According to the
Insurance Regulatory commission of Sri Lanka (IRCSL, 2017) there are 27 number
of Insurance companies who perform throughout the country. These 27 companies divided
into Life Insurance, General Insurance & Composite Insurance companies, where
a combination of 13 Life Insurance companies, 12 General Insurance companies
and 2 composite Insurance companies perform in the market. According to HNB
Assurance Annual report (2017) the industry growing rate of 12% in Life Grosse Written
Premium (GWP) and 16% on General GWP, all the companies giving their maximum
efforts to enhance the productivity by make sure the employees are engage with
their duties as well as with the organization.
In the resent findings
of Macey and Schneider (2008, p. 4) states
that “Engage employees not only contribute more but also are more loyal and
therefore less likely to voluntarily leave the organization.” In the same if
the employees not been engage to the organization it will have deviations in
its performances.
At the same time there
can be employees who are less engagement or disengage in an organization.
Accordingly Armstrong, (2014) this is known as Burnout,
which crate s high stress levels, failures, absenteeism’s and finally it will critically
impact on the staff turnover as well. It is also been highlighted Smith &
Markwick (2009) where employee
engagement directly been influence to the attitudes, absence & staff
turnover which having an influence over the Organizational performance. According
to Cartwright and Holmes (2006, pp. 200-201)
“Employee cynicism” which leads to poor Job performance, withdrawals, poor
mental and physical health and negative impact on the job functions.
As per the details gathered from the
Organization second layer executive, HNB Assurance annual report (2017) and the
current situation of the Organization following deviations which is having
similarities with the disengagement been highlighted.
1.
Growing patterns of staff turnover
2.
Increasing gap between the budgeted GWP
Vs Achievements
3.
Increasing loss ratio’s due to bad
underwriting patterns (deviations in knowledge sharing over the risk)
4.
Lack of innovative Ideas
5.
Poor leadership strategies where lack of
transparency, Motivation and miss directions
By enhancing the
engagement, Baker, (2011, p. 268)
“employees are physically, cognitively and emotionally connected with their
work roles” which will be ultimately make the organization in a strong
position.
Employee
Engagement
Reilly & Brown, cited
in Armstrong, (2010) words such as Organizational
culture, Job Satisfaction, motivation and commitment are the words which is
customarily been used when describing the satisfaction of employees, however these
words been replace by “Employee Engagement” because it overlook the
Organizational culture in a different and more descriptive force. According to
Human resource development Fairlie, (2011,
p. 509) “work could be designed not only to enable the acquisition of job
specific knowledge, skills and abilities but also to satisfy the fundamental
development needs of employee”.
Employee Engagement can be define as Kahn cited
in Armstrong, (2014, p. 194) “The
harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement,
people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally
during role performances”.
Also employee
engagement Schaufeli and Bakker, cited in Baker, (2011, p. 265) define as “An active, positive work related state
that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption.” According
to Truss et al, cited in Armstrong (2010, p. 155). Employee
Engagement can be define as “creating opportunities for employees to content
with their colleagues managers and wider organization. It is also about
creating an environment where employees are motivated to want to connect with
their work and really care about doing a great job.”
When it comes to an
organization there can be different levels of subordinates who perform in different levels of engagement,
it is vital to know each of these levels and give priority to make them engage
or to have decisions on their behavior to the growth of the organization (Krueger and Killham, 2006). These
levels can be categories in three segments such as
1.
Engaged Employees :- Subordinates who drive innovation and move
organization forward
2.
Disengaged Employees :- Subordinate
without putting any energy or passion into their work
3.
Actively Disengaged employees :-
Employees who aren’t just unhappy they busy acting out their unhappiness
Figure 01 shows how the above levels of
engagement will be impact the organization
However, to engage and
employee in an active manner it is vital to know the antecedents of engagement.
(Saks, 2006) elaborate these Antecedents
of the employee engagement is basically depend on the following factors,
A.
Job Characteristics
B.
Perceived Organizational Support
C.
Perceived supervisor support
D.
Rewards and recognition
E.
Procedural justice
F.
