Approaches To Improve Employee Engagement and Wellbeing

Introduction

Employee engagement is the emotional, behavioural as well as cognitive energy workers directs toward positive organizational performance (Shuck & Wollard, 2010). On the other hand, employee wellbeing is more than physiological or mental ill-health. It is about optimising employees' health (a measure of an individual’s happiness and psychological, mental, emotional state etc.). Wellness, as well as engagement of employees, go together. Once workers are happy with what they do, it positively impacts their health. Moreover, once workers are healthy (physically and mentally), productivity increase. Other empirical studies suggest the utility of engagement beyond traditional workplace outcome predictors, like work attitudes. For instance, a study by Rich et al., (2010), claim that there is a strong relationship between performance and engagement. Basically, it is a relationship that builds off of one another. Studies show that sixty-two per cent of engaged workers feel their job positively influence their health while in disengaged workers, this number drops to thirty-nine per cent and a mere twenty-two per cent among the disengaged workers (Kumar & Swetha, 2011). Moreover, evidence strongly suggests that wellbeing is a very crucial factor of engagement, therefore many organizations may be missing a trick if they fail to tackle these issues (Mohapatra & Sharma, 2010). Additionally, the research concludes that to achieve the best out of employees, the leadership of an organization must adept at limiting stress. Another study by a 2010 Work Foundation report, concluded that workers health has become a “hard economic factor” both now and in the future, therefore, employee ill-health creates a huge threat to the united kingdom's competitiveness and productivity as the state’s training and skills deficits (Bevan, 2010).

To start with, to promote workers engagement and wellbeing, companies ought to builds employee engagement. Previous studies have proven that wellness programmes align employees and the employer’s goals more closely. Additionally, the studies also suggest that employees in companies with an established wellness culture are more likely (67%) to be engaged with its mission and goals (Arena et al., 2013). Interestingly, the study also shows the stark cost of not developing a wellness culture (employee happiness and engagement with the employer’s long term goals as well as missions). According to the Kahn’s Theory of Employee Engagement, perception of the Employees on a job significance and the organization has the greatest effects on the loyalty and customer service compared to other general employee factors together (Piening et al., 2013). By building organization culture (wellbeing culture), organizations are able to retain talented employees. Moreover, this culture creates a sense of ‘Identity’ and ‘brand image’ therefore improving organization productivity. Therefore, compared to other strategies, building employees engagement and wellbeing culture is the best strategy to improve the engagement and wellbeing of any organization. For instance, Twitter employees love their company and their workplace. This is created by the development of the fantastic organizational culture which has been developed over the years. For instance, every employee works among friendly co-workers where everyone is friendly regardless of their ethnicity, great teamwork strategies and flexible schedule and family-oriented culture at the company.

Moreover, communication is key to promoting employee engagement and wellbeing. Companies which have a wellness program must ensure that the employees are aware of them. It does not make sense trying to improve engagement through wellbeing if workers lack awareness of the availability of the programs. Communication, therefore, is very important and with emails, intranets and various other workplace communication forums can be used as a mean of communication, therefore, there is no excuse for lack of communication. Studies by Nancarrow et al., (2013), suggest that effective communication is very important in creating good relationships (both professional and social levels) between different levels of employees. A workplace with the most appropriate environment of open communication is safe for workers to express their opinions, therefore, the company benefiting from the combined staff experiences hence innovative to problems. The study also suggests that communication develops a more collegial surrounding and prevent workers from feeling isolated in the office, and builds teamwork. Once employee engagement is well, employees trust each other and work effectively together which improves their wellbeing. Therefore effective communication is a good strategy to promote engagement and wellbeing of employees. Though creating wellbeing and engagement culture seem to be the best and most appropriate method of improving engagement and wellbeing of employees, communication is key and based on my understanding it is the second-best strategy to improve employees wellbeing and engagement. For instance, Southwest Airlines is an American airline which is best known to apply this strategy to encourage workers to work extra hard to make sure that customers are satisfied, which empowers employees as per Ajala (2013).

