This document discusses employee engagement. It defines engagement as behavior or cognition that is actionable and in the interest of the organization. Engagement is the result of an employee's motivation and alignment with organizational goals. If either motivation or alignment is lacking, engagement will be zero. The key is ensuring employees view their own interests as aligned with the organization's interests. Surveys often just measure satisfaction rather than true engagement in strategic and value-creating work. Leadership must build commitment in others and also ensure their contributions further organizational goals.
3. Resource-based view of firms often argues that the performance implications of human resources includes the degree of alignment of individual interest and organizational goals: “To the extent that individual members of the organization are motivated to behave in line with organizational goals, the POTENTIAL advantage derived from the availability of knowledge and skills translates into ACTUAL PEFORMANCE.” (Gottschalg & Zollo, 2007)
4. My definition of Employee Engagement (Collins, 2010) Employee Engagement must involved some sort of behavior or cognition (e.g., problem solving, creativity) that is actionable (i.e., can have some sort of “result”) and is in the interest of the organization. Like engaging a motor or engine, the machine can be fueled and running (motivated) but it is not “engaged” until it has been put in gear and the potential is converted into actual action (performance).
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7. Commitment with Work-related Outcomes: Relationships Commitment without Engagement Commitment ≠ Performance Meta-analysis (2002) Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky
8. Potential Actual Environment and Context “Variables” Translated into behaviors Target “right” behaviors Positive Psych. State Outcomes = Performance Motivation Alignment Job Design, Leadership and Support Engagement
9. Interest Alignment Management (HR) practices focused on prescribing job tasks and behaviors are not likely to be effective at fostering the more discretionary and unspecifiable actions that contribute to the strategic goals and value creation. Aligned actions hold the potential for creating competitive advantage for organizations because they are discretionary and unspecifiable actions. Yet these same characteristics make aligned actions particularly subject to the willingness of employees to engage in them. For employees to be motivated to engage in actions that are discretionary and cannot be specified, utilizing their own initiative to discover and define new work behaviors for themselves, then it will be critical that the employees view their own interests as being aligned with those of the organization. Organizational interest alignment can be defined as the degree to which the members of the organization are motivated to behave in line with organizational goals. The problem of action and interest alignment: Beyond job requirements and incentive compensation Colvin & Boswell (2007)
10. Potential Actual Looks like gossiping, party planning, updating CVs, Facebook, etc. Outcomes = Performance Disengagement (off-task) Disengagement (misalignment) Commitment Engagement Alignment Looks like work but is not performance related (off-target, too limited in scope) For the most part, employee satisfaction surveys measure this
11. Potential Actual 2 1 Outcomes = Performance Disengagement (off-task) Disengagement (misalignment) Commitment Engagement Alignment Two Major Challenges in Leadership Build, in others, the commitment, excitement and passion to contribute Know, communicate and ensure that the contribution of others is in-line with the interest of the organization.
