Employee engagement and its impact on individual work behaviour and discretionary effort

INTRODUCTION

In early industrialization, the employees were managed with the

judgment of the engineers and the economists. Later on, the situation changed

when the employees formed their own union to protect themselves from

forced policies and their demands were met through the unions. The birth of

management gurus with new ideas gradually brought in a shift in the style of

work from a worker to an executive along with empowerment in their work.

The emphasis shifted from completion of work to job satisfaction, passion for

work, and contentment with the work. Since then, employees are managed by

Human Resource (HR) professionals who strive for sustaining an engaged

workforce. Employee Engagement is a term used extensively in today’s

business world in order to capture the essence of motivation. Since research

on employee engagement have proven its trail on increasing productivity

(Harter et al. 2002), organizations are at the forefront to utilize any chance of

creating an environment conducive to an engaged workforce.