Employee engagement paper

Employee engagement can be defined in many different ways. It is viewed to be the process of embracing the rightful approaches to provide the workers with the best working conditions to ensure that they deliver their best to the organizations and help in achieving the corporate goals and objectives (Bailey et al 2017, p. 31). The employee engagement is also perceived to refer to the employee motivational strategies that aim at improving the well-being of the workers which in turn plays a critical role in making them work towards the organizational success (Truss et al 2017). Both the practitioners and the academicians perceive the employee engagement activities in different ways but they are all in agreement that the strategies are related to their motivational approaches.

There have been a lot of debates over the concepts of employee engagement, its antecedents and the specific engagement drivers and their consequences, especially in regard to charity organizations. The process of developing a strategy to enhance employee engagement varies from one place to the other depending on the nature of the sector under consideration (Bailey 2016). These properties have affected the definition, measurement and the various aspects that need to be covered under the worker engagement plans. Besides, the industry nature differences have created variations in terms of the benefits and the risks that the groups face in the process of introducing the employee engagement strategies (Guest 2013). The implementation of the employee engagement concepts in the charitable organizations depicts various characteristics in its nature as discussed below.

2. How should the charity go about developing a strategy for employee engagement?

There exists a connection between the worker engagement and the corporate HR strategy. The process of developing the engagement strategy must always ensure that it is in line with the organizational HR strategic activities, which in turn must consider the corporate business strategy for effectiveness (Success 2018). Failure to align the HR practices with the organizational goals leads to poor results. A disjointed employee engagement strategy in has negative impacts such as high cost and are less efficient in the organization. The choice of the activities to be embraced in the strategy must consider the high diversity of the workers that exist in the agency. It should consider the affairs of its 2000 workers with different professional activities.

A charity is characterized by the non-profit making activities. The organization mostly relies on the donors and well-wishers to fund its activities of supporting the disabled people in the society (Wright et al 2004, p. 35). The design of the engagement strategy entails many different practices that have both direct and indirect impacts in the process of impacting the level at which the workers are engaged to the business. In designing an engagement strategy, the charity needs to define the outcomes that it needs to achieve, the approaches that will be employed to measure the success, enactment interventions put in place and the timeline of operation (Guest 2013).  Also, in the development of the engagement strategy, the charity needs to understand the quick wins that will be included, the specific people that will be involved in the process and the ways through which change will be sustained after its implementation.

Out of these major categories of the worker engagement, other aspects come about that helps the charity. Some of these factors include recruitment aspects. The organization needs to ensure that their transparency in its entire recruitment system to get the best-qualified workers. Also, there should better terms of work, competitive salary and remuneration, better working terms, and competent leadership among many others (Wright et al 2004, p. 35). Therefore, these factors are critical in helping to attain the worker engagement.

There are various aspects that must be considered for the design and implementation of an effective engagement system by the charity group. One of the major driving factors that can be utilized in a charity is the integration of the practices into the corporate culture (Rees et al 2013, p. 2780).  Through the culture, the charity will manage to make effective communications to all the stakeholders, thus enhancing effectiveness. Usually, culture has the power to change the way of thinking of all the people in the business, thus forming one of the powerful mechanisms in the successful strategy implementation and execution.

3. How should the engagement be defined and measured by the charity?

There are various ways that can be used to measure the worker engagement level in a charity. Generally, engagement framework is defined and measured by an analysis of the given antecedents, the actual engagement level and the outcomes of the exercise. Usually, the engagement is defined as the approaches and strategies at the workplace that are designed to ensure that the workers are highly committed to the given company goals, and committed to achieve them, while at the same time ensuring that they have the sense of their own well-being (Bailey et al 2017, p. 31). However, the process of defining and measuring the engagement has many problems emanating from different aspects of the process. Their challenges come about due to the nature of the system and lack of a clear, perfect system to handle the entire process.

            Measuring the employee engagement entails the use of various tools and approaches. Typically, engagement measurement entails the collection of the information at the present and then making a comparison with the expected level of performance as outlined in the targets (Purcell and Hutchinson 2007, p. 3). The best approaches to collect data is the use of questionnaires that are designed and structured in a way that gets the desired information, then the results are analyzed to determine the current level of performance. The outcome is then compared to the expected level that the workers need to attain the objectives as defined in set in the targets (Bailey 2016). Another strategy that can also be utilized to effectively measure the engagement level is benchmarking. The approach entails determining the current state of the organization and then making a comparison with other different competitors in the market. The method is useful in helping the organization to realize the specific aspects that need to be implemented in its operation.

            The engagement data collected can be utilized in many different ways. They are used to guide the business leaders in making strategic direction decisions which are important for the success of the organization. There exist risks and dangers of collecting the engagement level data and failing to utilize them. The behaviour has impacts on the motivation of the workers, which tied to the performance their performance.  The data collected should be utilized to enhance further engagement of the workers, and coming up with ways to make the system better (Guest 2013). However, the nature of engagement concept in a charity makes it difficult to measure it, mainly because it is complex and involves many associated aspects.  

