Development of employee engagement measure: experiences from best companies to work for in India

Abstract

Purpose Employee engagement has become a hot topic among the global workforce. Both academicians and practitioners tout engagement to have a positive impact on individual and organizational performance. However, despite the enhanced interest, the stagnant engagement levels worldwide pose a grave concern for the researchers. Numerous overlapping and inconsistent definitions of employee engagement lead to a conceptual chaos resulting in poor operationalization of the construct. The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi-dimensional measurement tool for employee engagement based on the evidences from the best companies to work for in India. Design/methodology/approach Interviews with the top management of the 15 best companies are used for the generation of items using grounded theory methodology. These items are then subjected to content validity assessment by six domain experts. The scale is administered to the middle-level employees of five companies (n = 332) through questionnaire for exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, reliability assessment and initial evidences for convergent and discriminant validity. Findings The study aimed at developing and validating an employee engagement assessment instrument, which is well-grounded in theory and built on the conceptual framework proposed by both academicians and practitioners and rigorously tested for its psychometric properties to ensure the precise measurement of employee engagement. A 3-factor/16 item employee engagement measurement tool is the finding of this study, which attempts to bridge the incongruity between the academic and industrial view on employee engagement. Originality/value Looking at the dearth of measurement tools built in developing countries and with the intent of resolving the issues related with cultural differences in the application of western assessment tools, the developed scale made a notable contribution to engagement theory with prime focus in the Indian context. The three dimensions of employee engagement-alignment, affectiveness and action- orientation- are in a form and language, that is, comprehensible and consequential for practitioners enabling them to take a closer look at the critical engagement elements that align with the organization's human capital strategy and foster improved performance.

Influence of Empowering and Ethical Leadership on Employees’ Job Satisfaction, Performance, and Organization Commitment

“…Second, literature and studies concerning empowering and ethical leadership in the organization field are still limited. The result from this study uncovers the relationship among variables that have been neglected in preliminary studies (Mwesigwa et al, 2020;Nazir et al, 2021;Shrotryia & Dhanda, 2020). It can better understand the factors that affect employees' job satisfaction to their performance and commitment.…”

“…In some cases, managers and companies focus more on profit-making than employees' well-being, enhancing dissatisfaction (Coggburn, Paul, & Mark, 2017;Sharma et al, 2019;Valaei & Rezaei, 2016). Studies have concluded that personal psychology has a crucial role in addressing the correlation between employees' job satisfaction and job engagement (Dhamija, Gupta, & Bag, 2019;Håvold, Håvold, & Glavee-Geo, 2021;Shrotryia & Dhanda, 2020).…”

“…Commonly commitment has three famous aspects: affective, continuance, and normative (Junaidi, Wicaksono, & Hamka, 2022). It also has an essential role in considering workers to develop loyalty to the organization (Luz et al, 2018;Shrotryia & Dhanda, 2020). The employees build engagement and relationships to correlate to the organization's competitive advantage and loyalty strongly.…”

Using positive deviance to enhance employee engagement: an interpretive structural modelling approach

“…Employees with high engagement levels are more creative (Bakker and Demerouti, 2008), exhibits high task performance (Shuck and Wollard, 2010; Soane et al , 2012), are easy to retain (Saks, 2006) and leads to better financial implications for the organisation (Nayar, 2010; Hewitt, 2013). However, despite the increased awareness and known benefits, organisations worldwide fail to increase their employee engagement levels (Shrotryia and Dhanda, 2020) and reap its benefits (Shuck et al , 2016). In their study, Mann and Harter (2016) reported that only 13% of the world’s working population is currently engaged.…”

Why employee engagement matters? Evidences from Delhi Metro Rail Corporation in India

“…However, this study is the first to explore the relationship between the various dimensions of EE and OCB. For this study, we use a more comprehensive definition of EE including the three facets of alignment, affectiveness and action-orientation (Shrotryia and Dhanda, 2020b). This inter-relationship enables us to disentangle the effect of different facets of EE on OCB.…”