Rise in economy and higher global standards are making Indian organizations to develop employee-centric HR policies for optimal use of workforce. Organizations, operating in global environment, are more sophisticated, have better HR policies, leading to increased productivity through better engagements. A better engaged workforce has improved the bottom lines of these companies significantly. This study explores employee engagement factors by recording perception of 500 employees serving 10 prime business sectors in India and compares the engagement antecedents in these sectors. Thematic analysis is done on identified themes: insightful work, pragmatic management, positive work environment, growth opportunity, and engaging leadership. These significant factors are visualized specifically for IT sector. By resolving the engagement issues raised in this study, it is anticipated that the employers can address overall efficiency of their workforce and improve the employer-employee relationship.
TopIntroduction
The human asset is a key component of any organization and is core to its competitiveness and success. Organizations are incorporating new HR practices to address the critical matters on job performance, task performance, organizational citizenship behaviour, productivity, discretionary effort, affective commitment, and continuance commitment of its manpower and keep the employees engaged. The investment in people is one key area that lean organizations focuses on (Maskell, Baggaley, and Grasso, 2011).
The high levels of employee engagement translate into retention of talent, foster customer loyalty, and improve organizational performance and stakeholder value (Lockwood, 2007). The effective employee engagements drive increase productivity, profits, and customer satisfaction for the organization (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002; Siddhanta & Roy, 2012), it also stems to make employees happier, more satisfied, and more fulfilled, and want to remain with the organisation (Adejoh and Adejoh, 2013).
Organizations are emphasizing on use their employee's talents, knowledge, skills, and vigour (Bodankin and Tziner, 2009). Knowing the engagement level of the workforce within the enterprise can be the foundation for organizational change and on-going success (Havill, 2010). This enables the organizations to pick the competency of their human asset and ensure that the manpower is employed in their precise roles and are cognitively, emotionally and behaviourally invested in their jobs (Dalas, Lam, Weiss, Weich, and Hulin, 2009).
Agile organizations are the outcome of engaged employees. Novel information flows in the organization and engaged workers proactively modify their work environment in order to stay engaged (Baker, 2011). Organizations are realizing that advancements cannot be fruitful without wilful involvement and engagement of employees. Concepts like Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) have surfaced advocating that efficiency and productivity lie within the employees’ ability and commitment.
The organizations are solicitous about their employees and invest considerable resource to improve employee engagement (Xu & Thomas, 2011) and prioritize employee training, involvement, and empowerment (Maskell, Baggaley, and Grasso, 2011). The resources invested are reckoned necessary for development of the organization (Brás and Rodrigues, 2007). The investment is pivotal for business growth as well as for serving competitive advantage (Balfour and Wechsler, 1996). The organizations are automating the HRM modules and are investing in Employee Information Management Systems (EIMS) to effectively manage employee information (Oduh, Misra, Robertas, and Rytis, 2018) for better analysis and pass the benefits to them.
Employee engagement could lead to vital job creation in Asian countries (Gallup, 2013) like India. Employee engagement is higher in double-digit growth companies which are exceeding average industry revenue growth (Markos & Sridevi, 2010). For a developing country like India with good economic growth prospective, the organizations could increase their competitive advantage with affective human asset policies and contribute towards holistic growth of economy (Ellis and Sorensen, 2007).