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Employee Engagement
William G. Castellano
A New Framework of Employee Engagement ■ 1
If one does not know how to define and A review of the academic research on
measure engagement, then an analysis employee engagement shows the term
of its drivers and outcomes will be is used at different times to refer to
suspect. For example, two attitudinal psychological states, traits, and behaviors.
measures of employee engagement Macy and Schnedier show that engagement
found in many consulting firms’ surveys as a disposition (i.e. trait engagement) can
include employee job satisfaction and be regarded as an inclination or orientation
continuance commitment, which focus to experience the world from a particular
on employees’ intentions to remain with vantage point (e.g., positive affectivity
the company. Yet, the research correlating characterized by feelings of enthusiasm)
job satisfaction and job performance and this trait gets reflected in psychological
has mixed results.6 And a number of state engagement.11 Psychological state
studies have found a negative relationship engagement is conceptualized as an
between continuance commitment and job antecedent of behavioral engagement,
performance, making it quite possible to defined in terms of discretionary
have very content employees who perform effort. Thus, they see engagement as
poorly. Research has shown that the type a multidimensional construct.12
of commitment is critical; employees
who want to belong to the organization
(affective commitment) are more likely
“the type of commitment
to perform well than those who need to
is critical; employees
belong (continuance commitment).7 who want to belong to
Erickson argued that “engagement is above the organization… are
and beyond simple satisfaction with the more likely to perform
employment arrangement or basic loyalty
to the employer.”8 Engagement is about well than those who
passion, commitment, and the willingness need to belong”
to invest oneself and expend one’s
discretionary effort to help the employer
succeed. Organizational effectiveness
depends on more than simply maintaining a
stable workforce; employees must perform
assigned duties dependably and be willing
to engage in activities that go beyond
role requirements.9 Harter and Schmidt
propose that employee engagement
reflects a deeper level of involvement and
enthusiasm from the employee than the
terms “job satisfaction” or “organizational
commitment” might imply.10 The newer
emphasis on absorption, passion, and
affect better reflects the reason work
attitudes matter to organizations.
A NEW FRAMEWORK OF
Drivers of Engagement
Role Clarity
Role Fit
Drawing from practitioner and
academic research, we present Coworkers
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Traits Psychological
conditions of engagement
Proactive Personality
Meaningfulness
Autotelic Personality
Psychological Safety
Positive Affectivity
Psychological Availability
Conscientiousness
Perceived Organizational Support
Self Efficacy
Psychological Contract Fulfillment
Self-Esteem
Locus of Control
Psychological
state engagement
Job Involvement
Empowerment
Affective Commitment
Positive Affectivity
Behavioral engagement
Strategic Outcomes
Productivity
Quality
Customer Satisfaction
Financial/Market Performance
Revenue
Profits
Market Value
interactions.26 To the extent that co-worker Such affective relations among group
interactions foster a sense of belonging, members are also referred to as morale,
a stronger sense of social identity and cohesion, and rapport.
meaning should emerge. Alternatively, a
loss of a social identity should be negatively
MANAGEMENT
associated with meaningfulness.27
Effective managers are those who get the
Interpersonal relations among employees work done with the people they have and
that are supportive and trusting should also do not try to change them; they attempt
foster psychological safety.28 The bases for to capitalize on the competencies their
interpersonal trust can be either cognitive people have, not what they, the manager,
or affective.29 wished they had.37 The relation with one’s
immediate manager can have a dramatic
The Bases for
impact on an individual’s perceptions
Interpersonal Trust
of the work environment. A supportive,
Cognitive and non-controlling, relationship should
Concerns the reliability and foster perceptions of safety38 and enhance
dependability of others employee creativity.39
Affective
Supervisors who foster a supportive work
Rooted in the emotional relationships
between individuals environment: 40
• Display concern for employees’
Individuals generally express concern
needs and feelings
for the welfare of each other, believe in
the intrinsic virtue of such relationships • Provide positive feedback
and are willing to make future emotional
• Encourage employees to:
investments in the relationship. 30
-- Voice their concerns
-- Develop new skills
Psychological research in organizations
-- Solve work-related problems
has shown that, when people are working
together, they may share beliefs and Such supportive actions enhance employee
affective experiences and thus show similar self-determination and interest in their work.
