Employee Engagement

Employee engagement: a definition

Employee engagement (تفاعل الموظفين), also called staff engagement, is the degree of mental and emotional attachment that drives an employee to put in effort beyond the minimum that their job requires of them. It is a behaviour that can be observed, not a feeling that has to be inferred.

The definition has two parts. The first says what employee engagement is: an attachment that is at once mental and emotional, and that comes in degrees, so that an employee can have more of it or less of it. The second says what that attachment does: it drives effort, and specifically effort that goes past the minimum the job asks for. The effort in question is the part that lies beyond what the role requires of the employee, not the part that the role already demands. When an employee who used to give that part stops giving it, while still doing what the role requires, the situation is described as quiet quitting.

The second sentence of the definition fixes where employee engagement is to be found. It is located in what the employee does, which others can see, rather than in what the employee is assumed to feel, which others can only infer. Employee engagement is recognised from behaviour at work, and is not deduced from a state of mind.

How employee engagement shows in practice

Because employee engagement is defined as a behaviour, it shows in particular actions at work:

• Suggesting improvements without being asked. Of their own accord, the employee puts forward ideas for improving the work. The suggestion does not answer a request from anyone; the employee offers it before anyone has asked for it.
• Reporting a problem instead of passing over it. The employee comes across a problem that is not one of their tasks and reports it, rather than stepping past it on the ground that dealing with it is not part of their duties. That the problem lies outside their tasks does not lead them to leave it where it is.
• Helping a colleague outside their scope of responsibility. The employee helps a colleague with something that their own responsibilities do not cover. The help is given although the role does not assign it to them.
• Staying to finish critical work without bargaining. When a piece of work is critical, the employee stays until it is finished, and does not bargain over staying or make it conditional on something in return.

In each of these actions the employee gives something that the job does not require of them: a suggestion nobody requested, a report on a problem outside their tasks, help beyond their responsibility, and time spent finishing critical work without bargaining. That is what ties each action to the definition of employee engagement.

These are indicators that appear in the work itself. None of them depends on what the employee declares in a survey. They are seen in what the employee does at work, and not in what the employee says about their work when asked. This follows from the definition, which places employee engagement in behaviour that is observed rather than in a feeling that is inferred: the evidence for it is the behaviour, and the behaviour takes place in the work.

What does not create employee engagement

Recreational activities and social benefits touch the conditions of work. They concern the circumstances in which the employee works, and in that respect they are closer to satisfaction than to employee engagement in the sense defined above, which is effort beyond what is required. What they reach is the setting of the work, while the definition of employee engagement concerns the effort the employee puts into it.

The actual drivers of employee engagement are narrower than these, and harder to provide:

• Clarity about what is expected. It means that the employee knows clearly what is expected of them in their work.
• The tools and the authority to deliver it. The employee has the tools needed to perform what is expected of them, and the authority to perform it.
• Seeing the effect of their work. The employee can see the effect that their work has.
• Problems raised are addressed. When the employee raises a problem, the problem is dealt with.

The absence of the fourth driver has a further effect. When an employee raises a problem repeatedly and receives no response, the repetition can end with the employee no longer raising it. Raising problems can be the first thing to be lost.

Why employee engagement is measured at team level, not across the organisation

An overall average for the organisation hides the variation within it. A single figure for the whole organisation combines every team into one number, and in combining them it conceals how far the teams differ from one another.

Two teams in the same organisation can differ sharply in employee engagement. The reason is where engagement takes shape: with the direct manager, before any central policy. What an organisation sets as a central policy applies across its teams, but employee engagement forms first with the manager to whom the employee reports directly.

For that reason the useful figure for employee engagement is the one that compares teams with one another, not the one announced for the organisation as a whole. A comparison between teams shows where engagement differs, and an average for the whole organisation, because it merges the teams, cannot show that difference.

How employee engagement differs from job satisfaction

Job satisfaction is a state of acceptance of the existing conditions. Employee engagement is a readiness to put in extra effort. The first describes how the employee stands towards the conditions of work as they currently are; the second describes what the employee is prepared to give beyond what the job requires.

The relation between the two runs in one direction. Job satisfaction is a necessary condition for employee engagement, but it is not a sufficient one. Without satisfaction, employee engagement does not arise; with satisfaction, employee engagement is still not assured. An employee can accept the conditions in which they work and still not be ready to put in effort beyond the minimum the job requires.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.