Employee Engagement in Private Schools

 Defining Employee Management.

Employee Management as the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employee and express themselves physically, cognitively and emotionally during role performance (Kahn, 1990).

According to (Kahn, 1990) engagement means to be both psychologically and physically present when occupying and performing an organizational role. Employee engagement can be defined simply as passion for work (Truss , et al., 2006).

Further employee engagement is defined as employee willingness and ability to help their company succeed; largely by providing discretionary effort on a sustainable basis (Perrin , 2003). Engagement was individual’s involvement and satisfaction with as well as enthusiasm for work (Harter, et al., 2002).

The components of Employee Engagement.

Engagement consists of three overlapping namely Motivation, Commitment and Organizational Citizenship.

Figure 1 IES Model of Employee Engagement

Source: (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014)

 

Commitment

Engagement contain many of the elements of commitment (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). Organizational commitment is the degree to which an individual identifies with an organization and is committed to its goals (Little & Little , 2006).

Motivation

When the work itself is meaningful it is also said to have intrinsic motivation (Macey, et al., 2009).

Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Organizational citizenship behavior as originally defined by (Organ, 1988) is employee behavior that goes above and beyond the call duty and contributes to organizational effectiveness.

Organizational citizenship is defined as being respectful of and helpful to colleagues and willingness to go the extra mile (Robinson , et al., 2004) or working longer hours, trying harder, accomplishing more and speaking positively about the organization (Kumar & Swetha , 2011).

Drivers of Employee Engagement

According to (Crawford, et al., 2013) listed the following drivers which effect on employee engagement.

·         Job Challenge

Job challenge takes place when the scope of jobs is broad, job responsibility is high and there is a high work load.

·         Autonomy

The freedom, independence and discretion allowed to employee in scheduling their work and determining the procedures for carrying it out. It provides a sense of ownership and control over work outcomes.

·         Variety

Jobs which allow individuals to perform many different activities or use many different skills.

·         Feedback

Providing employees with direct and clear information about the effectiveness of their performance.

·         Fit

The existence of compatibility between an individual and a work environment.

·         Opportunities for development

These make work meaningful because they provide pathways for employee growth and fulfillment.

·         Rewards and recognition

These present both direct and indirect returns on the personal investment of one’s time in acting out a work role. 

The drivers can increase employee engagement level (Markos & Sridevi, 2010). Therefore, (Robinson , et al., 2004) points out that the key drivers of employee engagement is a sense of feeling valued and involved which has the components such as involvement in decision making the extent to which employee feels able to voice their ideas, the opportunities employee have to develop their jobs and the extent to which the organization is concerned for employees’ health and well-being. 

Figure 2 Engagement Drivers

 Sources: (Smith & Markwick, 2009)

Outcomes of Engagement

The following outcomes were listed by (Stairs & Galpin , 2009).

·         Lower absenteeism and high employee retention

·         Increased productivity

·         Improve quality and reduced error rates

·         Enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

·         Faster business growth

According to 2007, cited in Levison, 2009 (Smith & Markwick, 2009) found that employees who are happy in their work are more likely to stay in the organization. Engagement is not manly forcing employees to work hard but about providing the necessary conditions in which they will work more effectively through releasing employee’s discretionary behavior (Demerouti & Bakker, 2014).

Employee engagement leads to both individual outcomes such as quality of people’s work and their own experiences of doing that work, as well as organizational level outcomes for example growth and productivity of organizations (Kahn, 1992 ).

Different measures of engagement such as involvement and enthusiasm connect to such variables as employee turnover, customer satisfaction loyalty, and safety and to a lesser degree, productivity and profitability criteria (Harter, et al., 2002).

The basic requirement of education is enhancing knowledge, skills and attitude among students and teachers are highly responsible for maintaining high standards in academic, extracurricular activities and sports. In context of academics teaching, marking of books and conducting examinations termly are done my teachers. Organizing extracurricular activities and sports events provides more opportunities for children to showcase their talents and sharpen them.

All above mention duties are generally performed by the typical teachers in the Network of schools where I work in. if employee engagement is brought to the organization, the teachers may go beyond discharging fundamental duties and do extra work in order to uplift the educational standard of slow learners by working along with extra hours. Subject teachers can think out of the box and can implement a leadership training sessions in order to inculcate leadership qualities among students rather than teaching only the subject matters.

References

Armstrong, M. & Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. 13 ed. UK: Ashford Colour press Ltd.

Crawford, E. R., Bitch, R. L., Buckman, B. & Bergeron, J. J. M., 2013. The antecendents and drivers of employee engagement in (eds) . In: Employee Engagement in Theory and Practice. London : Routledge, pp. 57-81.

Demerouti, E. & Bakker, A. B., 2014. Job Demands-Resources Theory. Wellbing: A complete Reference Guide, Volume 3, pp. 37-64.

Harter, J. K., Schmidt, F. L. & Hayes , T. L., 2002. Business-unit level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: a meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, Volume 87, pp. 268-279.

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

Kahn, W. A., 1992 . To be full there: psychological presence at work. Human Relations, Volume 45 , pp. 321-349.

Kumar , P. D. & Swetha , G., 2011. A Prognostic Examination of Employee Engagement from its Historical Roots. International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, 2(3).

Little, B. & Little , P., 2006. Employee engagement: conceptual issues. Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict, 10(1), pp. 111-120.

Macey, H., Schneider, B., Barbera, K. M. & Young , S. A., 2009. Employee Engagement: Tools for Analysis, Practice, and Competitive Advantage. Personnel Psychology , 65(1).

Markos , S. & Sridevi, S. M., 2010. Employee Engagement: The Key to Improving Performance. International Journal of Business and Management , 5(12), pp. 89-96.

Organ, D. W., 1988. Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Good Soldier Syndrome. Lexington: Lexington Books/D. C. Heath and Com.

Perrin , T., 2003. Working Today: Understanding What Drives Employee Engagement, USA: Scarlett survey.

Robinson , D. L., Perryman, S. & Hayday, S., 2004. The Drivers of Employee Engagement. Brighton: Institute for Employment Studies.

Smith , G. R. & Markwick, C., 2009. Enabling Engagement in Practice . In: Employee Engagement A review of current thinking. Brighton: Institute for Employeement Studies   , pp. 28-42.

Smith , G. R. & Markwick, C., 2009. Outcomes of Engagement . In: Employee Engagement A review of current thinking . Brighton: Institute for Employment Studies, pp. 16-22.

Stairs, M. & Galpin , M., 2009. Positive Engagement: From Employee Engagement to Workplace Happiness  . In: N. Garcea, S. Harrington & P. A. Linley, eds. Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology and Work. New York: The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology and Work,Oxford University Press .

Truss , C. et al., 2006. Working Life: Employee Attitudes and Engagement, London: Kingston Business School.