The author hereby grants to Webster University permission to reproduce and distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part for educational purposes.
WEBSTER UNIVERSITY
THESIS APPROVAL TEAM ENGAGEMENT
by Oda Emilie Hoftun
APPROVED:
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APPROVAL DATE:
Committee Chair/Mentor
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Committee Member (Second Reader)
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Site Director/Department Chair
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Academic Dean
Acknowledgementsii
A very special thanks to my master thesis advisor, Dr Paul Tolchinsky, for his genuine
interest in my thesis and knowledge about the topic, for valuable and exceptional
guidance and the amount of time he invested in my work. Further, I would like to give
thanks to my second reader, Professor Christian Newman, for spending time read this
thesis and for the thorough and good feedback. I would also like to thank Professor
Ibrahim Wazir for his statistical expertise.
Lastly I want to give many thanks to the department leader, Mr Frode Sand, for making it
possible to do research at Hafslund Customer Services Centre in Norway and the amount
of time he has invested in our meetings and responding emails. Also thanks to all the
respondents at Hafslund Customer Services Centre.
Abstract
iii
The main purpose of this research was to examine what energizes teams in a specific
organization. Team engagement was defined in this thesis as “a team’s experiences of
heightened positive motivational state that have a sense of purpose and focused energy
towards a team orientated goal”. Teams that are engaged are very important in the work
environment since work engagement has numbers of benefits for both organizations (e.g.
higher productivity) and the employees (e.g. higher job satisfaction).
The sample in this research included the full-time employees at Hafslund Customer
Service Centre in Oslo, Norway. A Team Engagement Survey was distributed
electronically to 97 and answered by 53 employees, besides three followed-up focus
groups with selected respondents.
The result from Stepwise Linear Regression revealed that the driver “Development
Opportunities” and the state “Vigour” explained the team level of engagement best.
“Development Opportunities” was also identified as the most important driver both in the
Team Engagement Survey and in the focus groups. The other top four drivers of team
engagement in order of importance were “Crossover Effect”, “Voice”, “Clear Goals”
and “Transformational Leadership”. Most of the employees in the teams at Hafslund felt
engaged at work (77 per cent). However, the Analysis of Variance showed that some of
the teams scored significantly lower for the drivers “Development Opportunities”, “Team
Empowerment” and “Transformational Leadership” and “Team Empowerment”.
In conclusion, all the drivers of team engagement were identified as important in the
survey results. Therefore to ask the employees how important they think a driver of
engagement is, doesn’t necessarily give the correct picture. The research from this study
suggests that Hafslund ASA should focus its resources on the drivers of team engagement
that have the biggest gap. In order to study team engagement, this research shows that it is
necessary to take into consideration both individual level, team level and organization
1.1 Drivers of Engagement............................................................................................................21.2 Cultural and Individual Differences....................................................................................21.3 Research Questions...................................................................................................................31.4 Company Background Information.....................................................................................41.5 Quantitative and Qualitative Research...............................................................................6
Section 2: The Importance of Work Engagement..............................................................................72.1 Work Engagement Definitions.....................................................................................................7
2.1.1 Similarities of Common Work Engagement Definitions............................................82.2 Characteristics of Engaged Employees.....................................................................................9
2.2.1 Level of Engagement............................................................................................................112.4 Benefits of Work Engagement...................................................................................................122.5 Key Drivers of Work Engagement...........................................................................................12
2.4.1 Person-Job and Person-Organization Fit.......................................................................142.4.2 Voice.......................................................................................................................................... 152.4.3 Trust, Fairness and Safety...................................................................................................172.4.4 Affect regulation, recovery and relaxation....................................................................182.4.5 Job Resources..........................................................................................................................192.4.6 Personal resources................................................................................................................. 202.4.7 Relationship with Immediate Supervisor, Pride in Working for the Company, Leadership, Reward Program and Communication..............................................................21
2.6 Conclusion Key Drivers of Engagement................................................................................212.7 Summary........................................................................................................................................... 22
Section 3: Team Engagement.................................................................................................................243.1 Definitions and Perspectives......................................................................................................243.2 The Team Engagement Model...................................................................................................25
3.2.1 Inputs: What are the Drivers for Team Engagement?...............................................263.2.2 Mediator: The State of Team Engagement...................................................................313.2.3 Outcomes: The Benefits of Team Engagement...........................................................333.2.4 Macro-Level Moderators of Team engagement..........................................................34
3.3 Team Engagement Model Challenges.....................................................................................383.4 Team Complexity and Research................................................................................................383.5 Heighten Motivation Teams.......................................................................................................383.6 Summary........................................................................................................................................... 39
Section 4: Method and Data Analysis: The Quantitative Part.....................................................414.1 Research Design............................................................................................................................. 414.2 The Team Engagement Survey..................................................................................................42
4.2.1 Overall Description of Hafslund Customer Services Centre Full-time Employees........................................................................................................................................... 424.2.2 Finalized Variables for the Team Engagement Survey............................................44
4.3 Data Collection................................................................................................................................454.4 Measures............................................................................................................................................45
4.4.1 Background variables...........................................................................................................474.5 Data Analysis................................................................................................................................... 48
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4.6 Descriptive Statistics.....................................................................................................................484.6.1 Drivers of Team Engagement Mean and Variance....................................................494.6.2 The Importance of Team Engagement...........................................................................494.6.3 The Gap between Drivers of Engagement and the Importance of these Drivers................................................................................................................................................................. 504.6.4 State of Engagement Mean and Variance......................................................................51
4.7 Pre-test................................................................................................................................................524.8 Reliability and Validity................................................................................................................524.9 Analysis of Variance.....................................................................................................................54
4.9.1 Levene’s Test of Homogeneity of Variance.................................................................544.9.2 One-way ANOVA.................................................................................................................544.9.3 Tukey post-hoc test............................................................................................................... 554.9.4 Welch’s ANOVA...................................................................................................................584.9.5 Games-Howell post-hoc......................................................................................................58
4.10 Stepwise Linear Regression.....................................................................................................59Section 5: The Qualitative Part..............................................................................................................62
5.2.1 The Selections of Focus Groups.......................................................................................655.2.2 Conducting and Analysing Focus Groups.....................................................................66
5.3 Analysis of Focus Groups at Hafslund Customer Services Centre...............................665.3.1 Team Engagement Survey..................................................................................................675.3.2 Drivers of Team Engagement............................................................................................675.3.3 State of Engagement.............................................................................................................685.3.4 Level of Engagement............................................................................................................695.3.5 Improvements..........................................................................................................................69
Section 6: Discussion................................................................................................................................ 726.1 Significant Findings related to the main Research Question...........................................726.2 Significant findings related to the Sub-Research Questions............................................736.4 Limitations........................................................................................................................................ 77
Figure 1: Key Elements in the Occupation of Change. Sjøvold (2006)........................1Figure 2: A model of employee engagement based on self-determination theory and the three-component model of commitment. Meyer, Gagné and Parfyonova (2010)..........11Figure 3: A model of voice and employee engagement. Beugré (2010).....................16Figure 4: Antecedents and consequences of experience trust in work organizations. Schneider et al (2010).................................................................................17Figure 5: The Team Engagement model.Richardson and West (2010)......................26Figure 6: Organizational Chart Hafslund Customer Services Centre........................43Figure 7: Gap between Drives of Engagement and the Importance of these drivers (Mean).............................................................................................................50Figure 8: The mean difference in the gap between Drivers of Engagement and the Importance of these drivers...........................................................................51Figure 9: "Development Opportunities"...........................................................56Figure 10: "Team Empowerment"...................................................................57Figure 11: "Interaction Frequency".................................................................57Figure 12: "Transformational Leadership"........................................................59Figure 13: Variance on the question “On a scale from 1-10 how engaged are you (where 1 is least engaged and 10 is most engaged)?”.......................................................62Figure 14: Mean Teams on the question “On a scale from 1-10 how engaged are you?”63
Table 2: Hafslund Customer Services Centre strategy, goal-setting and critical success factors.......................................................................................................5Table 3: Key Drivers of Engagement...............................................................13Table 4: High-level overview of characteristics of the work environment..................14Table 5: Overview of department, team, position and number of respondents per team studied....................................................................................................43Table 6: Finalized Variables for the Team Engagement Survey..............................44Table 7: Background Variables......................................................................48Table 8: Drivers of Team Engagement mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variance...................................................................................................49Table 9: Importance of Team Engagement mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variance...................................................................................................50Table 10: Behavioural Engagement mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variance.............................................................................................................51Table 11: Feelings of Engagement mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variance.............................................................................................................52Table 12: Cronbach’s Alpha..........................................................................53Table 13: Levene's Test...............................................................................54Table 14: “Development Opportunities”..........................................................55Table 15: "Team Empowerment"....................................................................56Table 16: "Interaction Frequency"..................................................................57Table 17: "Transformational Leadership".........................................................58Table 18: Model Summary...........................................................................60Table 19: Collinearity Diagnostics..................................................................61Table 20: Why didn’t you mark a lower score?..................................................63Table 21: What needs to change to move 1-2 points higher?..................................64
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Section 1: Introduction
The engagement of employees is a very important factor in the working environment
since engagement can lower accident rates, get higher productivity, create fewer conflicts,
more innovation, lower numbers leaving, reduce sickness rates and more (MacLeod and
Clarke, 2012; Fleck and Inceoglu, 2010; Harter, Schmidt and Hayes, 2002). Work
engagement can for this and other beneficial reasons, be a competitive advantage for a
company (MacLeod and Clarke, 2012). In addition, Little and Little (2006) argue that
work engagement is also a team-level phenomenon. Salanova, Agut and Peiro (2005)
support this and state that work engagement is not just an individual phenomenon – it also
occurs in teams. It appears that individuals in some teams are more engaged than in other
teams and some teams are more engaged than others. After studying 130 teams from
various organizations, Bakker and Schaufeli (2001) showed, in their research, that the
collective level of team engagement was associated with the individual level of
engagement of the team members. In other words, the more engaged the team – the more
engaged were the individuals in this team.
Figure 1: Key Elements in the Occupation of Change. Source: Sjøvold (2006, 14).
1
Further, Sjøvold (2006) demonstrates that all the levels in an organization are connected
(see Figure 1). Further, they are also affected by environmental factors. Sjøvold (2006)
argues that in order for individuals and teams to develop, you must take into
consideration all the factors shown in Figure 1. For this reason the following literature
review addresses individual, team and organizational levels of engagement. A sole focus
on team level engagement would prove to be inadequate if the organization culture does
not support it. It is for this reason that most research, which focuses on an individual
level, can also be used on a team level. Research exclusively on team engagement is rare.
The following literature review is divided in two parts – the first focusing on work
engagement on an individual level and the second on a team level. Both parts focus also
on organizational level.
1.1 Drivers of Engagement
Macey et al (2009) state that the drivers of work engagement are the factors that impact
the employee’s ability to maximize her/his contribution to the company. According to
Fleck and Inceogly (2010, 10) drivers provide “the keys to taking action to increase
engagement and performance”. Richardson and West (2010) argue that these drivers also
impact teams. The main part of the second section will therefore discuss the key drivers
of work engagement on an individual level while the third section will discuss drivers of
team engagement. Section 4 will focus on the research methodology behind this study and
will illustrate how these drivers are connected. In fact, most of the drivers found in
research literature on both individual level and team level appear similar and sometimes
almost identical.
1.2 Cultural and Individual Differences
Most of the research reviewed for this thesis is from North America, UK and Holland.
Although some argue that there is a huge similarity in Western cultures with regard to
team dynamics, Sjøvold (2006) argues that this is not quite correct. The dynamics driving
leaders and teams in North American and Scandinavian settings do show some major
2
differences. In fact, research shows that Scandinavian and Asian team interaction patterns
may have more in common than North American and Scandinavian teams.
Besides, Sjøvold (2006) adds that team building should always be tailored by individual
needs. Every team is different and unique. Further, personal differences such as
motivation and personality are expected to influence most of the components of team
engagement. According to the Self-Determination Theory of motivation (SDT) Meyer,
Gagné and Parfyonova (2010) argue that some individuals are more easily engaged than
other employees. For example, people with a high level of emotional stability are more
likely to experience higher level of optimism than people with low levels of emotional
stability (Fleck and Inceoglu, 2010). For these reasons, the drivers and the state of
engagement will probably vary across and within different teams.
1.3 Research Questions
The main research question of this study is to examine what energize teams in a specific
organization.
For the purpose of this study the following definition of team engagement will be used:
“Team engagement is a team’s experiences of heightened positive motivational and
energized state towards a team orientated goal”.
Since the main purpose of this research is to examine what energize teams in a specific
organization, the author aim was therefore to find an organization whose production
process was team based. The Customer Services Center at Hafslund ASA does indeed
utilize teams and as the company volunteered for this research and showed a keen interest
for the research, it was an excellent choice as test subject.
The following sub-research questions will be explored:
Why is it so critical for the organization to understand and embrace team
engagement?
What are the key drivers for team engagement in one organization?
What constitute the state of engagement in one organization?
3
How does engagement vary across teams in one organization?
Where should the organization focus its resources and take action to improve
engagement in teams?
The reason for choosing to focus on teams, is to focus on one specific aspect and at the
same time go more in depth in one specific area. From the author perspective it is
challenging but interesting to explore the factors that energize teams because of the
complexity of team dynamics. The reason for choosing a specific company and industry
is that work engagement is such a complex theme and according to MacLeod and Clarke
(2012) there are no models of engagement that fit into all industries and companies. Only
one author has looked at the topic across industries (Bruch and Vogel, 2011).
Additionally, different organizations will vary in their needs and approach to engagement.
Therefore, in order to delineate the thesis and make it more relevant to a real work
situation, this study will concentrate on one company in the Norwegian market.
1.4 Company Background Information
Hafslund ASA (from now on called Hafslund) is a Norwegian company that was
established in 1898. Hafslund is one of the largest utility companies in the Nordic area
and is listed on Oslo Stock Exchange. The company is Norway’s largest network owner,
largest in electricity sales and a significant producer of renewable energy. Hafslund
produces electricity from environmentally friendly hydropower and develops bio energy
and district heating.
Hafslund’s mission statement is “delivering energy solutions and infrastructure for the
future – simply and efficiently”. Hafslund has three core values, as shown below.
