which helps the organization to collect the optimum level of employee motivation which helps in increased team morale, better performance, low rate of employee turnover and increased customer service.

The Impact of Employee Engagement in Teams

Hence, from the above discussion it can be noted that the idea of employee engagement is highly influential in determining team and organizational performance.

An organization is a unite with a number of important agents. For the successful attainment of the strategic and organizational goals, coordination and cooperation is needed. Hence, building teams within the organizations is a prerequisite for the managements. Now, for building teams, it is needed to ensure a good level of employee engagement. The employees are needed to voluntarily participate in the team building process.

In addition, for the successful management of the team, employee engagement is typically needed. As mentioned by Caldwell, (2016) employee engagement helps in nullifying the negative effects of the clashes among the team members. When the individuals are satisfied with the company culture and feel valued by the organization they tend to ignore various personal issues and try to resolve the clashes. Moreover, in an organizational context, a decision taken by the management needs to be actualized by the whole of the members of the organization.

As mentioned by Tims et al., (2013) with increased level of employee engagement the viewpoint of the workers get widened which assists in successful decision-making and its actualization. With increased commitment and devotion to the organizational goals and values, the employees start to treat the organizational objectives with better responsibility. As opined by Lencioni, (2002)  it helps the team managers to allocate the tasks and better achievement of the goals.

Moreover, employee engagement can also be utilized to increase the team performance. As mentioned by Hansell & Kirby, (2015) with increased faith and satisfaction with the job roles, the employees start to put effort for professional betterment. It increases the performance level of the team as a whole. Moreover, as discussed by Waite, (2016) increased level of satisfaction with the organizational structure helps the companies to earn a better level of employee engagement. This engagement propels the employees to be responsible to the organizational goals and the specified job roles. This increased level of responsibility also performs in favor of team performance. As opined by Yalabik & Panteli, (2015) in case of any confusion about the job roles, the increased level of responsibility towards the organization inspires people to work beyond their specified or mentioned job responsibilities.

For achieving success in the team building and improving the performance of the teams within the organizations, leaders play a typically important role. As opined by Xu & Cooper Thomas, (2011) leaders nerd to identify the workers level of satisfaction with the group and uplift the satisfaction level by exercising the best possible leadership pattern. As discussed by Carter & Baghurst, (2014) it is important for the leaders to uphold a team oriented behaviour to ensure employee engagement.

Leadership, Employee Engagement, and Team

As member of a team, the employees need to be recognized as valuable asset for the group. As discussed by Hoon Song et al., (2014) the employees need to be satisfied with the group or the team behaviour. The leader himself can ensure it. As mentioned by Özaralli, (2003) an autocratic leader will create an environment of dictatorship within the team and its will surely disregard the members’ points of views. Thus, the employees will feel less valued within the team and the team will start to lose its coherence consequently. By reviewing the previous literature on the same topic, the following qualities are needed within a leader for ensuring better employee engagement.

As mentioned by Lencioni, (2002) the management or the leaders need to make the employees feel that they are dedicated to serve the employees. They need to uphold the sense that they are worthy of being served by the employees. It helps the leaders to ensure better satisfaction from the employees’ end and they love to be a part of the team.

For creating a sustainable team, employee engagement can be identified as one of the major prerequisites. As mentioned by Xu & Cooper Thomas, (2011) it is needed for the management to be accountable for the decisions to its employees. A number of empirical evidences can be found that by being accountable to its employees reputed companies have ensured an increased and long time employee engagement. As discussed by Özaralli, (2003) when the leaders are accountable to the team, it creates a sense of equality among the employees and directs them to be felt valued by the organization and the management. Moreover, with equal accountability or the strategy of 360 degree criticism, the team becomes aware of its limitations and strengths and able to work on that. Thus, this increased level of employee engagement ensures better team performance.

The main essence of ensuring employee engagement is to transforming and utilizing the full potentiality of the employees into realty. The leaders need to inspire his employees or the team members to improve his/ her performance. The leaders need to make the employees feel that they are allowed to opt for innovative practices. As mentioned by Lencioni, (2002) a leader who encourages his team members to do something new are always able to make them believe on his/ her own dreams. As discussed by Caldwell, (2016) a bureaucratic leadership style, i.e. the over importance of the managerial rules and policies make the employees frustrated and they opt for an organization which is more democratic in its operation.

