Strategies For Increasing Employee Engagement And Reducing Conflict In The Workplace

PM202 Human Resources Management

What is employee engagement?

In recent years, active engagement of employees at workplace becomes the important topic of discussion and many researches are conducted on employee engagement. For every organization it is very necessary that they focus on the issue of employee engagement and establish active workforce at their workplace. Generally, employers feel that engaged employees are those who work extra for the growth of the company, and they consider their work more meaningfully and important. Benefits of active engagement of employees are shared between the employer and employee and this is the reason because of which employers mainly focus on the active engagement of employees.

A little research was conducted on the dimensions, antecedents and outcomes of employee engagement in the organizations. However some large scale surveys are conducted for measuring the employee engagement at international level such as International Survey Research (ISR) conducted research and concluded that in developing countries score related to engagement is high as compared to developed nations (ISR, 2004). According to research conducted by Gallup organization employee engagement levels are low in UK and at international level (The Gallup Organization 2004). This paper contains the discussion on strategies used for increasing employee engagement and also how conflict can be reduced in implementation of those strategies.

Increasing employee engagement is become the most important issue for professionals related to human resource management and talent development. There are number of benefits which must be consider by the employer for future growth such as when employees engage more in their work then it automatically improves the performance of an organization and also employees remain with the company for longer time period. For any organization benefits of employee engagement is really important for their success and this is the only reason that organization considers more on employee’s engagement. The best strategy to increase the employee engagement in organization is to provide career development opportunity to employees and also show their value in the organization.

Almost 50 years ago, Wallace Sayre who is a political scientist in America state argument that public and private sector are fundamentally alike in all unimportant respects (Sayre, 1958). From that time new technology, financial systems and different management methods was introduced which transform the organization. Recently organizations working in public sector are adopting the management style and strategies of private organizations (Boyne, 1999).

As per research conducted by CIPD shows that there are many important factors which contributes in success of the organization such as practices conducted at work, planned recruitment and selection of employees and many more. These practices are used by the employers of both sectors public as well as private, and according to the report stated by CIPD employment engagement is considered as important tool for the success of an organization, and also to consider the relation between employer and employee (CIPD, 2008).

Benefits of employee engagement

Employment engagement strategies: following are some important strategies for increasing the employee engagement in the organization:

• According to research conducted by CIPD, there are number of organizations in UK which are using the strategies for active engagement of employees at their workplace, and there are various forms of initiatives taken by management which are taken by considering the need of organization. As per recommendation stated by MacLeod it is necessary that organizations find their own definition and approach which also match with their organization structure (MacLeod and Clarke 2009). Organizations are measuring the employee engagement on the basis of attitude or experience of the employee, and they state either single question or series of question for determining the attitude of employees. For example, NHS includes series of questions in their annual survey such as ‘I am enthusiastic about my job’, ‘time passes quickly when I am working’ and ‘I often do more than is required’. On the other hand some organizations measure the employee engagement on the basis of the model of say, stay and strive. And there are some other questions also which focus on the advocacy of employees and whether employees are happy in the organization or not, and whether employees are planning to stay with the organization in near future. In private sector, there are large number of organizations which are also adopting various strategies to measure the employee engagement and this can be seen in various small and medium sized organizations (CIPD, 2010).
• Other strategy for the purpose of increasing the employee engagement includes the career development opportunities and mobility within the organization offered to employees. Employee’s engagement also involves the satisfaction of learning needs of employees, advance technology, and development of employees. It is necessary that employer provide meaningful task to their employees, and also extend the scope of employee’s duty so that they can engaged in their work and committed to the organization. Meaningful work not only encourages the employees but also inspires enthusiasm in employees and motivates them to take new challenges, also increase their experience in work and polish their skills. If employers provide the work related to expertise of employees or which increase their career experience then it helps employee to increase their skills and competencies as per the requirement of organizations, and it also provide sense of progress to employees which fill the positions of the company at more advanced and diverse level. Therefore, we can say that a sound employee engagement program provides meaningful work to employees, opportunity to develop their skills and experience, and also encourage them to take new challenges and more responsibilities in the organization (Baye, n.d.).
• It is necessary to develop an employee engagement program which not only focus on development but also provide advancement opportunities to the employees. Organizations must provide digital technology for increasing the professional development opportunities of employees. Employer must measure the performance of employees on continuous basis and this can be done through various methods such as skills training and competency assessments, and employer must conduct different programs for selecting the best talent in recruitment process (Insala, n.d.; Service Futures, 2015).
• Working culture of the organization affect the performance of employees and by developing the employee friendly working culture, an organization can increase the engagement of employee at workplace. In Frishco, HRM department adopted many strategies for increasing the employee engagement which involve positive change in the organization culture for the purpose of meeting the needs of employees while maintaining the values of the company. Changes made in culture by developing employee friendly culture will increase the engagement of employees. This type of culture is very powerful and consider as the DNA of the organization. this type of culture is created with the help of shared values between organization and employees. Employees are encouraged to raise their voice for change and this is the main reason behind the success of Frishco (Frishco, n.d.)