Table 1: Hafslund’s Core Values
Core Value What the core value means for Hafslund:
Integrity - take responsibility and keep our promises- act with self-confidence and respect for others
4
- welcome the success of co-workers, and help each other advanceCourage - take initiative
- dare to challenge the status quo- dare to take risks and make allowances for the occurrence of mistakes
Spirit - to be engaged in our work- show both pride and pleasure in our work- exhibit good spirit and humour
Source: Hafslund’s website (2013).
Hafslund ASA owns Hafslund Customer Services Centre. This Services Center is
responsible for all customer services provided to customers of the Group’s Network
power distribution and Power Sales businesses. The Customer Services Center has 565
000 customers and 190 employees. The managing director is Mr. Frode Sand.
The Customer Services Centre strategy, goal-setting and critical success factors are
shown in Table 2 below.
Table 2: Hafslund Customer Services Centre strategy, goal-setting and critical success factors
Strategy Extraordinary customer experiences with everyone that are in touch with Hafslund Customer Services Centre
Competitive and cost effective delivery of customer services Increased added value through increased upsell Known and attractive in the job market with engaged and competent
employeesGoal Setting
Experienced customer services > 80 p *) Basis costs per customer < NOK 127 Motivation and presentations indicator > 4.2 **) Resolved in first contact > 85 % Sickness Absence < 8 %
* ) On a scale from 1-100* *) On a scale from 1-5
Critical Success Factors
Clear goals High level of experienced job autonomy Supporting management Customer operated innovation Attractive and effective self-served solutions
Source: Hafslund Customer Services Centre PPP (2013).
1.5 Quantitative and Qualitative Research
In order to test out the research questions, it has been chosen to focus on a quantitative
survey and qualitatively on follow-up focus groups. This combination of methods was
5
chosen to strengthen the total research. The Team Engagement Survey was distributed
electronically to 97 full-time employees at Hafslund Customer Services Centre. Fifty-
three full-time employees answered the survey. Three follow-up focus groups were
conducted after the survey to explore the results more in depth. The method, analysis and
results are presented in section 4 and 5.
The discussions on the significant results from the research are discussed in section 6 and
will include discussions, conclusions and limitations.
Section 2: The Importance of Work Engagement
6
The purpose of this literature review (Section 2 and 3) is to identify the most relevant
research on the topic of team engagement. This section will introduce the concept of
“work engagement”. There is currently universally accepted definition of work
engagement. Consequently the first part of this review explores the different uses of the
concept; it discusses what characterizes engaged employees and their level of engagement
and finally the benefits of engagement for the organization. The main part of this section
will discuss the key drivers of work engagement.
2.1 Work Engagement Definitions
There currently exists no universally accepted definition for “work engagement”
(MacLeod and Clarke, 2012). Additionally, there are debates on how to study the concept
and what it looks like and when it is achieved. Furthermore, there are few, if any,
statistics on what a realistic level of work engagement generally should be for employees
and for different subgroups (Welbourne, 2007). Definitions of work engagement from
various sources show the differences in perspectives:
“an individual’s sense of purpose and focused energy, evident to others in the display of personal initiative,
adaptability, effort, and persistence direct toward organizational goals” (Macey et al. 2009, 7).
“a person’s enthusiasm and involvement in his or her job” (Roberts and Davenport, 2002, 21).
“a subjective experience with two core dimensions: energy and involvement/ identification” (Bakker and
Leiter, 2010, 188)
“the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals” (Kruse, 2012, 5).
‘‘a positive, fulfilling, work- related state of mind that is characterized by vigour, dedication and
absorption” (Schaufeli et al, 2002, 74).
High levels of energy and mental spirit while working describe vigour. Dedication is
described as being strongly involved in the work and has a sense of significance,
enthusiasm and challenge. Absorption is described as being totally immersed in the work,
whereby time flies and people have problems with detaching themselves from the work
(Bakker and Demerouti, 2008). Further studies are needed to consider whether absorption
7
is a core aspect of work engagement or an outcome of energy and identification, and
efficacy (Bakker, Albrecht and Leiter, 2011).
Given the lack of agreement on the definition of work engagement, the author will
determine on a suitable definition for this study. A working definition needs to be tested
out and refined according to standards of the organization or the work situation (Dicke,
Holweda and Knotakos, 2007). Any lack of clarity in defining what engagement means at
a strategic level and how it is established in line-managers behaviours will result in a poor
result to communicate to the whole organization (Macey et al. 2009). Since the main
purpose of this research is to examine what to energize teams, the author will need a
definition on team level.
2.1.1 Similarities of Common Work Engagement DefinitionsAlbrecht (2010) states that common to the definitions of work engagement are the idea
that it is a positive work-related psychological state reflected in terms such as enthusiasm,
energy, passion and vigour. Work engagement is also a motivational state reflected in a
real willingness to invest focused effort towards organizational goals. According to
Bakker et al. (2008), most researchers agree that work engagement includes an energy
dimension and an identification dimension. This is since engaged employees often is
characterized by a high level of energy and strong identification with one’s work. Macey
and Schneider (2008) argue that the definitions of work engagement share similarities like
a desirable condition, has an organizational purpose and implies involvement,
commitment, passion, enthusiasm, focused effort and energy.
Erickson (2005) argues that work engagement has both attitudinal and behavioural
components. The outcome of these factors should be a competitive advantage for the
company. MacLeod and Clarke (2012) do support the views of Erikson (2005) and
believe that work engagement has attitudinal, behavioural and outcome components. An
employee might feel pride and loyalty (attitude), be a great supporter of their company or
go the extra mile to finish a piece of work (behaviour). Outcomes may include lower
and reduced sickness rates. Macey et al. (2009) also supports this but call the altitudinal
part for philological components.
These three parts of engagement are often mixed. Fleck and Inceoglu (2010) argue that
although work engagement includes these three components, it should be treated as a state
of mind and separated from expected outcome behaviours for the reason that employees
don’t necessarily exhibit typical outcomes behaviours of work engagement such as
working hard, supporting the company or going the extra mile to finish a piece of work
because they are engaged. Situational factors, such as fear or losing one’s job, can
influence the individual’s perceived state of engagement and can possibly confound the
state of work engagement. Utilizing these principles will, according to Fleck and Inceoglu
(2010), resolve many of the difficulties with a variety of definitions of employee
engagement.
MacLeod and Clarke (2012) argue that there is a virtuous circle when the company meets
the conditions of work engagement. The three components of engagement further trigger
and reinforce one another. According to MacLeod and Clarke (2012) there are three
things that appear to be clear about work engagement: it is measurable, it can be
correlated with performance and it varies from poor to great.
2.2 Characteristics of Engaged Employees
According to Davenport and Roberts (2002) engaged employees identify personally with
their job and are motivated by the work itself. This fits with the view of MacLeod and
Clarke (2012) that engaged employees have a sense of personal attachment to their work
and organization and they are motivated and able to give of their best to help it succeed.
Structured qualitative interviews with a collection of Dutch employees from various
professions who scored high on the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (which is one of the
most commonly used scales to measure work engagement) show that engaged employees
have high energy and self-efficacy (Schaufeli et al., 2001). People with high self-efficacy,
9
believe that they can and will perform successfully (Blanchard and Tacher, 2013). High
energy and self-efficacy helps the employees to have influence over events that affect
their work. For example, because of their positive attitude and activity level, engaged
employees create their own positive feedback, in terms of appreciation, recognition, and
success (Schaufeli et al., 2001).
Several of the interviews with Dutch employees indicated that their enthusiasm and
energy also appear outside work for example in sports, creative hobbies and volunteer
work. Although, engaged employees can, as anyone else, feel tired after a long day of
hard work, they described their tiredness as a somewhat enjoyable condition because they
associated it with positive achievements (Bakker and Demerouti, 2008). Engaged
employees have a tendency to work harder and be more productively than others
(Davenport and Roberts, 2002). They are also more likely to produce the results their
customers and organizations want. For instance, engaged employees describe that their
jobs make good use of their skills and abilities, their work is challenging and stimulating
and their work provides them with a sense of personal achievements. However engaged
employees are not addicted to their work and enjoy other things outside work. Unlike
workaholics, they do not work hard because of a strong and irresistible inner drive, but
rather on the motivation that work is fun and challenging (Bakker and Demerouti, 2008).
10
2.2.1 Level of Engagement
Figure 2: A model of employee engagement based on self-determination theory and the three-component model of commitment. Source: Meyer, Gagné and Parfyonova (2010, 68).
Meyer, Gagné and Parfyonova (2010) distinguish between disengagement, contingent
engagement and fully engagement (Figure 2). The employees that are disengaged are said
to be lacking in internal regulation or directed activity. They have little commitment to
their job and organization and can therefore leave easily. In contrast, fully engaged
employees are autonomously in control. They are instinctually motivated and they are
likely to have a strong affective commitment. The key to move employees towards fully
engagement is satisfaction of the employees’ basic psychological needs. Organizations
should, according to Meyer, Gagné and Parfyonova (2010), evaluate different strategies
or practices to increase their engagement potential by carefully consider how it is likely to
contribute to the satisfaction of the employees’ needs for relatedness, competency and
autonomy. However organizations need to keep in mind that the intensity of the fully
engaged employees can vary over time. Variation in engagement over time can be for
different personal or situational reasons (Fleck and Inceoglu, 2010).
11
2.4 Benefits of Work Engagement
Work engagement is beneficial for both the employees and the organization (Fleck and
Inceoglu, 2010). An organization where the majority of employees are engaged, is more
likely to experience benefits such as increased revenue, profitability, lower turnover rate,
lower accident rates, fewer conflicts, more innovation, lower numbers leaving and
reduced sickness rates (MacLeod and Clarke, 2012; Fleck and Inceoglu, 2010; Harter,
Schmidt and Hayes, 2002). There is also evidenced that engaged employees are more
likely to meet the needs of their customers, thereby improving customer loyalty and
satisfaction (Roberts and Davenport, 2002). Engaged employees are expected to obtain
higher benefits such as higher level of job satisfaction and increased well-being etc.
(Fleck and Inceoglu, 2010).
For these reasons, engaged employees are very important in today’s work environment
and can therefore be a competitive advantage for a company. The employer can impact
work engagement when they have the right knowledge, skills and attitude on how to do it
(MacLeod and Clarke, 2012)
2.5 Key Drivers of Work Engagement
The key drivers of engagement are the factors that impact the team’s ability to stay highly
engaged. MacLeod and Clarke (2011) state that there are no drivers of engagement that fit
into all industries and companies. Only one author has looked at the topic across
industries (Bruch and Vogel, 2011). The organization will need to know the pool of
potential drivers that are likely to be relevant for most organizations and industries in
order to identify key drivers (Albrecht, 2010). In order for the organization to identify
potential drivers, the organization should look at previous research on work engagement
and conduct an empirical analysis of engagement in the organization (Scherbaum et al.,
2010). The organization should also consider theoretical models and frameworks that help
to understand the reason why the drivers relate to engagement (Albrecht, 2010).
Different organizations will vary in their needs and approach to engagement (MacLeod
12
and Clarke, 2011). Analysis needs to be conducted in different contexts to determine
which of the pool of drivers is most noticeable in each specific context. For instance, the
key drivers of work engagement are probably different in the construction sector from
those in the IT sector (Albrecht, 2010). In order for the organization to decide where to
focus its resources and take action to improve engagement, the organization should
additionally to the methods described above, think of other considerations like what is
possible to improve and what are the most effective factors for doing this. This can be
made clear in a combination of statistical analysis (Scherbaum et al., 2010).
Unfortunately, according to Scherbaum et al. (2010), the statistical techniques that are
traditionally used to identify important drivers of work engagement can be misleading.
One cause of this is the continued use of strategies that fail to take advantage of modern
analytical approaches. Modern statistical approaches are therefore much more
satisfactory. On the other hand, if a statistical approach is based on poor engagement
survey, this will potentially mislead the organization to take wrong decisions.
Table 3: Key Drivers of Engagement
Key Drivers of Engagement ResearchersPerson-Job and Person-Organization fit Fleck & Inceoglu (2010)Voice Beugré (2010)Trust, Fairness and Safety Schneider et al. (2010)Affect regulation, recovery and relaxation Binnewies & Fetzer (2010)Job Resources Mauno, Kinnunen and Ruokolainen (2007)
Finland and Bakker and Demerouti (2008) and Bakker and Leiter (2010).
Personal resources Halbesleben (2010) Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti and Schaufeli (2009)
Relationship with immediate supervisor, pride in working for the company, leadership, reward program and communication
MSW Research and Dale Carnegie Training (2012) and WorkCanada (2006/2007)
Table 3 above shows some key drivers of engagement. Each of these drives will be
described more in details.
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2.4.1 Person-Job and Person-Organization Fit
Person-job and person-organization fit are characteristics of the work environment. The
work environment shapes the experience the employees have at their work, and can either
push the employees to become engaged or drive them towards disengagement. The
environmental characteristics are critical to understanding what makes employees engage,
and they are the sources to taking action to increase engagement. Therefore the work
environment is expected to play a critical role in determining employees’ state of
engagement. Employees that experience better fit with the work environment are
predicted to obtain a higher level of engagement (Fleck and Inceoglu, 2010).
The researchers have based the classification of the work environment on Warr’s
“Vitamin” model. In it, thirty-eight job features and ten organizational job features were
identified to predict work engagement (see table 4). Further, a person-environmental fit
was integrated into the measurement approach of the model. When measuring the features
of work environment respondents is asked how much of it they would like in their ideal
job/organization and to what extent they perceive this feature today (Fleck and Inceoglu,
2010)
Table 4: High-level overview of characteristics of the work environment
Job-level features 38 features: 9 factors, 2-5 features per factor
Organization-level features 10 features
1. Challenge (6 features) Wider influence
2. Ethics (4 features) Vision
3. Competition (4 features) Effective communication
4. Interaction (3 features) Fairness
5. Career ambition (5 features) Ethics
6. Personal impact (4 features) Effective decision-making
7. Supportive environment (6 features)
Customer orientation
8. Work setting (4 features) Bureaucracy
9. Development (2 features) Employee relations
14
Cross-functional cooperation
2.4.2 Voice
According to Budd (2010, 5) voice is “the ability of employees to have meaningful input
into workplace decisions”. In today’s work climate employees should be entitled to
provide input on decisions that affect their daily lives. To have a voice is essential for
employees in a democratic society because of the belief that these should be permitted the
same democratic principle as the general population (Budd, 2010). According to Freeman
and Rogers (2006) a survey conducted with American employees discovered that sixty-
three per cent want more influence over company decisions that affected their working
lives. This employees also said that they would have enjoyed their work more if they had
a greater voice in the company.
