Employee engagement: conceptual issues.

Little, Beverly ; Little, Philip

ABSTRACT

The authors of this article explore the construct of employee engagement, which has received considerable press recently in management literature and practice. Our research explores questions concerning how the construct employee engagement is defined and how it compares and contrasts with other existing, well-validated constructs. We discuss positives and negatives of employee engagement research and the application of the construct to organizational outcomes. Many organizations now measure their employees' level of engagement and to attempt to increase those levels of engagement because they believe that doing so will improve productivity, profitability, turnover and safety. We encourage users of the construct to continue research on employee engagement in order for both academics and practitioners to better understand what they are measuring and predicting.

INTRODUCTION

Employee engagement has been written about widely in the management literature and the popular press. The term has shown up in Workforce Magazine (2005), Harvard Business Review (2005) and the Washington Post (2005), not to mention the websites of many Human Resources consulting firms such as DDI (2005) and Towers Perrin (2003). Employee engagement, a term coined by the Gallup Research group, seems to be attractive for at least two reasons. Employee engagement has been shown to have a statistical relationship with productivity, profitability, employee retention, safety, and customer satisfaction (Buckingham & Coffman, 1999; Coffman & Gonzalez-Molina, 2002). Similar relationships have not been shown for most traditional organizational constructs such as job satisfaction (Fisher & Locke, 1992). In addition, the items used in employee engagement surveys measure aspects of the workplace that are under the control of the local manager.

The term employee engagement, in its present usage, was coined by the Gallup Organization, as a result of 25 years of interviewing and surveying employees and managers. Their intent was to create a measure of workplaces that could be used for comparisons. Their research has been published in books, practitioner magazines, academic journals and on websites. In First, Break all the Rules, the original book coming out of the Gallup research, Buckingham & Coffman (1999) report that Gallup spent years refining a set of employee opinion questions that are related to organizational outcomes. The statistically derived items, called the Gallup Workplace Audit (GWA), that measure employee engagement are related to productivity, profitability, employee retention and customer service at the business unit level (hospital, hotel, factory, etc.). They report that employees who score high on the questions are "emotionally engaged" in the work and the organization. (See Appendix A for the questions.)

Coffman & Gonzalez-Molina (2002) in Follow This Path, the second book coming out of the Gallup research, say that engagement is not only about how people think but also about how they feel. They say that the engaged employees collectively are an "economic force that fuels an organization's profit growth" (p. 26). They group employees into three categories, the actively engaged, the non-engaged, and the actively disengaged employees. Most of the book is devoted to "how-to" chapters for managers.

In both books reporting the Gallup Organization research, the authors spend considerable time and page space explaining the meta-analytic techniques used to find the relationships between the items in their questionnaire and the business unit level outcomes. They spent considerably less time defining and validating the construct of employee engagement. Because of this lack of construct definition, subsequent users interpret the construct in different ways.

The Nature of Psychological Constructs

Schmitt & Klimoski (1991) define a construct as "a concept that has been deliberately created or adopted for a scientific purpose" (p. 18). A construct cannot be observed; it must be inferred. For example, by observing a set of behaviors one might infer that a person possesses a particular construct, such as maturity. Merely attaching a name to a collection of survey items does not make it a construct. The measure must be validated by comparing and contrasting the construct to similar and different constructs to demonstrate that it is related to those constructs in theoretically predictable ways.

In the following sections, definitions of employee engagement used by various researchers will be presented. Then at least four problems associated with those definitions will be discussed.

Definitions of Employee Engagement

Before beginning to gauge the construct validity of employee engagement, the myriad of definitions that have been applied to it should be examined. The following paragraphs present several such definitions, beginning with the definitions from the empirically-based Gallup researchers and proceeding to the definitions used by others seeking to apply the construct. Harter, Schmidt and Hayes (2002) define employee engagement as "the individual's involvement and satisfaction with as well as enthusiasm for work" (p. 269).

* Lucey, Bateman and Hines (2005) interpret the Gallup Engagement Index as measuring "how each individual employee connects with your company and how each individual employee connects with your customers" (p.12). They call the opposite of this emotionally unemployed.

* DDI (2005) uses the definition "The extent to which people value, enjoy and believe in what they do" (p1). DDI also states that its measure is similar to employee satisfaction and loyalty.

* Fleming, Coffman and Harter (2005) (Gallop Organization researchers) use the term committed employees as a synonym for engaged employees.

* Gallup's Human Sigma website (2005) likens employee engagement to the concept of customer engagement, which has the dimensions of confidence, integrity, pride and passion.

* Wellins and Concelman (2004) call employee engagement "the illusive force that motivates employees to higher levels of performance" (p.1) "This coveted energy" is similar to commitment to the organization, job ownership and pride, more discretionary effort (time and energy), passion and excitement, commitment to execution and the bottom line. They call it "an amalgam of commitment, loyalty, productivity and ownership" (p. 2). They also refer to it as "feelings or attitudes employees have toward their jobs and organizations" (p. 2).