Distributive Justice
These drivers of
engagement also can be summarized as (Macleod and Clarke, 2009, cited in
Armstrong, 2010),
i.
Strong Leadership which can create
transparent and explicit organizational culture where it give a clear site on
their Job and the organizational needs aims and the vision.
ii.
Appreciation of employees’ efforts and
contribution where employees feel that they been valued at the organization
iii.
By allowing to voice their Ideas
iv.
Belief among employees that the
organization lives its values,
These factors will
enhance and create employee engagement towards the job and the organization
which will directly influence the
a.
Job Satisfaction
b.
Organizational commitment
c.
Staff turnover
d.
Organizational citizenship
e.
Behavior
Critical evaluation of employee
engagement towards Insurance business
According to (Smith & Markwick, (2009) employee engagement is having
a direct influence over the individual and organizational outcomes. By
analyzing these out comes it will give a clear indication on how these out
comes will be influence in the insurance Business.
Employee Engagement
towards insurance business, Organizational out comes,
A.
Levinson, cited in Smith and Markwick, (2009, p.17) claims that;- “In departments where [highly]
engaged employees sell to engage customers, customer loyalty, repeat purchases and
recommendations to friends are double that of companies with average employee
engagement”. In Insurance industry the mutual trust between the insured and insure
is one of the most important factor. By enhancing the employee engagement the
retention of the client base will be increase as a result of the service levels
which bounce beyond the expected levels, this will increase the customer
satisfaction and creates engaged customers who recommend the product and the
organization to others.
B.
By having highly engage employees who
are satisfied and happy to work this will increase the staff turnover and
decrease the absenteeism’s (Armstrong, 2014). Combination of the marketing
force and the Technical staff is handing the entire Insurance market. It is
essential to have experience marketers at the same time experience Underwriters
how identify the risk in a broad and complex situations. If theses expertise
been droop down due to dissatisfaction it will be a huge impact to the
Organizational outcomes.
C.
Increase sales through increasing employee
efforts, productivity, quality and by minimizing errors. In insurance business
by increasing the GWP on sales is not enough, it is much important to have Good
risk in to the fund by make sure to eliminate the bad risks getting to the balance
sheets of the organization. According to Lockwood cited in Smith &
Markwick, (2009, p. 17) “Engaged employees work harder, are more loyal and are
more likely to go the ‘extra mile’ for the corporation”.
These factors will make
sure to increase the growth rate of the organization, Increased in business
success, increased sales and finally to give better performance and a higher
value to the Organizations Shareholders and attract them to have more
investments on the business.
Recommendations to the organization
on how to enhance the employee engagement
Accordingly Erickson, cited
in Macey and Schneider, (2008, p.
26) “Engagement is above and beyond simple satisfaction with the employment arrangement
or basic loyalty to the employer—characteristics that most companies have
measured for many years. Engagement, in contrast, is about passion and
commitment, the willingness to invest oneself and expend one’s discretionary
effort to help the employer succeed”. Therefore it is important to know the
factors which enhance the engagement of the employee.
1.
Creating work place culture where the
employee feels they been valued and respect
In
Insurance business it is important to have good internal communication among
the departments, and it is also important to feel that the employees been
valued and respect within the culture. Accordingly Glen cited in Smith and Markwick,
(2009) it is important to have a
good Organizational process, role challenge, values, work-life balance inside
the organization. Having broad direction in the assign Job and the
responsibility of it also enhance the engagement of the employees by creating personal
growth (Crawford et al, 2013, cited in Armstrong, 2014)
2.
Leadership style
Obsoleted
management practices such as autocratic and Laissez- Faire leadership styles
all so have a great negative influence over the employee engagement. Leaders
who inspire their subordinates by giving respect and appreciations over their
employment and having a genuine responsibility over the subordinates can make a
huge difference in employee engagement (Smith & Markwick, 2009).
3.
Opportunities
Armstrong,
(2008) By creating opportunities
as well as having trainings to develop the talents of the employees also have a
positive impact over the employee engagement. This will make sure that the
employee been focus on his job functions and develop their skills to fiend new
opportunities within the cooperate culture and the market competition. It will
give a stimulation to the employee on his work as well as build confidence to
perform in an exceptional way.
