Workforce engagement: What it is, what drives it, and why it matters for organizational performance

Abstract

Based on a review of the history of the employee engagement construct and its measurement, we define workforce engagement as the aggregate of the work engagement experiences of individual employees in an organization. In contrast to most research on employee engagement, we study companies rather than individuals and the companies represent a diverse set of industries. We hypothesize and demonstrate on a sample of (up to) 102 publicly traded companies that workforce engagement significantly predicts organizational financial (adjusting for industry:Return on Assets, Net Margin but not Tobin's q) and customer metrics (the American Customer Satisfaction Index and the Harris Reputation Quotient) 1 and 2 years after the workforce engagement data were collected. In addition, using a split-sample approach to avoid method bias, we hypothesize and show that (a) company organizational practices (the strongest correlate), supervisory support, and work attributes are significant correlates of workforce engagement and (b) that workforce engagement mediates the relationship between these correlates of engagement and the organizational performance metrics. Implications of the findings for research and practice are discussed.

Basic psychological need satisfaction mediates the relationship between engaging leadership and work engagement: A cross‐national study

“…The most widely used scholarly definition of work engagement describes it as “a positive, fulfilling, work‐related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption (Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzalez‐Roma, & Bakker, ; p. 74).” The vigor component refers to high levels of energy and perseverance, the dedication component refers to a sense of significance, inspiration, and involvement and the absorption component refers to being focused, fully concentrated, and attentive to one's work. By employing engaged workers, organizations may increase not only the performance at the individual and team level, but also at the organization and business unit level (Salanova, Rodríguez‐Sánchez, Schaufeli, & Cifre, ; Schneider, Marcey, & Barbera, ; Schneider, Yost, Kropp, Kind, & Lam, ; Torrente, Salanova, Llorens, & Schaufeli, ). Thus, employees with high levels of work engagement constitute the organizations' most valuable competitive advantage (Schaufeli, ).…”

Engaging Leadership and Its Implication for Work Engagement and Job Outcomes at the Individual and Team Level: A Multi-Level Longitudinal Study

“…Moreover, work engagement is positively related to business-unit performance [12]. In sum, work engagement benefits organizations at all levels, not only at the individual employee level but also at the team and business-unit level [13][14][15][16].…”

The Financial Impact of High-Performance Work Practices

“…Practices that engage the workforce lead to a more successful organization (Schneider et al, 2018). Another way HPWP can impact firm performance is by differentiating the firm to internal and external stakeholders (Schneider et al, 2018).…”

“…Practices that engage the workforce lead to a more successful organization (Schneider et al, 2018). Another way HPWP can impact firm performance is by differentiating the firm to internal and external stakeholders (Schneider et al, 2018). Externally, they can send a credible signal to stakeholders that the firm is socially responsible, which can then result in increased customer loyalty, increased ability to recruit and retain higher quality employees, and improved financial performance (Guerci et al, 2019;Schneider et al, 2018;Yang et al, 2019).…”

“…Another way HPWP can impact firm performance is by differentiating the firm to internal and external stakeholders (Schneider et al, 2018). Externally, they can send a credible signal to stakeholders that the firm is socially responsible, which can then result in increased customer loyalty, increased ability to recruit and retain higher quality employees, and improved financial performance (Guerci et al, 2019;Schneider et al, 2018;Yang et al, 2019). Internally, employee perceptions of a firm's commitment to its employees lead to increased organizational identification and harder work on behalf of the organization's goals (Cole et al, 2010;El Akremi et al, 2018;Schneider et al, 2018).…”