Servant Leadership

As mentioned by Braun et al., (2013) the core of ensuring employee engagement is to pursuing the inner core of the employees in favor of the organization and the team. Hence, it is important for the leaders to behave in such a way, which will induce change within the self of the employees. As discussed by Caldwell, (2016)  the transformational leadership can best be utilized in this regard. A number of successful entrepreneurs and managerial executives have utilized this particular leadership patter to obtain employee engagement. In the complex and ever-changing world of business, transformational leadership helps the teams to be relevant with their activities and ensuring better participation of the team members. As discussed by Özaralli, (2003) the transformational leader spreads the massage that “none of us is as good as all of us.” As discussed previously it creates a sense of value within the employees and generates employee engagement.

A number of empirical studies have established that for obtaining employee commitment and subsequent engagement the role and characteristics of the leaders are typically important. As identified by Xu & Cooper Thomas, (2011) an effective leader is able to make his people believe that a catastrophic situation is bound to go away and the shared dreams are compelled to be true. It makes them inspired to work together in the team, commit to the team values and voluntarily share the responsibilities to achieve the team objectives.

Thus, from this above discussion, it can easily be speculated that ensuring employee engagement is essential for the companies to achieve the organizational goals and improving team performance. Hence, the previous researchers have suggested some useful strategies to ensure employee engagement.

As mentioned by Özaralli, (2003) a transformational leader motivates the team members to dream for accomplishing more than they have ever expected. It helps the teams to push itself from its boundary and achieve bigger organizational goals. As opined by Caldwell, (2016) it is important for the leaders to make people believe in their potential and achievement of this potential creates a sense of satisfaction and gratefulness among the employees to the leader. It helps the leader to maintain the team with high morale and increased enthusiasm to perform. In a number of empirical cases, it have been found that the employees love to work under an influential or inspirational leader in spite of various other dissatisfactions and the employee turnover rate starts to increase after the retirement of that particular leader (Hewitt, 2012). Hence, it can easily be said that with the help of an effective leadership the team coherence as well as the employee engagement can be achieved.

As mentioned by Brunetto et al., (2012) the monitory benefits are also important in ensuring employee engagement. If the employees find that their compensation is not satisfactory to the job role, then ensuring employee engagement is a tough goal to achieve. Here, the organization need to make the employee feel that they deserve their (the employees) service by providing right and timely salary, certain job benefits, appraisals and promotions. As opined by Saks & Gruman, (2014) rewards and recognition are directly instrumental in ensuring employee engagement and voluntary participation in the team activities. Personal growth helps the organization in motivating the employee to be engaged more deeply within the organizational process and contribute in the best possible way.

As discussed in the Maslow’s Hierarchy theory, after the satisfaction of the compensation related issues the employees look for the high level of emotional satisfaction. It leads the organizations to provide job satisfaction to its employees (Caldwell, 2016). Here, the company needs to stop providing “quantity rewards” and start to opt for providing value-generated rewards. In some empirical cases it have been noted that the employee oriented companies share a purpose-driven organizational mores which is focused on developing, recognizing and motivating the employees (Macey et al., 2011).

As mentioned by George, (2014) for ensuring employee engagement the organizational status and the work process are also important. It is important for the organizations to uphold open communication channels, team building activities, regular trainings, certification, declared job roles and many other operational specifications for ensuring employees’ satisfaction with his/ her work place. As opined by Truss et al., (2013) arranging social and recreational activities with other team members, setting team oriented goals, team based recognitions, community outreach activities and many more can be helpful in ensuring longing for the team and thus leading to employee satisfaction. Thus, the team and the organizational initiatives can also be helpful in ensuring employee engagement. This satisfaction with the team membership, the organizations become able to provide job satisfaction to the employees and as mentioned by Hewitt, (2012) it helps them in obtaining better employee engagement.  

As discussed previously and the review of the study results, balancing the work and the personal life has a huge implication in ensuring better employee engagement. However, the issue is fundamentally personal to the employee, the organizations also have substantial role in this regard. As mentioned by Albrecht, (2012) the organizations need to ensure a good quality of life to its employees. Providing job security, health insurance, paid leaves, good and healthy working environment are some major strategies in earning employees’ loyalty. It makes the workers feel that the management cares about them. Moreover, when the organizational management takes care of these issues, the employees fined it satisfactory to invest all his/ her potentiality to the growth of the company. As mentioned by Anitha, (2014) job security is one of the major reasons of modern date increased rate of employee turnover. If the organization can eliminate this insecurity of upholding the same lifestyle from the employees’ psyche, they will voluntarily commit to the organizational goals.

