This free course, Employment relations and employee engagement, explores an important topical concept in Human Resource Management, namely ‘employee engagement’.
Human resource management is premised on the idea that organisational success stems from the ability to extract a greater degree of willing employee commitment to corporate objectives, rather than merely competing on price or product quality. The implication is that what matters is the way in which employees choose to undertake their jobs and, crucially, the extent of ‘discretionary effort’ they are prepared to expend (Rees, Alfes, and Gatenby, 2013). Against this backdrop, raising levels of employee engagement is the latest in a long line of managerial strategies aimed at releasing employee discretion and aligning employee interests more closely with managerial goals, predicated on the assumption that this will in turn boost organisational performance.
Employees who are more engaged with their work are thus viewed to be more likely to behave in positive and cooperative ways, to the benefit of both the firm and themselves (CIPD, 2014a). It is also argued that engaged employees outperform others by showing heightened interest in their work and being prepared to ‘go the extra mile’ for their organisation (CIPD, 2014a). The claim has also been made that engaged employees see their work as more meaningful and fulfilling, and appear to experience increased job satisfaction (Truss et al. 2013). In this way it has been argued that there are potential individual and organisational benefits of employee engagement.
A problem arises however when we look at empirical evidence of engagement. Studies have shown that most employees are in fact not engaged at work – according to one study, it’s fewer than 40% (CIPD, 2012). An employment relations perspective of employee engagement is thus somewhat more critical than the view expressed in the previous paragraph. Questions arise as to the following issues: Who benefits from employee engagement? To what extent is it possible to deal with external contextual constraints to achieve an engaged workforce (for example the state of the economy)? To what extent are the internal contextual constraints (such as poor management, lack of worker discretion, and low levels of employee voice) obstacles to engagement?
This course investigates various facets of employee engagement from a variety of different perspectives. The discussion opens with a critique of the concept itself, as well as the purported outcomes of employee engagement, including an exploration of both engagement and disengagement and the link between engagement and emotional labour. Employee engagement is then examined through the lens of its antecedents, including investigation of the concept of trust, the impacts of partnership and collaboration, as well as employee voice, communication and involvement. The impact of organisational change on employee engagement is also explored.
This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course B866 Employment relations and employee engagement.
After studying this course, you should be able to:
describe and critique the concept of employee engagement
identify problems associated with both over-engagement and disengagement
examine the extent to which emotional and aesthetic labour are positioned in some contemporary organisations
critically evaluate the measurement of employee engagement
identify the issues associated with employee engagement in times of organisational change, including the role of effective communications during organisational change.
Employee engagement is defined as ‘a set of positive attitudes and behaviours enabling high job performance of a kind which is in tune with the organisation’s mission’. The three facets of engagement are:
This course offers a critical review of employee engagement within the broader context of employment relations. This is particularly important given the attention and significance attributed to employee engagement in discussions of HRM and business success more broadly. For example in the UK, the MacLeod Commission Report (2009) has now become part of the Engage for Success movement. In the organisation’s own words:
Engage for Success is a movement committed to the idea that there is a better way to work, a better way to enable personal growth, organisational growth and ultimately growth for Britain by releasing more of the capability and potential of people at work.
The MacLeod Commission involved government, academics and organisations working together to set an agenda for employment relations within UK firms. As Truss et al. (2014, p. 1) note, this is a potentially powerful coalition which can exert a strong influence within the UK regarding ‘best practice’ management and HRM.
The first stage of our critical review is an interrogation of the concept of ‘employee engagement’ itself. Given its prominence we might assume that engagement must be well understood. For example, ‘Engage for Success’ presents it as a ‘workplace approach’:
…designed to ensure that employees are committed to their organisation’s goals and values, motivated to contribute to organisational success, and are able at the same time to enhance their own sense of well-being.