Voice can help to create working environments that facilitate employee engagement
(Macey and Schneider, 2008). According to Korsgaard and Roberson (1995) voice
influence employees’ attitude towards decisions because they feel they have an
opportunity to indirectly influence the decision. Taylor and Lind (1992) explored that
voice increases perceptions of fairness because the employees feel that they are being
treated with politeness, dignity and respect. Axelrod (2001) and Luecke (2003) state that
voice encourages employees to act and they are therefore contributing to organizational
change.
There is a missing link in the research as to whether voice could influence other factors
such as work engagement. Though Beugré (2010) have developed a theoretical model
that explores the impact voice has on work engagement. Figure 3 below implies a positive
relationship between voice and state engagement that also impacts behavioural
engagement. According to Beugré (2010) state of engagement can be considered as an
attitude and therefore not be observed. State of engagement can only be implied from an
actual behaviour, such as behavioural engagement. Hence, employees are expected to be
more engaged when they have a voice in their job.
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Figure 3: A model of voice and employee engagement. Source: Beugré (2010, 178)
Although, the model implies the positive effect of voice on work engagement, it also
identifies four moderators that could affect the conditions. These moderators are
described below (Beugré, 2010).
1. The value of voice
The employees that think voice is important will be engaged when they get their
opportunity to use their voice. On the hand, the employees that don’t value voice
will not be positively influenced about the opportunity to give their voice (Beugré,
2010).
2. The extent to which voice is considered by decision makers
When the organization is giving the employees the opportunity to have a voice, it
will positively affect work engagement. On the other hand, when voice is ignored
by the organization, it will negatively affect engagement. It can discourage voice
and even lead to disengagement (Beugré, 2010).
3. The extent to which voice is expected
When employees expect to have a voice, the opportunities of voice can positively
affect engagement. On the other hand, when the employees do not expect to have
a voice, offering it may not have a positively effect on engagement Beugré (2010).
4. Voice as corresponding to cultural values
In cultures where employees are sensitive to voice, voice could have a positive
effect on engagement. However in cultures where the employees are not sensitive
to voice, having a voice would not have an effect on engagement Beugré (2010).
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2.4.3 Trust, Fairness and Safety
Schneider et al (2010) figure shown below indicates that trust occur in situations where
employees are treated fairly by supervisors, peers and their organization. According to
Schneider et al (2010) fairness leads to trust and trust in turn creates improved probability
that employees will take risks in their engagement behaviour. Employees are more likely
to take risk since they feel safe, don’t fear to be punished and believe that they will be
recognized for taking risks. Therefore trust produces the risk taking necessary for
engagement. The model, however fails to explain that management must be involved to
achieve engaged employees.
Figure 4: Antecedents and consequences of experience trust in work organizations. Source: Schneider et al (2010, 160)
According to Schneider et al (2010) trust must be built and it can occur or fail very
quickly, especially for new employees. In addition, people learn to trust based on what
happens not only to themselves but also to others. The behaviours in teams should
therefore be constantly observed if trust is to be developed and sustained. Schneider et al
(2010), state that managers are possibly more aware of trust and fairness issues, than co-
workers are. In order to establish trust, the employees should have early experiences with
fairness and everyone should have training in how to repair trust. Further, issue of
fairness and trust should be included in appraisal reviews for all employees. Lastly it
should be an aspect in performance decisions.
2.4.4 Affect regulation, recovery and relaxation
According to Binnewies and Fetzer (2010) research shows that positive affective states
17
and affect regulation are connected to increased work engagement.
Affective states is a term used to describe the feelings a person experiences at the
moment; such feelings include: sadness, happiness and enthusiasm (Binnewies and
Fetzer, 2010). Just a small number of studies have analysed affective state as drivers of
work engagement. For example Sonnentag (2003) found that on days when an employee
feels more recovered in the morning (which is an affective state), the employee are more
engaged during the day. Schulz (2008) research shows that a daily negative state affects
negatively, and a daily positive state affects positively. Xanthopoulou’s et al (2009)
research found that optimism affect work engagement. According to Saavedra and Kwun
(2000) workplace redesign (e.g. more job control, significance, feedback, identity and
task variety) is a way to improve affective states of the employees.
According to Baumeister, Muraven and Tice (2000) affect regulations refers to a
particular form of self-regulation with intention to foster a person’s positive affective
states and managing a person’s negative affective states. Schulz (2008) studied 140
employees from different occupations over five working days. The research showed that
enjoyable cognitive distractions (e.g. thinking of something pleasant), reappraisal and
seeking social support were affecting work engagement. In addition, the study revealed
that employees being involved in enjoyable cognitive distractions at work during the
morning and during their lunch break, felt more engagement during the day because they
experience more daily positive effect. Opposite to what was believed, seeking social
support was related to negative effects.
In her studies, Fetzer (2009) found that engaging in relaxing activities at work (e.g.
listening to music or drinking a tee during break) is positively associated with work
engagement. Further, employees that had a high level of time pressure, felt more engaged.
In contrast to Schulz (2008) seeking social support was found to increase the work
engagement when this was identified as an effective strategy to regulate own affect.
However it was not directly associated with work engagement.
Binnewies and Fetzer (2010) interviewed employees about the strategies they used at
work to encourage their affective state and well-being. Their study showed that
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employees used a variety of engagement strategies (e.g. seek social support and
reappraisal) and diversion affect-regulation strategies at their job (e.g. relaxing activities,
active/energy activities and cognitive distractions).
Additionally, Binnewies and Fetzer (2010) identified a new category they called
“supporting strategies”. Supporting strategies are strategies that have the intention to
establish a supporting working environment. This can for instance be supporting
management of the employees’ work (e.g. doing an encouraging work task after ending a
discouraging work task), time management, actively encouraging a positive team climate
(e.g. breakfast with co-workers) and designing the workplace (e.g. pictures and plants).
The researchers found that those employees that were more involved in supporting affect-
regulation activities were more engaged.
2.4.5 Job Resources
According to Bakker and Demerouti (2007) job resources are the physical, social or
organizational aspects of the job that may reduce job demands, be efficient in achieving
goals or stimulate personal growth. Job resources can be autonomy, social support from
co-workers and skill variety. According to Van den Broeck et al. (2008), job resources are
believed to be a part of the employees’ intrinsic motivation because they fulfil human
basic needs e.g. the needs for autonomy, relatedness and competence. On the other hand
according to Meijman and Mulder (1998) job resources are also believed to take part in
employees’ extrinsic motivation for the reason that resourceful work environments foster
the willingness to dedicate efforts and abilities to the work tasks. For example,
performance review and supportive leadership can increase the likeliness for employees
to achieving their goals.
Research conducted by Mauno, Kinnunen and Ruokolainen (2007) shows that increases
in employee experiences of job control and support at work consistently predict an
increase in work engagement over time. These findings suggest how the organization can
influence work engagement over time. Additionally, the studies of Schaufeli, Bakker and
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van Rhenen (2009) show that changes in job resources (like increase in social support,
autonomy, opportunities to learn and performance review) drive work engagement over a
period of one year. Halbesleben’s (2010) meta-analysis also supports this, which showed
that feedback, autonomy, social support and organizational climate are consistently
related with engagement and/or specific aspects of engagement. The research of Mauno,
Kinnunen and Ruokolainen (2007) supports the concept of mutual relations between job
resources and work engagement, in such a way that resources predict engagement and
that engagement predicts resources.
2.4.6 Personal resources
Personal resources is defined according to Luthans, Youssef, & Avolio (2007, 3) as “an
individual’s positive psychological state of development characterized by: (1) having
confidence (self efficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at
challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and
in the future; (3) persevering toward goals, and when necessary, redirecting paths to
goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when beset by problems and adversity,
sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resilience) to attain success’’.
Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti and Schaufeli (2009) studies show that personal
resources like self-efficacy, organizational based self-esteem and optimism are
exceptional drivers to engagement over time. Halbesleben’s (2010) meta-analysis also
showed that personal resources as for example, self-efficacy and optimism are strongly
related to engagement.
2.4.7 Relationship with Immediate Supervisor, Pride in Working for the Company,
Leadership, Reward Program and Communication
A recent study by MSW Research and Dale Carnegie Training (October 2012) that
surveyed 1500 employees in the US, explored three key drivers of work engagement. The
20
study concluded that although there are many aspects that influence work engagement,
the three key drivers are relationship with immediate supervisor, belief in senior
leadership and pride in working for the company (Lipman, 2012).
The Watson Wyatt Work Canada survey (2006) asked more than 3000 Canadian
employees across all job levels and industries. They found that the key drivers of work
engagement were the management’s ability to demonstrate leadership and strategic
directions that build confidence for long-term success, effective reward program and
frequent, clear, two-way employee communication. The study found further that
employees mainly are engaged by the same drivers, despite differences in generations
(Tower Watson, 2007). Further, the Watson Wyatt study (2006) found that Canadian
companies with high work engagement levels prove better annual total returns to
shareholders (TRS), higher market premiums and higher productivity levels than those
with low engagement.
2.6 Conclusion Key Drivers of Engagement
Some of the most important key drivers of work engagement from theoretical frameworks
and previous analysis and researches have been presented. There are several other key
drivers of engagement that was not included because of the relevance to the research at
Hafslund Customer Services Centre. In conclusion, although different researchers have
analysed the key drivers for predicting work engagement, they are very complex to
address empirically. Firstly, among a set of drivers, which are critical to include in a
model of engagement? Secondly, which of the drivers included in the model are the most
important for predicting engagement? (Scherbaum et al. 2010, 183). Key drivers of work
engagement depend on a number of factors like the kind of industry, sector, cultural and
individual differences. These are making the identification of key drivers of engagement
even more complex to identify and it will require further research. According to Albrecht
(2010) researchers need to agree on a coherent and comprehensive set of drivers, which
can be applied across a broad range of organizational contexts. According to Scherbaum
21
et al. (2010) no statistic methods on their own or in combination can provide satisfactory
answers to the key drivers of work engagement.
In addition, in order to identify the key drivers of work engagement, there will need to be
identified what actually drives engagement. Sometimes researchers mix drivers of
engagement, the state of engagement itself and the expected outcomes. For example,
MSW Research and Dale Carnegie Training (2012) identify that “pride in working for the
company” is a driver of work engagement. Though, according to Fleck and Inceoglu
(2010) this factor is not a driver of engagement, but a behavioural factor of state of
engagement. Furthermore as Fleck and Inceoglu (2010) pointed out earlier in this section,
the employees do not necessarily have “pride in working for the company” because they
are engaged. When the organization treats the state of engagement and the outcome of
engagement as drivers, it will result in an inaccurate measure of the drivers and the
organization will possible make the wrong decisions. This can according to Fleck and
Inceoglu (2010) be avoided if engagement is treated as a state and divided from
behaviours expected from being engaged.
2.7 Summary
Work engagement is a unique concept; however there is currently no collective agreed
definition of work engagement, although most of the definitions share similarities. Some
similarities are the idea that work engagement is a positive work-related psychological
and motivational state, reflected in willingness to invest focus energy towards
organizational goals. Some researches argue that work engagement has both attitudinal,
behavioural and outcome components. These three parts of engagement are often mixed.
Fleck and Inceoglu (2010) argues in order to resolve many of the difficulties with a
variety of definitions of work engagement, it should be treated as a state and divided from
expected behaviours. Despites no collective agreement, there are three things that seem to
be clear about work engagement: it is measurable, it can be correlated with performance
and it varies from poor to great (MacLeod and Clarke, 2012).
22
Some common characteristics of engaged employees are that they are motivated by the
work itself, identify personally with their job and have a sense of personal attachment to
their job. Research also shows that engaged employees have high level of energy and
self-efficacy (Schaufeli et al., 2000). Work engagement can be distinguished between
disengaged, contingent engagement and fully engagement (Meyer, Gagné and Parfyonova
(2010). The key moving towards fully engagement is satisfaction with employees’ basic
psychological needs. Work engagement can be both beneficial for the organization (e.g.
increased revenue) and for the employees (e.g. increased job satisfaction).
The key drivers of engagement are the factors that impact the team’s ability to stay
engaged. In order to identify the key drivers of engagement, the organization will need to
know the pool of potential drivers that are likely to be relevant. For the key drivers of
engagement used in this section, please look at table 3.
Section 3: Team Engagement
This section, the second part of the literature review, starts with a review about definitions
and perspectives about team engagement and ends up with the author own definition. The
main part of this section will concentrate about the Team Engagement Model. The author
23
have emphasized a lot on this model because it describes team engagement very well,
besides being and the only model she have found about team engagement. The last part of
this section is about heightened motivation, which is an essential part of the author own
definition of team engagement.
3.1 Definitions and Perspectives
According to Kozlowski and Klein (2000) team engagement can result from the social
interactions, behaviours and cognitions of individuals. Richardson and West (2010) argue
that the definition of work engagement by Schaufeli et al (2002, 74) (‘‘a positive,
fulfilling, work- related state of mind that is characterized by vigour, dedication and
absorption”) also hold considerably at team level. According to Richardson and West
(2010) team engagement derives bottom-up from team members’ interaction process
towards the team task and objectives.
Richardson and West (2010, 324) therefore define team engagement as “an emergent
collective construct whereby a team experiences a heightened positive affective-
motivational state characterized by a sense of vigour, absorption and dedication”.
According to Carver and Scheier (1990) vigour is “reflected in a team’s high level of
physical liveliness, cognitive alertness and interpersonal energy and can facilitate goal-
directed behaviours”. Dedication, according to Richardson and West (2010, is
characterized (or defined as) 324) “high levels of team identification to a vision, strong
commitment to tasks and roles and persistence to times of challenge and adversity”.
Further, absorption is defined as “a team which is fully focused and immersed in its work
whereby time flies by unnoticeably and the team find it difficult to detach itself from its
tasks” (Richardson and West 2010, 324).