* Robinson, Perryman and Hayday (2004) define engagement as "a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organization and its values. An engaged employee is aware of the business context, works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization. The organization must develop and nurture engagement, which is a two-way relationship between employer and employee" (p2). They say that engagement overlaps with commitment and organizational citizenship behavior, but it is two-way relationship. They say it is "one step up" from commitment.

* The Business Communicator (2005) reports definitions of engagement from three people they label experienced employee engagement practitioners. Those three definitions are, as follows:

1. Engagement is two sides of a coin, the knowledge needed to do one's job effectively and the motivation to apply that knowledge.

2. Increasing workforce dedication to achieve a business outcome.

3. Employee engagement is a social process by which people become personally implicated in strategy and change in their daily work.

Problems Associated with the Construct of Employee Engagement

Looking across the definitions in the above list, four problems emerge to the authors. The problems, which will be elaborated upon in the following sections, are, as follows:

* The definitions are not clear as to whether engagement is an attitude or a behavior.

* The definitions are not clear as to whether engagement is an individual or a group level phenomenon.

* The definitions do not make clear the relationship between engagement and other well-known and accepted constructs.

* There are measurement issues that obscure the true meaning of the construct.

Attitude or behavior?

The job attitude literature makes a distinction between attitudes (affective responses to an object or situation), behavioral intentions based on attitudes, and actual behaviors (Roznowsky & Hulin, 1992). A careful examination of the definitions listed above reveals that the construct of employee engagement has been ill-defined and misapplied. First of all, most of the authors do not distinguish between attitudes and behaviors, mixing examples of both in their definitions. For example, Robinson et al. (2005) mix the concept by defining employee engagement as: "the individual's involvement and satisfaction with as well as enthusiasm for work," which is an attitude; "desire to work to make things better" which is a behavioral intention; and "working longer hours, trying harder, accomplishing more and speaking positively about the organization" which are behaviors. The Business Communicator (2005) mixes in concepts such as knowledge needed to do one's job and social processes which are not attitudes, behavioral intentions or behaviors. Wellins and Concelman (2004) mix commitment, loyalty, productivity and ownership, three attitudes and an outcome into their definition.

Individual or Group?

The construct of employee engagement lacks clarity as to the level of analysis it represents. The major strength of the argument made by the Gallup researchers in all their publications is the relationship of engagement to productivity, profitability, employee retention, and customer service at the business unit level (hospital, hotel, factory, etc.). Does this mean that employee engagement is a group-level phenomenon? If engagement is being used as a group level phenomenon, good research methods require that it be subjected to tests of within-group and between-group variance (Dansereau, Alutto & Yammarino, 1998).

An example of the confusion is Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina (2002), who say that there are three mutually exclusive groups based on their responses to the 12-item Engagement Index, the engaged group, the non-engaged group and the actively disengaged group. Two things about their descriptions of these groups are troublesome. First, their profiles of each of these groups of employees are a disturbing combination of attitudes and behaviors (e.g., the engaged employee uses talents every day, has consistent levels of high performance and is emotionally committed to what they do). Second, the engaged group and the actively disengaged group have collective effects on profitability and performance. However the non-engaged group is not considered to have a group effect; they are highly individual. These effects are not parallel.

In another study, Crabtree (2005) reports that the employees in the three categories of engagement (engaged, non-engaged, and actively disengaged) report different levels of positive and negative influences on their psychological well-being, regardless of the type of work performed. This treats members of all three groups as individuals. Similarly, Gallup's Human Sigma website (2005) reports that work groups whose members are positively engaged have higher productivity, profitability, safety records, attendance and retention. So, the question is, is employee engagement a group level phenomenon, an individual phenomenon, or both?

Related constructs

The third problem with the construct is that many of the definitions of employee engagement invoke existing constructs, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behaviors and job involvement, but they do not demonstrate the relationship of employee engagement to those other constructs. The following section discusses these related constructs.

Job Satisfaction.

Job satisfaction, a widely researched construct, is defined as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences (Locke & Henne, 1986). Harter, et al. (2002) begin their discussion of engagement by using the term engagement-satisfaction, but drop the satisfaction from the term early in their article.

Generalized job satisfaction has been shown to be related to other attitudes and behaviors. Positively, it is related to organizational commitment, job involvement, organizational citizenship behaviors and mental health. Negatively, it is related to turnover, perceived stress and pro-union voting (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2004). It has been found that while the relationship between job satisfaction and performance is weak at the individual level, but is stronger at the aggregate level (Ostroff, 1992). In the engagement literature, Harter, et al. (2002) invoke Ostroff's research as a reason for studying employee engagement at the business unit level.

