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International Conference on Managing Human Resources at the Workplace, December 4-5, 2015

ISBN 978-93-83302-07-9

A case study on Employee Engagement Initiatives in some selected

Industries of Dakshina Kannada District

Santhosh Prabhu M.,

Assistant Professor, Department of P.G. Studies in Commerce,

Besant Women’s College, Mangaluru.

santhoshbwc@gmail.com

Preethi N. Alva,

M.Com (Final Year),

Besant Women’s College, Mangaluru.

preethinavoor@gmail.com

Mufeena

M.Com (Final Yera),

Besant Women’s College, Mangaluru.

mufeena.u@gmail.com

Abstract

Employee engagement is the level of commitment and involvement an employee has towards

their organization and its values. An engaged employee is aware context, and works with

colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization. It is a

positive attitude held by the employees towards the organization and its values. Employee

engagement is a measurable degree of an employee's positive or negative emotional

attachment to their job, colleagues and organization which profoundly influences their

willingness to learn and perform at work. An organization’s capacity to manage employee

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engagement is closely related to its ability to achieve high performance levels and superior

business results. The concept has linked it to such variables as employee turnover,

absenteeism, customer satisfaction, loyalty, safety, productivity and profitability criteria of the

concern. Thus employee engagement is critical to any organization that seeks to retain valued

employees.

The present study is analytical in nature based on survey method. Non probabilistic

convenience sampling technique is used to collect data. 30 samples are collected through a

structured questionnaire from employees of different industrial background in Dakshina

Kannada district. Data were analysed through simple statistical methods like percentage. Finally

this paper briefly submits that how employee engagement initiatives emphasizes the

importance of employee communication on the success of a business. An organization should

recognize employees, more than any other variable, as powerful contributors to a company's

competitive position. Therefore employee engagement should be a continuous process of

learning, improvement, measurement and action.

Keywords: Employee engagement, Employee turnover, Absenteeism, Competitive position

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Introduction

Employee engagement called worker engagement is a business management concept. An "engaged employee" is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about their work, and thus will act in a way that furthers their organization's interests. According to Scarlett Surveys, "Employee Engagement is a measurable degree of an employee's positive or negative emotional attachment to their job, colleagues and organization which profoundly influences their willingness to learn and perform at work". Thus engagement is distinctively different from employee satisfaction, motivation and organizational culture. Engagement at work was conceptualized by Kahn, (1990) as the ‘harnessing of organizational members’ selves to their work roles. In engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances. The second related construct to engagement in organizational behavior is the notion of flow advanced by Csikszentmihalyi (1975, 1990). Csikzentmihalyi (1975) defines flow as the ‘holistic sensation’ that, people feel when they act with total involvement. Flow is the state in which there is little distinction between the self and environment. When individuals are in Flow State little conscious control is necessary for their actions.

Employee engagement is the thus the level of commitment and involvement an employee has towards their organization and its values. An engaged employee is aware of business Context, and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization. The organization must work to develop and nurture engagement, which requires a two-way relationship between employer and employee.’ Thus Employee engagement is a barometer that determines the association of a person with the organization.

Categories of Employee Engagement

According to the Gallup the Consulting organization there are there are different types of people:- Engaged--"Engaged" employees are builders. They want to know the desired expectations for their role so they can meet and exceed them. They're naturally curious about their company and their place in it. They perform at consistently high levels. They want to use their talents and strengths at work every day. They work with passion and they drive innovation and move their organization forward. Not Engaged- Not-engaged employees tend to concentrate on tasks rather than the goals and outcomes they are expected to accomplish. They want to be told what to do just so they can do it and say they have finished. They focus on accomplishing tasks vs. achieving an outcome. Employees who are not-engaged tend to feel their contributions are being overlooked, and their potential is not being tapped. They often feel this way because they don't have productive relationships with their managers or with their coworkers. Actively Disengaged-The "actively disengaged" employees are the "cave dwellers." They're "Consistently against Virtually Everything." They're not just unhappy at work; they're busy acting out their unhappiness .They sow seeds of negativity at every opportunity. Every day, actively disengaged workers undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish. As workers increasingly rely on each other to generate products and services, the problems and tensions that are fostered by actively disengaged workers can cause great damage to an organization's functioning.