4.
Rewords and recognitions
In
insurance business recognizing the exceptional workers and rewording them in
front of their follow workers can made a huge impact. According to Watson Wyatt
cited in Smith and Markwick, (2009, p. 33) by having “clear expectations and
delivering promised rewards is key to engaging the workforce”. This is not only
by giving financial rewords but this can be extend by analyzing the needs of
the employees and showing them that these needs will be full filed at each time
they contribute more towards the organization.
By implementing Maslow hierarchy theory to the modern day needs and make
sure to guide and motivate employees can have a huge impact over the employee
engagement.
Conclusions
With the modern-day
market capitalization and competition it is important to have engage employees
to and insurance company. The concept of employee engagement been introduce by Kahn
(1990) by stating that “The notion that individuals can be “personally” engaged
in their work, investing positive emotional and cognitive energy into their
role performance” (Armstrong, 2014). By stimulating the
factors of engagement organizations can easily extend their growth and perform
in a rapid growth patterns.
References
Armstrong, M. (2008) STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: A GUIDE
TO ACTION. 4th edition. United Kingdom: Kogan Page Limited.
Armstrong, M. (2010) Armstrong’s Essential Human Resource
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New Delhi India: Kogan Page Limited.
Armstrong, M. (2014) HANDBOOK OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
PRACTICE. 13 edition. United Kingdom: Kogan Page Limited.
Baker, A. B. (2011) An Evidence
Based Model of Work Engagement. Current
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Cartwright, S. and Holmes, N.
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reducing cynicism. Human Resource
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Fairlie, P. (2011) Meaningful
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IRCSL (2017) Insurance Companies.[online] Sri Lanka: IRCSL. Available from: http://ircsl.gov.lk/insurance-companies.html
[Accessed 29 September 2018].
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(2006) Who's Driving Innovation at Your Company?. Gallup Business Journal available at https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/24472/whos-driving-innovation-your-company.aspx
[accessed 29 September 2018]
Macey, W.H. & Schneider, B.
(2008) The Meaning of Employee Engagement. Industrial
and Organizational Psychology, (1), 3–30. Available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/34268026/31129539.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1537757423&Signature=DgYK9%2BmJjg2%2FO%2FGz8ryWLDUypvg%3D&response-content-isposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DThe_Meaning_of_Employee_Engagement.pdf
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The Meaning of Employee Engagement. Industrial
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[accessed 30 September 2018]
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current thinking. UK: INSTITUTE FOR EMPLOYMENT STUDIES.
Interesting article Charith. Employee engagement is one of the key concentration in the business industry.According to Robinson (2006), employee engagement can be achieved through the creation of an
ReplyDeleteorganisational environment where positive emotions such as involvement and pride are encouraged, resulting in improved organisational performance, lower employee turnover and better health.This further validate that employee Engagement plays a vital role in better organizational performance.
Thank you Akila for sharing your thoughts on employee engagement, I strongly agree on your concept of having a better organizational environment to enhance the employee engagement. This is also revealed by Boverie & Kroth (2011) where by developing a working environment with humane, challenging and rewording will enhance the passion and energy of the workers which directly influence the engagement of employees which positively enhance the organizational performance.
DeleteHi Charith. To measure effectiveness of the workfoce in an organisation, employee engagement plays a vital part in the process of development. In addition money is the fundamental inducement, no other incentive or motivational technique comes even close to it with respect to it influential value (Sara, 2004,Taylor, 1914). It has the supremacy to magnetize, maintain and motivate individuals towards higher performance. Frederick Taylor and his scientific management associates describe money as the most fundamental factor in motivating the industrial worker to attain greater productivity (Adeyinka, Ayeni & Popoola, 2007).
ReplyDeleteAppreciate on your comments Lasitha. Yes it is true that Money is one of the main factor of motivation, but this is mainly due to where most of the managers hesitate to challenge on thoughts such as money is what really counts and also they do reluctant to dedicate them self’s to search for other motivational factors which is more time consume and more commitment is required (Dewhurst et al., 2009)
Deleteorganizations and employees need to view engagement as a continuous activity. Something that the organization does all the time. Think of it as a process, not an event. Employee Engagement is like the law of gravity, Both are natural phenomenon; Employee engagement describes what keeps employees orbiting around you and your company. When an employee leaves the company, the productivity drops and others are asked to do more and the manager needs to spend time finding a replacement. And by the time the HR manager finds a replacement the whole teams performance has dropped (Scott 2013.
