“Every person carries within him-or herself patterns of thinking, feeling and potential acting that were learned throughout the person’s lifetime. Much of it was acquired in early childhood, because at that time a person is most susceptible to learning and assimilating. As soon as certain patterns of thinking, feeling and acting have established themselves within a person’s mind, he or she must unlearn theses patterns before being able to learn something different and unlearning is more difficult than learning for the first time”

(Hofstede et al.,2010,p.4).                                                                                                      

                                                                                                                                                                  

Introduction

Employee Engagement is a workplace approach which plays a vital role when considering the Organizational Performance. According to Vance (2006), the employer will “go the extra mile” and perform extremely well if his or her level of engagement towards the work assigned is high. Jaupi and Llaci (2015) believed there is a connection between employee engagement and business results. From employer’s point of view, employee engagement is the where the employee fits energetically and actively towards organizational goals and objectives. Further, Organization is concerned that employee engagement focuses mainly on positive attitudes and behaviours of employees where they feel the pride and being loyal for the organization at the same time. From employee’s point of view, employee engagement is a combination of Job Satisfaction, Psychological contract, Motivation and Commitment. Employees are identified as assets of an organization and according to Armstrong (2010); an organization can achieve competitive advantage in those assets (employees) by employee engagement through strategic and conscious investments. Organizations are where the theme employee engagement dynamically put in to practice.

Employee Engagement

According to Armstrong (2008), engagement is the development and implementation of policies designed to increase the level of employees’ with their work and the organization. A simple way of defining this theory is keeping promises to employees by their organization or giving reasonable and satisfactory explanations on the reasons why the promises cannot be kept. Armstrong (2014) saw engagement as having three core features:

1.      Intellectual Engagement - Thinking hard about the job and how to do it better

2.      Affective Engagement    -  Feeling positively about doing a good job

3.      Social Engagement         -  Actively taking opportunities to discuss work-related    

                                            Improvements with others at work 

The term ‘engagement’ can be described where the people or employees of a particular organization are positively interactive, excited, motivated and discretionarily committed towards their job or work Armstrong (2014).

The Components of Employee Engagement

Figure 1

                                             

SOURCE: Armstrong (2014)

Positive Discretionary Behaviour and Employee Engagement

According to Armstrong (2010), there is well-established connection in between employee engagement and discretionary behavior.

·     When the employees of an organization are highly motivated or experiencing higher levels of job  satisfaction, employee engagement occurs more.

·   When the HR policies of an organization concerned more on creation of a capable workforce, the  employees take positive aspects of those policies which results increased commitment, motivation  and job satisfaction either together or separately.

·      If the number of HR policies required developing ability, motivation and opportunity are in place and reinforced, the positive approach may be more accepted.

·      The way in which the top management has implemented and the front-line managers have adopted the HR policies may enhance or weaken the effect of the same.

·      The more the positive outcomes experienced the more the positive attitudes generated.

The Sears Roebuck Model/ Engagement Model

Figure 2: The Sears Roebuck Model: Employee-Customer-Profit Chain     

SOURCE: Armstrong (2006)

Drivers of Employee Engagement

Armstrong (2014) listed following as drivers of employee engagement:

·        Job Challenge - This takes place when there is a job with broader scope, high

responsibility and high risk appears.

·        Autonomy  - The freedom and independence allowed for employees when

they schedule and structure their work.

·        Variety - Jobs with a variety that is jobs performed with different sets of activities and skills.

·        Feedback - Direct and clear information will be provided on how effective the employees performed.

·        Fit - The amount of compatibility between the employee and his or her work environment which allows employees to see what they want to see.

·        Opportunities for development - Employees’ committed work are appraised by providing pathways to climb up towards their growth.

·        Rewards and recognition - Represents direct and indirect returns on personal initiatives and investments of employees.

