Employee Engagement
A strategic tool to influence organisational outcomes
At the end of May, the Scottish Executive
published a report, “Employee Engagement in the Public Sector –
A review of Literature” (www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/05/09111348/0).
The report is the output from the first stage of a
research study into the importance of employee engagement within
the public sector.
This study is led by Ralph Leishman in association with DTZ
Consulting & Research.
The literature review was consistent in its
view of employee engagement as being a two-way interaction
between employee and employer.
The review also emphasised the growing importance and
relevance of engagement to organisational outcomes.
In looking at the published literature, it
is clear that some of the major employers in the UK (Royal Bank
of Scotland and the NHS for example) take employee engagement
seriously and are actively implementing measures to increase
engagement levels. Engagement in these organisations is not seen as merely an issue
for HR. Rather, it is seen as a strategic issue at Board level, impacting standards
of service delivery in the public and private sectors as well as
profitability in the private sector.
The evidence shows that the impact of
employee engagement (or disengagement) can manifest itself
through:
 | productivity and organisational
performance |
| outcomes for customers of the organisation |
| employee retention rates |
| organisational culture, and |
| advocacy of the organisation and its external image. |
There is no discernable difference between
the dynamics of engagement within the public sector as opposed
to the private sector.
Rather, differences in engagement levels result from
organisational characteristics; in whichever sector that
organisation sits. However, our findings suggest that the public sector performs
weaker in areas relating to strategic vision and change
management, both of which are important to employee engagement.
The report concludes
that that the primary driving force behind engagement is the
organisation, its view of engagement and how it acts to create
an environment conducive to engaging employees.
Important areas in which an organisation
can work to improve engagement include:
| training and career development |
| effective management |
| promoting a clear strategic
vision |
| communication |
| fair treatment |
| pay and benefits |
| job satisfaction |
| cooperation and trust |
These factors vary between those that tend to be
taken as given and written explicitly into the contract of
employment (i.e. pay and benefits) and those that are
organisational-dependent, cannot be taken for granted and
require the organisation to take an initiative (i.e. ensuring
two-way communication, promoting a strategic vision and building
trust)..
If you would like to discuss
our report, Ralph Leishman would be
delighted to hear from you. You can contact him
by emailing him at
Ralph.Leishman@4-consulting.com
Ralph is a director of 4-consulting,
click here to view his
profile.
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