ReplyDeleteDear Crystal you have observed what is engagement really is, this is also been endorse by Macey and Schneider (2008) by stating that “Engage employees not only contribute more but also are more loyal and therefore less likely to voluntarily leave the organization.”
DeleteHi. Charith, your blog comprehensively provides an insight on Employee Engagement. In fact, there are barriers to engagement. Beech and Akerson (2003) and BlessingWhite (2008) found that a lack of trust may be caused to disengagement in organizations.
ReplyDeleteOther factors that are said to influence disengagement include an individual’s availability at work. The lower the availability, the lower the engagement.
Dear Samanthi, Thank you for the comments and reveling the factors of disengagement, this is define by Dean et al. (1998) as “negative attitudes to word one’s employing organization”. not only trust and availability this is also been influence by longer working hours, work intensification, ineffective leadership, continual downsizing and delayering of organization also have a great impact on disengagement (Cartwright and Holmes, 2006). That is why it is important to make sure that the organization is in the correct path to engage the employees for better results.
DeleteDear Charith, well illustrated blog on Employee Engagement.
ReplyDeleteIt is considered that engaged employees are more credible to behaviours like altruism, conscientiousness and sportsmanship. In other words, fully absorbed and dedicated employees behave in ways that are more virtuous and courteous and disengaged employees tend to exhibit less organizational citizenship behaviors (Kataria, Garg and Rastogi, 2012).
That is true Ruwini and thanks for sharing your thoughts, it is important to know the levels of employee engagement within the organization and identifying the disengage and actively disengage employees who works with the engage employees and sufficient solutions to be promote to enhance the percentage levels of engaged employees (Krueger and Killham, 2006).
DeleteDear Charith, your Blog critically illustrated the subject of employee engagement and very well linked to your organizational culture of Insurance business.I would like to further add to you that most often employee engagement has been defined as emotional and intellectual commitment to the organization (Baumruk 2004, Richman 2006 and Shaw 2005) or the amount of discretionary effort exhibited by employees in their job (Frank et al 2004).
ReplyDeleteThank you Shiran, Employee engagement can be define in many ways and it’s still to be develop and research. According to Alfes (2010) it is better to know the three core facets which is intellectual engagement , affective engagement & social engagement when considering the functions for employee engagement.
DeleteHi Charith, you have taken a sector where the employee engagement is highly needed. Insurance companies are mainly dependent with the customers. Therefore unlike the other sectors, the employees in these types of organizations should positively engage with the organizational goals. When it comes to employee engagement it is really need to have a proper environment within the organization to get the maximum output from an employee. According to Hanaysha (2016) also state that the work environment is a key factor for the employee’s satisfaction and the commitment towards the organization. I recommend that there should be a safe working environment to get the maximum employee engagement positively.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the recommendations Vayanga, and it is true factor which enhance the engagement levels of an employee, according to Crawford et al. (2013) environment of the organization is one of the direct factors of enhancing engagement.
DeleteHi Charith, it’s an interesting blog and the way you have linked the employee engagement to the insurance industry is wonderful. According to Armstrong (2009), a high level of employee engagement is well supported by the positive psychological contract which exists between the employees and the employer.Further,employees who are actively engaged, enjoy their work activities which they are performing while coping with work related issues and they feel that the workload is manageable (CIPD, 2010).
ReplyDeleteI strongly agreed with your comment where actively engage employees enjoy their work, hypotheses been proof by Macey & Schneider (2008) whereas employees who engage with satisfaction and enthusiasm towards there are work make sure to enhance the productivity. This is known as “Satisfaction – Engagement”
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDear Charith, whilst agreeing with your argument on lack of employee engagement in insurance sector, I would say that it is rampant in almost all sectors & industries across the globe. It is interesting to see the findings of various researches & polls carried out universally as stated in the UNC article by Cataldo (2011).