According to Katzenbach and Smith (2004, 5) a team is “a small number of people with
complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals,
and approaches for which they hold themselves mutually accountable”. Katzenbach and
Smith (2004) state that the fundamental distinction between teams and groups, is that
24
teams strive for something better than its members could achieve individually. According
to Richardson and West (2010, 323) team engagement is “the key to creating effective,
positive team-based organizations”. Extensive research has shown that team engagement
and empowerment has been shown to be important for collaborative decisions in teams
(Watson, Michaelsen and Sharp, 1991). Research also showed that team engagement
plays a mediating role between social resources perceived at the team level and team
performance as assessed by the supervisor ratings. Team social resources are for example
supportive team climate, coordination and teamwork (Torrente et al. 2012).
The definition of Richardson and West (2010) on team engagement has been chosen as a
framework in this study, taken into consideration that the study will go on in a Norwegian
setting with special organizatorical needs. The definition is also based on previous
research. On this background, the definition of team engagement in this study is “a
team’s experiences of heightened positive motivational and energized state towards team
orientated goals”.
3.2 The Team Engagement Model
Figure 5 below shows Richardson and West (2010) Team Engagement Model. The model
is based on an Input-Mediator-Outcome (IMO) framework (Ilgen et al., 2005), with the
idea that team processes mediate input-output relationship. The model also supports the
idea that temporal dynamics influence the development of team engagement (Richardson
and West, 2010). The development line underneath the model demonstrates how teams
change over time and are influenced differentially by micro- and macro-level factors as
they develop (Kozlowski et al., 1999).
25
Figure 5: The Team Engagement model. Source: Richardson and West (2010, 325)
3.2.1 Inputs: What are the Drivers for Team Engagement?
The first section of the micro-level part in the Team Engagement Model is the team-level
inputs, which are the drivers for team engagement according to Richardson and West
(2010).
Team TaskHow well the team is designed for task performance can have a great influence on how
well the team will function (Cummings and Worley (2009) and therefore have an
important impact on engagement (Richardson and West, 2010). According to Kozlowski
and Ilgen (2006) the design of a team task is a critical input for deciding how team
members must work together, including team members’ roles, workflow processes,
collective goals and team member interactions.
Cummings and Worley (2009) state that the task design should follow the team’s
missions and goals to give direction for task achievements. The mission and goals should
be closely aligned with the organization’s corporate strategy and objectives so the team
can see how their performance contributes in the organization’s success. This will
26
enhance team-members commitment to goals (Cummings and Worley, 2009), and
probably result in higher engagement (Richardson and West, 2010).
According to Van der Vegt, Emans and Van der Vliert (2001) task interdependence is
especially important, which is the extent to which team members must share materials,
information or knowledge to perform their job. According to Richardson and West (2010)
the most important are that the task itself is so challenging and complex that it is best
achieved by a team. McShane and Von Glinow (2010) supports this and state that the
complexity is most suited to teams when the work can be divided to more specialized
roles that need frequent coordination with each other. Furthermore, according to
McShane and Von Glinow (2010), the challenge is to find tasks that are both structured
and complex. Research shows that more creative teams became engaged through tasks
that required high levels of creativity, jobs with high task independence, high shared
goals, valued participative problem solving and a climate that support creativity. Further,
more creative team members spend more time socializing with each other (Gilson and
Shalley, 2004).
Highly engaged teams are those that identify the high level of task interdependency
required and interact frequently in positive and adaptive ways (Richardson and West,
2010). However, according to McShane and Von Glinow (2010) a high level of task
interdependence applies only when team members have the same task goals. This is
because when team members have different goals but must depend on other team
members to achieve these goals, the teamwork has a higher chance to create conflict
(McShane and Von Glinow, 2010) and consequently most likely hinder engagement. In
these situations perhaps working independently is a better solution than working in teams.
In order to support team engagement it is also important that the task is completely
defined (Hackman and Oldham, 1980). Further, it is necessary that the team have the
right composition, skills and resources necessary to achieve the task. Aspects to consider
include personalities, expert knowledge and social skills as well as material,
administrative and technological requirements (Richardson and West, 2010).
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Shared Meaningful VisionAccording to Spreitzer, Kizilos and Nason (1997) meaningful work can facilitate both
intrinsic motivation and personal growth. Macey et al. (2009, 99) define meaningful work
as “work that has challenge and variety, allows for autonomy and provides people with
feedback. In addition, work that is aligned with one’s values and seen as contributing to
the company’s success contributes to feelings that one’s work is meaningful”. Richardson
and West (2010) argue that meaningfulness can be expressed in a clear and meaningful
team vision that helps team members to recognize the importance and value of their own
contribution. By collectively recognizing the meaning behind (or “of” or “underlying”)
their work; teams are more likely to experience feelings of dedication, vigour and
absorption. According to West (2004) a shared meaningful team vision should be based
on team objectives. Team objectives are essential for engagement since they motivate the
team to agree upon priorities and underline the required outcome (Campion, Medsker and
Higgs, 1993).
Team Potency Guzzo et al. (1993) characterize team potency as the team’s shared belief that the
teamwork can be effective. According to Richardson and West (2010) team potency is
central for team engagement because a high level of team potency will influence on team
engagement by reinforcing the team’s overall vigour, dedication and absorption.
Team potency can also relate to the crossover effect. According to Bakker, Westman, and
Van Emmerik (2009) crossover is the transfer of positive or negative experiences from
teams to individual team members. Bakker, van Emmerik and Euwema (2006) studied
2229 employees from 85 teams about crossover of work engagement. Their research
revealed that that engage employees that showed optimism, positive attitudes, and
proactive behaviours towards their colleagues, formed a positive team climate,
independent of the demands and resources they possessed. A study of 60 teams found that
positive emotions take part in how effective the teams operate (Losada, 1999). The
research of Barsade (2002) showed that the positive mood of a person influenced the
28
mood of the other team members. The positive mood resulted in more cooperative
behaviour and better task performance. Damen (2007) also found that those who
experienced engaged managers were more effective and produced more. A reason for this
is that an engage manager transmits willingness for action. The effect however only
worked when the followers’ emotions were similarly positive.
According to Losada and Heaphy (2004) research on results from 60 teams’ show that
high functioning teams were more positive than low functioning teams. The positivity of
high functioning teams created increased room for involvements of feelings, which
opened up for new opportunities. On the other hand, the negativity of low functioning
teams prevented engagement, which again limited alternatives for action. This result is
also supported by Fredrickson (1998) who found that positive feelings generated ideas
and therefore contributed to achieve team potential and resources.
Team IdentificationSocial identity theory proposes that individuals define themselves by the group to which
they belong (McShane and Glinow, 2010). Norms are the important factor to create a
common social identity (Sjøvold, 2006). Studies of scout groups to city gangs show how
the group quickly develops strong norms and complex forms of communication, dress
codes, gestures, slang for secure identity in their own groups and a distance to other
groups (Conquergood, 1994). Additionally to the social identity, the norms will give the
team members individual identity. We get both recognition and confirmation that we are
valued individuals through others’ sanctions. This can be a small verbal or non-verbal
sign of acceptance. Nothing is more valued for a human being than to feel acceptance and
respect from the group you identify yourself with. Without this identification from others
we will not be able to utilize our fully potentials as humans (Sjøvold, 2006). Maybe the
most important motivation is to accept the team norms (Putallaz and Gottman, 1981). If
team norms encourage to high-level engagement, there is expectancy that the team shows
greater efforts (Haslam and Ellemers, 2005). Team identification therefore creates a
degree of interdependence or cohesion. Further, when measured as a mood state, group
cohesion has been shown to predict vigour (Terry et al., 2000).
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Team Empowerment Team empowerment consists both of a structural and a psychological component
according to Mathieu, Gilson and Ruddy (2006). Mathieu, Gilson and Ruddy (2006, 98)
define team psychological empowerment as “collective belief that they have the authority
to control their proximal work environment and are responsible for their team’s
functioning”. Arnold et al. (2000) describe structural empowerment as the actual practice
of assigning responsibility, exercising control and delegating authority. In other words
one can say that team empowerment is that the team have authority to determine own
decisions. The idea is that the team members that are in best position to know the what,
how and when of the task should have the power and responsibility to do it (DeChurch
and Mathieu, 2009).
Richardson and West (2010) say that both structural and psychological empowerments
are important factors to encourage team engagement. Kirkman and Rosen (1999, 58) state
that empowered teams are characterized as having “increased task motivation resulting
from an individual’s positive orientation toward his or her work role”. This is also
supported by Spreizer (1995) who state that empowered teams determine their own
decisions and this may reinforce their internal motivation. Further Kirkman and Rosen
(1999) states that empowered teams are characterized of task autonomy, self-efficacy,
added value and impact. According to Marker (2006) in order to transform a self-
managed team into empowered teams includes more task control toward aligning the
team’s values, beliefs and norms to the overall organization. According to Dainty,
Bryman and Prince (2002) in order for the team to be empowered, the organization and
leaders need to emphasize trust and commitment. Empowered teams can lead to improved
key job attitudes and increased team processes and effectiveness (DeChurch and Mathieu,
2009).
Team Psychological Safety According to Kahn (1990, 708) psychological safety is “feeling able to show and employ
one’s self without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status of career”. If there
30
are no negative consequences people feel safe and are therefore more likely to be engaged
(Kahn, 1990). Further according to Edmondson (1999) psychological safety tend to be
shared among team members. According to Edmondson and Roloff (2009) team
psychological safety is important for engagement as it supports an environment in which
the team members feel confident to be themselves and can speak openly without being
rejected, punished or embarrassed by their team. Team goals are also important for
psychological safety as they take the attention away from the individual to the team.
3.2.2 Mediator: The State of Team Engagement
Interaction FrequencyEngaged teams have a high level of vigour that creates a need for interaction and
consequently will try to communicate as much as possible. Frequent interaction can
create close relationship where team members share information. These interactions can
take form for example in meetings, but engaged team members will also communicate
regularly informally for example by having lunch together or by having contact after
work (Richardson and West, 2010). According to Bakker and Xanthopoulou (2009) high
interaction among team members has been shown to be vital for the crossover of work
engagement.
Information Sharing According to Richardson and West (2010) the difference between an engaged and
unengaged team is the team members’ willingness to share their knowledge and skills
with other team members. Team members in unengaged teams are often more
competitive and will therefore keep certain information for themselves for their own gain,
but to the teams’ loss. In contrast engaged team members will exchange all important
information frequently because they see the teams’ goals to be as important as their own.
Engaged teams will have an open flow of communication that makes sure that the
information can be effectively exchanged, and this makes the team more collaborative
and coordinated (Richardson and West, 2010). Further according to Padua (2012)
31
information sharing and open communication can empower employees to create an
environment that is open to changes.
Influencing Decision MakingBy their vigour, dedication and absorption, engaged team members extend and influence
their decision-making. Engaged teams will focus on tasks rather than on cohesion in order
to avoid wrong decisions and by this they maintain agreement and solidity within the
team. This allows the team members to feel free to openly disagree, question and search
each other’s perspectives and create new alternatives. As a result, the decisions will be
more accurate, have better quality and be mutually beneficial (Richardson and West,
2010). Further according to Axelrod (2010) team members influencing in decision
making will also result in fairness and trust. As already stated in Section 2, fairness leads
to trust and trust in turn creates improved probability that employees will take risks by
being engaged according to Schneider et al (2010). Because of the team members’ high
levels of vigour and absorption, this is of course more time consuming (Richardson and
West, 2010).
Reflexivity According to West, Garrod and Carletta (1997, 296) team reflexivity is defined as “the
extent to which group members overly reflect upon, and communicate about the group’s
objectives, strategies (e.g. decision making) and processes (e.g. communication), and
adapt them to current anticipated circumstances”. According to Richardson and West
(2010) reflexive teams with high levels of vigour and absorption will use time to discover
their different perspectives and mutually exchange their ideas to come up with new
solutions. A high level of dedication ensures the team that they do considerately planning
and think of long- and short-term consequences of their actions. This means that they can
adjust their strategies and goals if necessary (Richardson and West, 2010). Further
according to West (2004) teams that take time to reflect on their objectives, strategies and
processes are more effective than those that do not. However according to West (1996)
reflexivity can be unnecessary in routine decision-making teams working in certain and
predictable environments. However West (1996) states that reflexivity is an important
32
aspect for teams making complex decisions under uncertain and unpredictable conditions
in order to achieve their goals.
Backing-up BehaviourAccording to Dickinson and McIntyre (1997) backing-up behaviour is the extent to which
team members effectively help each other to perform their role. Engaged employees are
more likely to show such behaviour than other employees. This can, for example, be
shown by compensating for an absent team member or helping the team with extra
workload for the team’s performance. In engaged teams, employees encourage each other
to ask for help when needed, emphasizing solution-focused activities and talk openly
about errors, incidents and problems (Richardson and West, 2010). According to Porter et
al. (2003) empirically based evidence shows that backing-up behaviour is linked with
effective team performance.
3.2.3 Outcomes: The Benefits of Team EngagementThe engagement process transforms the inputs into advantageous outputs for the
organization. The outputs are the outcomes of team engagement. According to Wageman
et al. (2005) team effectiveness has the following four dimensions; all are outcomes of
team engagement.
Team performance As stated in Section 2, a lot of researches link work engagement with performance.
Richardson and West (2010) argue that the same phenomenon is the case between team
engagement and team performance. Studies argue that individual experiences in teams
have a deep impact on commitment and performance in present and future teamwork
(Lester, Meglino and Korsgaard, 2002). Engaged teams will be more motivated to strive
towards challenging meaningful goals, putting all their effort into their work. This passion
and energy is manifested in adaptive team behaviours, which enable the team to perform
well at their job (Beal et al. 2005).
33
Team viability Team viability is the “team’s capability to continue functioning together effectively in the
future” (Richardson and West, 2010, 334). Teams without long-term viability will
experience an unwillingness to cooperate, and will eventually reach burnout because of
unsolved conflicts (Hackman, 1987). Engaged teams are expected to have high levels of
long-term viability because of their positive social interactions, which encourage trust and
cooperation (Forsyth, 1990).
Team member growthAccording to West (2004) the team member growth is a key social dimension of team
working and is vital for individual need fulfilment. This is because those that have less
challenging jobs are usually less happy with their jobs than those that have jobs that are
more challenging and that provide opportunities for learning and development (Hackman
and Oldham, 1976). The learning orientation and adaptive behaviours in engaged teams
permit personal growth and development both for individuals inside the team as well as
for the whole team (Heaphy and Dutton, 2008).