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Factors Leading to Employee Engagement-

Studies have shown that there are some critical factors which lead to Employee engagement. Some of them identified are,

Career Development- Opportunities for personal development

Career Development – Effective Management of Talent

Leadership – Respectful Treatment of Employees

Leadership- Clarity of company values

Leadership – Company’s Standards of Ethical Behaviors

Empowerment

Image

Equal Opportunities and Fair Treatment

Performance appraisal

Pay and Benefits

Health and Safety

Communication

Family Friendliness

Co-operation

The 10 C’s of Employee Engagement:

The following way employer can engage employees’ heads, hearts, and hands. The literature offers several avenues for action; these as ten c’s of employee engagement, which are supposed to be essential for employee engagement.

1. Connect: Leaders must show that they value employees. Employee engagement is a direct reflection of how employees feel about their relationship with the boss. employees look at whether organization and their leader walk the talk when they proclaim that,” our employees are most valuable asset.”

2. Career: Leader should provide challenging and meaningful work with opportunities’ for career advancement. Most of the people want to do new thing in their job. Good leader challenge employee; but at the same time, they must instill the confidence that the challenge can be made.

3. Clarity: Leader must communicate a clear vision. People want to understand the vision that senior leadership has for the organization, and the goals that leaders or department heads have for the division, unit, or team. Success in life and organizations, to a great extent, determined by how clear individuals are about their goals and what they really want to achieve.

4. Convey: Leaders clarify their expectations about employees and provide feedback on their functioning in the organization .Good leaders establish processes and procedures that help people master important tasks and facilitate goal achievement.

5. Congratulate: Survey shows that, over and over, employees feel that they receive immediate feedback when their performance is poor, or below expectations. These same employees also report that praise and

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recognition for strong performance is much less common. Exceptional leaders give recognition, they do so a lot; they coach and convey.

6. Contribute: People want to know that their input matters and that they are contributing to the organization’s success in a meaningful way. In sum, good leaders help people see and feel how they are contributing to the organization’s success and future.

7. Control Employee’s value control over the flow and pace of their jobs and leaders can create opportunities for employees to exercise this control. a feeling of “being in on thing” and of being given opportunities to participate in decision making often reduces stress; it also create trust and culture where people want to take ownership of problem and their solution.

8. Collaborate: Studies show that, when employees work in teams and have the trust and cooperation of their team members, they outperform individuals and teams which lack good relationships. Great leader are team builders; they create an environment that fosters trust and collaboration. Surveys indicate that being cared about by colleagues is a strong predictor of employee engagement. Thus, a continuous challenge for leaders is to rally individuals to collaborate on organizational, departmental, and group goals, while excluding individuals pursuing their self-interest.

9. Credibility: Leaders should strive to maintain a company’s reputation and demonstrate high ethical standards. People want to be proud of their jobs, their performance, and their organization. 10. Confidence: Good leaders help create confidence in a company by being exemplars of high ethical and performance standards. Leaders should actively try to identify the level of engagement in their organization.

Literature Review:

In today’s age where companies are losing talent with every passing day, it’s not enough to keep employees only happy and satisfied. To retain employees it is also imperative to engage them suitably. And engaged employee is someone who is on a mission every day, which a satisfied employee may not be. Engaged employees always strive to exceed the expectations of their supervisors and are self-motivated to attain their goals. An earlier piece of engagement literature by Goffman (1961) put forth that the concept of engagement is routed in role theory. He defined engagement as the “spontaneous involvement in a role” and a “visible” investment of attention and muscular effort “. Katz and khan (1966) stressed on the general need for employees to engage with their work and organization. Though their work does not use the term ‘employee engagement’ directly, it acknowledges the need for engagement and its association with organizational effectiveness.

Kahn (1992), who is considered as an academic parent of employee engagement movement, introduces the concept of ‘personal engagement’. He defined personal engagement as the harnessing of organization members selves to their workforce; in engagement, people employee and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotional during role performance.

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Gilson, and Harter (2004) tested Kahn’s model and their findings supported the view that the psychological conditions of meaningfulness, safety and availability are positively linked to engagement. Robbinson, Perryman, and Hayday (2004) defined engagement one step ahead of commitment. They defined employee engagement as a positive attitude of employees towards their organization and its values, wherein employees have awareness of business context and work to improve job and organizational effectiveness. More importantly, this study stressed two-way nature of employee engagement.

Another prominent definition of engagement emerged from the contribution of Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) they coined the term job engagement and further defined it as the positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by Vigour, dedication and absorption. Thus, engagement is characterized by Vigour dedication, and, absorption.

