Importance of employee engagement to organizational change
Employee engagement is a concept that describes the level of enthusiasm and dedication a worker feels toward their job (Smith, 2022). Engaged employees care about their work and about the performance of the company and feel that their efforts make a difference. Employee engagement can be critical to a company's success, given its clear links to job satisfaction and employee morale. Communication is a critical part of creating and maintaining employee engagement. Engaged employees are more likely to be productive and higher performing (Smith and Rathburn, 2020). They also often display a greater commitment to a company's values and goals. This article will be focused on how employee voice and organizational justice affect employee engagement in organizational change.
Employee Voice
Employee voice is how
people communicate their views to their employer and influence matters that
affect them at work. (Maxwell, 2021)
It helps to build open and trusting relationships between employers and their
people which can lead to organisational success. For employers, effective voice
contributes to building trust with employees, innovation, productivity, and
organisational improvement. For employees, self-expression in voice often
results in feeling valued, increased job satisfaction, greater influence, and
better opportunities for development. Employee voice is important in creating
inclusive and safe working environments too.
For example, the organization where the author of this article works for used to have a “punishment” strategy to make sure that all the employees adhere to the academic and operational guidelines. How this affected the employees is that if any of those guidelines are breached by the tutors(employees) a particular percentage of their pay will be deducted. This was a strict punishment method because some of these guidelines might have been breached by the employee because of an unintentional mistake or as a result of unawareness because maybe the employee is new. Therefore, the wider employee community was overwhelmed and stressed out because of this strategy. This was introduced as a tool to make sure that the employee performance doesn’t go down since they are working from home and there is no one to monitor them like they were in the physical office before. However, this strategy was too much for the employees to take in and they requested the management to re-think about it because some of these breaches might have happened due to a genuine mistake since the tutors are human beings and it’s not possible to not make mistakes occasionally. The management did listen to the employees’ opinions and decided to put an end to this “pay cut” system and looked at other alternative methods to maintain employee performance.
Organizational Justice
Organisational justice, first postulated by Greenberg in 1987, refers to an employee’s perception of their organisation’s behaviours, decisions and actions and how these influence the employees’ own attitudes and behaviours at work (Baldwin, 2006). Employee perceptions can influence attitudes and behaviour for good or ill, in turn having a positive or negative impact on employee performance and the organization’s success.
The example that was discussed above can be applied here because at that point, the wider employee community was overwhelmed and stressed out because of the “punishment framework” and that affected their performance was decreasing due to the fact that employees didn’t feel free or safe. This affected the employees to think that the company is not the best option for them to work anymore.
Employee voice and organizational justice play a major role in employee engagement towards organizational change. Therefore, management needs to keep talking to the employees of the company to understand their viewpoints as a tool to develop the organization and provide solutions and be made aware of the business’s ongoing process.
References
Baldwin, S. (2006) Organisational
Justice. Brighton, UK: Institute for employment studies.
Morris, A. (2019) Employee
engagement & organisational change, DavidsonMorris. Available
at:
https://www.davidsonmorris.com/employee-engagement/#:~:text=The%20importance%20of%20employee%20engagement,-Employee%20engagement%20is&text=A%20highly%20engaged%20employee%20will,career%20progression%20within%20the%20organisation.
(Accessed: December 1, 2022).
Smith, T. (2022) What is employee engagement? definition, strategies, and example, Investopedia. Investopedia. Available at: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/employee-engagement.asp (Accessed: November 27, 2022).
Agreed on the content above. In addition to above, according to Ghani et al. (2022), researchers believe that employee engagement leads to employee retention because it encourages an employee to stick with the same organization for a longer period of time, and it gives a sense of satisfaction to employees.
ReplyDeleteThanks Nadula, Also, A certain level of openness and honesty at work is necessary to nurture good relationships in which everyone will deliver what’s expected of them (Brag, 2022)
DeleteGreat article Piyumi, furthermore employee engagement has been conceptualized in different ways, for example, according to Men (2015), it is the positive attitude held by the employees toward the organization and its values. The level of employee performance is highly determined by the level of commitment an employee has toward their organization and its values (Selvarasu & Sastry, 2014). An engaged employee is aware of business context and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization (Ologbo & Sofian, 2013).
ReplyDeleteThanks Chathuri, When employees have access to the big picture, where there is regular and clear communication, they become empowered to perceive how their work fits into the company’s overall goal. Only when this is apparent will employees feel truly valued and inspired to work to their full capacity (Selvarasu & Sastry, 2014) .
DeleteGood article Piyumi, Further, the interrelationship between employee engagement and wisdom making can also lead towards employee creativeness. Even though employee engagement is a comparatively new concept but has added considerable value to modern management. From the employee engagement you can forecast a few factors like retention, productivity, profitability and customer satisfaction (Borah, 2015).
ReplyDeleteThanks Sarasi , I agree with your comment as well. Boosting employee engagement through effective communication and a healthy work culture should be a priority for all business owners, at all times, particularly during times of change. An understanding and supportive staff will help facilitate smoother transitions, giving businesses the confidence needed to make change, and continue keeping up with the competition (Bragg, 2022). It is true that this has a big impact on the employee retention. I've personally experienced it.
DeleteNice start for the Importance of Employee Engagement to Organizational Change Wasana.The business environment is growing more global, competitive, and deregulated, and strategic change initiatives are becoming a must for many firms(Borah, 2015).
ReplyDelete