InnovationInnovation is according to West and Hirst (2005, 257) “the introduction of new and
improved ways of doing things”. Engaged teams are enthusiastic with high energy and is
therefore more likely to not give up at challenging tasks and problems and are therefore
more likely to be more creative and come up with better ideas (Richardson and West,
2010).
3.2.4 Macro-Level Moderators of Team EngagementOrganizations are social systems that provide an environment for teams (Richardson and
West, 2010). A team is an open system that needs to interact with individuals and groups
outside the team in order to succeed (Langan-Fox, 2005). Accordingly in the Team
Engagement Model, the three macro-level factors represent moderators on the
relationships between inputs, engagement processes and outputs.
34
Organizational Climate for Team-Based WorkingAccording to Rousseau (1988) the team climate is what it feels like to work in a given
team and is based on employees’ perception of the team environment. Team-based
organizations need a commitment within the organization and a belief that organizational
goals will be achieved by teams working cooperatively together which require an
organization climate that support team-based working (Woods and West 2010;
Richardson and West 2010).
One way an organization can support teamwork is by rewarding team performance rather
than individual performance (Tjosvold, 1998). Schneider (1990) states that climate
perceptions are likely to be influenced by behaviours that are rewarded and supported. It
is important teamwork motivation to reward collectively to all team members in a way
that everyone benefits from (Larsen, 1998). Pitts (1995) argue that both teams and
individuals must be recognized and rewarded. A balanced approach is required –
individual contributions and achievements should always be valued and even in some
situations, more than others. Armstrong (1993) argues that a company should avoid
rewarding individual performance in such a way that internal competitiveness disturbs
teamwork. On the other hand, individual behaviour that can be hidden in the team should
be avoided. Though, most individuals will be able to commit to the team and share the
recognition that the team receive and identify their part of their reward on the basis on the
team’s achievements. The individual part of the reward should further endorse those
behaviours that contribute to the team outcome (Pitts, 1995).
Further, organizations must encourage the development of shared objectives by involving
all teams and give the teams an opportunity to have a say in important decisions
(Richardson and West, 2010). The organization’s communication system can also
influence the team effectiveness. Besides, the physical space of the team’s workplace can
make a different for the teams’ effectiveness (McShane and Glinow, 2010). When an
organization supports such a climate, the teams are likely to be more engaged and
effective (Richardson and West, 2010).
35
Alignment of Organization and Team Values and ObjectivesAlignment gets all the organization and team resources working in collaboration and
move in the same direction (Marker, 2006). Team engagement increases in organizations
that provide a close alignment between organizational and team values and objectives
(Richardson and West, 2010). According to Marker (2006) the alignment needs to be
maintained from the inside to be more successful. This means that the team members are
given control collectively. The energy and focus of the team will increase if the team’s
tasks are seen to be equally important both to the success of the team and the
organization. This alignment will probably encourage engagement and in turn, team
effectiveness and performance (Richardson and West, 2010).
Transformational Leadership According to McShane and Glinow (2010, 371) transformational leadership is about
“’leading‘ - changing the organization’s strategies and culture so they have a better fit
with the surrounding environment. Transformational leaders are change agents who
energize and direct employees to new sets of corporate values and behaviours”.
According to Callan and Lawrence (2009) transformational leadership is an intrinsically
based motivation process that creates an emotional and intellectual connection with their
employees that motivates the employees to engage in high effort levels. In other words,
transformational leadership implies that the leader makes you highly engaged in your job
so that you work harder.
These new set of corporate values and behaviours can energize teams, influencing them
with self-efficacy and stimulating them to think creatively (Brief and Weiss, 2002).
Callan and Lawrence (2009) also support that transformational leadership results in
engagement given that these are behaviours that many employees are aspiring to achieve.
According to Callan and Lawrence (2009) the more transformational leadership there is in
an organization, the more you perceive it at lower levels as in teams. However Kraut et al
(2005) argue that first-line managers or supervisors are more centrally important than
other managers for managing individual performance. First-line managers can influence
36
the design of jobs, roles, levels of autonomy, systems and workplace structures that
encourage willingness for employees to engage emotionally and cognitively at work
(Callan and Lawrence, 2009). The behaviours of first level managers are vital to the
engagement behaviours for employees (Bates, 2004). They can engage in
transformational leadership behaviours that communicate and encourage the
meaningfulness of work, that build climates that are perceived to be safe and supportive
and they can model behaviours being positive, exited and fully engaged by achieving
roles that meet organization goals (Harter, Schmidt and Hayes, 2002).
According to Frank, Finnegan and Taylor (2004) first-line managers need to provide a
variety of skills that promote work engagement. Therefore according to Taylor (2004)
they should be able to:
1. Find talent or, when given the opportunity, choose team members who are
likely to stay on the job and be engaged
2. Build trust between team members and the leader
3. Build esteem in team members
4. Communicate effectively to team members regarding retention and
engagement issues
5. Build climate that is enjoyable and fulfilling
6. Be flexible in recognizing, understanding and adapting to individual needs
and views
7. Develop talent and coach team members to help them grow, resulting in
greater commitment and loyalty to the organization
8. Build high performance to reinforce high levels of team member
performance, particularly with respect to top-performing team members
9. Leverage of the team-members knowledge in order to build a committed
team
10. Monitor team members issues in order to build retention and engagement
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3.3 Team Engagement Model Challenges
As stated earlier, Richardson and West (2010) base their definition of team engagement
on Schaufeli’s et al (2002, 74) definition of work engagement (‘‘a positive, fulfilling,
work- related state of mind that is characterized by vigour, dedication and absorption”).
Leiter (2006) argues that there is a risk to mix up this definition with other similar
constructs like organizational and personal commitment and job involvement. One
challenge is to differentiate and distinguish this definition of engagement from other
similar constructs. Leither (2006) further argues that the definition requires researcher to
test and contrast the implications of the definition.
Another challenge with the Team Engagement Model is that all the elements in it don’t
necessarily fit to all occupations and industries. As discussed in Sectiom 2, different
organizations will vary in their needs and approach to engagement (MacLeod and Clarke,
2011). However it can be useful as a framework.
3.4 Team Complexity and Research
Research on teamwork typically views teams as complex, adaptive and dynamic systems
(McGrath, Arrow and Berdahl, 2000). Teams continue to develop as they interact with
others. These interactions constantly change the teams, team members and the teams’
environments in a way that is more complex than is captured from simple cause and
effect perspectives. Empirically based research is also moving in the direction of
increased complexity; however it still has a long way to go from the development of
complexity in the theoretical and methodological work today (Ilgen et al, 2005).
3.5 Heighten Motivation Teams
As already stated in the definition of team engagement, heighten motivation is an
essential part of team engagement. The teamwork has to be meaningful and rewarding for
the individuals. In the long run it is not enough that the teamwork is effective for the
38
majority, overall or for the organization. Each team member has to obtain something out
of it for his or her own benefit. Of course this also has to do with how team members
succeed in their work with others in different circumstances. Teamwork should be in
compliance with the job and what can motivate each individual (Larsen, 1998).
A team leader’s responsibility is to select the right people for special tasks, finding people
who are motivated by this special task, and identify with individual work interest and
motivation. According to Larsen (1998) nothing is more motivating than when you feel
successful, especially with things you value and care for. The self-efficacy increases for
both the individuals and the team a whole (Larsen, 1998). The best motivation according
to Larsen (1998) is when the work in itself is interesting. This can you for example see in
people that are so absorbed in their work that they forget the time. The Ultrech Work
engagement Scale (UWES) has “absorption” as a core aspect of their definition of work
engagement. According to Pink (2009) the most motivating factor for people is that they
are doing something because they love it.
In conclusion, based on this literature review, a heightened motivational state is a core
concept of this author and others definition of team engagement.
3.6 Summary
Richardson and West’s (2010, 324) definition of team engagement is “an emergent
collective construct whereby a team experiences a heightened positive affective-
motivational state characterized by a sense of vigour, absorption and dedication”. This
definition is based on Schafeli’s et al. (2002, 74) definition of work engagement on an
individual level (see Section 2). The definition used in this paper is “a team’s experiences
of heightened positive motivational and energized state towards team orientated goals”.
This definition is based on Richardson and West’s (2010) definition of team engagement,
organizational needs and previous research about engagement.
Richardson and West (2010) Team Engagement Model are shown in Figure 5 on page 26.
The model is based on an input-mediator-outcome (IMO) framework (Ilgen et al., 2005).
39
The development line underneath the model demonstrates how teams change over time
and are influenced differentially by micro- and macro-level factors as they develop
(Kozlowski et al., 1999). Unfortunately the model is not without limitations. The
definition that is used as a framework for the model should be tested out for further
research. The elements in the model don’t necessarily fit to all occupations and industries.
Heighten motivation is a part of the definitions of team engagement used in this paper.
The organization should think of what can motivate each individual – it is not enough that
the majority on the team members are engaged. One way the team leader can motivate the
team is to select the right people that are interested and get motivated from a specific task
Larsen (1998). Though, the most motivating factor for teams is that they are doing
something because they love it (Pink, 2009).
40
Section 4: Method and Data Analysis: The Quantitative Part
The purpose of Sections 4 and 5 is to explain the methods that were used to conduct the
thesis and to analyse data from the Team Engagement Survey and the focus groups. A
case study research design was used both for quantitative and qualitative data. Section 4
is about the quantitative part and includes methods and data analyses used for the Team
Engagement Survey. Section 5 is about the qualitative part and includes method and
analysis used for the appreciative inquiry questions in the survey and followed-up focus
groups.
4.1 Research Design
According to Tharenou, Donohue and Cooper (2007, 74), a case study is “an in-depth,
empirical investigation of a single instance or setting to explain the processes of a
phenomenon in context”. Hafslund, as the only company, was selected for this thesis, and
a case study research design is appropriate.
A wide range of data collection methods can be used for case studies (Tharenou,
Donohue and Cooper, 2007). Combinations of both qualitative and quantitative methods
were chosen in this study. According to Lookwood (2007), it is best to use a combination
of tools in order to measure and manage drivers of work engagement. An essential
argument for combining methods is that both approaches will help to answer the research
question from different angles and insure more depth of understanding. A combination of
the methods will also provide a wider perspective for conclusions and strengthens the
overall research. A Team Engagement Survey was used to identify the employees’ key
drivers of engagement, the importance of the drivers and the current state of engagement.
Appreciative inquiry questions were used to identify what the employees think works
well and what can be improved. Analyses of Variance were conducted to identify whether
41
there is a large variance of key drivers across the teams. Stepwise Linear Regression was
used to identify how much the variation in the dependent variable “Level of Engagement”
(how engaged are you on a scale from 1-10?) can be explained by the independent
variables of “Drivers of Engagement” and of “State of Engagement”.
Follow-up focus groups were used, with selected team members, to explore the results
from the engagement survey in depth. The focus groups can indicate the cause of what
might create the results. In addition, three in-depth interviews with the managing director
Mr Frode Sand were conducted during the spring of 2013, as a first step to create a
suitable survey questionnaire and to get more information about the Customer Services
Centre. The quantitative research was set up with a pre-test of the survey (details
provided in this section), and the final survey was followed by three focus groups during
June 2013.
The quantitative results from the Team Engagement Survey will be reported in this
section while the qualitative results including the appreciative inquiry questions from the
survey and follow-up focus groups will be presented in next section.
4.2 The Team Engagement Survey
The Team Engagement Survey is presented in Appendix 1. The survey was distributed
electronically to 97 full-time employees at Hafslund Customer Services Centre. Fifty-
three full-time employees answered the survey. This represents a response rate of
approximately 55 per cent. Data were obtained by the use of a web-based tool (Qualtrics).
4.2.1 Overall Description of Hafslund Customer Services Centre Full-time Employees Sixty-six per cent of the population studied were women and 64 per cent work as
Customer Services Consultants, 17 per cent work with quality tasks, 11 per cent as Sales
Consultants and 8 per cent as Senior Customer Consultants. The population studied was
only the full-time employees and did not include sub-contract employees who might be
42
working side by side with Hafslund staff. The following teams shown in Table 5 below
were included in the survey. The organization chart at Hafslund Customer Services
Centre is shown in Figure 6.
Table 5: Overview of department, team, position and number of respondents per team studied
Figure 6: Organizational Chart Hafslund Customer Services Centre
43
Department Team Positions No of respondents
per team
Front Other Sales consultants, Customer services
consultants and Senior customer
services consultants
9
Front Melling Customer services consultants and
Senior customer services consultants 9
Front Kaloshi Customer services consultants and
Senior customer services consultants 8
Front Berisha Customer services consultants and
Senior customer services consultants 8
Front Roskifte Customer services consultants and
Senior customer services consultants 8
Back Quality Quality specialists 8
4.2.2 Finalized Variables for the Team Engagement Survey The main variables for the key drivers and state of engagement were identified based on
the literature review, three depth interviews with Hafslund Customer Services Centre
department leader Mr Sand, discussions with thesis advisor Dr Paul Tolchinsky and
Hafslund’s values, strategy, goal-setting and critical success factors as presented in
Section 1. Mr Sand considered cultural differences to be of less importance in this study
(Section 1.2). Otherwise the key drivers were chosen to fit the Norwegian culture. The
finalized variables are shown in Table 6 below.
Table 6: Finalized Variables for the Team Engagement Survey
Key Drivers of Team engagement State of EngagementClear Goals Behavioural Engagement:Development opportunities Backing-up behaviourCrossover effects Interaction frequencyTeam Identification Feeling of Engagement:Team Empowerment VigourTransformational Leadership DedicationTeam tasks AbsorptionOrganization Climate for team-based workingVoice
From the literature review, one can note that many of the variables are connected, and at
times are almost identical, just with different names. For example, the variable “Voice”
means the same as the variable “Influencing Decision Making”. These connections are
shown in Appendix 2.
To measure complex phenomena such as behaviours and attitudes, it is important to use
several questions to intercept different aspects within the dimension (Gripsrud, Olsson
and Silkoset, 2010). Consequently, three to nine different questions on each dimension
have been used in the Team Engagement Survey (Appendix 1).
