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Abstract:
Employee Engagement has been the focus in organizations as it directly impacts its performance. Organizations with engaged employees tend to perform better and also the factors like enhanced productivity, less employee turnover and attrition rates, less absenteeism, enhanced loyalty and goodwill towards the organization, positive word of mouth are clearly visible in an engaged organization. In the current business scenario, there has been a sharp increase in the interest in the concept of employee engagement and its role in work performance and competitive advantage.
Key Words: Drivers of employee engagement, Trends in employee Engagement, future of employee engagement, employee loyalty, Employee retention
Definitions and Literature Review :
William Kahn (1990:694) 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".
Harter, Schmidt and Hayes (2002) defined employee engagement as "the individual's involvement and satisfaction with as well as enthusiasm for work"
Wellins and Concelman (2005) call employee engagement "the illusive force that motivates employees to higher levels of performance".
The Gallup Organization, potentially the most widely recognized name associated with employee engagement due to their best selling book, "First, Break All the Rules," defines engaged employees as those who, "work with a passion and feel a profound connection to their company" and "drive innovation and move the organization forward" (GMJ, 2006).
The International Survey Research (ISR) defines employee engagement as, "a process by which an organization increases commitment and continuation of its employees to the achievement of superior results." The ISR separates commitment into three parts; cognitive commitment, affective commitment, and behavioral commitment or think, feel and act.
In 2001, N.P Rothbard's definition described engagement as a psychological presence with two key mechanisms, attention and absorption. Attention is "cognitive ability and the amount of time one spends thinking about a role" and absorption is "being engrossed in a role and refers to the intensity of one's focus on a role" (Saks, 2006).
Maslach et al provide more clarity concerning this relationship by describing engagement dimensions (energy, involvement, efficacy) and burnout dimensions (exhaustion, cynicism, inefficacy) as complete opposites (Saks, 2006).
Employee engagement is the extent to which the workforce is committed to the goal, mission and...