Employee Engagement and Organizational Performance Research Paper

Employee Engagement and Organizational Performance - Research Paper Example Employee Engagement and Organizational Performance Employee engagement is one of the most important issues in HR. It plays a significant role in enhancing the overall performance of the employee and thus the productivity of the organization. It gives an individual a sense of importance and belongingness to the organization. Any absence of employee engagement could lead to stress on the part of employee. In this paper, we will discuss the importance of employee engagement and its impact on organizational performance as it has become one of the most important concerns for the HR of an organization. When employees are fully engaged and dedicated towards their work and organization, we say that employees are engaged. Employee’s engagement is usually a measurable form of concept, which assesses the positive and negative attachment of employee with job and organization. Engagement is a step forward than simple employee’s motivation and satisfaction as it also specifies the amount of involvement in organization tasks and decision making Schmidt in 1993 described employee engagement as a modernized version of job satisfaction and commitment with work. Various studies found employee engagement as a very important tool that could trigger positive outcomes for an organization.Employee retention is the most important benefit of employee engagement as it significantly reduces the cost of the organization and improves the productivity. ... In turn, it brings good results for organization and enhances the job performance of employees too. For example, such employees tries to give their extra input, spend extra time at work, resulting in increased customer satisfaction and improved services. This concept was initiated during the World War II, when the impact of unity between the army men was assessed. Studies were conducted in the world war to find the importance of motivation and engagement as scores were given to different attributes. In today’s world it has now become a major HR issue as the cost of replacing an old employee is very high (Arndt, 2000, pp. 44–48). According to the study conducted by Society of Human Resource Management, replacing an employee could cost $3500 at least, making it difficult for the organization to hire a new employee. As a result, organizations are trying to pay attention on this important issue so they could enhance organizational performance (Potosky, Bobko, 2004, pp. 1003 –34). Towers Perrin conducted a study in 2007-08 on 90,000 employees working in 18 different countries to gauge the importance of employee engagement. The study found that engaged employee had a 19% probability of increasing the operating income of the company. On the other hand, employee with lowest engagement had a 32% probability of reducing the operating income of the company. Tony Schwartz stated that more than 100 studies have proved strong relationship between employee engagement and organizational performance. Studies also show that out of the total workforce, only 20% of them are fully (Caruth, 2007, pp. 150-167). These studies show the importance of generating employee engagement that could result in