44
4.3 Data Collection
The data from the survey were gathered electronically. The survey stated the purpose of
the research, the definition of team engagement, and contact information for the
researcher, should the participant have questions regarding the survey. Further the drivers
of engagement and the state of engagement were explained. This was meant both as
motivation and also an explanation for further better understanding of the survey
questions. The participants were informed that their answers would be handled
confidentially. The survey was given out in a Norwegian version since Hafslund is based
in Norway. The English version of the survey is included in Appendix 1.
4.4 Measures
As there are currently various validated instruments to measure work engagement at an
individual level (where the most well known is probably the Ultrecht Work Scale
(UWES)), there are at present no validated known team engagement instruments. In the
literature review it was also discovered that although there is quite a lot of research on
engagement at the individual level, there is almost nothing on a team level. Although, as
argued in Section 1, most of the research at the individual level can be applied on a team
level, an instrument to measure team engagement requires a focus on engagement to work
in a team. This is reflected in the Team Engagement Model (see Section 3, Figure 6). In
order to measure the level of team engagement at Hafslund, a new instrument had to be
developed.
As already stated in Section 2, a common definition of engagement is very important in
order to measure engagement for an organization. The measurement should be tied
directly to the definition (Dicke, Holweda and Knotakos, 2007). For purposes of this
research, the definition of team engagement was the following: “a team’s experiences of
heightened positive motivational and energized state towards team orientated goals”.
Albrecht (2010) states that it would be very useful to have questions that have a clear link
45
to the definition of engagement. The questions in the Team Engagement Survey are
therefore linked to the definition of team engagement.
The survey includes drivers of team engagement and state of engagement (see Table 6, p.
44). According to Wiley (2006) to achieve engagement requires survey content to be
tailored to the company’s goals. However, according to Dicke, Holweda and Knotakos
(2007) it’s important not to mix drivers and outcomes because it would be difficult to
determine what to change as discussed in Section 2. Outcomes are therefore left out from
the survey.
Macey et al. (2009) state that feelings of engagement and behaviours in addition to
engagement drivers should be included in the survey to determine whether engagement
can and will emerge. These two aspects are included in the survey as state of engagement.
Some questions in the survey are asked about the behaviour of others since the average or
collective results yield a more reliable indicator. Participants have a tendency to respond
as they think others would expect or sometimes even due to self-preservation (Macey et
al., 2009).
Key drivers of team engagement were measured on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1
(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) and 6 (don’t know) where the respondents had to
consider a number of statements. Examples of items include “I have a good
understanding of the goals of my team” (Clear Goals), “On my team, we can take action
to satisfy customers without being second-guessed by our team leader” (Team
Empowerment) and “My team leader builds a climate that is enjoyable”
(Transformational Leadership).
The importance of each variable for drivers of team engagement was measured on a scale
ranging from 1 (Not at all important) to 5 (Very important) and 6 (don’t know) where the
respondents had to consider how important each variable was for drivers of team
engagement. This was measured at the end of each driver of team engagement.
46
“Backing up-behaviour” and “Interaction frequency” were measured on the behaviours
of state of engagement (see Table 6) and were measured on the same 5-point Likert-scale
as the key drivers of team engagement. Examples of items included “My teammates
welcome each other’s success” (Backing up-behaviour) and “In my team, we
communicate often about work related questions” (Interaction frequency). The validated
15-item version of Ultrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) was used to measure the
employee’s feelings of state of engagement (see Table 6). The UWES are based on the
Schaufeli et al (2002) definition described in Section 2 where the variables “Vigour”,
“Dedication” and “Absorption” are used. Examples included “At my job, I feel bursting
with energy” (Vigour), “Time flies when I’m working” (Dedication), and “When I’m
working I forget everything else around me (Absorption). A 7-point Likert scale was used
where the respondents had to consider a number of statements about how often they felt a
certain way about their job.
At the end of the survey, three appreciative inquiry questions were included regarding
how engaged the employees felt from a scale from 1 -10, why they didn’t mark a lower
score and what was needed to change to move 1-2 points higher. These questions were
used to answer the sub-research questions about the employees’ current level of
engagement, what worked well and what the organization could do to increase
engagement in teams.
The questionnaire includes 70 questions. According to Custom Insight (2013), a
comprehensive engagement questionnaire usually includes about 50-75 rating questions,
as well as a few short open questions.
4.4.1 Background variables Due to possible influence on gender, age, numbers of years within the company, time in
current position, education and team membership, these were included as background
variables.
47
4.5 Data Analysis
The data was first screened for missing values. Missing values were identified and coded
with 9999 in SPSS. The “don’t know” category was also coded with 9999 in order to
estimate the correct calculations in SPSS.
In order to identify any outliers, a comparison of the mean with the 5% trimmed mean
and the median was conducted. “Trimmed” signifies that five per cent of the cases are
removed off the top and bottom, and a new mean value is calculated to obtain the
“trimmed mean” value. The trimmed mean, median and the mean showed similar values,
which means that there were no extreme scores that had a lot of influence on the mean.
4.6 Descriptive Statistics
Table 7 below expresses the distribution of the background variables used in the survey.
There was an equal distribution of women and men. Young people dominated the sample,
as 82 per cent were under 35 years old. Ninety-four per cent of the respondents reported
that they had either completed high school and/or university. The team representation was
almost equally distributed. The sample was dominated by Customer Services Consultants
who had worked in their position between half a year and three years.
Table 7: Background Variables
Descriptive Statistics of the Sample Total numbers of respondents 53
Gender Women Men Total57 % 43 % 100 %
Age Under 25 26 - 35 36 - 45 46 -55 Over 56 Total35 % 47 % 10 % 8 % 0 % 100 %
Education Compulsory Schooling High School University Other Total2 % 43 % 51 % 4 % 100 %
Team Team Berisha Team Melling Team Kaloshi Team Roskifte Quality Other Total16 % 18 % 16 % 16 % 16 % 18 % 100 %
Section 5 is the qualitative part of the research and includes method and analysis used for
the appreciative inquiry questions in the survey and followed-up focus groups.
5.1 Appreciative Inquiry
Three appreciative inquiry questions were asked at the end of the survey. Appreciative
inquiry means that the participants focus on the positive aspects of their job and to make
suggestions for improvements, instead of whom or what are causes for problems. The
first question asked “On a scale from 1-10 how engaged are you (where 1 is least
engaged and 10 is most)?”, the second question was “Why didn’t you mark a lower
score?” and the third question was, “What needs to change to move 1-2 points higher?”.
The two last questions are qualitative. Thus a qualitative analysis to search for
relationships and underlying themes is used (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). In order to code
the data, Løland’s (1994) “cut” and “paste” technique was employed, where common
themes were merged to categories.
Figure 13 below shows the variance to the first question. Seventy-seven per cent scored
from 6 and above, 10 per cent scored in the middle and 14 per cent scored below 5. The
mean is on 7. These results shows that most employees felt engaged at work.
Figure 13: Variance on the question “On a scale from 1-10 how engaged are you (where 1 is least engaged and 10 is most engaged)?”
62
Figure 14 shows how the teams scored the first question. The results are shown in ranked
order. The means show that “Team Melling” felt most engaged and “Team Kaloshi” felt
least engaged. The difference was quite high.
Figure 14: Mean Teams on the question “On a scale from 1-10 how engaged are you (where 1 is least engaged and 10 is most engaged)?”
Two main categories (see table 20 below) were identified for the second question (“Why
didn’t you mark a lower score?”). Examples of responses for the category “Job
Satisfaction” was: “I’m satisfied and happy about my job”, “I enjoy working with my
colleagues that definitely does my day much easier and more motivating” and “I like my
workplace”. Examples of comments for “Work itself” was “I feel my work is exciting and
challenging”, “I get motivated of my job” and “I have a lot of variety in my work - all of
my jobs and customers are different, so that inspires me and does that I get more
engaged”.
Table 20: Why didn’t you mark a lower score?
Why didn’t you mark a lower score? Number of replies
Job Satisfaction 10Work itself 10Total 20
Table 21 below shows the responses for the third question “What needs to change to
move 1-2 points higher?”. Twelve categories were identified. Most of the participants (31
per cent) wished more varied and challenging work, although some said that they did not
63
think it is possible to make the work more varied. Five participants wished a more
competent team leader. Examples were: “I wish another type of leadership”, “I wish a
more motivating team leader” and “changes of team-leader had increased my scores to
an 8”. Suggestions for the right person for the right job where “Use the right person for
the right job. When it’s no balance between motivation, competencies and abilities for
solving problems, the solution are never optimum” and “It should be more focus on
individual abilities and competencies and that these are more used – the work of the
individual can be adjusted for this”.
Table 21: What needs to change to move 1-2 points higher?
Improvements No of replies
More varied and challenging work 8More competent team-leader 5More and specific responsibility 3Improved computer system 2The right person for the right job 2More specialisation 1More development opportunities 1Make the employees' work more visible 1Increased internal co-operation 1More competitions 1More follow-up 1Total 26
5.2 Focus Groups
For this purpose the research could have used individual interviews, but this would have
missed the opportunity of natural group dynamics that can stimulate the respondents to
give additional information (Morgan, 1997; Gripsrud, Olsson and Silkoset, 2010).
Follow-up focus groups of selected team members were used to explore the results from
the Team Engagement Survey in more depth and to validate the results in order to
identify the key drivers of engagement. Both the results from the focus groups, the
individual interviews with Mr. Sand and the survey were used to answer the postulated
sub-research questions. Further the focus groups were used to reveal factors such as
possible additionally drivers of team engagement that the survey may not have addressed.
64
5.2.1 The Selections of Focus Groups A non-probability sample was used by selection of participants to focus groups. This
means that the recruiting of participants was not based on statistical contingencies.
Therefore the researcher was able to identify persons with the right characteristics in
order to insure that the focus group participants had a good knowledge about team
engagement in Hafslund Customer Services Centre (Gripsrud, Olsson and Silkoset 2010).
A general rule among researchers is that focus groups should consist of strangers.
However this is just a myth according to Morgan (1997) and Krueger (1993). According
to Morgan (1997) decisions should, instead, rely on whether the group can comfortably
discuss in ways that are useful for the researcher. Although the participants in this case
more or less knew each other, there was also participation from different teams in the
focus groups.
Regarding the size of the groups, it’s generally recommended a range between six to ten
(Morgan, 1997). The size of the groups were based on the consideration that everybody
would be interested in the theme of team engagement as this is essential to their work
situation, and everybody should be given time to speak. On this background focus groups
with size of six to seven were chosen.
The rule of thumb in order to decide the numbers of groups is that projects should consist
of three to five groups. Whether to choose three or five groups depends on a number of
factors. Projects with more segments will probably require more groups (Morgan, 1997).
Since the participants in this case are from the same department with similar jobs, they
are quite homogeneous and Gripsrud, Olsson and Silkoset (2010) argues that the more
homogeneous the groups are, the less number of groups will you need to conduct.
Therefore in this case, three groups were chosen. The goal is to do only as many groups
as are necessary to provide a reliable answer so that the mediator can predict the outcome
(Calder, 1977).
To summarize, three focus groups that included from six to seven participants were
conducted. The participants were from different teams and there was a mix of gender,
65
age, time in current position, education and team membership. The interviews lasted
around one hour and twenty minutes and the discussions were recorded on tape.
5.2.2 Conducting and Analysing Focus GroupsThere are many possibilities on how to analyse focus groups. There is empirical evidence
that focus groups results should be qualified. On the other hand in some cases a
quantitative analysis can be useful. However a quantitative approach is not necessary in
most situations (Fern, 2001). A qualitative approach such as focus groups are more
complex to analyse than a quantitative approach due to the focus group transcript has
multiple meaning and several different interpretations (Holbrook and Jackson, 1996).
Because of direct evaluation of the focus groups, qualitative analyses of the results were
chosen.
The analyst should be examining all the participants’ comments, looking for the most
important themes, issues and ideas (Litosseliti, 2003). The key questions are the most
important to analyse (Kruger, 1994). Similarities and differences throughout the different
focus groups, trends and patterns should be looked at. However it’s not necessary that the
most important themes and issues are the ones that are most frequently brought up in the
focus group (Litosseliti, 2003). Some questions should not be focused on the same level,
while others should be eliminated, as they disturb the analyses (Kruger, 1994). Further,
the analyst should be flexible about modifying his/her insights, taking different perceptive
and interpretations (Gillham, 2000). The analyst should also be careful to acknowledge
comments at face value. Finally the analyst should address whether the objectives were
achieved, what was confirmed and challenged by the findings, and what new ideas
appeared (Litosseliti, 2003).
5.3 Analysis of Focus Groups at Hafslund Customer Services Centre
The following presents the results of the focus group data.
66
5.3.1 Team Engagement Survey Most of the respondents thought the questions in the Team Engagement Survey were
quite good. Although, they thought the survey was a bit too long. Some said they spent
time on answering accurately at first, but when they saw the length of the survey, they
spent shorter time and therefore the questions were not answered as accurately. Some
were afraid of being identified because of the large number of background variables, even
though they had been promised anonymity.
5.3.2 Drivers of Team Engagement The respondents thought the results were quite good and consistent. The participants
thought that this could be because everyone was aiming at reaching the same goals,
making it easier to enjoy their work and because of good development opportunities.
Some participants said that Hafslund is a big organization where there are many
possibilities for developing if you are interested in your job and can show good results.
Other participants thought there was not much room for improvement in engagement
since they already felt engaged and were satisfied with their employers. One reason for
this was because Hafslund is constantly improving and trying to engage their employees.
The most important Drivers of Team Engagement for the participants are shown in ranked
order:
1. Development Opportunities
2. Crossover Effect
3. Voice
4. Clear Goals
5. Transformational Leadership
These results are consistent with the Team Engagement Survey. Comment included “I
think “Development Opportunities” is the most important driver. If I reach my goals, I
will be able to develop myself”. The focus group discussions revealed that “Crossover
Effect” was important since the participants thought they needed people around them who
were positive in order to remain engaged. They also thought that having a “Voice”:
67
being seen and heard, was an important driver of team engagement. Most of the
participants said that having “Clear Goals” both for the team and for themselves clearly
helped them to remain more engaged. “Transformational Leadership” was also an
important factor since the team-leader can influence the level of engagement.
