Wednesday, July 10, 2024
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT – ARE YOU ENGAGED IN YOUR JOB?
July 10, 2024 by Dr. Peter Joseph Campion
Edited by Rebecca Skidmore Biggio, PHD
About the Author: Dr. Peter Joseph Campion is a former NFL draft pick with a terminal degree from a research one academic institution. He has extensive collegiate teaching and research experience. Dr. Campion began his journey in federal service in 2021 at the Department of Defense Equal Opportunity Institute (DEOMI) as a Training Specialist. He currently serves as a Management Initiatives Program Manager at the Department of the Interior (DOI) – Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) – Equal Employment Opportunity Directive (EEOD). Dr. Campion’s primary tasks include managing education and training for the BSEE EEOD and managing disability programming for the BSEE.
Note from Kathryn Troutman, Federal Career Coach®. I am publishing this article so that Federal employees can think about their current positions. Is your job working for you? Do you feel great about your job? If not, it might be time to re-evaluate. I coach Federal employees to update their resumes and find new jobs.
Read On! Are you Engaged, Valued, Safe, Empowered, Productive?
Employee Engagement
When employees feel engaged, they see their work as valuable and meaningful. One of the most widely recognized definitions of employee engagement comes from Shuck and associates (2010), who define employee engagement as “a positive, active work-related psychosocial state conceptualized by maintenance, intensity, and direction of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral energy” (p. 269). In other words, engaged employees feel positive about actively devoting their energies to their work.
Views about the concept of employee engagement, including definitions, frameworks, and assessment methods, have been used in several ways. These concepts include personal role (meaningfulness, safety, and availability), and work-related (vigor, dedication, and absorption).[i]
Personal Role Engagement
An essential construct associated with employee engagement, is defined by Kahn (1990) 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” (p. 694). In other words, employees need to feel that their work and who they are when they are doing their jobs contributes to their overall identity.
Kahn’s view of personal-role engagement focuses on developing the three psychological conditions of employee engagement:
- psychological meaningfulness,
- psychological safety, and
- psychological availability.[ii]
These are the measures taken by a person that establish pre-conditions for employee engagement.[iii]
Meaningfulness entails an experience where individuals feel that their job and work efforts are valuable and supported by a sense of personal satisfaction as well as professional worth and importance.[iv] “Higher-order needs are translated into values, working toward a higher cause, [and, thus, a sense of] meaningfulness” is experienced.[v]
Frequently referenced regarding actual physical health and equally determined by psychological and emotional factors is the sense of safety, an individual’s feeling of security and the capacity to become one’s ideal self emotionally, physically, and cognitively without the fear of adverse effects on individuals’ self-esteem and professional identity.[vi]
Safety also encompasses a psychologically safe environment, framed as a resource, with clear work-related expectations and a belief that individuals can be themselves while on the job.[vii]
The concept of availability encompasses the access to physical, emotional, and psychological tools and assets which are essential for work tasks.[viii] According to Kahn (1990), availability “measures how ready people are to engage, given the distractions they experience as members of social systems” (p. 703).
Work-Related Engagement
This concept is defined as a “a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind . . . that an engaged employee will possess a solid feeling of vigor towards, dedication to, and absorption in work activities” (p. 74).[ix]
Vigor is associated with the feeling of constant and prolonged resilience and persistence, gaining strength through adversity, the urge to accomplish work tasks, and an abundance of vitality and stamina while completing objectives.[x]
Dedication is a state when employees feel challenged, driven, and motivated).[xi] Individuals feel excited and passionate about their work when they are dedicated as well as having a sense of pleasure and satisfaction with their accomplishments, thus producing a feeling of abundance and personal significance, value, and purpose.[xii]
Absorption is how individuals feel when they are performing work tasks with a sense that time goes by very quickly.[xiii] Absorption is enjoyable when deep work immersion occurs; individuals might even find it difficult to disconnect themselves from their work when they are genuinely absorbed.[xiv]
The nature for the dynamic of the leader-employee relationship with employee engagement needs to be founded on healthy, goal-orientated partnerships; a relationship that is open, welcoming, transparent, and growth-focused promotes employee engagement.