Hewitt associates (2004) developed a 18 –item scaled to measure employee engagement. It defined engagement as the state in which individuals are emotionally and intellectually committed to the organization or group, as measured by three primary behaviors: Say (employees speak positively about the organization to others inside and out), Stay (employees display and intense desire to be a member of organization), and Strive (employees exert extra effort and engage in behaviors that contribute to business success) engaged employees exhibit these three behaviors, namely say, stay, and strive. Saks (2006) extended the concept of employee engagement include two important aspects, job engagement and organization engagement. It is widely believe that his work restored employee engagement as a serious construct.

Flemming and Asplund (2007) of Gallup, in their book titled Human Sigma: Managing Employee-Customer Encounter defined employee engagement as the ability to capture the heads, hearts, and soul of employees to instill an intrinsic desire and passion for excellence. They further pointed out that engaged employees wanted their organization to succeed because they felt connected emotionally, socially, and even spiritually to its mission, vision, and purpose. The study and the subsequent full report by Truss, Soane, Edwards, Wisdom, Croll, and Burnett (2006) established that Kahn’s view of employee engagement was operationalized in such a large survey covering a sample of (2000) respondents.

Kular et al. (2008) observed that engagement is about creating opportunities to employees to connect with their colleagues, managers and the wider organization. It is also about creating an environment where employees are motivated to want to connect with their work and really care about doing good job.

Macey and Schneidre (2008), in their work commented that the definition of engagement could be classified on three different basis of a, that is, physiological, behavioral, and trait. When engagement is described as ‘what it is,‘ it s being classified on the basis of ‘psychological state’. It is classified as ‘behavioral engagement,’ when one analyses the behavior it causes. Engagement is also defined on the basis of attitude towards ones work (trait). They further suggested that ’trait engagement gets reflected in an individual ‘psychological state, which results in ‘behavioral engagement’. They defined engagement as a discretionary effort or a form of in-role or extra role effort or behavior beyond preserving the status quo, and instead focusing on initiating or fostering change in the sense of doing something more and/or different.

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Robert Son-Smith and Markwick (2009) through light on what engagement is and reveals that it is an important yet complex challenge, and there remains a great deal of scope for discussing the various approaches.

Simpson (2009) discuss that the current state of knowledge about engagement at work through a review of the literature. This review highlighted the four lines of engagement research and focuses on the determinants and consequences of engagement at work. Susi & Ja waharrani (2011) examines some of the literature on employee engagement explore work-place culture and work- life balance policies and practices followed in industries in order to promote employee engagement in their organization to increase their employees “productivity under retain them. Work-life balance is key driver of employees “satisfaction.

Ram and Gantasala (2011) investigated the antecedents and consequences of employee engagement in Jordanian industry. Bhatla (2011) focused on the need for such employees and how they are presents can improve their progress and work efficiency of the organizations as a whole also focused on the challenges faced by the HR managers to improve employee engagement for an organizations survival.

Siddhanta and Roy (2012) explored implications for theory, further research and practices by synthesizing modem ‘employee engagement’ activities being practiced by the corporate with the review of findings from previous researchers /surveys. Sing and Shukla (2012) try to find out what variables are significant to create an engaged work force. The study was exploratory in nature and the data has been collected from a tin manufacturing organization.

Stuart, Cutter, Cook and winterton (2013) defined engagement as how positively the employees thought about the organization, felt about the organization, and where proactive in relation to achieving organizational goals for customers , colleagues and other stake holders.

Objectives of the study: To study the concept of employee engagement programme.

To evaluate the employee engagement initiatives of selected firm.

To measure the effect of employee engagement on organizational performance.

Research Methodology:

Research scope: The study was conducted in the Mangaluru city, a commercial and educational town of Karnataka. Data for this study was gathered in October 2015 by primary data collection method through questionnaire administered among employees’ of some selected industries.

Sample Unit: Employees of different industrial background in Mangaluru city were used for sample unit in this study.

Sample Size: 30 samples were selected through random sampling technique used for the study.

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Sources of data: The primary data were collected with the help of a questionnaire framed keeping in view the objectives of the study. The questionnaire consists of two parts, i.e. part-I and part-II. The part I include background details of the respondents and the part-II focus on various information related to the employee engagement factors affecting individual and organizational performance. The questionnaire dealt with different aspect of the organization like, “aware of employees and company’s role”, “opportunity of growing employees and company”, “managers, supervisors and colleagues are helpful or not”, “likes and dislikes in the firm. Altogether the questionnaire contains 10 questions, which were helpful in measuring the level of employee engagement. To supplement the primary data, the secondary information was collected from internet and various Journals.