Reduction of stress. While working under pressure is inevitable where organization want to meet their goals, too much stress is damaging and has a fatal effect on employee’s ability to perform at their best. Therefore, reducing stress and building resilience creates substantial improvements to organizational productivity and employee’s emotional and physical wellbeing. Moreover, when employees are stressed, they are likely not to engage in their work. On the other hand, engaged employees are less likely to experience work-related stress. Studies by Chandrasekar (2011) on the workplace surroundings and its effects on organizational outcome in the public sector organizations suggest that employees working in different sectors have to deal with stress. Moreover, stress contributes to decreased company’s performance, decreased workers overall performance, increase error rate and leads to the production of poor quality work. Other problems associated with stress in the workplace include increased absenteeism due to health associated problems like emotional disorder, frequent headaches, depression among other ailments. Therefore reduction of stress is a sure method to deal with employee’s wellbeing and engagement. Therefore I can conclude that creating engagement and wellbeing culture within an organization and effective communication are important strategies to reduce stress among employees, therefore, they are sophisticated strategies compared to stress reduction which is depended on the two strategies (culture and communication). Today employees are being overworked and less payment/motivational strategies are one way which creates tress among employees. Therefore to deal with this issue, Twitter has come up with a friendly as well as team-oriented culture. Most workers in the organization cite their fondness of working with smart individuals and there is also a sense that nobody leaves until all work is done. Since this is a wiliness of the employees, stress is strategically reduced.

Furthermore, matching employees to the right role and regular training promote their engagement and wellbeing. Studies suggest that matching skills to jobs promotes productivity, happiness as well as innovation. Better utilization of skills is linked to the promotion of job satisfaction, therefore workers who march their skills well have better wellbeing compared to employees in roles which fail to match their roles. Moreover, employers who better matched with employee’s skills to their job roles have benefited due to increased probability of retention, better industrial relations and higher productivity (Fisher, 2010). Moreover, the study also suggests that encouraging employers to maximally utilise employees' skills improves productivity, reduces inequality, and as well, contribute to economic growth. According to the Parsons' theory which is an approach developed by Frank Parsons on matching careers to talents, personality and skills, suggest that the better the match between the occupation and the individual, the better the success and satisfaction (Noe et al., 2017). Failure to match employee’s skills with their roles creates tress to employees due to their lack of knowledge of what they are doing, lack of interest in a job, as well as lack of motivation creates stress and less productivity in a job. Moreover, due to the current and evolving technology, regular workers training and workshops are very vital to support matching to skills to employees. Employee training is usually meant to increase knowledge, efficiency technical skills, as well as value creation to perform a certain job in a much better way. Training develops the required skillset and assists in employee development and the overall growth of a company. From my understanding, organization culture as specified earlier is the best strategy for employee wellbeing, moreover, reducing employee stress is very vital. To reduce employee stress communication and matching employee skill to their occupation and training becomes crucial. Therefore, matching employee skill to their occupation is inferior compared to above-discussed skills since the implementation of the best culture in an organization and good communication can harbour training and matching of skills.

Besides involving staff in dialogue and decision can create the development of employee engagement and wellbeing. As stated earlier, making employee engagement and wellbeing are interdependent. When employees are involved in decision making, there is the creation of a sense of belonging and employees feel involved and well informed about the organisation goals and objectives which increases their motivation. Moreover, it assists employees to understand the requirements of their roles to the bigger picture of the organization. Therefore, companies should be as open as possible concerning their strategic vision and missions and try to involve all employees in making critical company decisions. Moreover some decisions such as the implementation of cost-saving and efficiency measures, new work content and technology may be stressful to uninformed staff, therefore, studies suggest that for better implementation of this changes, involvement of employees and listening to staff are some of the positive strategies to address any issues (Kuye & Sulaimon, 2011). The survey also reveals that when workers are involved in finding solutions there is a feeling of ownership of the final decision which makes morale and productivity levels to be positively affected. Compared to other strategies, involving employees to decision making is relatively equal to all other strategies of improving employee engagement and wellbeing through wellbeing culture within an organization is more sophisticated. A study by Gansky (2010), on “The mesh: Why the future of business is sharing” revealed that Google is one of the first organization to transform the traditional work culture into the buzzing company culture. The company offers a lot of advantages such as free meals, employee engagement trips among other services to its employees. Moreover, decision making in the company involves all employees which makes it one of the best organization in promoting the employees' wellbeing and engagement.

