Chapter 5

Chapter 5

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In this task, chapter 5 is reviewed which is about measuring employee engagement by assessing several aspects including conditions, drivers and outcomes. The important key points extracted from the chapter are listed below.

An organization's HR system is one of the primary factors which drives employee engagement by carrying out internally and externally aligned practices to produce the required results.

The practices which are externally aligned are based on helping the organization to cater various environmental and business challenges. On the other hand, internally aligned challenges are intended to support and complement one another to achieve goals.

The practices of HR are used to solve the primary issues including employee attitudes, employee competencies, work environment and behavior of the employee.

The effective HR practices are based on the concept of ‘external fit’ which can be defined as the extent up to which demands, needs, objectives, and goals of one organizational component is in perfect harmony with the other component.

The contingency framework proposed by Lepak and Snell in 1999 was comprised of a portfolio of many human resource configurations and was based on the uniqueness and value of the relation for managing Human Capital.

According to this framework, two kinds of exchange agreements exist between the employees and employer: relational and transactional contracts where transactional contracts are generally short term as compared to the relational ones.

The framework suggests that uniqueness is one very important factor based on expertise and tacit knowledge. A firm must manage this highly valuable human capital with a commitment-based human resource system.

As job characteristic has a direct effect on employee engagement, HR activities must identify the skill-based job description for the employee to ensure maximum output both in results and in engagement.

To utilize the maximum skills and abilities of an employee, psychological safety and reliability are necessary to make the best out of an employee by a safe and secure environment.

The hierarchical model implemented in a company may result in low performance of the employees because of vertical career paths and narrowly defined jobs.

Employee engagement can be enhanced by promoting a flat organizational structure where jobs are generally defined in a broad sense and lateral moves are often included in the career paths to provide maximum opportunities for the employees

To achieve maximum results, the mutual relationship between coworkers is very essential. Employees tend to interact and deliver more when working in groups as compared to the other case.

Effective management is the one that takes the maximum benefits from the employees without changing them.

For better employee engagement, effective and transformational leadership is required. The characteristics of transformational leadership are inspirational motivation, idealized influence, individualized consideration, and intellectual simulation

An employee's perception of fairness is central to effective employee engagement in any organization.

The fairness criteria must be efficient enough to ensure employee good perception in three aspects. These aspects are fairness in the distribution of outcomes, fairness in the relevant procedure and fairness in determining the quality and interpersonal treatment.

Psychological safety can be assured by improving coworker and supervisory behavior along with ensuring supportive and flexible management.

An organization must ensure employee psychology empowerment by maintaining a reliable communication and awareness system. An employee must have clear information about the company mission, information regarding the performance and about the future prospects where the company is headed.

Behavioral engagement is also very essential as the research defines this behavior as OCB (Organizational Citizenship Behaviors) having five dimensions to determine consciousness, courtesy, sportsmanship, and civic duty.

The strategic outcomes required to improve employee engagement are improvements in service quality, productivity, customer satisfaction, and innovation.

Improvement in financial outcomes is very necessary to enhance employee engagement in terms of revenues, market value, and profits.