“Team Empowerment” was important for some, but not for others. One participant said
that the reason for this could be which position you have. Maybe it’s more important for
Seniors than for Customer Services Consultants? Some participants thought that “Voice”,
“Team Empowerment” and “Transformational Leadership” overlapped each other,
because it is important to have a team leader who allows the team to influence things and
make their own decisions. From the comment above regarding “Development
Opportunities” it can be concluded that this also overlap with “Clear Goals”.
The following suggestions for drivers of team engagement that wasn’t included in the
survey included: financial incentives (for the Sales Team), more challenging work and
competitions.
5.3.3 State of Engagement The high level of engagement reported surprised some participants. Some felt engaged
every day and some hadn’t felt engaged at all during the past year. Some participants
thought the reason for a low level of engagement was that they had not been seen or
appreciated or they were on wrong team or they simply didn’t like their job.
The participants thought the most important reasons for the good scores, were work
satisfaction, good workplace culture, high engagement level, good workplace
environment, and goal setting that makes time fly by. The tasks could also be a good
reason for this, since most of the participants liked their job; although this depended on
what tasks they were working with. A participant said “Some tasks are very interesting,
so that you get so absorbed that you almost can’t go to the rest room, other tasks are
more boring and you can’t wait to finish them”. Regarding the good scores for the
outgoing sales team, a participant said: “most of the customers are friendly and do not get
68
angry on the phone and that makes the job much easier. Further the product is easy to
sell which makes it more engaging”.
For the Customer Services Consultants, there were divided opinions about having to sell
on incoming calls. Some liked it and others didn’t understand why they had to sell at all.
The reason why some people didn’t like it, was that it made them feel uncomfortable,
insecure and stressed, having to sell at the same time as trying to give the best possible
customer service. One participant said: “I feel uncomfortable trying to sell something the
customer doesn’t need. It would have been better trying to find out what the customer
really needed and finding a suitable product”. Further the word “sales” makes some
uncomfortable. Some participants said a more comfortable word would be “customer
services”. Some got more engaged by answering inquiries because they got a good
feedback from the customers. However, others preferred administrative tasks like
answering emails.
For the variable “backing-up behaviour”, all of the participants said that this is something
that everyone is generally good at and is a major reason for the good workplace
environment at Hafslund. Regarding “frequency communication” the participants said
that most team leaders have good and frequent communication. However sometimes
some participants thought it could be a bit too much, and therefore might be rather
disturbing and have a negative effect.
5.3.4 Level of EngagementRegarding the question about the employees’ current level of engagement, the
participants thought it depended on how you interpreted the question and how you felt
when you answered the survey.
5.3.5 ImprovementsThe following suggestions for improvements for drivers and state of engagement were
presented:
69
1. Development Opportunities: One comment was: “There should be a bigger
focus on development opportunities. There is too much pressure on the results and
therefore you have no time to develop yourself. This makes you less engaged than
you might have been”. The issue was raised about not getting training when
needed, even when it was promised. Some participants thought there should be
better opportunities for discussing with your team leader if you needed any
training. There were suggestions that the team leaders could find out whether
there were others that needing the same training.
2. Communication: The communication between different teams is sometimes
lacking. The participants thought this should be the team leaders´ responsibility.
3. Isolated Sales Team: The focus groups revealed that the sales team felt rather
isolated. There was not much contact between sales and the others in the
department, and they didn’t even know what the others were doing. A participant
said: “There should be a stronger connection because this would create a better
workplace environment. It would also help to get more information that we could
use when we are in contact with the customer. It could also help those who don’t
feel comfortably selling”.
4. Specialization: There were suggestions that the employees should specialize on
what they are good at and that the teams should consist of a mixture of employees
with different specialities.
5. Different tasks: Enthusiasm would have increased if additional tasks and training
for these had been offered.
6. The right person for the right job
7. Goals: There were discussions on whether there was too much focus on short-
term goals and struggles to reach long-term goals. Respondents said that it was
difficult to remember the long-term goals since the short-term goals were changed
almost every week and often became totally different. Further, the respondents
said that there were periods with incentives to reach short-term goals like
competitions, but that this could lead to confusion about the goals. Some
participants said that the goals on a team level were very clear and detailed, but
they felt they needed more clear goals on an individual level. On the other hand
70
others disagreed and considered that both were clear. However all agreed that
individual goals were followed up to a much greater degree than team goals.
There were discussions on possible challenges for reaching the goals when there
are interruptions by for example a team meeting. There can also be problems with
concentrating on the meeting because some are thinking: “can we speed up – I
have a goal to reach”. There was also a concern that the goals that were not
reached, were usually not followed up. It was argued that if a goal doesn’t get
followed up, it has no effect.
The summary of the significant quantitative and qualitative findings will be presented in
the start of Section 6.
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Section 6: Discussion
This final section of the thesis consists of a summary of significant findings,
recommendations and implications in the study. These results will be related to the main
research question followed by a discussion of the sub- research questions presented in
Section 1, and also in some degree to the literature review. Finally, limitations and
weaknesses of the study will be discussed.
6.1 Significant Findings related to the main Research Question
The main research question for this thesis was to examine what energizes teams of full-
time employees in Hafslund Customer Services Centre ASA. Findings from the Stepwise
Linear Regression revealed that the factors “Development Opportunities” and “Vigour”
explained the team’s level of engagement best. The results from Team Engagement
Survey and the focus groups also identified “Development Opportunities” as the most
important driver for team engagement. The other top four drivers of team engagement in
order of importance were: “Crossover Effect”, “Voice”, “Clear Goals” and
“Transformational Leadership”. “Organizational climate for team-based working” and
“Team Identification” were on the other hand identified as least important. These
differences were in fact very small (4.7 for the highest mean to 4.3 for the lowest mean),
which can be interpreted that they were of almost equal importance. However, the
Analysis of Variance showed that some of the teams scored statistically significantly
lower for the drivers “Development Opportunities”, “Team Empowerment” and
“Transformational Leadership” and “Team Empowerment”.
The survey results showed that the teams’ and the employees’ current drivers of
engagement and state of engagement were quite high and consistent. Totally, seventy-
seven per cent felt engaged at work. Both the appreciative inquiry questions from the
survey and the focus groups were largely consistent with this survey results. The focus
groups revealed further that other factors for the high level of engagement were for
example job satisfaction, good workplace culture and good workplace environment.
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Suggestions for improvements included more focus on development opportunities, more
focus on long-term goals, more varied and challenging work, more competent team-
leaders and more and specific responsibility. Results from the appreciative inquiry
question from the survey that asked, “why didn’t you mark a lower score?“ also
identified the characteristics of the work itself and job satisfaction as potential drivers.
It is interesting to note that the focus groups identified too frequent communication as a
disturbing effect. Frequent communication was identified in the Team Engagement
Model (Figure 5) as a mediator for team engagement, so this might actually mean that
both too little as well as too much communication can have a disturbing effect on
engagement. Good scores on “frequency of communication” do not necessarily mean that
this is a driver of team engagement.
6.2 Significant findings related to the Sub-Research Questions
Each of the sub-research questions in Section 1 will be discussed based on the results
and/or the literature review, ending in some conclusions and recommendations.
Why is it so critical for the organization to understand and embrace team
engagement?
As stated in Section 2, engaging teams are very important in the work environment since
work engagement has a number of benefits for both organizations (e.g. higher
productivity) and the employees (e.g. higher job satisfaction) (MacLeod and Clarke,
2012; Fleck and Inceoglu, 2010; Harter, Schmidt and Hayes, 2002). For this and other
beneficial reasons, team engagement can be a competitive advantage for a company
(MacLeod and Clarke, 2012). For Hafslund Customer Services Centre the most preferred
outcomes of team engagement are increased team performance, increased customer
services, reduced sickness absence, lower turnover and increased pride, ownership and
commitment. Further research can investigate which drivers of team engagement that can
73
best explain these preferred outcomes, which were not included in this research because it
would be difficult to determine what to change as discussed in Sections 2 and 4.
What are the key drivers for team engagement in one organization?
Because of small differences (high scores and lack of significant variation) in the
analysed means, it appears that all the drivers of team engagement were identified as
important. Though, the essential here is that what the participants think is important and
what activates engagement is slightly different. According to the Expectation
Discrepancy Effect, what the respondents report as important, doesn’t really mean that
it’s important. The activator for engagement depends on the gap between having
something and not having something. If all drivers are important, the ones with the
biggest gap are the biggest activators for team engagement. It seems that the expectation
gap is the key to activation. This is in compliance with the results that showed that the
variable “Development Opportunities” has the biggest gap which explains the team’s
level of team engagement best. The other drivers that were identified as those with the
biggest gap were “Voice”, “Organizational climate for team-based working” and “Team
Empowerment”
The results give quite clear indications that fit a specific organization in time, culture and
industry. But as stated in Section 2, no statistic methods on their own or in combination
can provide satisfactory answers to the key drivers of engagement on a general level
(Scherbaum et al., 2010).
What constitute the state of engagement in one organization?
The teams’ and the employees’ current state of engagement was quite high and consistent
in this study as seventy-seven per cent felt engaged at work. Since this level of team
engagement is already quite high at Hafslund Customer Services Centre, a key question is
how to keep this high level of team engagement and what to improve. Although all
factors in the state of engagement had a high score, the Stepwise Linear Regression
showed that the state “Vigour” explained the employees’ level of engagement best. One
74
doesn’t know how constant this result is over time, as state of engagement can vary over
time for different personal and situational reasons (see Section 2.2.1).
How does engagement vary across teams in one organization?
Most of the teams in this study had a quite high level of engagement. Although, Analyses
of Variance showed that “Team Kaloshi” scored significantly lower on the drivers
“Development Opportunities”, “Team Empowerment” and “Transformational
Leadership” than most of the other teams. “Team Melling” scored significantly lower on
the driver “Team Empowerment”, and “Frequency Interaction” than “Other”. Lastly
“Team Quality” scored significantly lower than “Team Berisha” and “Team Melling” on
the driver “Transformational Leadership”.
These results and the results from the question “On a scale from 1-10 how engaged are
you (where 1 is least engaged and 10 is most engaged)?” tell us that “Team Kaloshi” is
the least engaged of the highly engaged teams. In further research it would be interesting
to pair the performance and engagement data that might help determine if “Team
Kaloshi” performs differently (i.e., lower) than the other teams on important factors like
attendance, productivity, etc. What made “Team Kaloshi” score in this way can have
many reasons that didn’t appear in this research. One can only speculate that it could have
something to do with factors such as the team leader, conflicts in the team or team
composition.
Where should the organization focus its resources and take action to improve
engagement in teams?
The research from this study suggests that Hafslund ASA should focus its resources on
the drivers of team engagement that have the biggest gap which are “Development
Opportunities”, “Voice”, “Organizational Climate for Team-based working and “Team
Empowerment”. The Analysis of Variances showed that “Team Kaloshi” should improve
on the drivers “Development Opportunities”, “Team Empowerment” and
“Transformational Leadership”. “Team Melling” should improve on the drivers “Team
Empowerment” and “Interaction Frequency”. Lastly “Team Quality” should improve on
75
the driver “Transformational Leadership”. Hafslund should provide training and
guidance to these team-leaders on those specific drivers identified for improvements.
As said earlier, the biggest activation for engagement are the drivers that were identified
as those with the biggest gap, which are “Development Opportunities”, “Voice”,
“Crossover Effect”, “Transformational Leadership” and “Clear Goals”. This means that
Hafslund should take action on these drivers of engagement in order to improve. In
addition, the appreciative inquiry question “What needs to change to move 1-2 points
higher?” and the recommendations for improvements from the focus groups also
suggested other ideas that Hafslund should consider. In summary, these data show that in
addition to the biggest gap, weight should be put on factors such as more varied and
challenging work, more and specific responsibility, better communication, more
specialisation and the right person for the right job. Hafslund should consider what is
possible to improve and what are the most effective factors for doing it (Scherbaum et al.,
2010). It might be difficult to provide more challenging and varied work. On the other
hand, it is easier to improve the communication.
The potential drivers of team engagement are probably not of the same importance to all
employees. This means that the best method for improving engagement may depend on
each individual rather than a collective level of different drivers (Gruman and Saks,
2011). Another important factor is that the changes in the key drivers of engagement are
not likely to have a strong and lasting effect on engagement levels if these changes are not
aligned and connected with other parts of Hafslund activities (Gruman and Saks, 2011).
This study’s main purpose was to examine what energizes teams in one specific
organization. In conclusion, in order to study team engagement, this study has taken into
consideration both individual level, team level and organization level in order to study
engagement at team level (as see Section 1, Sjøvold, 2006). Data from this study confirm
that in order to do research on engagement you should look at all levels since engagement
is such a complex phenomenon. In order to improve the level of team engagement
Hafslund should therefore also look at the individual and the organizational level.
76
Another important conclusion is that to ask the employees how important they think a
driver of engagement is, doesn’t necessarily give the correct picture.
6.4 Limitations
The focus group interviews indicated that “Voice”, “Team Empowerment” and
“Transformational Leadership” overlap. Further “Development Opportunities” overlaps
with “Clear Goals”. This indicates that these or/and other drivers might be of equal
importance, but the employees might not be aware of this fact. This also suggests that if
you have something that meets your expectations, it does not drive you to be more
engaged. If this is the case, this research can lose some of its value. This fact is what
makes evaluation of engagement and other psychological concepts so difficult.
The focus groups revealed that the Team Engagement Survey was a bit too long. The
survey included 70 questions as recommended by Custom Insight (2013). However, a too
long survey can lead to lower quality of the responses as the respondents may get tired of
filling out the survey and spend less time reading and thinking about the questions
(Custom Insight, 2013). The focus groups also revealed that some respondents were
nervous for their anonymity and they might have answered more positively than what
they actually thought.
Because of only one company referent used in this study the conclusions are only
applicable to that company and that means that one cannot generalize the results. Further
research can determine if these drivers are typical of the customer services industry and if
they are generalizable to other industries. With more companies in the study, the results
could have been validated. Although as stated in the literature review by MacLeod and
Clarke (2011), there are no drivers of engagement that fit into all industries and
companies.
The focus group results revealed that the survey failed to take into account the work itself
as a potential driver. It is possible that the work itself and other potential drivers, as
77
suggested in the focus groups (financial incentives, more challenging work and
competitions) should be looked into in further research. It is interesting to note that work
itself was identified as a driver in Section 2 by Fleck and Ingeoglu (2010) in the literature
review.