ReplyDelete“If your workforce is typical, about one-third of your employees are actively engaged, according to a recent Gallup poll. The poll found that nearly half, or 49 percent, are disengaged while 18 percent are actively disengaged. A study by consulting firm Towers-Watson revealed an even bleaker situation. Their research concluded that only about 15 percent of employees were fully (actively) engaged; 65-70 percent of employees were moderately engaged, while 15 percent were totally disengaged”.
It is not impossible to convert actively disengaged workers yet utmost challenging. The key is to letting employees know that senior leaders are aware of their employee engagement levels and are committed to taking positive action to address it.
Thank you for the comment Amal, in fact this is the most difficult part in employee engagement, where to identify the correct levels of engagement among the subordinates/ and the management and directing them to their work assignments. To monitor these facts employer may carried out engagement surveys which can be created and develop in house as well as by consulting survey houses. Also it is impotent to take actions on the feedback's which is gathered through these survey reports (Robertson et al., 2009).
DeleteHi Charith,
ReplyDeleteEmployee engagement for the insurance business is much needed. Due to the competition in the insurance industry, retaining competitive advantage within an organization is very difficult because either it can be copied or out dated. But only option is engaged workforce. Highly engage employees are hunger for achieving challenging goals, and the urge to succeed therefore such employees are ready to change and arrange their job according to the changing work environment (Bakker and Leiter, 2010).
thank you Suresh, Competition of the insurance sector is blooming with the development which is carried through the county, there are so many untouched arias and developing areas such as medical, construction, and specially the liability insurance sectors. By enhancing the engagement of employees it will produce customer loyalty, employee retention & productivity, organizational profits and so on, to build up a competitive advantage to the organization among the competitors (Robertson et al., 2009).
DeleteGood share Charith, some additions to your blog from Kavya & Padmavathy, that one’s the drivers are set right and employees connect themselves with the organization they get engaged and exhibit the individual outcomes as mentioned as “ SAY, STAY and STRIVE”. SAY means employees consistently speak positively about the organization to colleagues, potential employees and customer. STAY means has an intense desire to work with the company and understand its goals and finds meaning, finally STRIVE means exerts extra effort and engages in behaviour that contribute to the success of the organization (Kavya & Padmavathy,2017).
ReplyDeleteAppreciate on your comments Bernadine, where you have directed simple but very powerful dimension of employee engagement, similarly Truss et al.,(2006) defines that employees who are engage are more passionate and who totally been dedicated to the work with extended commitment and energetic exposure.
DeleteHi Charith a good read. It is all about international management which is the performance of the management functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling across national border. Going globally, presents the organization with newo nd often perplexing problems. Organization must be adept at dealing with a wide range of economic, legal, political, sociocultural and technological factors which has effect on employee performance management(Dessler, Gary2001, management: leading people and organizations in the 21st century,
ReplyDelete47
Hi, Charith , When t go through you blog , you have well communicated effectiveness of employee engagement to the company . Thus HR can lead the charge to create an effective employee engagement strategy, but it needs to be embraced by the entire organization. There is a clear gap between the optimism of upper management and what middle managers experience with their teams. To understand the whole-organization picture, it’s essential to have an effective, multi-directional communication strategy in the organization. Effective communication is one of the most important factors that is most likely to bring company success. Organizations that thrive are able to articulate and communicate what success looks like – as individual employees, teams and departments, and the company as a whole. This increases engagement organization-wide. (Fairlie , 2002)
ReplyDeleteThank you for commenting Ajantha, I agree that the effective communication is much needed to build up the employee engagement. That is why there should be engagement surveys to monitor the levels of engagement and with the result of these facts to design the action plan to motivate the employees accordingly (Robertson et al., 2009).