Characteristics of Employees based on Engagement Level  

According to Krueger and Killham (2006), the following are the engagement levels:

 1.     Engaged Employees - Express great passion and very well connected to their work

2.      Disengaged Employees - Express no passion at all, just completing their day-to-day work

3.      Actively Disengaged Employees – Unhappy employees spreading unhappiness

Figure 3: The Three Types of Employees

                              (Source: Krueger and Killham, 2006)

Positive Aspects of Employee Engagement

According to Jaupi and Lalci (2015), well-established relationship exists between Employee engagement and motivation. Muzee, Bagire and Ngoma (2016) stressed out that as more and more employees are looking for pleasing working environments, their engagement level and self expression will also result high. Kazimoto (2016) identified employee engagement as the presence of workers at work place fulfilling their commitments and responsibilities. Further, Kazimoto (2016) indicates the measuring of employee engagement easily help organization understand the requirements needed to uphold organization performance.

Obeidat (2016) identified a key impact of employee engagement that is higher the employee engagement, higher the appliance of corporate social responsibility which results a gain in both the society and the organization. Obeidat (2016) further stressed out corporate social responsibility on the other hand will work as a tool to maintain the engagement of its current or existing employees. Dai and Qin (2016) signified there is a positive impact of employee engagement on organization’s performance considering long term developments. According to views of Bai and Liu (2018), the employee career growth has a considerable and severe impact on organizational commitment, employee engagement, turn-over intention and work performance.

Bellini, Ramaci and Bonaiuto (2015) insisted and claimed there is a core relationship between employee engagement and organizational cynicism. Cynicism is the belief of people and their motivations are purely by self-interest. Chandel (N D) confronted employee engagement act as an indicator to show up the involvement and association of an individual employee with an organization. The author insisted there is a lot to consider when it comes to the way the employees feel about their own organization and how well they are being treated by their own organization.

Aspects Where Employee Engagement Will Not Simply Work

Though, Davis and Cates (2013) insisted the major issues in which the employers have to deal with as workplace isolation issues and the lack of employee engagement, Beetham and okhai (2017) argued that the people with low engagement and low career well being are just waiting for the end of the workday.

However, the negative aspects of employee engagement are also researched and published by a number of researchers. Zhang (2019) insisted on the employee pressure and resistance caused by organizational change. That pressure and resistance will develop root cause problem with engaged employees as well as not-engaged and actively disengaged employees. According to Zhang (2019), there are three categories of technical changes where the employee pressure and resistance will emerge.

1       The Replacement of Equipment

2       The Change of Working Mode and Working Environment

3       The Improvement of employees’ knowledge and skills

            Though the employees are actively engaged and highly motivated, these changes will give both positive and negative impacts on their performance irrelevant their level of engagement and motivation.

    

T

The Relevance of Employe Engagement to the Service Industry in Sri Lanka

The organization which I worked for is a leading commercial bank in Sri Lanka. The organization maintains a culture where the employee and employer both will benefit the positive aspects of employee engagement. According to the Annual Report of 2017, the bank serves its customers with staff strength of 4,982 both in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh bank are maintaining 280 and 19 branches respectively.

Table 1:  

Comparison between the Financial Years 2017 and 2016 with regard to the Employees

	2017	2016
Total Employees	4,982	4,987
New Employee Hires	4.88%	5.43%
Attrition Rate	4.86%	4.61%
Return to work after Maternity Leave	94.64%	95.38%
Skill Development Programmes	12,937 Hours	14,650 Hours
Percentage of Employees receiving Performance Evaluations	100%	100%

(Source: Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC Annual Report 2017)

Adherence to standards, policies, rules and regulations requires the positive engagement, dedication and commitment of the employees of the bank. The employees continuing discharge their duties and prepare themselves with higher skills and qualities inspired by the bank with their loyalty and active participation. Further, Bank is also putting up and implements strategies to place the necessary systems and processes to support the employees’ valuable work.

