CHAPTER 12

Engaged Employees

Engagement and Employee Turnover

Much of managing employee turnover, and hence much of what we’ve said thus far can be boiled down to one word—engagement. Engaged employees are less likely to voluntarily turnover than those who are not.

The first principle we will look at in this chapter is that increases in employee engagement can reduce turnover. In the discussion, we will also consider some other benefits of increased employee engagement beyond reduced turnover. From there, we will consider principles to increase employee engagement. The idea is that if employee retention increases through employee engagement, then you need to know how to increase employee engagement. You will see that many of the principles already discussed in previous chapters can increase employee engagement. Moreover, we will offer two additional principles. We will discuss goals and their role in employee engagement, including how to structure goals for maximum employee engagement. We will also cover job enrichment, what it is, how it increases employee engagement, and, of course, how to enrich a given job.

Principle 1: Increases in Employee Engagement Can Help Manage Employee Turnover

Research has supported a negative relationship between employee engagement and voluntary turnover. In other words, there is empirical evidence suggesting that one key in managing employee retention is to engage them in their work and in the organization.

The Research Evidence

In 2004, Wilmar Schaufeli and Arnold Bakker reported finding that employee engagement is associated with reduced employee turnover.¹ Two years later, Alan Saks corroborated Schaufeli and Bakker’s research when he also found the same negative relationship between engagement and voluntary employee turnover.² In their 2007 & 2008 Global Work Attitudes Report, Watson Wyatt Worldwide reported that engaged employees not only turnover less often, but are also high performers, and that an engaged workforce contributes to an organization’s successful financial performance.³

In addition to establishing the negative relationship between employee engagement and voluntary employee turnover, research has also unveiled several ways in which employers can improve employee engagement, many of which we’ve discussed previously. A wealth of empirical evidence has shown that providing employees with proper rewards and recognition (see Chapter 10); fair procedures associated with, and the fair distribution of, rewards and recognition (see Chapter 10); clear communication and guidance from company leadership (see Chapters 10 and 11); as well as employee support at both the supervisor and the organization levels (see Chapter 11) can each foster employee engagement.⁴

Employee engagement builders not yet discussed in this book include specific and challenging goals and enriched job experiences to be discussed in principles 2 and 3 below.

Getting Started with Increasing Employee Engagement

To get started with increasing employee engagement we would first refer you to Chapters 10 and 11 as indicated above. Additionally, we refer you to principles 2 and 3 below.

In Summary, You Can Increase Employee Engagement through:

•providing proper and fair rewards and recognition (see Chapter 10),

•providing fair procedures and fair distribution of rewards and recognition (see Chapter 10),

•providing clear communication and guidance from leadership (see Chapters 10 and 11),

•providing employee support at both the supervisor and organizational levels (see Chapter 11),

•providing specific and challenging goals (see below), and

•providing an enriched job experience (see below).

Principle 2: Specific and Challenging Goals Can Increase Employee Engagement

Much has been written about the importance of goals to organizational and individual success. The purpose of this section is not to supplant or to recreate what already exists. One of the most successfully used goal-setting methodologies, Management By Objectives (MBO), was popularized by Peter Drucker in 1954. We refer the interested reader to his book, The Practice of Management, for an MBO primer.⁵

More relevant here, though, is the role of goals in employee engagement, and the importance of engagement to retention. It is this topic to which we now turn.

The Research Evidence

Edwin Locke and Gary Latham are considered the pioneers in the study of goal setting and motivation. We highly recommend their seminal book entitled Goal Setting: A Motivational Technique that Works.⁶ Although originally written as a theory of motivation, goal setting done right has since been shown to not only increase employee motivation but also to increase employees’ sense of well-being, and to provide employees with a sense of direction and focus. In turn, each of these is related to reductions in employee turnover through engagement.⁷ Goal setting done right has been shown to reduce absenteeism (often seen as a lesser version of withdrawal than turnover and hence a proxy measure of likelihood to turnover).⁸ The theory of goal setting has been corroborated by dozens of independent studies across a cumulative 40,000+ subjects across several nations and across several occupational fields.⁹