Thus from the above discussion, it can be concluded that the management needs to establish open communication channel, informal and inspirational leadership, 360 degree criticism, effective reward policy, upholding good quality of life and employee oriented organizational culture and procedures to ensure better engagement and increased team morale and performance.

From the above discussion, it can be declared that ensuring employee satisfaction is essential to collect better engagement from the employees’ end. However, some limitation of the discussed studies can also not be ignored. not substantial information can be explored about the implication of team interaction in ensuring employee engagement from this above discussed literature review. Moreover, the studies have mentioned that leadership plays an important role in ensuring employee engagement, but not enough information can be obtained the cause of the leaders’ engagement. It is also needed to be explored to improve the employee engagement by following the same factors. Moreover, the studies have also left scope for future research on the implication of the technological changes in ensuring employee engagement.

References:

Albrecht, S. L. (2012). The influence of job, team and organizational level resources on employee well-being, engagement, commitment and extra-role performance: Test of a model. International Journal of Manpower, 33(7), 840-853.

Anitha, J. (2014). Determinants of employee engagement and their impact on employee performance. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management.

Braun, S., Peus, C., Weisweiler, S., & Frey, D. (2013). Transformational leadership, job satisfaction, and team performance: A multilevel mediation model of trust. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(1), 270-283.

Brunetto, Y., Teo, S. T., Shacklock, K., & Farrâ€ÂWharton, R. (2012). Emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, wellâ€Âbeing and engagement: explaining organisational commitment and turnover intentions in policing. Human Resource Management Journal, 22(4), 428-441.

Caldwell, C. (2016). A case study exploring leadership, work team engagement, and safety performance in a high-risk work environment(Doctoral dissertation, FIELDING GRADUATE UNIVERSITY).

Carter, D., & Baghurst, T. (2014). The influence of servant leadership on restaurant employee engagement. Journal of Business Ethics, 124(3), 453-464.

George, S. (2014). Perceptions of top management team commitment to corporate social responsibility: An exploration of the relationship with employee engagement (Doctoral dissertation, ST. AMBROSE UNIVERSITY).

Hansell, K., & Kirby, E. M. (2015). Team Engagement and Improvement Through Huddles. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing,44(s1), S46-S47.

Hewitt, A. (2012). 2012 Trends in global employee engagement. Aon Corporation. Retrieved August, 11, 2013.

Hoon Song, J., Hun Lim, D., Gu Kang, I., & Kim, W. (2014). Team performance in learning organizations: mediating effect of employee engagement. The Learning Organization, 21(5), 290-309.

Kular, S., Gatenby, M., Rees, C., Soane, E., & Truss, K. (2008). Employee engagement: A literature review.

Lencioni, P. M. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable(Vol. 13). John Wiley & Sons.

Macey, W. H., Schneider, B., Barbera, K. M., & Young, S. A. (2011).Employee engagement: Tools for analysis, practice, and competitive advantage (Vol. 31). John Wiley & Sons.

Özaralli, N. (2003). Effects of transformational leadership on empowerment and team effectiveness. Leadership & Organization Development Journal,24(6), 335-344.

Saks, A. M., & Gruman, J. A. (2014). What do we really know about employee engagement?. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 25(2), 155-182.

Tims, M., Bakker, A. B., Derks, D., & van Rhenen, W. (2013). Job crafting at the team and individual level: Implications for work engagement and performance. Group & Organization Management, 1059601113492421.

Truss, C., Alfes, K., Delbridge, R., Shantz, A., & Soane, E. (2013).Employee engagement in theory and practice. Routledge.

Waite, L. M. (2016). The Impact of an Organized Team-Training for New Hire Engagement and Knowledge and Employment Retention.

Xu, J., & Cooper Thomas, H. (2011). How can leaders achieve high employee engagement?. Leadership & Organization Development Journal,32(4), 399-416.

Yalabik, Z. Y., & Panteli, N. (2015, January). Employee Engagement in a Virtual Work Environment: The Case of a Virtual Team Temporary Project. InAcademy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2015, No. 1, p. 11433). Academy of Management.