However, there is some dispute about the origins of the word ‘engagement’. Schaufeli (2014, p. 18) suggests the word originates in a Gallup poll of workplace environments from the 1990s, while Kahn’s (1990) article ‘The psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work’ is also often cited as an original source. Kahn’s (1990) work is premised on the notion that the individual has a ‘true self’ which they can manage and decide to involve or withhold during work-related activities:
I defined personal engagement as the harnessing of organisation members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances. I defined personal disengagement as the uncoupling of selves from work roles; in disengagement, people withdraw and defend themselves physically, cognitively, or emotionally during role performances.
This conception relies on a particular psychological conceptualisation of identity and on ascribing agency to the individual concerned. That is to say, it is the individual who decides whether they are going to engage with or disengage from their work. Both these assumptions have been challenged considerably in the academic literature (Truss et al., 2014) and prompted much debate in the field.
It has been argued for example that literature on the subject mostly presents engagement as a ‘win-win’ situation without acknowledging the impact on employees (Jenkins and Delbridge, 2013). Some researchers go further and have criticised the managerialist orientation within engagement literature for ignoring the ‘dark side’ of engagement for employees, that is, the negative impact for employees when management seek to increase discretionary effort to improve performance (George, 2011).
Another critique of the concept of engagement is that the influences of internal and external organisational contexts for engagement are largely underdeveloped. Specifically, it remains to be assessed how engagement initiatives relate to the current global economic and political climate of adversity and cost control (Truss et al., 2013). Against this backdrop, Thompson (2011) argues that management are faced with a series of ‘disconnections’ related to wider economy which means that they cannot always deliver positive benefits to employees. According to Kaufmann (2010, pp. 304-5):
In the real world of competitive business the only metric of ‘best practice’ and ‘high performance’ that has long-run survival value is ‘most profits’. The implication is that the notion of employee engagement is management-centric, underestimates potential conflicts of interest and may be methodologically fraught with mis-specification.
HRM policies and practices used to elicit employee engagement can be applied to the individual employee, to employees as a collective group or, as is sometimes argued, to both. A useful model here is the ‘VOICE framework’, outlined in Storey et al. (2009), as a means of addressing factors that might lead to appropriate employee engagement (see Figure 1). Click on the letters on the left-hand side of the image below to explore the different components of the VOICE framework.
The CIPD (2014a) have identified three related aspects of engagement that are also helpful in thinking about policies and practices that need to be in place to ensure these are facilitated:
The CIPD (2014a) further suggest that organisations need to pay attention to:
Different parties in the employment relations arena have held varying views on the quest for employee engagement. In some union quarters, engagement has been suspiciously regarded as yet another route towards job enlargement and work intensification. Other organisational actors have either dismissed engagement as yet another fad, or have not fully understood what it involves in terms of management competencies. The following quote highlights some of these issues
What will turn employee engagement into another short lived fad is if it is used by employers as a method to get people to work harder. It has been reported that there is some hesitation in trade union quarters to the engagement agenda since the emphasis on discretionary behaviour can be seen as merely working harder or giving more effort, in unpaid overtime for example. And it is true that in some cases of poor implementation of high performance working there have been incidents of increased stress and the intensification of work. If some managers take the view that employee engagement is about getting employees to work harder, union reluctance will be well founded, but the overwhelming evidence is of mutual gains. There is also evidence that some managers think that employee engagement is just about listening to their employees via an engagement attitude survey as a form of two way communication. This will kill off the interest in employee engagement quickly as employees realise it is a sham form of communication. Employee engagement is about much more than this. It is about building trust, involvement, a sense of purpose and identity where employees’ contribution to business success is seen as essential
Two aspects of the Purcell quote above are worth noting. First, it highlights the concepts of trust and voice in building an engaged workforce. These are important facets of engagement; their relationships with engagement are explored in more depth in later sections of this course.
Second, the focus in the Purcell quote above is largely on the impacts of engagement at the level of the individual, indeed, much of the literature on engagement focuses on the construct at the level of the individual. Research has suggested that both individual and collaborative engagement can lead to positive outcomes. Collaborative engagement is associated with partnerships between managers, unions and employees.