motivational and behavioral patterns. 31
Employees who are self-determined
Coworkers may: experience “a sense of choice in initiating
• Feel collective emotions, collective and regulating one’s own actions.”41 These
moods, or group affective tone32 individuals are likely to feel safer to engage
• Share perceived collective efficacy33 themselves more fully, try out novel ways
• Show high group potency34 of doing things, discuss mistakes and learn
from these behaviors when they are in such
• Share engagement as a
supportive environments.42 Supervisory
motivational construct35
supportiveness of employees’ self-
• Be involved in positive as well as negative
determination and congruent perceptions
psychological contagion processes36
between supervisors and employees have
also both been linked with enhancing trust.43
Much of the equity theory research was fostered when decision makers treat
derived from initial work conducted by people with respect and sensitivity and
Adams, who used a social exchange explain the rationale for decisions. 56
theory framework to evaluate fairness, More recently, interactional justice has
which was used to help define distributive come to be seen as consisting of two
justice. 54 According to Adams, people were specific types of interpersonal treatment:
not concerned about the absolute level interpersonal and informational justice. 57
of outcomes per se, but whether those
outcomes were fair. Adams suggested Types of Interactional Justice
that one way to determine whether an
Interpersonal Justice
outcome was fair was to calculate the ratio
Treatment with politeness, dignity,
of one’s outcomes (e.g., compensation, and respect by those who execute
promotions, and development) to their procedures or determine outcomes
contributions or inputs (e.g., effort, Informational Justice
time, education, intelligence, and The explanations of why procedures
experience) and then compare that were used in a certain way or outcomes
ratio with that of a comparison other. were distributed in a certain fashion
Leventhal and colleagues can be credited Fairness has long been considered one
with extending the notion of procedural of the key predictors of employees’
justice into non-legal contexts such as affective states and behaviors. When
organizational settings. Leventhal’s theory employees feel that they are being
of procedural justice judgments focused treated fairly, they reciprocate through the
on six criteria that a procedure should performance of organizational citizenship
meet if it is to be perceived as fair. 55 behaviors (OCB). 58 Indeed, a substantial
amount of research at the individual
To be perceived as fair, procedures should:
level of analysis has demonstrated that
• Be applied consistently across
perceptions of fairness are tied to OCB. 59
people and across time
• Be free from bias (e.g. no third party Additionally, Colquitt, et al. illustrated the
vested interest in a particular settlement) overall and unique relationships among
• Ensure that accurate information is distributive, procedural, interpersonal,
collected and used in making decisions and informational justice and several
• Have some mechanism to correct desirable outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction,
flawed or inaccurate decisions organizational commitment, and evaluation
of authority, organizational citizenship
• Conform to personal or prevailing
behavior, withdrawal and performance).60
standards of ethics or morality
• Ensure that the opinions of groups
affected are taken into account TRAIT ENGAGEMENT
The most recent advance in the justice In this framework, employees’ traits
literature focuses on the importance of modify the relationship between drivers of
the quality of the interpersonal treatment engagement and both state and behavioral
people receive when procedures are engagement. Although it is easy to state
implemented. Interactional justice is that people who have passion for their
work are more likely to feel engaged and likely to extend their feelings of self-worth
demonstrate engagement behaviors, it is to a work-specific sense of competence.69
more difficult to state why some people Conversely,individuals with little self-esteem
have passion for their work and others do are not likely to see themselves as able to
not. Macey and Schneider suggest that make a difference or influence their work
those more likely to experience feelings and organizations. Another trait related
of engagement and who demonstrate to engagement, locus of control, explains
engagement behavior are also more likely the degree to which people believe they,
to choose environments that provide the rather than external forces, determine what
opportunity to do so.61 happens in their lives.70 Locus of control is
also a key dimension of empowerment.71
Traits that have been linked to state and Lastly, self-efficacy, defined as having
behavioral engagement include several confidence in one’s ability to perform, has
personality-based constructs including been shown to increase personal initiative
autotelic personality, trait positive at work.72 This is consistent with Graham’s
affectivity, proactive personality, and conceptual model of principled dissent,
conscientiousness. These constructs have which suggests that employees with high
an underlying commonality, in that they self-confidence see principled dissent as a
embody differences among individuals in more feasible (that is, potentially effective)
their propensity to exercise human agency.62 way to bring about change than employees
with low self-confidence.73
Traits Linked to State and
Behavioral Engagement PSYCHOLOGICAL
Autotelic Personality CONDITIONS OF
A general propensity to mentally transform
potential threats into enjoyable challenges63
ENGAGEMENT
Trait Positive Affectivity Together, the drivers of engagement impact
A proclivity for active interaction with the necessary psychological conditions of
one’s environment64 that might lead to engagement, as well as the psychological
expansive and friendly behaviors, resulting
state of engagement. The psychological
in more effective working relationships
with coworkers and supervisors65 conditions of engagement include the
meaningfulness of the work, employees’
Proactive Personality
psychological safety and availability,
Consistently taking action and overcoming
opposition to change things for the better66 perceptions of organizational support, and
psychological contract fulfillment.
