KAHN 1990 – NEED-SATISFYING APPROACH
In his article, 'Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work ' (1990), Kahn was the first to apply the engagement theory in the workplace to explain the way an employee engages himself in the workplace depending on different variables, workplace environment, safety and the way he feels about his work amongst others. With his research, he attempted to analyse how the above-mentioned variables can affect the way an employee works and connects to others in the workplace. He conducted an interview with 32 people and results show that people can either engage themselves in their work- do their work as best as they can possibly do, or totally disengage themselves- not giving themselves completely to their tasks- depending on how much value they attribute to their job and how they are made to feel in the workplace. He states that the more valuable an employee feels in the workplace, the more he will engage himself both physically and emotionally in his tasks. The employee needs to feel that he is making a difference and that what he accomplishes is being appreciated. Safety is another important variable that Kahn defines as being a situation where the employee has no need to fear and feels that he has the support he needs to complete his tasks. Another variable that affects how the employee works is availability which is defined as the employee's own ability to involve himself both physically and emotionally in his work. Kahn's research acknowledges that this variable will depend on factors outside the workplace such as the employee's personal life. These three factors, meaningfulness, availability and safety contribute to the way an employee engages himself in h...
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...hancement. They found out that the more engaged employees an organisation has, the higher the productivity and the lower the staff turnover. This means that the Company will spend less money as it does not have to recruit staff continually and spend resources on training. Instead its employees stay as they receive support and derive job meaningfulness and satisfaction which make them more engaged in their work. Research also reveals that the higher the level of satisfaction an employee derives and the more engaged he is, the better the quality of his job and the better the outcomes for his Company. Employee engagement has been found to be directly related to customer satisfaction and profitability. This was proved by Harter et Al (2002) who showed that businesses who had a high score on employee engagement had a higher profitability and a lower staff turnover.
Workers feeling, which includes competitive compensation and reward strategies, professional growth and development, career paths and succession plans and the organizations leadership and culture are contributing factors of employee engagement
A study conducted by BlessingWhite (2013) highlights five levels of employee engagement. The first level is the “engaged”. The engaged employee exhibits high contribution and high satisfaction, these employees find great satisfaction in their work, they are strongly committed to the organizations mission and goals, and have a positive impact on employee morale. The second level of employee engagement is the “almost engaged” having a medium level of job satisfaction and contribution. These employees are genuinely satisfied with their job and are considered top performers within the organization. The third level are considered “honeymooners and hamsters” these employees exhibit a high job satisfaction but low contribution levels. Honeymooners are considered newer employees and are seeking their role with the organization, while also seeking ways to contribute to the mission. Hamsters, on the other hand, are sincerely hard workers, however they routinely work non-value added task, therefore contributing little to the organization. Level four consist “crash and burners”. The “crash and burners” have a high contribution level but also exhibit a low level of job satisfaction. The “crash and burners” often complain about decisions made by upper level management as well as complain about
Boston, MA: Pearson Sivarethinamohan, R. R., & Aranganathan, P. P. (2011). Determinants of employee engagement
Using the concepts of flow from Csikszentmihalyi, these authors hypothesized that by experiencing flow at work would create a positive leadership role, which would eventually lead to a great satisfaction in their job (Smith, Koppes, and Vodanovich). When a person is satisfied with their job, they are more likely to be organized and perform to their greatest capability. Some researchers have attempted to use flow to measure the relationship between the usage of flow and the attitudes of the employees while doing their job. The more an employee uses flow in their day-to-day work life, the happier the employee will be in the well-being of life (Fullagar and Kelloway). Using psychological flow in everyday work life has been proven to be extremely beneficial in creating a happy employee that is satisfied with the work that he or she is doing. Researcher Bakker has said that while experiencing flow, a person should feel an intense feeling of accomplishment and fulfilment, just while performing the task that they are expected to do everyday in their jobs (Bakker). Contrary to Csikszentmihalyi’s definition of flow, researcher Bakker (2008) defines “flow as the experience of complete absorption, enjoyment, and intrinsic motivation.” This definition is different from Csikszenmihalyi’s because of Bakker’s lack of focus on one specific task at hand. Csikszenmihalyi’s definition of flow is more precise for completing a task that requires stress as to where Bakker’s is a broad sense of satisfaction when completing any task. Having many different researchers offer their perspective of psychological flow is
Slåtten, T., & Mehmetoglu, M. (2011). Antecedents and effects of engaged frontline employees: A study from the hospitality industry. Managing Service Quality, 21(1), 88-107.
All the more, essentially each employee wants to feel as if they are apart of something bigger that brings about promotion for someone or something greater than themselves. Therefore, that is why is it is pivotal for employers to cultivate high employee engagement.
