Human Resource Management Affecting Employee Engagement

Question: Discuss about the Human Resource Management for Affecting Employee Engagement. Answer: Introduction Human resource management is an approach that helps business organisations in managing their human resources/workforces/employees and optimising their performances by using concepts, such as performance management, training and development, compensation and benefits, career planning and management, selection and recruitment, etc. In the present day world, due to the spread of globalisation, the competition between business organisations has reached a global level. The competition is so fierce that only the toughest can survive in the long run. In such a scenario, it has become very difficult for companies to rely upon business operations and processes to achieve market competencies as they can be easily replicated. In such conditions, business organisations can only rely upon their human resources that can help them in achieving market competencies. Therefore, it has become very important for business organisations to optimise the performance of the employees by improving the work conditions for them because competitive and productive employees will help the company in achieving its organisational goals and objectives. Management of human resources in multinational companies is becoming difficult than ever. With the rise in opportunities for the talented workforce and due to the spread of globalisation, attracting and retaining global talent has become one of the key issues that haunts almost all the companies. Further, it has also become difficult to keep the employees engaged so that they could remain productive and competitive. In this assignment, we will discuss a number of ways in which companies can ensure better employee engagement so that the global talent can be attracted and retained within the organisations. Literature Review Employee Engagement Employee engagement is about creating opportunities for employees that can help them to connect with their co-workers, managers and the organisation in a better way. Some also consider employee engagement as creating an environment where the employees are motivated to work harder and be connected with their work and the organisation on the while. An engaged employee tries his or her best to optimise the performance of the whole unit and contribute more towards the success of organisational goals and objectives (MacLeod and Clarke, n.d.). Retaining And Attracting Employees In Mncs Companies these days are spending millions of dollars every year to manage their human resources in the best possible way. Human resource management departments are arranging for training and development programs for the employees and are trying their level best to increase their competencies. In multinational companies, there are expatriates (employees working away from their home countries) who have specially designed compensations benefits, training programs, etc. When such employees leave an organisation, it acts as a huge loss for the companies. First of all, the company loses its talent that it has been trying to develop over a period of time. Secondly, the resources invested by the company go in vain as the employees leave the organisation. Thirdly, they create vacancies and it is a complex task to fill up the vacancies through internal as well as external recruiting. Lastly, high labour turnover rates are always a nightmare for the companies as they can damage the market rep utation of the company. Thus, it has become really important for the business organisations to retain their employees. At some point of time, companies have to recruit new staff to meet the demands of the human resources of various departments in the organisation. Companies can either recruit new staff through internal recruitment methods, such as promotions, transfers, re-employment, etc. or they can chose external recruitment methods, such as campus recruitment, job portals, recruitment through professional recruiters, etc. When the companies go for recruitment in the market, it is their reputation which attracts the capable candidates to apply for the vacant jobs. If the company has a good market reputation it will be able to attract a greater pool of talent whereas if it does not have a good reputation in the market, it would not be able to attract a good pool of talent. If a company is not able to attract candidates to work for its organisation, it would become very difficult to fill up the vacant positions in the organisation. Therefore, it is important for business organisations to be able to retain as well as to attract a good pool of talented employees (Buck and Watson, 2002). Employee Engagement And Staff Retaining In the past few years, the human resource management of various companies have come to realize that employee engagement is an important concept that can help business organisations in optimising the performance of their employees (MACEY and SCHNEIDER, 2008). Engaging the employees helps business organisations in making the employees more committed towards their jobs and the organisation. When the employees demonstrate greater commitment towards their jobs and the organisation, they become more loyal and they try to contribute towards the achievement of organisations strategic goals and objectives with the best of their efforts. Let us now discuss some advantages of engaging employees for an organisation: Employee satisfaction research indicates that if a company is able to engage its employees, their job satisfaction levels increase exponentially. When the employees are engaged and are satisfied with their work, they also show high loyalty towards their jobs and towards the organisation. Ultimately, they play a huge role in the fulfilment of companys strategic goals and objectives. Productive employees who are engaged turn out to be the top performers in the organisation as they are committed to go an extra mile to achieve success for them as well as for the business. With increased engagement, employees also experience greater feeling of motivation and consequently they show reduced absenteeism. HayGroup performed a research in the same field and concluded that the offices with engaged employees turned out to be 43 percent more productive (Crosby, n.d.). Retention and recruitment retaining and recruiting a good pool of talent is the key to success for all business organisations. Engaged employees can help a company in bringing down their employee turnover rates due to greater loyalty towards work and organisation. When the employees are engaged and satisfied with their jobs, they tend to stick to their organisation for a longer period of time and have a lesser tendency to quit. With high retention rates, business organisations are also able to attract new and fresh pool of talent (Duncan, 2015). Innovation keeping the employees engaged in the workplace can also help a company in fostering a creative environment in the workplace. Engaged employees show excellent performances and make the workplace interesting. The employees who are engaged with the organisation feel a greater responsibility towards the success of the organisation and they strive to create new products and services that would help the company in gaining