DeleteHi ,Charith , Well descriptive & Interesting Blog on EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT .All most all the parts of the EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT has been covered in the blog .I totally agree with your comments on Drawbacks of engagement ,where as the Burnout is caused as a result of high workloads ,high pressure on the employee to perform to achieve unrealistic targets of the organization . Burnout or Employee Disengagement can be seen in Commercial Banks mainly due to unrealistic targets with the high competition in the banking sector in Sri Lanka .And also Quality of the Lending portfolios has been deteriorating through out last year . Credit Growth of the industry was only 16.1% during the year 2017 ,where the Credit Growth of the One of the leading Commercial Bank in Sri Lanka was 22.5% during the year 2017 (Sampath Bank Annual Report , 2017) .
ReplyDeleteVery true Kasun the industry and the industrial norms to be questions and the stress level of Sri Lankan work force is to be overlook. There is know any surveys which is carried by focusing the working community in Sri Lanka, I’m sure if such survey would carry out that the engagement levels of the working community might hit even below 10%, this will become a massive problem in the future to retain the educated, well experience and knowledgeable workers within the country.
DeleteIn todays context every organization seek various opportunities to get the maximum out put out of their employees to increase productivity. and "employee Engagement" is one of the key factors that have been included in their Strategic Human Resource Management(SHRM).
ReplyDeleteAs per Kahn (1990) defines Employee Engagement as “the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances” (Kahn,1990, p.694)
And the blog discusses critical facts with regard to the title which is comprehensive and done justice to its title in a successful way.
Thank you Chaminda on commenting my Blog. With the globalization and the competition among the existing and reforming entities to the market, organizations want be able to survive by considering on Job satisfaction, motivation and commitment of employees. These are factors to be consider, but now the concept is having a much border extension which is “engagement” (Reilly & Brown, 2008).
DeleteHi, Charith, it is an interesting article on enhancing insurance business strategies through employees engagement. Fully absorbed and dedicated employees behave in ways that are more virtuous and courteous and disengaged employees tend to exhibit less organizational citizenship behaviors (Kataria, Garg and Rastogi, 2012).
ReplyDeleteI totally agreed with your comments on employee engagement as with the modern-day market capitalization and competition it is important to have engage employees to and insurance company and by stimulating the factors of engagement organizations can easily extend their growth and perform in a rapid growth patterns.
Honouring and rewarding outstanding work is an important part of the performance culture. Organizing annual awards ceremony, certificates awarded to the best performing employees will be value added activities of the organizations.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts Udeni, yes it is true that the rewords recognitions have a major impact on the employee engagement. At the same time organization should focus on the intrinsic motivational factors by improving the environment supervision, support and the commitment of line manages to have a sustainable employee engagement (Armstrong, 2010)
DeleteHi Charith! The insurance industry evidently shows the essentiality of the organization to have a fully engaged workforce for multiple reasons. The back office staff which plays a very important role in closing a deal faster by organizing the related documents after obtaining the sanctioning from the management for such proposals get paid far less than those who bring in the business. Then again, those who bring in the business won’t be content with just a high remuneration package as the competitors in the industry offer the same or more and hence, look to gratifying other needs which the organization has to be sensitive to. The organization which fails to recognize the contributions made by the workforce, appreciate their efforts, give due attention, acknowledge their importance, will damage their psyche, reputation built with hard work and eventually demotivate and give rise to a disengaged workforce (Anyim et al. 2012; Stoll and Ha-Brookshire 2012). This situation if goes into worse proportions will cause a turnover of employees.
ReplyDeleteThank you Saliya, you have deeply been observed the industrial common grievances where the back office and the front office have different prospective and differentiation are their when measuring the commitment of each group. However the organization which I work have implemented some activities which separately recognize these stars of the organization and been reworded and give recognition's to them in a much border manner. Especially the recognition of the best sales person and the chairman’s award for the best recognized employees are some of the activities which is carried to overcome this issue (Annual Report, 2017).
DeleteDear Charith
ReplyDeleteWell presented and covered vast area of the subject concern .As a further addition i wish to state ,Employee commitment is a comparatively wide concept, directly related to enthusiasm, which gives a useful focus for people supervision strategy. However, dimensions of employee engagement can be challenging, as they often try to condense too much. Rather than a single score metric, it’s better to use a range of specific relevant metrics as these will be more enlightening and actionable.
