EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Employee Engagement

Introduction3

Employee engagement drivers7

Existence of employee engagement in Medtronic Corporation9

Methodology16

Outline of the literature review16

Perception of employee engagement drivers19

Validity20

Conclusion20

References22

Employee Engagement

Introduction

Employee engagement is explored throughout its history and its evolution of definitions. Employee engagement is important to study because it has been shown to affect productivity and retention. Employee engagement is importance in the workplace; it has a long and rich history in the development of its definition and meaning by both scholars and practitioners. These definitions, based on varying interests and perspectives, have led its being a term that is widely used but not clearly understood. The following figure shows various definitions of employee engagement from various authors.

A brief, high-level historical overview of the academic literature will help provide context and grounding in employee engagement. This is intended to aid the reader in better understanding employee engagement as it is today, as well as the definition chosen for this research. The founder of this concept is considered William Kahn (1990). Kahn furthered Goffman's (1959) work, inquiring whether there was a connection of roles to a broader purpose (1990). While Goffman's study focused on fleeting face-to-face encounters (1961), Kahn focused on ongoing and consistent interactions in which people either bring themselves to or remove themselves from work. This attachment or detachment from roles Kahn considered "calibrations from self in role" (Kahn, 1990, p. 694).

Kahn's model has three components: physical, cognitive, and emotional. Physical engagement is the energy and effort that people put towards their work and their role. Cognitive engagement is the concentration and focus that engaged employees embody, while emotional engagement is the enthusiasm and pride they have in their work. Kahn (1990) described engagement as "the harnessing of organization members' selves to their work roles" (1990, p. 695). This "harnessing" varies depending on the employee's perception of three psychological conditions, which Kahn describes as "meaningfulness," "safety," and "availability." "Meaningfulness" occurs when people perceive their work roles as useful and adding value. Challenging and varied tasks, alignment between a person's identity and characteristics of the role, and positive work interactions and relationships all can positively affect meaningfulness.

"Safety" reflects the person's perceived ability to be his or her "true" self at work with an environment that allows for open expression. "Availability" is a perceived measure of the accessibility of resources for the completion of work tasks. May, Gilson, and Harter (2004) explored Kahn's three psychological conditions (meaningfulness, safety, and availability of resources) and employee engagement. They found that the condition most strongly associated with engagement was meaningfulness. Rothbard (2001) focused on both work and family roles and the interplay that a person experiences in his or her multiple roles, particularly focusing on attention and absorption as the components of engagement. A similar yet slightly different viewpoint of engagement was brought to the field by Wilmar Schaufeli in 2002 when he said that engagement is a "positive, fulfilling state of mind" (Schaufeli, et al., 2002, p. 74). The components of his employee engagement model include absorption, dedication, and vigor (Schaufeli & Baker, ...