Development of employee engagement measure: experiences from best companies to work for in India
ISSN: 1368-3047
Article publication date: 11 June 2020
Issue publication date: 19 June 2020
Abstract
Purpose
Employee engagement has become a hot topic among the global workforce. Both academicians and practitioners tout engagement to have a positive impact on individual and organizational performance. However, despite the enhanced interest, the stagnant engagement levels worldwide pose a grave concern for the researchers. Numerous overlapping and inconsistent definitions of employee engagement lead to a conceptual chaos resulting in poor operationalization of the construct. The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi-dimensional measurement tool for employee engagement based on the evidences from the best companies to work for in India.
Design/methodology/approach
Interviews with the top management of the 15 best companies are used for the generation of items using grounded theory methodology. These items are then subjected to content validity assessment by six domain experts. The scale is administered to the middle-level employees of five companies (n = 332) through questionnaire for exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, reliability assessment and initial evidences for convergent and discriminant validity.
Findings
The study aimed at developing and validating an employee engagement assessment instrument, which is well-grounded in theory and built on the conceptual framework proposed by both academicians and practitioners and rigorously tested for its psychometric properties to ensure the precise measurement of employee engagement. A 3-factor/16 item employee engagement measurement tool is the finding of this study, which attempts to bridge the incongruity between the academic and industrial view on employee engagement.
Originality/value
Looking at the dearth of measurement tools built in developing countries and with the intent of resolving the issues related with cultural differences in the application of western assessment tools, the developed scale made a notable contribution to engagement theory with prime focus in the Indian context. The three dimensions of employee engagement-alignment, affectiveness and action- orientation- are in a form and language, that is, comprehensible and consequential for practitioners enabling them to take a closer look at the critical engagement elements that align with the organization's human capital strategy and foster improved performance.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
We would like to express our gratitude toward the HR heads for sharing their valuable inputs on employee engagement. We thank our respondents who spared their valuable time and helped us conduct this research successfully.
Citation
Shrotryia, V.K. and Dhanda, U. (2020), "Development of employee engagement measure: experiences from best companies to work for in India", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 319-343. https://doi.org/10.1108/MBE-07-2019-0071
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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