market competencies. Profitability Companies that are able to keep its employees engaged have also shown higher profitability. It is obvious that the employees who are engaged in work will show higher efficiency and productivity, which will ultimately help in increasing the overall profitability of the company. Further, engaged employees also play an important role in bringing down the operating costs and increasing the profit margins (Duncan, 2015). Improved communication one of the key factors for the success of business organisations is a proper communication system in the workplace. It has been found that engaged employees are more likely to be open communicators than disgruntled ones. The communication will be proper and the scope for mis-communication will also decrease to a great extent (Cook, 2008). Better morale of the staff having high staff morale is also important from the view point of the company. If the staff lacks high morale, the productivity and efficiency will fall and it will become very difficult for the management to motivate them. On the other hand, if the employees are engaged, they show higher morale and it becomes easier to motivate them. They also introduce positivity in the workplace and the positive vibes shared by them helps in fostering a positive work environment (Duncan, 2015). Satisfied customers engaged employees have a number of benefits and increased customer satisfaction is another added advantage of having a pool of engaged employees. Engaged employees show higher dedication levels and are motivated enough to go an extra mile for attending the customers and solving their complaints in the best possible manner. Reduced labour turnover and absenteeism it is said that an empty mind is a devils workshop, which means that if the employees are not given challenging work or any work that interests them, their minds will start to work in a negative direction. Such employees start taking unnecessary leaves and might even quit the organisation to join a better company. If the management is able to keep the employees engaged by providing them with interesting and challenging work, it will be able to prevent their minds from being affected by negativity. As a result, the organisation will be able to being its labour turnover rates and absenteeism down (Cook, 2008). How To Engage Employees As discussed above, it has become highly important for business organisations to keep their employees engaged as they are the key to all the success that a company can achieve. As it also helps business organisations in bringing down their employee turnover rates and to attract and retain global talent, it makes it even more important for national and multinational companies to adopt strategies that would help them in increasing the levels of employee engagement in the organisation. Let us now discuss some human resource strategies that can help business organisations in increasing the level of employee engagement in the workplace: Job Enrichment job enrichment is a relatively new concept that has come up in the past few years. Job enrichment is a process that aims at providing tough and challenging work to the employees in order to keep them interested in their jobs by making the work conditions better. It has been found that boring and monotonous work can have a negative impact on the engagement and performance levels of the employees. When the employees are given the same work to do every day, they become bored of their work and tend to take unnecessary leaves. In extreme cases, the employees have also been noticed to quit organisations that do not provide them adequate work opportunities. Employees prefer an environment where they have a chance to grow and develop their careers but in absence of such an environment, they become demotivated and tend to switch to organisations that have better opportunities. On the other hand, job enrichment is an approach that makes the workplace very interesting for the employees. The employees are offered exciting tasks on regular basis, which provides them with an opportunity to test their skills and knowledge. It helps in killing their boredom and they become motivated to fulfil the responsibilities assigned to them by their seniors. As a resu lt, the employees show greater engagement, loyalty and commitment while the overall absenteeism and labour turnover rates decrease. Thus, one of the best ways to keep the employees engaged is by adopting a job enrichment strategy at the workplace (Cook, 2008). Affinity one of the basic human needs is to have a belief in something, especially when it comes to work. When the employees do not have a strong belief in what they are doing, they will definitely use their hands and feet to work but they would not dedicate their heart and mind to it. Employees who do not find affinity at their workplaces start looking for it either in the community or at home. The end result of lack of affinity or when the employees find it outside is that they bring their hands and feet to work but they leave behind their mind and heart i.e. they are physically present during the work but are mentally absent. Organisations that have the ability to provide affinity to their employees have outperformed the ones which have been unable to provide affinity to the employees. Thus, the need to make the employees more enthusiastic about their work generates the need to engage them in the workplace (Cook, 2008). One of the best ways to engage the employees is to challenge them and keep them involved in something that is worthwhile. For many years, it was believed that a sense of urgency was the only way to keep the employees engaged but it was later found out that it could only help in achieving a momentarily engagement. The organisations then realized that they need a better reason and way to engage the employees. Thus, they have recently come up with something new. The present day organisations are trying their best to keep the employees engaged by altruism. The organisations have started to shift their focus from numbers to individuals and have started making them realize that they need to perform to achieve some human needs rather than the fulfilment of organisational greed. The feeling that performing better will help in the fulfilment of ones own needs helps in motivating the employees and engaging them to a very good extent as there is always a natural affinity in people for success, for winning and for achieving excellence (Industryweek.com, 2016). Involvement another strategy that can help in increasing employee engagement is involvement. It has been found that people have a natural tendency to support what they have created. Therefore, by giving the workers an opportunity to be involved in important matters of the organisation given them a feeling of belongingness. When they are involved in important matters of the organisation, they get a feeling of pride, ownership and a deep sense of fulfilment of needs, which helps in motivating them and fostering a creative environment. Sometimes, companies can engage their employees up to a great extent only by allowing them to form teams and chose their team members or leaders on their own. It might seem to be too simple to engage employees but it is true. A number of human behaviour experts have recognized