Organizational commitment.

Organizational commitment is the degree to which an individual identifies with an organization and is committed to its goals. Commitment has been shown to be related to voluntary employee turnover. It is also seen as crucial to individual performance in modern organizations that require greater self management than in the past (Dessler, 1999). In the engagement literature, several of the authors use terms such as commitment (Fleming, et al., 2005), an amalgam of commitment, loyalty, productivity and ownership (Wellins & Concelman, 2004), and loyalty (DDI).

Organizational citizenship behavior.

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) are discretionary behaviors that are beyond formal obligations. They "lubricate the social machinery of the organization, reducing friction and/or increasing efficiency" (Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1997). These desirable behaviors have been shown to be related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment and to be related more to work situation than dispositional factors (Podsakoff, MacKenzie & Bommer, 1996). OCB, an outcome of the attitudes of job satisfaction and organizational commitment, is similar to the definitions in the engagement literature of being respectful of and helpful to colleagues and willingness to go the extra mile (Robinson, et al., 2004), or working longer hours, trying harder, accomplishing more and speaking positively about the organization (Wellins & Concelman, 2004).

Job involvement.

Job involvement is the degree to which one is cognitively preoccupied with, engaged in and concerned with one's present job (Paullay, et al., 1994). Pfeffer (1994) argues that individuals' being immersed in their work is a primary determinant of organizational effectiveness. Job involvement has been shown to be related to OCBs and job performance (Diefendorff, Brown, Kamin & Lord, 2002). In the employee engagement literature, Wellins and Concelman (2004) use the term job ownership as a synonym of engagement.

Measurement issues

The first issue regarding measurement is how many items are in the Gallup survey and what is the Gallup survey called? Buckingham and Coffman (1998) simply refer to the survey items as the twelve questions (even though in their appendix they refer to 13 items). In the appendix they refer to four theoretical constructs that the items measure, What do I get? What do I give? Do I belong? and How can we grow? Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina (2002) call the survey the Q12 and consider each of the items a "condition" (p. 95). Harter, et al. (2002) report using a 13-item scale, the 12 Gallup questions, which they refer to as the Gallup Workplace Audit (GWA), and a one-item overall job satisfaction item. They state that the GWA reflects two sets of items: attitudinal outcomes (whatever that means) and antecedents to those attitudes that are within a manager's control. The Gallup webpage calls the survey the Q12. Lucey, et al. (2005) refer to the Gallup Engagement Index, which consists of the same 12 questions as the GWA. In the Gallup Management Journal, Crabtree (2005) calls the survey the Employee Engagement Index. The Gallup organization needs to decide on a name for their instrument and use that name consistently.

The attraction for consulting groups and their client organizations may be that engagement is not an "academic" concept, but one that has been marketed as practical. For example, Follow this Path uses a recipe-type format, taking the reader through the items in the survey in the appropriate order, with examples of what a manager can do to increase employees' responses to that item. Harter, et al. (2002) report that stronger effects were found for employee turnover, customer loyalty and safety than for the other outcomes, but in the practitioner books all the outcomes are listed, with no indication of differences in strengths of relationships. The Gallup researchers have inconsistently reported their research to appeal to practitioners and, in doing so, have opened their concepts up for misuse by others.

DISCUSSION

The question the authors wish to raise is whether employee engagement is a meaningful idea that adds to management knowledge or if it is a concept that is redundant with existing research. Its popularity is most likely due to the wish of most practicing managers for the "answer" to the sticky problems of motivation and performance. There certainly is an appeal to be told which variables to influence and the order in which to influence them.

The huge data set collected and manipulated by Gallup has found statistical relationships, but the items that remained in the final survey were derived empirically, not theoretically. In the two books that explain the studies (Buckingham & Coffman, 1999; Coffman & Gonzalez-Molina, 2002), the theoretical basis for engagement, both customer and employee, is neurological, not psychological (Buckingham & Coffman,1999; Coffman & Gonzalez-Molina, 2002). There is a wealth of research and knowledge that has been accumulated within management and related fields. The existing research should be consulted and the recognized methods applied to determine if and how employee engagement is related to and augments existing knowledge. If engagement behaves like well-established constructs such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment or job involvement and results in the same outcomes, does the field need a construct such as engagement?

If, on the other hand, employee engagement does capture some aspect of employee motivation that has eluded previous researchers, it should be welcomed by practitioners and academics alike. Perhaps, like organizational culture, employee engagement is a multi-dimensional, multi-layered construct (Rousseau, 1985). The construct should be rigorously tested in order for its theoretical soundness and practical application to be strengthened. Only by understanding the nature of the construct and its relationship to attitudes, behavioral intentions and behaviors can it be applied to the benefit of organizations and employees.