Promotion of good team being to promote wellbeing end engagement. Studies suggest that working alone can make one feel isolated from their colleagues and employer. In turn, the isolation results in depression, anxiety or stress (Spinuzzi, 2012). A wellness culture is an indication that employees work together better and make the most of their collective talents. Employees who are left to look after themselves and staying healthy, it is more likely that the employees influence their colleagues to do the same. Studies by Brock et al., (2017) suggest that teamwork builds morale. This makes employees feel that their work is valued when they contribute to the organization. Moreover, teamwork is about offering ideas. Therefore if an employee offers ideas which assist improve productivity, there is the creation of a feeling of confidence and trust, hence wellbeing and engagement. Besides, working together, (both subordinate and managerial employees), employees create a strong sense of belonging and deep commitment to each other and the common goal. Based on the STAR Team Model of teamwork, the leadership of a team creates an appropriate condition which allows opinions and individuals to develop. Moreover, teamwork creates connections between employees, therefore enabling them to move to succeed in encouraging effective teamwork in places of work. Generally, teamwork creates a sense of belongs and creates social relationships which according to Pitafi et al., (2018), helps create employees wellbeing and engagement. Compared to the other strategies, this strategy has an equal measure of the reduction of stress, good communication, and decision making of employees. Though based on my understanding, though independent, it is a type of reducing stress among employees and can be harboured in the decision-making process of employees if looked at a different perspective. Example of organization which have been providing teamwork environment is Facebook. The company has an organizational culture which connects all its employees. Boone et al., (2019), suggest that Facebook focuses on building a collaborative environment, where the company has for years worked on building an environment where employees can collaborate and become innovate together.

Encouraging flexibility promotes engagement and wellbeing of employees. One way of increasing employee engagement is offering the freedom to be flexible. This freedom offers the workers the ability to adjust their work locations as well as schedules to suit their requirements better. Moreover, most managers fail to trust their subordinates to work independently without their supervision. According to McGregor's Theory X, Management believes employees' work is based on their self-interest (Hattangadi, 2015). Therefore, the self-interest cannot be motivated by supervision, rather motivation can. With flexible working hours, other than the normal and rigid 8 – 5 routine, employees would be happier, more productive and more engaged at their places of work. Compared to other types of promoting employee wellbeing end engagement, this strategy is very critical though has low significance compared to the other discussed strategies. Nike is a powerful example of a company with a strong corporate culture which encourages employees to push themselves and go all out in their jobs. Additionally, the company promotes a healthy lifestyle and development training.

To promote employees wellbeing and engagement, organizations requires to express genuine appreciations. Employees always need to feel appreciated. Therefore, it is up to the company and the entire management team to ensure every team member/employee feels valued. Motivation in this kind does not mean buying expensive things to appreciate someone, rather, sending a well behave employee or hardworking employee a quick email or a handwritten note of praise can make their world of difference. However, according to the expectancy theory of motivation which emphasizes the mental processes regarding choice. Employees decide what to work on according to their expected outcome. The techniques in which people decide their behaviours are also impacted by their likely to perceive those motivations (De Simone, 2015). Based on my understanding, this suggests that the better the rewarding, the better the motivation and the more the productivity and employees wellbeing. Compared to all other wellbeing promotion strategies, promotion of rewarding though among the least important, it is critical for the promotion of the wellbeing of employees.

Conclusion

With proper implementation, wellness plays an important role in the organization's workers engagement plans. Habits which are healthy results in improved happiness in places of work, while happiness and engagement increase mental and physical well-being. Some of the strategies that promote wellbeing include developing wellbeing culture, reducing stress, good communication, teamwork and among others, involving employees in decision making. Companies have a valuable opportunity to transform their works' work experiences into a fulfilling and motivating experience as witnessed in twitter and Nike. Ultimately, Employers benefit from building a relationship between engagement and wellbeing.

References

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