Employee Retention Through Employee Engagement: Observation from Telecom Sector
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ISSN: 2278-3369 International Journal of Advances in Management and Economics Available online at www.managementjournal.info RESEARCH ARTICLE Employee Retention through Employee Engagement: Observation from Telecom Sector Verma MD1*, Nayak Sarita2 1Monnet Power Co. Ltd, Angul, Odisha, India. 2Regional College of Management, Chakakola Vihar, Chandrasekharpur, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. *Corresponding Author: E-mail: [email protected] Abstract Employee engagement leads to commitment and psychological attachment and reflects in the form of high retention (low attrition) of employees. The level of engagement in employees can be enhanced by identifying its drivers (influential factors) and work on them. The construct employee engagement is built on the foundation of earlier concepts like job satisfaction, employee commitment and Organizational citizenship behaviour. Engaged employees are emotionally attached to their organization and highly involved in their job with a great enthusiasm for the success of their employer, going an extra mile beyond the employment contractual agreement. The relationship between employee engagement and employee retention is examined from the response to separate questionnaires from 132 employees who are chosen based on random sampling. The study finds that the employee retention can be improved by increasing the level of employee engagement and focusing on few non-financial drivers. Organizations can design good practices in the light of findings to retain their best talent (highly skilled and specialized human resources) without much financial burden. Keywords: Employee engagement, Employee retention, Organizational citizenship behaviour, Job satisfaction, Employee commitment. Introduction Managers unequivocally agree that this century number of employees with increased technical and demands more efficiency and productivity than professional skills. These knowledge workers any other times in history. Businesses are cannot be managed with old styles of totalitarian striving to increase their performance. Managers management. They expect operational autonomy, have been grappling with many challenges to job satisfaction and status. It is because of these succeed putting their company ahead of facts that attention of managers is shifting competitors. To help managers manage, different towards employees’ side of organizations. From scholars, researchers and consultants have been last quarter of twentieth century onwards, contributing their part showing the best ways concepts like employee commitment and they think are useful to managers. Among those Organizational Citizenship behaviour (OCB) suggested techniques, concepts like Total Quality started to appear on the ground that efficiency Management (TQM) and Business Process Re- and productivity lie within the employees’ ability engineering (BPR) earned recognition from many and commitment. Managers’ eye is on how to keep authors in the second half of twentieth century employees engaged in their job. Employers now and were found helpful in increasing realize that by focusing on employee engagement, organizational performance by focusing on they can create more efficient and productive operational and process improvements. They were workforce. Any initiatives of improvement which still being used as tools for management in their are taken by management cannot be fruitful effort to plan, execute and control of the desired without willful involvement and engagement of changes in the operational quality.Thanks to employees. Employee engagement as a concept is technology, nowadays business companies are very vast. making use of advanced techniques of operation. Review of Literature As sophistication of technologies continues to evolve, they pose more challenges for managers Most references relate employee engagement to because organizations will have to need more survey houses and consultancies. It is less taken Verma MD & Nayak Sarita| July-August 2014 | Vol.3 | Issue 4|189-196 189 Available online at www.managementjournal.info as an academic construct. The concept is done by both sides. Furthermore, Fernandez [6] relatively new for HRM and appeared in the shows the distinction between job satisfaction, the literatures for nearly two decades [1,2].The well-known construct in management, and construct, employee engagement emanates from engagement contending that employee two concepts that have won academic recognition satisfaction is not the same as employee and have been the subjects of empirical research- engagement and since managers cannot rely on Commitment and Organizational Citizen employee satisfaction to help retain the best and Behaviour (OCB) [1,3]. Employee engagement has the brightest, employee engagement becomes a similarities to and overlaps with the above two critical concept. Other researchers take job concepts. Robinson et al. [3] state that neither satisfaction as a part of engagement, but it can commitment nor OCB reflect sufficiently two merely reflect a superficial, transactional aspects of engagement – it is two-way nature, and relationship that is only as good as the the extent to which engaged employees are organization’s last round of perks and bonuses; expected to have an element of business Engagement is about passion and commitment- awareness, even though it appears that the willingness to invest oneself and expand one’s engagement overlaps with the two concepts. discretionary effort to help the employer succeed, Rafferty et al [1] also distinguish employee which is beyond simple satisfaction with the engagement and the two prior concepts- employment arrangement or basic loyality to the Commitment and OCB, on the ground that employer [7,8,9]. Therefore, the full engagement engagement clearly demonstrates that it is a two- equation is obtained by aligning maximum job way mutual process between the employee and satisfaction and maximum job contribution. the organization. Stephen Young, the executive director of Towers Perrin, also distinguishes between job satisfaction Definition of Employee Engagement and engagement contending that only To date, there is no single and generally accepted engagement (not satisfaction) is the strongest definition for the term employee engagement. predictor of organizational performance [10]. This is evident if one looks at the definitions Recent researches also indicate that Employee forwarded for the term by three well-known commitment and OCB are important parts and research organizations in human resource area, predictors of employee engagement in that let alone individual researchers. Below are the commitment is conceptualized as positive definitions: Perrin’s Global Workforce Study [4] attachment and willingness to exert energy for uses the definition “employees’ willingness and success of the organization, feeling proud of being ability to help their company succeed, largely by a member of that organization and identifying providing discretionary effort on a sustainable oneself with it. OCB is a behaviour observed basis.” According to the study, engagement is within the work context that demonstrates itself affected by many factors which involve both through taking www.ccsenet.org/ijbm emotional and rational factors relating to work International Journal of Business and and the overall work experience. Gallup Management Vol. 5, No. 12; December 2010 organization defines employee engagement as the Published by Canadian Center of Science and involvement with an enthusiasm for work. Gallup Education 91 innovative initiatives proactively as cited by Dernovsek [5] likens employee seeking opportunities to contribute one’s best and engagement to a positive employees’ emotional going extra mile beyondemployment contract. attachment and employees’ commitment. However, these constructs constitute the bigger Robinson et al. [1] define employee engagement as construct employee engagement and they cannot “a positive attitude held by the employee towards independently act as a replacement for the organization and its value. An engaged engagement [1,9].The bad news for management employee is aware of business context, and works is that global surveys conducted by survey houses with colleagues to improve performance within and research organizations indicate that the job for the benefit of the organization. The significant size of employees are disengaged being organization must work to develop and nurture skeptical of any organizational initiative or engagement, which requires a two-way communication and rather more likely indulging relationship between employer and in contagious negativity [2,4,5,7]. The problem employee.”This verdict and definition forwarded with these surveys is that they use their own by Institute of Employment Studies gives a clear items to measure employee engagement. If looked insight that employee engagement is the result of at the available literatures on measuring two-way relationship between employer and employee engagement, one would get surprisingly employee pointing out that there are things to be several measurement items to the extent that it Verma MD & Nayak Sarita|July-August 2014 | Vol.3 | Issue 4|189-196 190 Available online at www.managementjournal.info seems different constructs are being measured Management (HRM) play important role in [1,4,5]. Future researches are expected to come up retention of employees. HR managers have to with clear definition and dimensions of employee identify the right retention strategies which their engagement on basis of which the