Evidence indicates that the benefits that can be gained from increasing ‘employee engagement’ can be counteracted if there is a hostile or poorly functioning relationship with the relevant union (Townsend , Wilkinson and Burgess, 2014). Other research by the CIPD (Gatenby, 2010) indicates that ‘collective representation’ and partnership with unions can be an effective driver for engagement.
Partnership between unions, management and employees can be seen as one route to collaborative mutual gains and engagement, although the goals must include the mutual gains and also the intermediate goals of improving the relationships (Townsend et al., 2014). A partnership requires a commitment from both parties to ensure institutional architecture is in place. Just as high performance HRM requires training and development to be in place, so too successful partnership requires space for the collaboration and partnership to take place. It needs to go beyond a formal document and live through the daily interactions between managers, employees and unions in the workplace.
Townsend et al. (2014) highlight two main prerequisites for collaborative engagement. The first involves the skills of line managers in collaborating and organising their line responsibilities, and the second is the nature of the relationships between managers and the union, when there is one present. Managers can work very hard at collaborating with employees, however, if there is a union present and the relationship is not a respectful, collaborative one, then employees are not as likely to respond as positively towards managerial initiatives. In short, collaboration or partnership with a union leads to much better outcomes for engagement than conflictual relationships with the union.
Existing literature and research makes a distinction made between engagement (regarded as a positive state for both self and work performance) and disengagement (regarded as a negative state). This binary construction does not seem to allow for a ‘neutral’ state for employees and encourages an either/or categorisation.
Engagement is defined by the extent to which people employ physical, cognitive and emotional degrees of themselves in their work. Engaged employees thus express their ‘authentic’ selves through physical involvement, cognitive awareness and emotional connections (Truss et al., 2013). Conversely, disengaged employees ‘uncouple’ themselves from their roles, suppressing personal involvement in physical, cognitive and emotional aspects of work.
Engaged workers are generally considered to be ‘happy productive workers’. For example, it has been suggested that ‘engaged employees often experience positive emotions, including happiness, joy, and enthusiasm; experience better health; create their own job and personal resources; and transfer their engagement to others’ (Bakker and Demerouti, 2008, p. 215). From this perspective it is difficult to see engagement as anything other than good for both employees and organisations.
Although low levels of engagement, or disengagement, have been viewed within the literature as problematic: for individuals, in that they have been associated with impaired well-being, and for organisations, as they are linked with low levels of performance. Another view is that high levels of engagement may be equally problematic; according to George (2011, p. 53), ‘the costs of high work engagement for employees deserve far greater attention than they have received to date and question to what extent high engagement is always such a positive experience for employees’.
George goes on to argue that rising levels of productivity are associated with work intensification and income inequality, and questions the legitimacy of organisations deliberately soliciting high engagement levels but failing to reward workers appropriately. An additional problem is the probability of impaired work–life balance for engaged workers. Against this background, engagement may not always be uniformly beneficial to employees.
There is thus some concern over the overwhelmingly positive perspective on employee engagement and even its proponents increasingly acknowledge it might have a ‘dark side’. In particular there is concern about the possibility of detrimental effects (for both individuals and organisations) of over-engagement (Bakker et al., 2011). Over-engagement can be defined as occurring when ‘highly-engaged workers become exceedingly involved in their work activities’ (Poulsen et al., 2014, p. 161), to the exclusion of other non-work activities. Presenteeism, the tendency to spend longer in the workplace than is necessary for the completion of work activity, has also been identified as a form of over-engagement (Griffiths and Karanika-Murray, 2012).
Over time, over-engagement has been linked to issues of workaholism (a psychological addiction to work resulting from extreme and prolonged over-engagement) and burnout (Griffiths and Karanika-Murray, 2012).
