Sustainable Employee Engagement

Abstract

AbstractEmployee Engagement has been an accepted tool used by HR managers in dealing with employee retention problem. Interestingly, several studies confirmed that only a small percentage of employees were actively engaged at work, leading to the problems that these employees do not deliver their full potential to help their organization succeed. This paper intends to review employee engagement practices, people involved to suggest methods to accelerate its positive outcomes.This paper reveals employee engagement definitions which have been drawn from two emphases. Former emphasized on engagement with roles and jobs while the later emphasized on engagement with organization. In summary, employee engagement were defined in term of job engagement and organization engagement such as employees’ positive feelings toward their jobs, co-workers, boss, workplace, and organization, which leads to positive employee behaviors and their intention to put forward extra effort at work. Instruments available to measure the level of employee engagement were reviewed including a tool developed in Thai context called Emo-meter which measures employee well-being, feeling of belongingness and the effort to do their best. Sustainable engagement process is suggested, starting with the plan, the implementation and the evaluation. As a continuous process, employee engagement consists of three ongoing stages. In planning stage, program planners make decision on who is to be engaged. This paper suggests thatindividual engagement plan must be developed. The implementation process must involve the right group of people. Mangers/leaders are required to fully participate in every engagement stage.