Statistical tool used:

Simple statistical tool were used to analyze the collected data.

Analysis of data and interpretation:

As mentioned above, the study is based on a sample of 30 respondents.

Table 1:

Showing the demographic and industry profile of sampled employees (n=30)

Particulars Frequency Percentage

Age group:

21-35

36-45

Above 45

21

02

07

70

7

23

Education:

Metric

Graduation

Post-graduation

-

20

10

-

67

33

Year of service:

Less than 5

6-10

11-15

Above 15

19

03

01

07

64

10

3

23

Industry:

Teaching

05

17

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Banking

Manufacturing

Service

06

06

13

20

20

43

Table 2:

Showing the Employee engagement details.

Sl. no

Questions Strongly Disagree

Disagree

Neither agree nor disagree agree

Agree Strongly agree

1 Are you clearly aware of your role in this organization?

1(3) 18(60) 11(37)

2 Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel that your job is important?

3(10) 19(63) 8(27)

3 Do you feel company treat equally to all employees?

4(13) 6(20) 17(57) 3(10)

4 Do you feel that your supervisors guide you when you needed?

1(3) 2(7) 19(63) 5(17)

5 Are you member of small group activities (SGA)?

5(17) 1(3) 19(63) 5(17)

6 Do you feel that your participation appreciated/recognized by company?

1(3) 3(10) 17(57) 9(30)

7 If you are offered high salaried job and facilities in another organization, will you accept it?

6(20) 5(17) 3(10) 6(20) 10(33)

8 Do you understand what company expected from you and your work?

1(3) 2(7) 19(63) 8(27)

9 Do you aware of promotion policy? 4(13) 2(7) 18(60) 6(20)

10 Do you feel that there is sufficient arrangement in an organization for dealing with employee’s problem?

4(13) 8(27) 14(47) 4(13)

1. Findings of the study: The majority of the respondents are in age group of 21-35 years representing 70 per cent of

the sample surveyed. The respondents in the age group of 36-45 years made up 7 per cent of the sample followed by respondents above 40 years making 23 per cent of the sample.

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The study reveals that 67 per cent of employees completed graduation and 33 per cent completed post-graduation studies.

The majority of the employees i.e. 64 per cent have less than 5 year of service, 10 per cent have in the range of 6-10 years of service and above 10 year of service only 3 per cent.

The employee’s industrial background is from teaching, banking, manufacturing and service representing 17, 20, 20 and 43 per cent respectively.

Nearly 97 per cent of employees aware of their role in their organisation. It means every employees aware about their job what they have to do actually.

90 per cent of employees feel that according to mission and purpose of the company, their job is important for the company as well as for themselves.

The majority of the employees 67 per cent feel that company treats equally to all employees, whereas 33 per cent employees not agree this statement.

It is found that 90 per cent of the employees feel that their supervisors guiding when there is a need.

The study reveals that 80 per cent of the employees are the member of Small Group Activities.

The majority of employees, 87 per cent feel that their participation is recognized but rest 13 per cent employees disagree with this statement.

About 37 per cent of employees disagree if they are offered high salaried job and facilities in other organization, they will not accept it. But 53 per cent agree, they will accept it because they are not satisfied with their salary and facilities. May be brand name doesn’t matter for those 10 per cent employees.

It is found that 90 per cent of the employees understand what company expects from them.

Nearly 80 per cent of employees aware about the promotion policy but rest 20 per cent disagree with this point.

About 60 per cent of employees feel that there is sufficient arrangement in an organization for dealing with employees’ problem. Whereas 13 per cent are disagree and 27 per cent are neutral with this statement.

2. Policy Implication of the study:

On the basis of study, it can be concluded that the level of “Employee Engagement” is considerably high in the respective organization. The employee engagement programme is very important tool for individual and organizational development. Almost everyone is feeling proud to be associated with their respective company and employees are aware of their role and well known about their responsibilities. It is found that in some areas, employees are not satisfied with certain condition regarding the working environment. However there is a need to make little bit more efforts to those employees who are not engaged. This can be possible by keeping them involving in various activities apart from their routine work.

Supervisors and Managers should meet at regular intervals with the employees to discuss about the improvement in the company, at work place and in their living of standard, family problems etc.