belongingness as an important need that can help in motivating the employees. Thus, if the management is able to provide involvement opportunities to the employees and make them feel that they matter to the organisation, they can easily increase the level of engagement that the employees have in the organisation (Industryweek.com, 2016). Empowering The Employees a management can never discover the potential of its employee unless it stops to micromanage them and starts to empower them. The management should empower the employees to take important decisions, which would allow them to build their confidence and strengthen their self-trust. Empowering might sound easy to be done but it requires a lot of efforts on the part of a leader to step back and let the employees take some charge. The leaders of the organisation should be confident enough to step back, allow their followers to try something new and pick them up even if they fail in doing so. When the employees will be empowered in such a way that would allow them to explore endless possibilities, they would definitely become more engaged (Forbes.com, n.d.). Share Your Success To Build Momentum if a company likes to keep secrets and wants its leaders to enjoy all the success alone, it can become really difficult to motivate the employees and keep them engaged. The leaders of the organisation should always share their success with the employees, who have had a key role in achieving it. Sharing the overall success with the employees gives them a feeling that they are an important part of the accomplishments and gives them a sign of trust that helps in creating employee engagement (Forbes.com, n.d.). Performance Management one of the best ways to ensure continuous and long term employee engagement is by implementing a performance management system in the organisation. A performance management system allows the organisation to foster a workplace environment where the main stress is laid upon the performance shown by the employees. It includes assessing, reviewing and sharing the performance of all the employees and appreciating them in case of good performance or finding out ways to train them for performing even better. Performance management systems are always attached with some types of incentives or awards that are aimed at keeping the employees motivated and oriented towards performing better than their peers. Such an environment makes the workplace challenging for the employees and they show greater levels of engagement (Garber, 2007). 7 CS Of Employee Engagement Following are the seven essential elements that can help leaders in engaging employees hands, hearts and heads: Connect The leaders of the organisations should be able to make the employees feel that they are of a great value to the company. It has been found that even though compensation, benefits and incentives play an important role in motivating and keeping the employees engaged, a fractured relation between the manager and an employee can cause a lot of damage to the employees engagement. Career Another efficient way of engaging the employees is by providing them with challenging and meaningful work with opportunities for career development. Effective leaders have the capability of challenging the employees and at the same time making them feel confident about the challenge given to them. Such leaders can easily keep the employees engaged (Iveybusinessjournal.com, 2016). Clarity Another important requirement to keep the employees engaged is to have a clear vision set in their minds. The employees desire a complete and clear vision of what the organisation wants them to achieve. Success in the business world and employee engagement is only possible when the vision and mission of the organisation are clearly defined in the mind of the whole workforce. Convey another efficient way to keep the employees engaged is by conveying the expectations of the organisation to the employees and providing them a feedback about their performances. It requires the leaders to carefully examine his followers and work on them to achieve little improvement day by day. Contribute human resource management is largely dependent on the needs of the employees that derives their performance and motivation levels. One such need of the employees is to know that in what ways their inputs are helping the organisation in achieving what it wants to achieve. If the managers are able to provide them a review of the contribution that they have made towards the overall performance of the organisation, they can easily ensure greater employee engagement in the organisation (Iveybusinessjournal.com, 2016). Control another need of the employees is to have the ability to control the flow and pace of their jobs, which can be created by the leaders to ensure greater engagement. The leaders should be aware about the needs of the employees and it should be possible for the employees to approach their leaders and ask for their help if they are facing some problem in their work life or personal life. Such an environment can help in creating job engagement in the organisation as it will form a give and take relation. Collaboration studies have also shown that employees working in teams that have trust and cooperation amongst its members are able to outperform those teams which lack trust and cooperation. Leaders of the organisation can ensure employee engagement and higher productivity by building an environment where there is trust and cooperation amongst the employees. It provides the employees with the opportunity to demonstrate their leadership qualities and be a part of something bigger than them (Iveybusinessjournal.com, 2016). Conclusion From the above information, it is clear that it has become very important for multinational companies to keep their employees engaged if they want to retain them and attract talented pool of employees in the future. Employee engagement is not just beneficial for the employers but is equally important for the employees as it helps them to perform better and develop their careers. On the other hand, for the employers, employee engagement can help in bringing down absenteeism turnover rates while it helps in increasing the productivity, creativity and overall performance of the company. From the view point of the business organisations, keeping the employees engaged might be a difficult task but the benefits of having a workforce of engaged employees makes the efforts worth it. The strategies discussed above are few of the many strategies that companies are using these days to keep their employees engaged. Irrespective of the size of a company i.e. small, medium or large, all companies can make use of the strategies mentioned above and can easily ensure high employee engagement at the workplace. Therefore, all companies and organisational leaders should try their best to ensure employee engagement at the workplace. References Explorance.com. (2016). 6 Ways You Can Benefit From Employee Engagement. [online] Available at: https://explorance.com/6-ways-you-can-benefit-from-employee-engagement-2/ [Accessed 23 Aug. 2016]. Chandani, A., Mehta, M., Mall, A. and Khokhar, V. (2016). Employee Engagement: A Review Paper on Factors Affecting Employee Engagement. 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