All these strategies help the employer in increasing the employee engagement in their organizations and lead to growth of organization.

Conflict arises in every organization and if it’s under control or up to a limited extent that it shows healthy exchange of ideas and help in increasing creativity. However, some conflicts increase the employee dissatisfaction and affect the productivity of organization. Generally, it is said that measuring the engagement of employees in organization is like eating an elephant because this task is really big and it is difficult to find where to start from. It must be noted that only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. Managers everywhere can help solve this problem and try to achieve the benefits of high employee engagement (Reily, 2014).

There are number of managers who feel that is important that employee engagement programs also focus on the difficulties occurred in engaging employees.  Employee engagement does not have any universal definition, and there are many definitions of employee engagement that agree or disagree on various points. Therefore, if something is not clearly defined then it is really difficult to measure it. Surveys conducted for employee engagement collect information on different factors such as performance, satisfaction, happiness, morale, trust, commitment, sensitivity, emotional characteristics and many more. Some of these factors are not relevant, and these surveys are anonymous which ensure honesty and this factor creates problem because it is difficult for members to target some particular person (Verma, 2015).

Other problem in implementing these strategies is that no one understands the actual meaning of engagement which becomes confusing for both employer as well as employees. Employees answer in surveys without understanding the questions of surveys because of which results of surveys are confusing and employers are not able to implement the strategies in effective manner. Another reason is diverse workforce with different mind sets of employees who have different attitudes, expectations and loyalty towards their work. Therefore, it might be possible that one strategy leave different impact on employees and it is necessary for employer to understand that engagement can help in increasing productivity but it is not productivity itself.

Many cases are there in which employee is fully engaged in his work and put his all efforts but there is lack of resources and support. It must be noted that without proper resources, commitment, leadership and supportive work culture it is not possible for employee to engage properly in his work because of which there is lack of productivity and efficiency (Dhanda, 2015).

Adoption of engagement strategies in the public and private sector

Engagement of employee is not tangible and it is difficult for employer to measure the emotional states and behavior of employees, and such measurement also require large amount of resources, time, and money which is spent on gathering the information, analyzing the information, and also presenting the results from engagement surveys, and also involves formulation and implementation of strategies. However, it is possible that benefits received from such programs is low as compared to the cost incurred on such programs and this happen because of the ambiguity in the employee engagement program. Therefore, it is necessary that HR mangers can give little more attention to the employee engagement programs (Engage for success, n.d.). Some difficulties are summarized below:

1. Current communication vehicles- now a day’s organizations used communication system which is based on technology such as E-mails, intranet, newsletters. These communication systems are not effective and not possible for every employee in an organization to understand the matter through these vehicles. It might be possible that sometimes employees are not able to understand the important content. These tools are not very much effective for understanding the employee’s seriousness of matter.
2. Sometimes resources are not adequate and working culture of the organization does not provide proper support to the organization because of which employees are not able to perform with their full potential (Hewitt, 2013).

Ways to solve these difficulties: this problem is occurred in every organization and it creates challenges in every company.  As per recent report of Gallup almost 68.5% works state that they are not engaged or actively disengaged at work. This problem is complicated and it is necessary to solve this problem. There are number of factors which influence the work of employees at workplace and also include their personal problems. But it is true that low commitments of employee leads to dysfunctional relationships between employer and employee, manager and worker, leader and team (Barriso, 2015). Following are some ways which are helpful in solving these issues:

Effective communication: it is not possible to improve the situation unless both the parties try to understand the problem, and it happens only through open and honest communication which promotes the understanding and give chance to everyone to be on same stage.

Focus on giving: in any partnership, it is necessary that both parties receive something, and if one party focuses on giving they motivate the other party to give back (Gingras, 2015).

Conclusion:

Engaged employees are the basic necessity of every successful business, and because of dynamic nature of business environment it is necessary that managers and employers adopt those changes as soon as possible and for this purpose engaged employees are essential. It is easy for employees to achieve the targets set by organizations if they are engaged in their work and show passion towards their work. Engaged employees are not only physically involved in their work but they also put their efforts and soul in their work. Employee engagement is the most important tool for business success and achieving competitive advantage in the organization.

Therefore, it is clear that for high performance engaged employees are basic condition. In this paper we analyzed the different factors related to employee engagement and also adopted different strategies for increasing the employee engagement in the organization. After analyzing all the factors it is clear that both financial and no financial factors play important role in effective engagement of employee. Other factors which contribute in employee engagement are knowledge, skill, abilities, personality affect and organizational factors are work culture, support and availability of resources.

References:

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