Some research has explored this relationship between employment engagement and burnout. In their review of the literature on burnout and the emergence of engagement, Maslach et al. (2001) describe how, up until the 1990s, work psychology had been predominantly concerned with negative states at work, like stress. They suggest that ‘engagement’ could be used as an alternative positive construction to ‘burnout’ (see Table 1).
Positive − engagement | Negative − burnout |
---|---|
Energy | Exhaustion |
Involvement | Cynicism |
Efficacy | Ineffectiveness |
This thinking was part of the turn to positive psychology and indicated an increased interest in employee well-being. This move was also reflected in the emergence of commitment rather than control approaches to HRM (Wall and Wood, 2005) and increased emphasis on mutual benefits for individuals and organisations from a ‘happy productive worker’.
Despite such concerns, employee engagement has developed into a considerable industry in its own right (Welbourne et al., 2011; Keenoy et al., 2014; Warren, 2009). In Activity 1 we explore a challenging view on the positive impact of engagement at work.
In order to reflect on the meaning of employee engagement, a good idea is to keep a personal diary (over 3−5 days, which can be consecutive or over a longer period if you prefer. You do not need to write much, perhaps 200−300 words per day, though of course you may write more if you wish. Simply take 10−15 minutes at the end of each day to:
Warren (2009) usefully draws attention to the commercialisation of engagement within the broader framework of positive psychology at work. This is linked to notions of continuous improvement and self-advancement at both organisational and individual levels. She warns against assuming that ‘feeling good’ is positive for the self and that ‘feeling bad’ is always a negative experience.
Your diary will be personal to you and include reflections that you might find useful to add to your personal development record. You might also want to return to this as we continue to explore the concept of employee engagement and the challenges it provides for HRM practice in the following sections.
Employee engagement requires employees to show engagement through extra effort, via the following dimensions:
Hence employees are not just required to feel engaged, they are also expected to show they feel engaged. Engagement thus implies the use of ‘emotional labour’.
Emotional labour ‘involves the production of certain feelings in the worker, the production of feelings in others, and the effort, planning, and control required to express an organisation’s desired emotions’ (Eschenfelder, 2012, p. 175). Essentially this highlights that in many work contexts it is not sufficient for an employee to perform a particular task; rather the task must be performed in a certain way. In particular it is the visible emotional performance that is significant in generating organisational benefit; that is to say that profit comes from service with a smile. Although this is about appropriate and required emotional displays rather than simply smiling, consider for example the appropriate gravitas and solemnity required by funeral directors to perform their role effectively (Rafaeli and Sutton, 1987).
Moreover, it is not simply this outward display of emotion that matters but also the required ‘internal emotional labour’. This ‘labouring’ describes how we cope and attempt to make sense of conflict between how we actually feel and the emotional displays we believe are required (Gabriel, 2008). While originally thought of as a key issue in face-to-face service contexts, this has since been shown to have a significant impact on employee well-being across a diverse range of contexts including call centres (Korczynski, 2003), within the voluntary sector (Eschenfelder, 2012) and also in the work of HRM professionals (O’Brien and Linehan, 2014).
O’Brien and Linehan (2014) suggest that emotional labour is embedded within the work of HRM practitioners as they must both emotionally manage others and themselves, particularly in difficult and challenging contexts such as those explored in this course. O’Brien and Linehan (2014) found that emotional labour in HRM work was related to four roles that HRM practitioners needed to play: cheerleader, champion, honest broker and rule enforcer, together with being professional (see Table 2).
