Address to 13th World Human Resources Congress, HR Without Limits
Montreal, Canada, 29 September 2010
Professor Ed Davis AM, FAHRIEmeritus Professor, Faculty of Economics and Business University of Sydney Australia
Contact: [email protected]
Employee Engagement: the Path to Superior Performance?
Employee Engagement
1. Definition and Approaches2. Lineage3. Links to Performance4. Strategy5. Conclusions
1. Definition and Approaches
‘A positive attitude held by the employee towards the organisation and its values. An engaged employee is aware of business context, and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organisation. The organisation must work to develop and nurture engagement, which requires a two-way relationship between employer and employees.’
Dilys Robinson, Employee Engagement, www.employment-studies.co.uk p. 1.
what is engagement?• What do you think?
initiative
enjoyment
flow
contextual performanc
e
extra-role behaviour
job satisfaction
citizenship behaviours
work orientation
dedication
absorption
prideintensity of
effort vigour
empower-ment
organisation
commitment
job involvemen
t
activationproactive behaviour
adaptive behaviour
discretionary effort
persistence
intention to stay
energy
|Nick Vrisakis, Voice Project, [email protected]
2. LineageIndustrial democracy
Employee and union rights Links to performanceAustralian discussion from 1970s.
“The parties have acknowledged that the adoption of a co-operative and participative approach is vital in achieving the structural changes and workplace reforms necessary to meet the economic challenge.”
Confederation of Australian Industry and Australian Council of Trade Unions, ‘Joint Statement on Participative Practices’, April 1988, p.viii, reproduced in E. M. Davis and R. D. Lansbury (eds), Managing Together, Melbourne, Longman, 1996, pp.245-259.
Focus: employee participation in decision-making
importance of decisions degree of influence proportion of staff involved.
Davis and Lansbury, 1996, p.2.
Employee engagement: consensual and adversarial.
LeadershipRichard Walton, “From Control to Commitment in the Workplace”,
HBR, March 1985, pp. 193-200.
Contrast ‘control’ / scientific management with commitment approach.
flatter hierarchy job redesign team responsibilities training
“At the center of this philosophy is a belief that eliciting employee commitment will lead to enhanced performance” (p. 80)
Benefits Costs
improved quality increased management effort
lower costs new skills
reduced work new relationships
increased efficiency higher levels of ambiguity and uncertainty
decreased turnover pain of changing
decreased absenteeism attitudes and habits
better change management
Walton, 1985, p.80.
Peter Senge, “the Leader’s New Work: Building Learning Organizations”, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 7, 1990, pp.397-413.
Challenge, to “harness the collective genius of the people” at work.
New leadership required: build shared vision challenge prevailing attitudes encourage learning coaches, guides, facilitators
Chris Argyris, “Empowerment: The Emperor’s New Clothes”, HBR, May 1998, pp.219-228.
“Managers love empowerment in theory, but the command-and-control model is what they trust and know best. For their part, employees are often ambivalent about empowerment – it is great as long as they are not held personally accountable” (p.219).
Key: internal employee commitment.Requires: managers involvement of employees in work targets and methods.Obstacles: conventional management thought focus on numbers.
HIM / HPMHigh Involvement Management (from 1980s)
High Performance Management.
workers involvementteamsjob flexibilityidea capturing schemestraining(stimulus of Japanese quality circles)
“The purpose of HIM is to encourage workers to participate in ... Continuous improvement culture, the aim being to induce higher performance ...”Stephen Wood and Alex Bryson, “High Involvement Management”, in W. Brown et al (eds), The Evolution of the Modern Workplace, Cambridge, CUP, 2009, Chapter 7.
Australia 1990sBest practice program.Federal government grants for ‘model’ organisations
plans for world class performance benchmarking world’s best practice ‘full participation and commitment by
management, unions and the workforce in the change process’.Davis and Lansbury, 1996, p.14.
End 1990s, impression: islands of excellence, widespread resistance to change.
P.G. Gollan and E.M. Davis, “High Involvement Management and Organisational Change”, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 37, 3, 69-91.
3. Employee Engagement: Links to PerformanceIES, Engaged employees:
lower turnoverhigher levels of performanceadvocates of the businessbetter change managementG. Robertson-Smith and C. Mackerick, Employee Engagement: a review of current thinking, IES report no. 469, 2009.
“Improving engagement correlates with improving performance ....”D. MacLeod and N. Clarke, Engaging For Success: Enhancing Performance through Employee Engagement, London, Department of Business, Innovations and Skills, 2009.
“And you thought the passengers were mad .... Airline employees are fed up, too – with pay cuts, increased workloads and management’s miserly ways, which leave workers to explain to often-enraged passengers why flying has become such a miserable experience”
(New York Times, 22 December 2007, p.1; quoted in G.J. Bamber et al, Up in the Air: How Airlines can Improve their Performance by Engaging their Employees, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2009, p.1).
Strategic choice: control or commitment / engagement
Contrast: Southwest and Ryanair
Any Yet ... Low Engagement LevelsUK evidence:
Corporate Leadership Council report, highest scoring companies, 23.8% staff, ‘highly engaged’;lowest scoring companies, 2.9%
20% ‘disengaged’ Public sector, 12% ‘highly engaged’
Macleod and Clarke, 2009, p.15
Echoes in other British (Brown et al) and Australian work (Gollan and Davis).
4. Strategy
Identify the obstacles:
Conventional management wisdom, preference for control
Employees as cost short-run focus engagement, ‘soft and fluffy’ poor leadership and management – lack of
knowledge and / or implementation skills
(Walton, Argyris, MacLeod and Clarke)
RecruitmentSelection
Assessment
Leadership
Workplace Culture Performance
Management
Training
Development
Learning
The Managing People Chain
Ed Davis 2010
5. Conclusion
Employee Engagement Matters
Not new
Lessons from the past
Requires thoughtful leadership and comprehensive strategy.