CONCLUSION

The authors recognize that the extant research on employee engagement demonstrates its relationship to outcome variables important to every organization, such as productivity, safety, employee retention and customer service. Increases in knowledge as to how to create high performance workplaces are always welcome by practitioners and academics. What the field does not need, however, is another fad term. We call for continued research into employee engagement in order better to understand and to capture its contribution to organizational and individual performance.

REFERENCES

Anonymous (2005). What does employee engagement look like? The Business Communicator, 5 (8), 1-2.

Buckingham, M. & C. Coffman (1999). First, break all the rules: what the world's greatest managers do differently. New York, NY: Simon & Shuster.

Coffman, C. & G. Gonzalez-Molina (2002). Follow this path: How the world's greatest organizations drive growth by unleashing human potential. New York, NY: Warner Books, Inc.

Crabtree, S. (January 13, 2005). Engagement keep the doctor away. Gallup Management Journal. Retrieved August 1, 2005, from http://gmj.gallup.com.

Dansereau, F., Alutto, J., and Yammarino, F. (1984). Theory Testing in Organizational Behavior: The Varient Approach, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Dessler, G. (1999). How to win your employees' commitment, Academy of Management Executive, 13 (2), 58.

Development Dimensions International (DDI). (2005). Whitepaper--Driving Employee Engagement. Retrieved August 1, 2005, from www.ddiworld.com.

Diefendorff, M.M., D.J. Brown, A.M. Kamin, & R.G. Lord (2002). Examining the roles of job involvement and work centrality in predicting organizational citizenship behaviors and job performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior 23 (1). 93-108.

The Gallup Organization (2005). Employee Engagement: The Employee side of the HumanSigma Equation. Retrieved August 1, 2005, from http://www.gallup.com/content/default.aspx?ci=52.

Fisher, C.D. & E.A. Locke, (1992). The new look in job satisfaction research and theory, in Job Satisfaction: How People Feel about Their Jobs and How it Affects their Performance. C.J.Cranny, P.C. Smith and E.F. Stone (Eds.). New York, NY: Lexington Books.

Fleming, J.H., C. Coffman & J.K. Harter (2005). Manage your human Sigma. Harvard Business Review, 83 (7), 106-115.

Harter, J.K., F.L. Schmidt & T.L. Hayes (2002). Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87 (2), 268-279.

Kreitner, R. & A. Kiniki, (2004). Organizational Behavior 5e. New York, NY: Irwin/McGraw-Hill.

Locke, E.A. & D. Henne ( 1986). Work motivation theories. In C.L. Cooper & I. Robertson (Eds.) International review of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 1-35). London: Wiley.

Lucey, J. N. Bateman & P. Hines. (2005). Why major lean transitions have not been sustained. Management Services, 49 (2), 9-14.

Ostroff, C. (1992). The relationship between satisfaction, attitudes and performance: An organizational level analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77 (3), 963-974.

Paullay, I.M., G.M. Alliger & E.F. Stone-Romero (1994). Construct validation of two instruments designed to measure job involvement and work centrality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79 (2), 224-228.

Pfeffer, J. (1994). Competitive Advantage Through People: Unleashing the Power of the Work Force. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.

Podsakoff, P.M., S.B. MacKenzie, & W.H. Bommer (1996). Transformational leader behaviors and substitutes for leadership as determinants of employee satisfactions, commitment, trust and organizational citizenship behaviors, Journal of Management, 22 (2), 259-98.

Robinson, D., S. P. Perryman & S. Hayday. (2004). The Drivers of Employee Engagement. IES Report 408. Retrieved August 1, 2005, from http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/summary/ summary.php?id=408.

Rousseau, D. (1985). Issues of level in organizational research: Multilevel and cross-level perspectives. In G.L. Cummings & B.M. Staw (Eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior (pp. 1-37). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Roxnowsky, C. & C. Hulin. (1992). The scientific merit of valid measures of general constructs with special reference to job satisfaction and job withdrawal in Job Satisfaction: How People Feel about Their Jobs and How it Affects their Performance. C.J.Cranny, P.C. Smith and E.F. Stone (Eds.). New York, NY: Lexington Books.

Schmitt, N. & R.J. Klimoski, (1991). Research methods in human resources management. Cincinnati, Ohio: South-West Publishing Company.

Towers Perrin HR Services, (2003). Working today: Understanding what drives employee engagement. Retrieved August 30, 2005, from www.towersperrin.com/hrservices/webcache/ towers/United_States/publications/Reports/Talent_Report_2003/ Talent_2003.pdf

Wellins, R. & J. Concelman. (2005). Creating a culture for engagement. Workforce Performance Solutions. Retrieved August 1, 2005 from www.WPSmag.com.

Workforce Management Online (October, 2003). 12 questions to measure employee engagement. Retrieved August 1, 2005, from www.workforce.com.

Beverly Little, Western Carolina University

Philip Little, Western Carolina University