4. What should the employee engagement strategy cover?

The employee engagement strategy covers many different aspects of an organization. However, the key aspect of consideration is to ensure that all the practices adapted to enhance worker engagement are in line with the organizational goals (Bailey 2017, p. 33). An organizational strategy is an important tool that ensures that all the activities embraced have a contribution towards the well-being of the entire organization. Different engagement activities have different levels of contributions towards the entire outcome. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that the practices adopted are not working in isolation, but have a link to each other for effectiveness (Hassan and Ahmed 2011, p. 164). The connection between the employee engagement elements helps to build a robust force that changes the organization.  

Some of the activities that can be adapted to enhance the worker engagement strategies first include the cultivation of trust and integrity. Usually, people depict their commitment and full engagement where they trust (Rana 2015, p. 308). Trust is cultivated by the specific attributes of the leaders and the senior management team. Lack of trust makes workers reduce their commitment and efforts for the job, which significantly lowers the commitment level of the employees in the charity. Secondly, leadership plays an important role in enhancing the engagement. There are different types of the leadership of models that the charity can adopt. They include the empowering, the transformational and the authentic leadership (Bailey 2016). The transformational management approach has proofed to be robust in enhancing engagement; therefore, the charity should adopt this model.  The leaders should be those who are open and fair, can handle the conflicts, support sustainable relationships and general development.

Also, the design of the engagement strategy must consider the strategic narrative effects. The narrative indirectly cultivates a culture that transforms the people’s mind to enhance the engagement in the business. The charity should adopt a narrative that states where the organization comes from and where it looks forward to going (Success 2018). Besides, the engagement strategy in the narrative should also consider the communication and the voice of the employee. It is critical to design robust and effective communication system in the charity. When workers have a voice in the business, they tend to develop trust and commitment, thus, attaining engagement. A clear communication system in the charity removes all the possible doubts and misunderstandings in the system, an aspect that promotes worker engagement (Wang and Hsie 2013, p. 613).

The appropriate job designs in the organizations also have impacts on promoting employee engagement in the organization, thus, the strategy of the charity must cover this aspect. There must be a framework that informs on the job resources required, challenges hindrances and ways to manage them effectively.  Additionally, the engagement strategy for a charity must also look forward to working with the engaging managers. The line managers must be close to the workers and have a mechanism that makes it possible for the job to be done appropriately while solving all the possible associated issues. The leaders must make a difference between how the practices are intended and that of how they are experienced.

The charity needs to invest in several distinct activities that have a contribution to the general process of attaining engagement in the organization. A robust worker engagement framework is made up of different activities that have a contribution to the general well-being of the charity. Engagement can be of different types; actively disengaged, where the workers are unhappy and resentful, engaged workers, where workers are passionate with their jobs and the workers perform moderately (Reissner and Pagan 2013, p. 2791). The engagement activities tend to move the workers' commitment from lower categories of disengaged and not engaged to make them engaged in the business objectives. Also, it is critical to creating an interconnection among the activities is important for effectiveness. Each and every practice must contribute to the success of the organizational strategies towards achieving the corporate objectives (Panda 2014, p. 140).

5. What are the potential risks or benefits for the charity in introducing an employee engagement strategy?

The process of integration of the engagement activities in an organization is a form of change implementation in the business. Usually, such practices demand change management strategies to enhance effectiveness in the operations. The activities entail the implementation of the corporate strategy of the business. Change introduction process is associated with various risks and drawbacks. Resistance is one of the notable issues that present a risk to the implementation process (Purcell 2014, p. 241).  Normally, people tend to resist in adopting the new ways of doing things due to various reasons. They tend to find comfort in the traditional ways which are not always true. The stakeholder’s fear of the embracing usually emanates from the fear of the unknown and a poor communication system. Therefore, it is critical to design the change management process, while considering all the critical success factors (Success 2018).

To overcome the drawbacks and risks of introducing worker engagement changes in the charity, various approaches can be utilized. Firstly, their needs to be a clear communication system, to reduce the possibility and exchange of wrong information that might impact negatively on the exercise. Secondly, there is need to enhance the worker participation in all the implementation activities of the engagement process. Participation enhances makes them develop trust and support the exercise (Bailey 2016). Also, the strategy of training workers is important in making the implementation of change activities successful. It creates a form of awareness of the engagement practices and the need to enhance the new change in the charity. When well-implemented, these factors have the capabilities of lowering the risks associated with the engagement activity implementation in the organization (Guest 2013).

There are various benefits that the organization gains in embracing the worker engagement change activities. These benefits include the increase in productivity and performance that in turn has an impact on the general well-being of the agency (Bailey et al 2017, p. 32). The workers are motivated and find a drive to deliver the best and also be retained in the organization. The practice also promotes creativity, because there is the openness of thinking on how to deliver the best solution for the organization within the shortest time possible. With engaged workers, the decision-making process is quick and easy, because there is a high sense of responsibility and corporation. The high level of willingness will make the employees comply with what is important, making the implementation process easier and quicker. Therefore, successful engagement process directly translates into a highly competitive advantage of the business, which in turn contributes to its profitability, sustainability and growth.

References

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