Role | Expectation | Display requirement |
---|---|---|
Being professional | Maintains professional detachment Displays a ‘can-do’ image ‘Face of the company’ | Suppress overly positive and negative emotion Display measured control Express positive emotion about self, work, and the organisation Suppress anxiety and negativity |
Rule enforcer | Communicates, enforces, and models behavioural standards ‘Guardian of the rules’ | Express social control emotions (e.g. disapproval, reprimand) |
Honest broker | Upholds moral/ethical climate Promotes fairness ‘Conscience of the business’ | Display calm demeanour, impartiality, and objectivity |
Champion | Provides support to employees and managers Friendly and approachable ‘Listening ear’ | Express empathy, interest, compassion |
Cheerleader | Responsible for emotional climate Engenders enthusiasm for work Manages own and others’ emotions ‘Happy smiley people’ | Displays positivity, enthusiasm, job satisfaction, and pride in the company |
This research found that ‘HRM professionals must enact an array of emotional fronts and abide by the emotional display rules of their job. At times, these rules are contradictory, and participants spoke of the challenge of managing conflicting emotion display requirements while trying to maintain an image of credibility and competence for different organisational audiences’ (O’Brien and Linehan, 2014, p. 1277). Performances of trust, integrity and fairness are highlighted as particularly demanding in certain employment relations processes (e.g. disciplinary proceedings) that HRM practitioners must deliver.
While in the case of the HRM practitioners studied above, there was seen to be a professional emphasis on certain displays, elsewhere organisations actively promote and encourage aspects of emotional labour, often incorporating this into expectations of employee engagement – see the case study in Box 1.
Cushen (2009) reviewed an organisation (given the pseudonym ‘Avatar Ireland’) in which a programme she calls ‘Brand Essence’ started as a marketing initiative, but developed into a description of employee behaviours and performance ‘in order to deliver that “wow” customer experience’ (p. 105).
Cushen goes on to explain: ‘Employees completed Brand Essence workshops and were provided with reading materials and DVDs outlining how to behave and communicate in a way that was consistent with Brand Essence. Considerable emphasis was placed on “living the essence” and specific tips were provided relating to writing, talking and managing one’s body language. There was no subtlety regarding the need to self-regulate in order to behave and communicate in a manner that was termed “on brand”’ (p. 105).
However one of Cushen’s interviewees used the geological analogy of ‘permafrost’ to describe how the programme affected only the surface layer of the organisation and of employee behaviour. She explains how employees ‘were critical of such blatant normative control practices and irritated by the idea that the purveyors of Brand Essence believed they would be galvanised by it’ (p. 110).
She goes on to describe the programme as an attempt ‘to seduce employees into delivering extra functional, discretionary effort without offering anything in return’ (p. 110).
This study highlights the risk of programmes which attempt to engender employee engagement and manage emotional labour. We will further explore these challenges later in this course, particularly when considering resistance to change.
The principles of emotional labour have been developed as researchers suggest other forms of labouring, including aesthetic labour. This is seen as particularly pertinent as the image of employees has become a part of the organisational branding. It is suggested that workers who were ‘perceived to be “good looking” or simply having the “right look”’ (Warhurst and Nickson, 2009, p. 386) are commodified or ‘sold’ as embodying the desired organisational image. Organisations pursuing aesthetic labour have, however, also found themselves subject to public critique, for example journalists and campaigners have raised the issue of whether the recruitment preferences for sales staff who look a particular way by the popular US clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch might be perceived as discrimination (Greenhouse, 2003; McBride, 2005; Williams and Connell, 2010). Explore these ideas further in Activity 2.
Abercrombie & Fitch, a well-known US clothing chain, now call their shop floor workers ‘brand representatives’ and previously called them ‘models’, rather than sales assistants.
Much of the press coverage of Abercrombie & Fitch’s policy regarding model recruitment has been negative, and finally it appears as though this has started to dent the brand’s overall image and popularity in the youth clothing sector. Recent changes have seen a shift in both the marketing and positioning of store roles.
Nevertheless, the recruitment pages of the website replicate the same strong marketing aesthetic of the brand. Image, in terms of association with the brand and poise, feature in front of house role descriptions but are less present in back-room roles. The job requirements ‘diversity awareness’, which elsewhere on the website is defined as: ‘about who you are as an individual – what’s seen and unseen. It also includes the rich differences between individuals such as race, gender, family, sexual orientation, work experience, physical ability, and religion.’