Recommendations and Conclusion

On the one hand engaged employees will result higher productivity, enhanced individual performance, high retention, higher customer satisfaction and profitability, improved attention and reduced levels of staff churn or attrition rates in the organizational performance of any organization. On the other hand, actively disengaged and not-engaged employees will result less productivity, higher staff churns rates, lower employee retention, and poor attendance, less customer orientation and de-motivation and frustration among colleagues in the organization. Though the theme employee engagement is still emerging and relatively new to SHRM, Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC as a leading and award winning private bank in the industry is successfully attracting highly engaged, self motivated and committed work force through their best practices which involves the creation of better and healthy working environment for the employees and the strong relationship building between the employees, management and the top management. From the beginning process that is from the recruitment process of the employees, throughout the trainings and other skills development programme conduction and towards retention of employees, an organization must focus on active employee engagement and commitment while building up a healthy and supportive working environment.    

  

  

List Of References

Armstrong, M. (2006) A Handbook of HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE, 10, 41.

Armstrong, M. (2008) STRATEGIC HUMEN RESORCE MANAGEMENT. A GUIDE TO ACTION, 4, 59.

Armstrong, M. (2010) The ARMSTRONG’S ESSENTIAL HUMAN RESORCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE. A GUIDE TO PEOPLE MANAGEMENT, 1, 72-157.

Armstrong, M. (2014) ARMSTRONG’S HANDBOOK OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE, 13, 194-196.

Bai, J. and Liu, J. (2018) A Study on the Influence of Career Growth on Work Engagement among New Generation Employees. Open Journal of Business Management, 6, 300-317.

Beetham, J. and Okhai, L. (2017) Workplace Dyslexia & Specific Learning Difficulties-Productivity, Engagement and Well-Being. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 5, 61.

Bellini, D., Ramaci, T. and Bonaiuto, M. (2015) The Restorative Effect of the Environment on Organizational Cynicism and Work Engagement. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies, 3, 124-135.

Chandel, P. (N D) EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND ITS EFFECT ON ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT AND JOB PERFORMANCE: A STUDY OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS, Ph. D. Thesis. Bahra University.

Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC (2017) Annual Report.

Dai, K. and Qin, X. (2016) Perceived Organizational Support and Employee Engagement: Based on the Research of Organizational Identification and Organizational Justice. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 4, 47.

Davis, R. and Cates, S. (2013) The Dark Side of Working in a Virtual World: An Investigation of the Relationship between Workplace Isolation and Engagement among Teleworkers. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies, 1, 10.

Hofstede, G.,Hofstede G.J and Minko, M. (2010) Cultures and Organizations SOFTWARE OF THE MIND. 1^st ed. McGraw-HILL.

Jaupi, F. and Llaci, S. (2015) The Impact of Communication Satisfaction and Demographic Variables on Employee Engagement. Journal of Service Science and Management, 8, 191-200.

Kazimoto, P. (2016) Employee Engagement and Organizational Performance of Retails Enterprises. American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, 6, 516-517.

Krueger, J. and Killham, E. (2006) Who's Driving Innovation at Your Company?. [Online]

Available at: <http://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/24472/whos-driving-innovation-your-company.aspx/>.[Accessed on 14 May 2019].

Muzee, H., Bagire, V and Ngoma, M. (2016) Strategic Leadership and Employee Engagement, Evidences from an African Industrial Setting. Open Access Library Journal, 3, 2.

Obeidat, B. Y. (2016) Exploring the Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility, Employee Engagement, and Organizational Performance: The Case of Jordanian Mobile Telecommunication Companies. 9, 363-364.

Vance, R. J. (2006) Employee Engagement and Commitment a guide to understanding, measuring and increasing engagement in your organization, 1(1).pp.2[Online].Available at<www.shrm.org. >.[Accessed on 14^th May 2019].

Zhang, Y. (2019) Research on Employee Pressure and Resistance Caused by Organizational Change-A Case Study of Jingyi Network Co. Ltd.. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 7, 74-77.