Outcomes
The outcomes of employee engagement can be divided into two categories: individual and organizational. The most salient individual outcomes for employee engagement include happiness,[xv] relationship satisfaction,[xvi] relief from stress and burnout,[xvii] and life fulfillment.[xviii]
Other significant individual results of employee engagement include harmonious work-life balance,[xix] physical health,[xx] psychological health,[xxi] motivation,[xxii] coping skills,[xxiii] increased capabilities,[xxiv] job satisfaction,[xxv] and work performance.[xxvi]
Leadership is a primary organizational antecedent for employee engagement. While striving to increase the levels of employee engagement, leaders have strengthened safety, efficiency, and economic performance[xxvii] while decreasing turnover intentions and increasing organizational commitment.[xxviii]
While striving to improve the levels of employee engagement, leaders have also reached overarching organizational objectives[xxix] and developed organizational citizenship behaviors.[xxx]
Outcomes (2)
The outcomes of employee engagement can be divided into two categories: individual and organizational. The most salient individual outcomes for employee engagement include happiness (Høigaard, Giske, & Sundsli, 2012), relationship satisfaction (Bakker, Demerouti, & Sanz-Vergel, 2014), relief from stress and burnout (Buys & Rothmann, 2010), and life fulfillment (Shimazu, Schaufeli, Kubota, & Kawakami, 2012).
Other significant individual results of employee engagement include harmonious work-life balance (Singh, Chang, & Dika, 2010), physical health (Sonnentag, Mojza, Binnewies, & Scholl, 2008), psychological health (Torp, Grimsmo, Hagen, Duran, & Gudbergsson, 2013), motivation (Biswas & Bhatnagar, 2013), coping skills (Xanthopoulou et al., 2009), increased capabilities (Mache, Danzer, Klapp, & Groneberg, 2013), job satisfaction (Yalabik, Popaitoon, Chowne, & Rayton, 2013), and work performance (Bakker, Tims, & Derts, 2012).
Leadership is a primary organizational antecedent for employee engagement. While striving to increase the levels of employee engagement, leaders have strengthened safety, efficiency, and economic performance (Soane et al., 2012) while decreasing turnover intentions and increasing organizational commitment (Hu, Schaufeli, & Taris, 2011).
While striving to improve the levels of employee engagement, leaders have also reached overarching organizational objectives (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002) and developed organizational citizenship behaviors (Rurkkhum & Bartlett, 2012).
FOOTNOTES:
[i] Bailey et al., 2017; Madden & Bailey, 2017; Shuck, Osam, et al., 2017.
[ii] May, Gilson, & Harter, 2004.
[iii] Chen, Zhang, & Vogel, 2011.
[iv] Shuck et al., 2016.
[v] Chalofsky, 2003, p. 71.
[vi] Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002.
[vii] Shuck & Wollard, 2010.
[viii] (Shuck et al., 2016)
[ix] (Schaufeli et al., 2002
[x] Shirom, 2007.
[xi] (Rana, Ardichvili, & Tkachenko, 2014
[xii] (Shuck, Reio, Jr., & Rocco, 2011)
[xiii] (Van Bogaert, Wouters, Willems, Mondelaers, & Clarke, 2013)
[xiv] (Schaufeli et al., 2002)
[xv] (Høigaard, Giske, & Sundsli, 2012)
[xvi] (Bakker, Demerouti, & Sanz-Vergel, 2014)
[xvii] (Buys & Rothmann, 2010)
[xviii] (Shimazu, Schaufeli, Kubota, & Kawakami, 2012)
[xix] (Singh, Chang, & Dika, 2010)
[xx] (Sonnentag, Mojza, Binnewies, & Scholl, 2008)
[xxi] (Torp, Grimsmo, Hagen, Duran, & Gudbergsson, 2013)
[xxii] (Biswas & Bhatnagar, 2013)
[xxiii] (Xanthopoulou et al., 2009)
[xxiv] (Mache, Danzer, Klapp, & Groneberg, 2013)
[xxv] (Yalabik, Popaitoon, Chowne, & Rayton, 2013),
[xxvi] (Bakker, Tims, & Derts, 2012).
[xxvii] (Soane et al., 2012)
[xxviii] (Hu, Schaufeli, & Taris, 2011).
[xxix] (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002)
[xxx] (Rurkkhum & Bartlett, 2012)
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Kathryn Troutman is the Founder and President of Resume Place, Inc., a Federal Career Consulting business located in Baltimore, MD. Her firm specializes in writing and designing professional federal resumes, as well as consulting, coaching and education on the federal hiring process. She is the author of many best-selling federal career books, including the Federal Resume Guidebook, 7th Ed. See the books at https://resume-place.com/books/
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