However it appears that while this suggests a commitment to recruiting people from diverse backgrounds and different cultures, it does not rule out applying a judgement to ensure that they are all beautiful!
If you explored the ‘work schedule’ tab of the store opportunities you will see that the contract terms do not seem particularly attractive and might be labelled by some as ‘zero-hours’ contracts.
Having considered these issues of emotional and aesthetic labour it is not too much of a leap to suggest that employee engagement is somewhat more complex than it might first appear. The oft-promoted mutual benefit for employees and organisations might be rather more problematic than is claimed by movements such as ‘Engage for Success’ within the UK.
Guest (2014) is amongst those highlighting that many of the policies and practices that are said to help deliver employee engagement are difficult to distinguish from human resource management more broadly. This might lead us to question whether a focus on engagement offers anything new or different for HRM professionals. As already highlighted, there is a particular concern that employee engagement has become the commercial ‘product’ of consultancy firms; whose services often include the measurement of engagement through annual organisational surveys (Arrowsmith and Parker 2013). We will explore this issue further in Activity 3.
We have highlighted concerns that employee engagement has become a ‘product’ of consultancy firms. A key tool used is the measurement of engagement through surveys.
These surveys can pose a number of issues in understanding and addressing ‘levels’ of engagement within an organisation:
Using consultants is often an expensive undertaking but many consultancy firms consider survey offerings as a ‘loss leader’ and so they may be available at a low cost. If your organisation is new to this area then using a reputable existing survey can be more cost effective than developing your own. However it is important to consider that commercial offerings rarely acknowledge the ‘darker’ side of engagement and, as Guest highlights, the ‘risk must be that it [employee engagement] will soon join the pantheon of laudable aspirations with which we can all agree, including happiness, quality, growth and sustainability; goals that most of us would like to pursue, concepts that some people think we can measure but goals that remain ultimately elusive in many if not most cases’ (Guest, 2014, p. 233).
As discussed above, employee engagement is generally regarded as an individual psychological construct. However there is also a recognition that many of the influences on engagement (and related notions such as burnout) are contextual (Bakker et al., 2011). That is to say they relate to the nature of the job and other aspects of the work environment. Here we use an understanding of organisational climate to explore these issues in more detail.
Certainly it seems that employee engagement should only ever be one consideration in the design of HRM policies and practices. However, many commentators seem to agree on the importance of leadership in providing an effective strategic narrative (Breevaart et al., 2014; Sparrow, 2014). Soane states that ‘leaders play a pivotal role in creating the environment within which employees can engage with their work’ and they ‘make the difference between work as a mundane grind, devoid of meaning and purpose and work as an enriching and fulfilling experience that provides an essential source of identity which infuses all aspects of being’ (Soane, 2014, p. 149). Looking in more detail, some research has suggested that different styles or approaches to leadership might facilitate different engagement outcomes. For example, Sarti (2014) finds that participative leadership styles are related to dedication and vigour dimensions of engagement and an authoritative leadership style is related to absorption and vigour. A participative leadership style is one in which leaders involve subordinates in decision-making and act to clarify and coordinate roles (Sarti, 2014), while in contrast, authoritative leaders tend to focus on routines and setting clear performance expectations for subordinates.
Schneider et al. (2013, p. 362) defines organisational climate as:
The shared perceptions of and the meaning attached to the policies, practices, and procedures employees experience and the behaviours they observe getting rewarded and that are supported and expected.
This is related to the more general conception of organisational culture which Schneider et al. (2013, p. 362) summarise as:
The shared basic assumptions, values, and beliefs that characterise a setting and are taught to newcomers as the proper way to think and feel, communicated by the myths and stories people tell about how the organisation came to be the way it is as it solved problems associated with external adaptation and internal integration.