Conscientiousness
Dependability, carefulness, thoroughness, Kahn proposed that three psychological
responsibility, and perseverance67
conditions – meaningfulness, safety and
availability – influence the degree to
which one engages in his/her role at work.
Self-esteem, a personality trait defined
Together, the three conditions shape how
as a general feeling of self-worth, is
people inhabit their roles. Organization
posited to be related to empowerment, a
members seem to ask themselves three
component of engagement.68 Individuals
questions in each situation: (1) How
who hold themselves in high esteem are
meaningful is it for me to bring myself into
Antecedent Influences
on Job Involvement
PSYCHOLOGICAL
STATE ENGAGEMENT Job Characteristics
e.g. autonomy, skill variety, task
Employee engagement is primarily a identity and significance104
psychological state, embracing several Supervisory Behaviors
related ideas that represent some form of e.g. consideration and participation105
job involvement, empowerment, affective Individual Differences
commitment, and positive affectivity. There
e.g. internal motivation106
is considerable agreement that engagement
as a psychological state has a strong
affective tone connoting, at a minimum, Individuals who have high job involvement
high levels of involvement (passion and may also experience “flow”, defined as
absorption) in the work and the organization the “holistic sensation that people feel
(pride and identity) as well as affective when they act with total involvement.”
energy (enthusiasm and alertness) and When individuals are in a flow state, little
a sense of self-presence in the work. conscious control is necessary for their
actions, and they narrow their attention
to specific stimuli. Individuals in a flow
experience do not need external rewards
act. Locke and Latham referred to focused The degree to which an individual can
influence strategic, administrative, or
attention and intensity (two elements of
operating outcomes at work126 – associated
engagement) as unmeasured attributes of with high performance and an absence of
motivated action and as reasons why goal withdrawal from difficult situations127
mechanisms are motivational.112
Kanter suggested that in order to be
Psychological Empowerment empowering, organizations must “make
more information more available to
Mathieu et al. suggested that more people at more levels through
empowerment is the “experience of more devices.”128 Kouzes and Posner
authority and responsibility.”113 Thus, stated that “without information, you
empowerment is not an enduring can be certain that people will not
personality trait generalizable across extend themselves to take responsibility
situations, but rather, a psychological or vent their creative energies.”129
state shaped by a work environment.114
Others have defined empowerment
as the motivational concept of self-
efficacy.115 Whereas Thomas and Velthouse
define it more broadly as increased
intrinsic task motivation manifested
True psychological presence at and The label that is probably most relevant
identification with work go beyond to human resource management research
CONCLUSION
The research linking employee engagement For more information
with strategic and financial outcomes is
contact:
impressive. However, we feel confident
that the relationship between employee Rutgers University
engagement and organizational outcomes Center for Human Resource Strategy
would be stronger if better measures Human Resource Management
were used. Most important, in order for Janice H. Levin Building
organizations to achieve the strategic School of Management
outcomes they desire, they need to better and Labor Relations
understand how different employees are 94 Rockafeller Road, Suite 216
affected by different drivers of engagement. Piscataway, NJ 08854
www.chrs.rutgers.edu
We believe this framework provides a
(732) 445-5975
better measure of engagement, along
with important measures of the drivers,
Or contact William G. Castellano
conditions, and outcomes of engagement.
directly at wcastell@rci.rutgers.edu
Thus, organizations that use this framework
www.chrs.rutgers.edu