Happy employees motivate other employees , adds up to the positive climate of the organization
Based off of the gratification an individual contains towards their work is job satisfaction. The productivity could either be positive or negative while the relationship between the productivity and satisfaction may not be consistent. There are multiple internal and external factors of job satisfaction that can impact the behavior of an employee and engagement over time. The way the worker’s attitude concerning their field effects the performance they perform on a daily basis. One who is satisfied with the job they maintain, succeed at what they do. “It is therefore imperative for a company to understand the attitude of its workers and measure the job satisfaction of its employees, as job satisfaction is essential for productivity” (L. Bradshaw
This theory implicates a logical illustration that if the nature of a job sufficed and met the five core characteristics, the employee would feel a sense of fulfillment that would result in excellent work performance (Armstrong, 2017). The job design prefigures the significant relationship of the five core dimensions as to how a worker perceives the three vital psychological states – meaningfulness of work, responsibility and knowledge of outcomes – that would eventually contribute to a sense of general job satisfaction, personal growth, increased motivation and effectiveness of work (DeVaro, Li, Brookshire, 2007). There is a dynamic suggestion in JCM that acclaims the correlation of positive feelings with an excellent performance, and negative feelings with poor performance (Mukul, Rayhan, Hoque, & Islam,
In his study about psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work, Kahn have shown that there are three psychological engagement elements that can influence an individual’s behaviour in relation to their job function. The elements are 1) meaningfulness - rewards from engagement, 2) safety - higher willingness to engage, and 3) availability - readiness to engage (Kahn, 1990). Because of his work, Kahn is widely regarded as the pioneer of employee engagement and his findings are still engaged and found in many references about employee
In the article.” The Mediating Role of Work Engagement and Burnout in the Relationship between Job Characteristics and Psychological Distress among Lawyers,” authors Veronica Hopkins and Dianne Garner conducted a study on how demands of being a lawyer and psychological distress are related and what steps could be taken to reduce the psychological distress which can lead to burn out if not handled. Hopkins and Garner(2012) discovered that “high levels of burnout were associated with more psychological distress, while high work engagement was associated with less psychological distress”.(p.65) An example of work engagement is to exhibit dedication for the task required for the job. An example of work engagement for a salesperson is to share with a customer a great personal experience with a product. According to week 3 audio lecture, the goals of job design is to give the employee skill identity and variety which will eventually lead to job enlargement and rotation. In order to retain their employees, employees should expand skill variety to meet with change of identity. This effort could probably lead to a lower job dissatisfaction rate. According to 2 Corinthians 8:7,” Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, [so let him give]; not
The effectiveness and efficiency of each and every action in the organization, is dependent on every employee’s performance. It is clear that fostering employee engagement is a critical competitive advantage. So, how do we apply this? The key lies in recognizing and addressing both the commonality and the diversity of employees' needs and motivational factors. It is advisable to focus on addressing important needs common to the majority of employees; however without overlooking the minority needs, which may be important to smaller numbers of individuals, as they could also be likely to have significant impact on engagement and commitment levels. Individualized approaches are also needed to address employees' varied career goals, work interests, and motivational factors, the most desirable, rewarding and meaningful to them about their work to make effective decisions about how to help each employee identify and achieve career goals and how to match work assignments to employees' individual interests and motivational factors. Managers must get to know their employees well. This requires a considerable amount of time, as well as strong competencies in coaching and communication in order for interactions to be most effective in producing desired
...s in the corporate world by setting new standards to promote and better satisfy their employees. We chose four leading companies in four different industries. The above analysis definitely reveals that perhaps one of the reasons why these companies are the leaders in their industry is because they are well aware of the importance of the work force. They mention in their mission statements as well that yes in deed customers are important but in order to make the customer happy they first need to motivate and satisfy the employee as well. According to Citibank, the general belief is that a happy worker is a motivated and loyal one. So keeping employees' spirits high is a sure-fire way of maintaining a productive workforce. A productive work force would ultimately lead to a healthy organization which would not only promote the society its working for but also itself.
People’s behaviour is determined by what motivates them. The aim of this essay is to discuss the essence of the motivation and psychological strengths, its evolution, a brief overview of the key theories of the employees’ motivation and behaviour analysis. The main task is to understand how motivation affects employee behaviour and to clarify the importance of motivation. In this essay I will discuss and produce definitions and examples to answer the main question of what is the driving force and how do people’s needs influence performance at work?
It has been observed that motivated and satisfied employees have directly relate with the business performance, profitability and eventually, its stability (Shemiah, 2009). However, dissatisfied and less committed employees have a negative impacts on the performance and profitability of an organization (McKinley, Sanchez, & Schick, 1995). It should be taken into account that disengaged and less efficient employees cost the organization thousands while losing the productivity (Hislop,