Schneider et al. (2013) observe that the key difference between culture and climate is the way in which academic researchers have sought to understand them. Questionnaire-based research dominates empirical studies of climate, while qualitative and case study approaches are more commonly used by culture researchers. Macey et al. (2009, p. 46) note that organisational culture is also seen to be important as it ‘determines engagement at two levels:
- a.that which creates and releases employee energy through the way they are treated as employees, and
- b.that which channels that energy into competitive advantage through focusing on the strategy objectives of the firm.’
A further characteristic of research has been the examination of particular forms of climate which prioritise certain organisational outcomes. Examples include:
It is important, as with other discussions in the course related to voice, involvement and participation, that the individual employee is not regarded as passive, simply to be ‘made’ engaged.
It is suggested that trust has a critical role to play here: ‘put simply, without trust engagement cannot exist’ (Macey et al., 2009, p. 46). Cummings and Bromiley (1996) define trust in the following way:
Trust (is) defined as an individual’s belief or a common belief among a group of individuals that another individual or group a) makes good-faith efforts to behave in accordance with any commitments both explicit or implicit, b) is honest in whatever negotiations preceded such commitments, and c) does not take excessive advantage of another even when the opportunity is available. The rationale for this definition of trust rests on the socially embedded, subjective, and optimistic nature of most interactions within and between organisations that involve trust. Much of organisational interaction rests strongly on these three characteristics and thus makes trust so centrally important.
Trust can therefore be understood as a ‘belief that another party will be fair, reliable and competent, and in consequence, the trustor becomes vulnerable to the trustee’ (Alfes et al., 2012, p. 409). Both individual and group trust matter in organisations and are embedded within understandings of climate and culture. Organisational culture impacts the extent to which employees trust the organisation while climate impacts trust at group and team level.
Underpinning the value of trust is the importance of effective cooperation in organisational life. In the simplest of terms, trust is key because it enables cooperation (Tyler, 2003). While cooperation has always been important in organisations, emerging trends in organisational dynamics have pushed this to the foreground. Changes in the nature of work have made ‘old’ styles of securing cooperation more difficult to maintain. Additionally, the nature of cooperation has changed; there is now a greater emphasis on more ‘voluntary forms of cooperation’ which can be more difficult to achieve (Tyler, 2003, p. 557). Old style ‘command and control’ strategies for securing motivation are no longer considered sufficient against the backdrop of organisational changes.
Processes of globalisation, flexibilisation of labour relations, continuous change and the virtualisation of organisational forms, mean that the relations between people have become looser and behaviours are less easy to monitor. Within firms, hierarchical relationships are being replaced by lateral relationships (e.g. matrix structures and teamwork) further emphasising a growing need for voluntary cooperation, ‘extra-role behaviours’, or in other words, employee engagement (Bijlsma and Koopman, 2003, p. 543). Underpinning the heightened need for cooperation and engagement however, is the fundamental issue of trust.
What then is the relationship between trust and employee engagement? The following activity explores the role of trust in creating an engaged workforce.
In this activity we ask you to access the ACAS website and read the article Placing trust in employee engagement (ACAS, 2012). In the article, the relationship between trust and engagement is explored. The author of the article reviews relevant evidence and considers the role of trust in creating an engaged workforce. As you go through the article, make a note of how and why trust needs to be nurtured, developed and embedded within a variety of relationships. To achieve engagement, then answer the following questions:
While discussing how notions of organisational climate and more broadly culture are implicated in the achievement of employee engagement, it is worth highlighting a common criticism, which is that research and investigation into the phenomenon of employee engagement has been predominantly conducted in European and American contexts (Truss et al., 2014). This issue will be explored in Activity 5.
Historically, organisations were concerned with the maintenance of structures, systems and performance. However change has now become regarded as normal or indeed a desirable organisational state. Organisational change has been largely associated with downsizing and delayering as firms seek ways of cutting costs to improve financial performance. Taking labour out and extracting greater labour effort remains a focal point of restructuring activities (Thompson, 2011). As a consequence, dominant growth strategies for firms in many sectors prohibit continuity and employment stability. The impacts of organisational change on employee engagement is relatively under-researched, however it deserves consideration here.