Getting Started with Specific and Challenging Goals

Much of the research on setting goals can be boiled down to five steps in setting goals and six characteristics of well-written goals.¹⁰ The five steps in good goal writing offered by Robbins and Coulter are: (1) Review the organization’s mission, or purpose. It is important to be sure that employees are working toward goals that advance the goals of the organization as a whole. (2) Evaluate available resources. Rather than motivating employees, setting and having goals that cannot be met with the given resources can be a huge demotivator. (3) Determine the goals individually or with input from others. If the culture of the organization permits, it is always better to receive input from employees on their own goals. Sometimes, though, the culture or needs of the organization lend themselves more toward goal setting from above. (4) Write down the goals and communicate them to all who need to know. This serves two purposes. First, it creates a sense of accountability to the stakeholders who are aware of and affected by the goals. Second, it serves as a constant reminder that employees can refer back to regarding what it is they are actually trying to accomplish on a daily basis. (5) Review results and whether goals are being met, and provide continuous feedback to help employees monitor where they stand regarding their goals. This helps make sure that things are staying on track and allows for revision of goals upward or downward as necessary. We would also add that some research suggests strict goal setting may work better in more highly routinized work settings.¹¹

Along with the five steps to goal setting, Robbins and Coulter also offer the following six characteristics of well-written goals: (1) Written in terms of outcome rather than action—it is important to make sure that employees are motivated and rewarded by outcomes more than by activity. (2) Measurable and quantifiable—this characteristic of a well-written goal makes for a specific target to shoot for, makes the determination of goal accomplishment an objective rather than subjective judgment, and provides a specific benchmark for the fair distribution of rewards as discussed previously. (3) Clear as to a time frame—this ensures that goals are being accomplished in a timely manner that is relevant to the time requirements of the organization. (4) Challenging yet attainable—on one hand employees need to be challenged to sustain a high level of engagement, at the same time though, it is important for employees to believe that they can rise to the challenge given the support and resources provided by the organization. Substantial research shows that setting specific challenging goals is more effective than goals that emphasize “doing your best.”¹² (5) Written down and (6) communicated to all necessary organizational members—again these serve two purposes. First, they create a sense of accountability to the stakeholders who are aware of, and affected by the goals. Second, they serve as constant reminders that employees can refer back to regarding what it is they are actually trying to accomplish on a daily basis.

In Summary, Well Crafted Goals Are:

•measurable,

•quantifiable,

•time bound,

•challenging,

•attainable,

•written, and communicated.

Principle 3: Enriched Job Experiences Can Increase Employee Engagement

If Edwin Locke and Gary Latham are the gurus of goal setting, then J. Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham are the gurus of job enrichment. In 1975 Hackman, Oldham, and their colleagues proposed a model of job characteristics that were expected to lead to enriched jobs and, therefore, employee engagement.¹³ Specifically, they asserted that increases in skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback would lead to job enrichment, and that job enrichment would increase employee motivation, satisfaction, quality, and performance as well as decrease absenteeism and turnover.

The Research Evidence

Hackman and Oldham’s original study found general support for their theory. The next year, they published two studies that provided additional evidence that enriching jobs through skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback increased employee engagement.¹⁴

Getting Started with Enriching the Job Experience for Employees

Based on their theory, Hackman and Oldham set forth the job characteristics model. In it, they showed that increases in core job dimensions such as skill variety (the degree to which a job requires a variety of activities), task identity (the degree to which a job requires the completion of an entire and identifiable outcome), and task significance (the degree to which a job makes an impact on the lives or work of others) could enhance the meaningfulness that employees find in their work. They showed that autonomy (the degree to which a job provides freedom, independence, and discretion) increases the level of responsibility that employees feel for the outcome of their work. Finally, they showed that feedback (the degree of direct and clear information about the effectiveness of one’s job performance) would improve an employee’s knowledge of the actual results of their work activities. Enriching jobs in these ways, they showed, could lead to higher motivation, performance quality, and work satisfaction and to lower levels of absenteeism and turnover.

In Summary, Management Can Enrich Job Experiences by Providing Additional:

•skill variety,

•task identity,

•task significance,

•autonomy, and

•feedback.