Successfully fostering employee engagement and motivation requires working with all areas of the organization. HR can lead initiatives, but employee engagement needs action from leaders at all levels. Employers should pay attention to:
• empowering employees to make decisions and shape their jobs
• effective channels for employee voice
• fair treatment of employees and support for well-being
• communications to keep employees informed, and reinforce purpose and vision.
Charith you have very well describe an employee engagement. Although , there is a model shift in recent times towards development of casual models that help to better explain employee engagement in modern organizational setting. It is believed that this would assist to create appropriate linkage between theory and practice (Markos and Sridevi, 2010).
ReplyDeleteAppreciate your comments Gayani, with the modern technology, Globalization and consumer patters as well as the change of need of the employees to have a plan on scheduling employee engagement is much difficult than what it really seems. There is a clear gap bet ween the theory and the practice but this gap can be minimised and better structure can be develop by considering the theoretical back ground in a modern way. Organizations should conduct its own surveyor to measure the correct situation and from their organization should develop the strategy to implement and enhance employee engagement (Armstrong, 2008).
DeleteOrganisations with higher engagement levels tend to have lower employee turnover, higher productivity, higher total shareholder returns and better financial performance (Baumruk, 2006). Towers Perrin (2007) found that organisations with the highest percentage of engaged employees increased their operating income by 19 per cent and their earnings per share by 28 per cent yearto‐year. Highly engaging organisational cultures may also have an attractive employer brand, being an employer of choice which attracts and retains the best talent (eg Martin and Hetrick, 2006).
ReplyDeleteThe levels of employee engagement of different cultural groups can only be compared if the measuring instrument of engagement is unbiased and equivalent (invariant) for all groups, and if representative samples were used in determining norms for the measuring instrument. Concerning standardisation, measures which lack adequate representation of multicultural or cross-cultural groups in normative samples should not he used to assess employee engagement (Truss et al., 2013).
ReplyDeleteEmployee Engagement is the level of employee’s commitment and participation towards their organization and its values. The organizational success depends on employee’s productivity which is accelerated through employee’s commitment towards his organisation.Wellins and Concelman (2004) suggest that “Employee engagement is the illusive force that motivates employees to higher levels of performance.
ReplyDeleteHi Charith,You have clearly stated the importance of Employee engagement with in the Insurance sector and how Employee engagement will leads to the organizational commitment.is the extent to which employees feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the organization, and put discretionary effort into their work.Employee engagement goes beyond activities, games, and events. Employee engagement drives performance. Engaged employees look at the whole of the company and understand their purpose, where, and how they fit in. This leads to better decision-making. Organizations with an engaged workforce outperform their competition. They have a higher earning per share (EPS) and recover more quickly after recessions and financial setbacks. Engagement is a key differentiator when it comes to growth and innovation. Performance = Engagement x Alignment x Competency(Custom Insight, Employee Engagement Survey).
ReplyDeleteEmployee engagement is the emotional commitment employees feel towards their organization and the actions they take to ensure the organization's success; engaged employees demonstrate care, dedication, enthusiasm accountability and results focus(Allen,2014).
ReplyDelete-Engaged employees work with passion and feel an emotional connection to their company.They are characterized as being loyal, committed, productive and deliver results.
-Not Engaged employees come to work and do what is asked of them but have little energy or passion for their work.
-Actively Disengaged employees aren’t just unhappy at work; they actively show their unhappiness.
ReplyDelete@Charith Samaranayake Performance Appraisals are considered as one the key elements in Employee Engagement criteria which has to be managed through transparent ,unbiased methodology where expectations,outcomes and limitations have been properly discussed and agreed between both parties. well structured appraisal tools not only encourages employees to work on their weaknesses but also create opportunities for the employers to streamline training & development aspects to cater individual needs where possible (Chandani,Mehta & Khokhar 2016).
As you correctly mentioned in this blog conclusion, with the modern-day market capitalization and competition it is important to have engage employees. An important factor research has consistently shown that employee engagement is powerfully linked to a range of business success factors such as:
ReplyDelete1. Employee performance/efficiency
2. Productivity
3. Safety
4. Attendance and retention
5. Customer service and satisfaction
6. Customer loyalty and retention
7. Profitability
(Siddhanta & Roy, 2010)