In many sectors there is a fear of being left behind as organisations face the challenges of globalisation, technological advancement and economic turmoil. Both the pace and scale of change are increasingly creating a challenging context for organisations and their leaders, managers and employees. As a result ‘organisations are a cacophony of complementary and competing change attempts’ (Dutton et al., 2001, p. 716), so perhaps it is not a surprise that some figures suggest that less than 30% of organisational change programmes achieve their stated objectives (Todnem By, 2005).
Change in the twenty-first century is complicated by the increasing connectivity within and between organisations, so that change in one area often results in a ripple effect. Indeed the relationship between organisations and their environment is never more pertinent than when considering issues of organisational change.
The range of change initiatives and drivers in contemporary organisations is increasingly complex, whereby the nature of work has undergone significant changes leading to a need to reconsider old command and control modes of management. Associated with such change, contemporary organisations are increasingly placing a greater emphasis on the voluntary forms of cooperation associated with employee engagement. The main changes within organisations are highlighted below:
In the remainder of this section we consider different types of change before looking at the importance of communication.
Broadly speaking, we can categorise types of organisational change according to four characteristics (Todnem By, 2005; Burnes, 2014):
To what extent does your personal experience of organisational change resonate with the different types of change identified above?
There is no feedback for this activity.
Employee voice and communication is considered a vital feature of cultivating employee engagement. Employers need to ensure that they offer meaningful opportunities for engagement – communication between senior managers and frontline employees are important for giving employees a sense of voice. Opportunities for engagement need to be in the category of meaningful communication between leaders and employees, with opportunities to ask questions, raise concerns and offer suggestions (Dromey, 2014).
To be most effective in terms of ‘voice’ as an enabler, employers need to ensure that they engage employees in a genuine way which promotes dialogue and involvement rather than simply one-way communication. The increasing use of email as a means of communication with employees in this context is a concern as it offers very limited opportunities for genuine interaction (Dromey, 2014).
Employees who perceive themselves to have opportunities to effectively communicate their concerns to management are likely to elicit more positive attitudes and higher levels of performance. If employees perceive their work environment to be one in which they can share their opinions, ideas and concerns, they will in turn be more likely to demonstrate higher levels of engagement (Rees et al., 2013).
Communication and voice are an essential component of maintaining employee engagement in a change programme (Elving, 2005).
This free course, Employment relations and employee engagement, began with a critical consideration of employee engagement in the context of employment relations; exploring the broader issues raised by both positive and negative conceptions of experience at work. The concept of emotional labour was introduced as highlighting the complex challenges of these issues in practice.
The course then considered the role of HRM in delivering effective employee engagement practices and policies as part of organisational-level employment relations processes. This was further explored through the case study of the New Zealand post office. We also explored specifically the role of trust before moving to examine the perceived relevance of employee engagement in different cultural contexts as well as the ways to maintain engagement during times of organisational change.
This free course was written by Diannah Lowry.
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.
The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this free course:
Course image: © fatihhoca/iStockphoto.com
Figure 2, photograph of Stewardess: ©iStockphoto.com/IS_ImageSource.
Figure 3, photograph of Undertaker: Photo by JOKER/Petra Steuer/ullstein bild via Getty Images.
Table 2: O’Brien, E. & Linehan, C. (2014) ‘A Balancing Act: Emotional Challenges in the HR Role’. Journal of Management Studies, 51,8. John Wiley and Sons Limited and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners. If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.
Don't miss out
If reading this text has inspired you to learn more, you may be interested in joining the millions of people who discover our free learning resources and qualifications by visiting The Open University – www.open.edu/ openlearn/ free-courses.
Copyright © 2016 The Open University