Exploring employee engagement in the workplace

Employee engagement has long been popular in the public and private sector (see MacLeod and Clarke, 2009; Rayton et al 2012), but has only recently become an academic ‘hot topic’ (Purcell, 2014). Since MacLeod and Clarke’s (2009) report on employee engagement (and subsequent Government backing), there has been a flourish of research activity to uncover both what is meant by employee engagement and how we can capture and harvest it. In essence, it has become the (new) Holy Grail. The interest in employee engagement is not surprising, given its potential impact on organisational performance (MacLeod and Clarke). Engaged employees are argued to be more committed to the organisation, go beyond what is expected of them (commonly known as discretionary effort) and be highly motivated. Yet the antecedents that facilitate engagement are still unknown, along with a defined definition of engagement (Purcell, 2014).

In more recent years there has been increasing academic support for the benefits of workforce engagement (Jenkins and Delbridge, 2013; Truss et al., 2013), arguing that engagement ‘is not simply a case of repackaging existing ideas’ (Yalabik et al., 2013: 2817). However, opinions regarding employee engagement are diverse and there are more questions than answers (Truss et al., 2013), insufficient evidence (Yalabik et al., 2013), and limited critical scrutiny (Guest, 2013; Jenkins and Delbridge, 2013; Keenoy, 2013; Purcell, 2013). Questions remain regarding the implementation and development of engagement initiatives i.e. ‘doing’ engagement and ‘being’ engaged (see Truss et al., 2013). Research has also predominantly focused on an over-arching concept of engagement, and there are few (if any) studies that have deconstructed the relationship between employee engagement or specific processes and practices. It is imperative that we start to ask; engaged with what? In addition, research has largely focused on quantitative survey-based research asking employees questions about engagement through a managerial discourse. As a result, there is a lack of employee voice. Although employee voice was identified as significant by MacLeod and Clarke (2009), it has received little attention (Purcell, 2014). Instead employees ‘are viewed in a passive role [with] engagement seen as something that is driven by the organisation, rather than something that is largely under the control of employees’’ (Francis and Reddington, 2012: 272). This has left several questions. Further research is needed to uncover the fluctuations in engagement (Fletcher and Robinson, 2014) and the impact of contextual issues (Jenkins and Delbridge, 2013).