Some questions in the Team Engagement Survey count on employees’ self-report of their
levels of engagement, which might have inflated the relationships among the variables.
There is evidence in the literature about self-serving bias when employees report their
own behaviours (Johns, 1994).
78
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Appendix 1: Team Engagement Survey Hafslund Customer Services Centre
Thank you for taking your time to answer this survey.
The Purpose of this Survey: This survey is a part of a master thesis done by student Oda
Hoftun and supervisor Dr. Paul Tolchinsky at Webster University Vienna in Austria. The
main purpose of the study is to examine what energize teams for the full-time employees
in Hafslund Customer Services Centre. Followed-up focus groups with selected team
members will also be conducted after the survey.
What is Team engagement? “a team’s experiences of heightened positive motivational
and energized state towards team orientated goals”.
Some Practical Information: This survey is confidential and it will not be given any
reports on an individual level. It will take around 10 minutes to answer this survey. If any
questions about this survey please contact Oda Hoftun on: [email protected] or
93648188.
Thank you and good luck.
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Team Engagement Survey Part 1Engagement Drivers: The drivers of engagement are the factors that impact your team’s ability to stay engaged and motivated.
1. Clear Goals
2. How important is the variable "Clear Goals" for you in order to stay engaged in your job?
3. Development Opportunities
97
Strongly Disagree
Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree
Agree Don't know
I have a good understanding of the goals of my team
o o o o o
I understand how my teams work directly contributes to the overall success of the organization
o o o o o
My team leader sets challenging but achievable goals
o o o o o
Not at all Important
Somewhat Unimportant
Neither Important nor Unimportant
Somewhat Important
Very Important
Don't know
Clear Goals
o o o o o o
Strongly Disagree
Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree
Agree Don't know
I trust that if I do good work, my team leader will consider me for promotion
o o o o o
There is room for me to advance within the company
o o o o o
My team leader helps me to develop to my fullest potential
o o o o o
4. How important is the variable "Development Opportunities" for you in order to stay engaged in your job?
Not at all Important
Somewhat Unimportant
Neither Important nor Unimportant
Somewhat Important
Very Important
Don't know
Development Opportunities
o o o o o o
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5. Crossover Effect
Strongly Disagree
Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree
Agree Don't know
In our team we have a positive mood
o o o o o
The moods of my colleges are infectious to me
o o o o o
My team leader models behaviours such as being positive, excited and engaged
o o o o o
99
6. How important is the variable "Crossover Effect" for you in order to stay engaged in your job?
Not at all Important
Somewhat Unimportant
Neither Important nor Unimportant
Somewhat Important
Very Important
Don't know
Crossover Effect
o o o o o o
100
7. Team Identification
Strongly Disagree
Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree
Agree Don't know
I’m pride to be a member of my team
o o o o o
When I talk about my team, I usually say “we” rather than “they”
o o o o o
When someone praises my team, it feels like a personal compliment
o o o o o
101
8. How important is the variable "Team Identification" for you in order to stay engaged from a scale from 1-7?
Not at all Important
Somewhat Unimportant
Neither Important nor Unimportant
Somewhat Important
Very Important
Don't know
Team Identification
o o o o o o
102
9. Team Empowerment
Strongly Disagree Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree
Agree Don't know
We are given the freedom to do our jobs effectively
o o o o o
My team makes our own decisions
o o o o o
On my team, we can take action to satisfy a customer without worrying about being second-guessed by our team leader
o o o o o
My team has the freedom to decide our own work
o o o o o
103
10. How important is the variable "Team Empowerment" for you in order to stay engaged in your job?
Not at all Important
Somewhat Unimportant
Neither Important nor Unimportant
Somewhat Important
Very Important
Don't know
Team Empowerment
o o o o o o
104
11. Transformational Leadership
Strongly Disagree
Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree
Agree Don't know
My team leader builds a climate that is perceived to be safe and supportive
o o o o o
My team leader communicates effectively to all team members
o o o o o
My team leader builds a climate that is enjoyable
o o o o o
My team leader are flexible in recognizing, understanding and adapting to individual needs and views
o o o o o
My team leader recognizes high levels of teams performance
o o o o o
My team leader recognizes scores on high levels of customer service quality
o o o o o
My team leader helps me to develop confidence in my own ability to do my job well
o o o o o
My team leader treats my teammates fairly
o o o o o
My team leader treats my teammates with respect
o o o o o
105
12. How important is the variable "Transformational Leadership" for you in order to stay engaged in your job?
Not at all Important
Somewhat Unimportant
Neither Important nor Unimportant
Somewhat Important
Very Important
Don't know
Transformational Leadership
o o o o o o
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13. Team Task
Strongly Disagree
Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree
Agree Don't know
My teams tasks are clearly defined
o o o o o
I have the resources I need to do my job most effectively
o o o o o
My team have the right skills to perform our tasks effectively
o o o o o
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14. How important is the variable "Team Task" for you in order to stay engaged from a scale from 1-7?
Not at all Important
Somewhat Unimportant
Neither Important nor Unimportant
Somewhat Important
Very Important
Don't know
Team Task o o o o o o
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15. Organizational Climate for team-based working
Strongly Disagree
Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree
Agree Don't know
My organization reward team performance over individual performance
o o o o o
Individual performance is rewarded in such a way that internal competitiveness don’t disturbs teamwork
o o o o o
My teamwork is rewarded collectively in such a way that everyone in my team benefits from it
o o o o o
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16. How important is the variable "Organizational Climate for team-based working" for you in order to stay engaged in your job?
Not at all Important
Somewhat Unimportant
Neither Important nor Unimportant
Somewhat Important
Very Important
Don't know
Organizational Climate
o o o o o o
110
17. Voice
Strongly Disagree
Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree
Agree Don't know
My ideas have a meaningful impact on workplace decisions
o o o o o
I feel I have an opportunity to indirectly influence the decisions to my team leader
o o o o o
I feel safe to speak my mind about how things can be improved
o o o o o
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18. How important is the variable "Voice" for you in order to stay engaged in your job?
Not at all Important
Somewhat Unimportant
Neither Important nor Unimportant
Somewhat Important
Very Important
Don't know
Voice o o o o o o
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Team Engagement Survey Part 2State of Engagement: is the team's current state of engagement. This is your team’s enthusiasm and involvement in their job.
19. Backing-up behaviour
Strongly Disagree
Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree
Agree Don't know
I can count on my teammates to get the job done
o o o o o
My teammates welcome each others success
o o o o o
When a team member is absent, my team helps each other with the extra workload in order to reach the team’s performance
o o o o o
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20. Interaction frequently
Strongly Disagree
Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree
Agree Don't know
In my team, we usually sit together when we are having lunch
o o o o o
In my team, most of my teammates have contact after work
o o o o o
In my team, we communicate often about work related questions
o o o o o
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21. Feeling of Engagement The following 15 statements are about how you feel at work. Please read each statement carefully and decide if you ever feel this way about your job.
Never A few times a year or less
Once a month or less
A few times a month
Once a week
A few times a week
Every day
At my work, I feel bursting with energy
o o o o o o o
I find the work that I do full of meaning and purpose
o o o o o o o
Time flies when I'm working
o o o o o o o
At my job, I feel strong and vigorous
o o o o o o o
I am enthusiastic about my job
o o o o o o o
When I am working, I forget everything else around me
o o o o o o o
My job inspires me
o o o o o o o
When I get up in the morning, I feel like going to work
o o o o o o o
I feel happy when I am working intensely
o o o o o o o
I am proud on the work that I do
o o o o o o o
I am immersed in my work
o o o o o o o
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I can continue working for very long periods at a time
o o o o o o o
To me, my job is challenging
o o o o o o o
I get carried away when I’m working
o o o o o o o
At my job, I am very resilient, mentally
o o o o o o o
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Appreciative Inquiry Questions Part 322. On a scale from 1-10 how engaged are you (where 1 is least engaged and 10 is most engaged)?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10o o o o o o o o o o
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23. Why didn’t you mark a lower score?
24. What needs to change to move 1-2 points higher?
Background Information Part 4 25. Gender Male Female
26. Age Under 25 26-35 36-45 46-55 Over 56
27. What is your highest level of education? High school Bachelor degree Master degree Other
28. Name of your team? Berisha Melling Kaloshi Roskifte Quality Other
29. Current Position? Customer Services Advisor Senior Customer Services Advisor Sales Back Office
30. Time in current position? Less than half a year Between half a year and 3 years 3 years or more
Thank you for your participations.
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Appendix 2: Connections Variables Engagement
Key Drivers of Engagement Individual and Organization Level Key Drivers of Engagement, Individual and Organization Level
Definition/Description about the term Included Features
Voice The ability of employees to have meaningful input into workplace decisions
Voice increases perceptions of fairness
Trust Trust occurs in situations where employees are treated fairly by supervisors, peers and their organization. Fairness leads to trust and trust in turn creates improved probability that employees will take risks to be engaged.
Fairness climateTrustSafetyRisks
Person-Job & Person-
The work environment shapes the experience the employees have of their
Look at table 1 bellow
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Organization fit work, and can either push the employees to become engaged or drive them towards disengagement.
Affect regulation, recovery and relaxation
Affective states: what a person is feeling in any moment, e.g. sadness or happiness.Affect Regulation: a particular form of self-regulation with intention to foster a person’s positive affective states & managing a person’s negative affective states.Relaxing activities at work (e.g. listening to music or drinking a tee during break) positively associated with engagement.
Thinking of something pleasant ReappraisalSeek social supportReappraisalVentingEnjoyable cognitive distraction “Supporting strategies” (strategies for supporting working environment)Relaxing activitiesActive/Energy activities Cognitive distractions
Job Resources Job resources: the physical, social or organizational aspects of the job that possibly will reduce job demands, be efficient in achieving goals or stimulate personal growth.
AutonomySocial support from co-workersSkill variety
Personal resources
Personal resources: individual’s positive psychological state of development.
Self-efficacyOrganizational based self-esteemOptimism
Relationship with immediate supervisor, belief in senior leadership and pride in working for the company.
Relationship with immediate supervisorBelief in senior leadershipPride in working for the company
Feedback, autonomy, social support and organizational climate
Management’s ability to demonstrate leadership and strategic directions that builds confidence for long-term successEffective reward programsFrequent, clear, two-way employee communication
Key Drivers of Team Engagement and Organization Level
Key Drivers of Engagement Individual and
Definition/Description about the term
Included Features
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Organization LevelTeam task The design of a team task is critical
input for deciding how team members must work together, including team members’ roles, workflow processes, collective goals and team member interactions.Task interdependence are especially important, which is the extent to which team members must share materials, information or knowledge to perform their job.Highly engaged teams are those that identify the high level of task interdependency required and interact frequently in positive and adaptive ways.
Task design should follow the team’s missions and goals. The mission and goals should be closely aligned with the organization’s corporate strategy and objectives.The task should be completely defined.Team should have the right composition, skills and resources necessary to achieve the task. Aspects to consider: personalities, expert knowledge and social skills, material, administrative & technological requirements.
Sharing meaningful vision
Meaningful work: work that has challenge and variety allows for autonomy and provides people with feedback. In addition, work that is aligned with one’s values and seen as contributing to the company’s success contributes to feelings that one’s work is meaningful.
Clear and meaningful team vision.Shared meaningful team vision should be based on team objectives.
Team potency Team potency: the team’s shared belief that the teamwork can be effective.Team potency can also relate to the crossover effect.Crossover is the transfer of positive or negative experiences from teams to individual team members.High functioning teams were more positive than low functioning team.
Optimism, positive attitudes, and proactive behaviours towards their colleagues.Positive feelingsPositive emotionsPositive moodEngaged managers
Team identification
Social identity theory: individuals define themselves by the group to which they belong.
Norms are the important factor to create a common social identity.If team norms encourage to high-level engagement, there is expectancy that the team shows greater efforts.
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Team empowerment
Team psychological empowerment: collective belief that they have the authority to control their proximal work environment and are responsible for their team’s functioning”.Structural empowerment: the actual practice of assigning responsibility, exercising control and delegating authority. The idea is that the team members that are in best position to know the what, how and when of the task should have the power and responsibility to do it.Empowered teams are characterized as having increased task motivation resulting from an individual’s positive orientation toward his or her work role.
Empowered teams determine their own decisions.Empowered teams are characterized of task autonomy, self-efficacy, added value and impact.In order to transform a team into empowered teams includes: more task control toward aligning the team’s values, beliefs and norms to the overall organization.In order for the team to be empowered, the organization and leaders need to emphasize trust and commitment.
Team psychological safety
Psychological safety: feeling able to show and employ one’s self without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status of career.
Team psychological safety is important for engagement as it supports an environment in which the team members feel confident to be themselves and can speak openly without being rejected, punished or embarrassed by their team.Team goals are also important for psychological safety as they take the attention away from the individual to the team.
Organizational climate for team-based working
The team climate is what it feels like to work in a given team and is based on employees’ perception of the team environment.Team-based organizations need a commitment within the organization and a belief that organizational goals will be achieved by teams working cooperatively together which require an organization climate that support team-based working.
Rewarding team performance rather than individual performance although both teams and individuals must be recognized and rewarded.Shared objectives by involving all teamsVoice: team have a say in important decisionsOrganization’s communication system The physical space of the team’s workplace
Alignment of organization and team values and objective
Alignment gets all the organization and team resources working in collaboration and move in the same direction.
Organizations should provide a close alignment between organizational and team values and objectives.Team members are given collectively controlTeam’s tasks are seen to be equally important both to the success of the team and the organization
Transformational leadership
Transformational leadership is about “”leading” - changing the organization’s strategies and culture so they have a better fit with the surrounding environment. Transformational leaders are change
Engage in transformational leadership behaviours that communicate and encourage the meaningfulness of work, that build climates that are perceived to be safe and supportive and they can model behaviours being positive,
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agents who energize and direct employees to new sets of corporate values and behaviours”.Transformational leadership is an intrinsically based motivation process that creates an emotional and intellectual connection with their employees that motivates the employees to engage in high effort levels.Supervisors are more centrally important than other managers for managing individual performance.
exited and fully engaged by achieving roles that meet organization goals.Supervisors can influence the design of jobs, roles, levels of autonomy, systems and workplace structures that encourage willingness for employees to engage emotionally and cognitively at work.
