Many categorizations on
different levels of employee engagement can be found on literature but all such
categorizations are similar in the sense that they simply endeavor to partition
the spectrum of “engagement”, from “not at all engaged” to “fully engaged”. Research
conducted by Gallup organization (2006), categorizes employee engagement in to 03
levels, as depicted on figure 03 and explained below.
Figure 03: Different level of
employee engagement and the definitions
Source: (Killham and Krueger,
2006)
·
Engaged: An
organization should strive to drive all their employees to “Engaged” level as
these employees provide organizations with vital competitive edge over their
competition, engaged employees are highly productive and impose low risk of
employee attrition (Vance, 2006). Engaged employees put in voluntary efforts in
to their work and do not depend on extrinsic motivation (Armstrong, 2009).
·
Not-engaged:
This
type of employees usually does the
minimum work needed to fulfil the job requirements and do not show enthusiasm
or concern for the organization or the customers. They are more likely
to miss work (take sick days off) and to leave the job if they see opportunity
elsewhere. (Adkins, 2006). Not-engaged employees can be seen as a good
opportunity for improvement in an organization in the sense that with the right
“people strategy”, they can be transformed in to “engaged” employees, resulting
in great improvements in overall organizational performance (Reilly, 2014).
·
Actively
disengaged: This type of employees can cause harm to the
organization they work for. They are not just unhappy, but they also openly act
on their unhappiness and can drive customers away. The disengaged employees
will endeavor to undermine and demotivate the engaged employees - possible
double-impact to the organizational performance (Reilly, 2014)
This
idea of this model could simply be explained using an example; considering the
organization as a boat, being rowed by the employees in towards a specific
direction & destination (the organizational goals). Employees who are
“engaged”, would row with all their strength to ensure the boat (the
organization) reaches its destination. Those who are “not engaged”, will not
row as hard or may not row at all. Lastly, the “actively disengaged” employees
will not only not row in the expected direction, but they might even discourage
others or row in the opposite direction.
In
the organization I work for (a large knowledge process outsourcing company in
healthcare sector with 450+ employees), I have come across all these types of
employees. Interestingly, the not-engaged and actively disengaged type encounters
have been more frequent in the recent months (as compared to a few years back,
when the company workforce was much smaller in size) and proportionally, there
have been growing concerns on productivity, customer satisfaction and overall
organizational performance. My observations of behavior patterns from working
with the different types of employees mostly match the descriptions listed
above however, there have been times where the same employee demonstrated mixed
characteristics of the 03 different types.
For
an example, an employee of a team I managed who was showing a high level of
commitment (doing 12+ hour shifts, voluntarily), full of innovative ideas and producing
exceptional results – showing characteristics of “engaged”, was later found out
to be demotivating other team members and creating a negative culture –
characteristics of “actively disengaged”. Therefore, it’s important to be
careful when categorizing an employee as one of the three types, all the key characteristics
must be considered.
References:
Adkins, A. (2016) Employee Engagement in U.S.
Stagnant in 2015. [Online] Available at: https://news.gallup.com/poll/188144/employee-engagement-stagnant-2015.aspx
[Accessed
on 05 October 2019].
Armstrong, M. (2009). Armstrong's handbook of human
resource management practice. 11th ed. London: Kogan Page, pp.337-339.
Killham, E. and Krueger, J. (2006) Who's Driving
Innovation at Your Company?. [Online] Available at: http://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/24472/whos-driving-innovation-your-company.aspx [Accessed on 30 September 2019].
Reilly, R. (2014) Five Ways to Improve Employee
Engagement Now. [Online] Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231581/five-ways-improve-employee-engagement.aspx
[Accessed
on 05 October 2019].