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Gap between managers and the employees should be reduced by raising the level of engagement. For example: by conducting extra co-curricular activities like social and cultural programs.

Very least employees feel that their ideas or work can’t be recognized/ appreciated. So encourage them by making them feel that their ideas as well as they are important for the company.

The employer should treat every employee equal in all the matters.

The employee should be fairly compensated with incentives and other service benefits so, they will not think of leaving the concern.

The promotion policy can be made very clear to all employees through management development or career development programme.

3. Conclusion:

Employee engagement emphasizes the importance of employee communication on the success of a business. An organization should thus recognize employees, more than any other variable, as powerful contributors to a company's competitive position. Therefore employee engagement should be a continuous process of learning, improvement, measurement and action. Research evidence shows that engagement and an employee’s intention to stay with their organisation are influenced by the relationships held at work and the behaviours experienced. Therefore, management must be able to develop a sense of community and ensure favourable behaviours are displayed, such as trusting employees by giving them autonomy to make their own decisions. However, the literature indicates that it is not just what manager’s do that is important; collegial relations are also important. Finally we can conclude that, this study is restricted to only few industries, so there is scope for future research by taking employees from large size of employees from different industrial base.

References:

Baumruk, R. (2004) ‘The missing link: the role of employee engagement in business success’, Workspan, Vol 47, pp48-52.

Cooper, R. (1997) ‘Applying Emotional Intelligence in the workplace’, Training and Development, Vol 51 No 12, pp31-38.

Employee Engagement notes http://www.contentwriter.in/articles/hr/employeeengagement. html

Gubman, E. (2004) ‘From engagement to passion for work: The search for the missing person’, Human Resources Planning, pp42-46.

Jamie A. Gruman and Alan M. Saks, ‘Performance Management and Employee Engagement’, ‘Human Resource Management Review’, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2011, pp.123–136

Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33 (4), 692-724.

Kumar, J.A. (2012). Employee Engagement, Saaransh , RKG Journal of Management, 3(2).

Siddhanta A. & Roy, D. (2012). Employee engagement engaging the 21st century workforce. Asian Journal of management Research,170-189.

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International Conference on Managing Human Resources at the Workplace, December 4-5, 2015

ISBN 978-93-83302-07-9

Soltis, B. (2004) in Lanphear, S. (2004) ‘Are your employees highly engaged?’ Credit Union Executive Newsletter, 19, pp1-2.

Shaw, K. (2005) ‘An engagement strategy process for communicators’, Strategic Communication Management, Vol 9, No 3, pp26-29.

Tulasi Das, V. & Vijayalakshmi, Ch. (2012). Employee Engagement Strategies For Enhancing Employee Competitiveness To Organizational Success. Indian Journal of Applied Research, 1(12)

Appendices

Annexure: Survey Form

Note: Information gathered from the respondent would be used purely for educational purpose. The author of the paper ensures secrecy of the information provided by the respondents. Questionnaire Respected sir/ Madam, We, Santhosh Prabhu, Lecturer, Mufeena and Preethi, M.Com (Final Year), Besant Women’s College, Mangaluru are conducting “A case study on Employee Engagement Initiatives in some selected Industries of Dakshina Kannada District.” for the Research paper. We would be thankful if you spend your precious time by filling this questionnaire with appropriate answers.

Part-A: Personal Data I. Age group : (a) 21 – 35 [ ] (b) 36-45 [ ] (c) Above 45 [ ]

II. Education : (a) Metric [ ] (b) Graduation [ ] (c) Post Graduation [ ] III. Year of service: a) Less than 5[ ] (b) 6-10 [ ] (c) 11-15 [ ] (d) Above 15 IV. Industry:

Part-B: Research Data

Sl. no

Questions Strongly Disagree

Disagree

Neither agree nor disagree agree

Agree Strongly agree

1 Are you clearly aware of your role in the organization?

2 Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel that your job is important?

3 Do you feel company treat equally to all employees?

4 Do you feel that your supervisors guide

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International Conference on Managing Human Resources at the Workplace, December 4-5, 2015

ISBN 978-93-83302-07-9

you when you needed?

5 Are you member of small group activities ?

6 Do you feel that your participation appreciated/recognized by company?

7 If you are offered high salaried job and facilities in another organization, will you accept it?

8 Do you understand what company expected from you and your work?

9 Do you aware of promotion policy?

10 Do you feel that there is sufficient arrangement in an organization for dealing with employee’s problem?