Employee Engagement:

The psychology behind

individual behaviours

02
WHY IS EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT IMPORTANT?
An organisation that engages its employees will be more successful and profitable
than one that does not. Organisations of today need employees who are
psychologically connected to their work, especially in an economy of service and
information industries.

An organisation
that engages its
employees will be
more successful and
profitable than one
that does not.

Research that has shown that engagement is related to bottom line outcomes
such as job performance1 client satisfaction2 and improved financial returns3 which
has focussed the attention of many organisations on how they go about fostering
employee engagement.
Engagement is not the same as motivation. Engagement is when employees are
experiencing job satisfaction from a shared understanding of organisational goals that
results in enhanced productivity or service levels. Motivation sits on a solid foundation
of engagement. It is about firing up employees to achieve specific goals such as sales
targets or service levels and then rewarding them appropriately for this achievement.
This whitepaper will help HR and business managers get to grips with employee
engagement what does it look like and how do you create it?

CREATING THE RIGHT WORK ENVIRONMENT

Employee engagement is not a tick box exercise. It demands a holistic approach to
create the conditions that foster engagement. In some cases, that may mean driving
a sea change in corporate culture. In an ideal world employees should be presented
with a balance between the demands made of them and the resources they can
access to meet those demands. Resources may be physical, such as having a laptop
for mobile working, but just as often resources may be social or even emotional, in
the form of support from colleagues and management. This type of support may look
like a nice to have but actually organisations derive much of their performance from it.
It is vital to recognise that support is an important job resource. It need not cost
much, but without it employees are unlikely to fully engage with their roles and may
suffer from work overload or negative emotional demands, often resulting in stress or
even resignation.

1. Bakker & Bal, 2010; Halbesleben & Wheeler 2008

2. Salanova, Agut, & Peiro, 2005
3. Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2009b

PERFORMANCE AND
MOTIVATION MATTERS

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT:
THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOURS

03
A global study carried out by Towers Perrin-ISR4 compared the
financial performance of organisations with a more engaged
workforce to their peers with a less engaged workforce over a period
of 12 months. The study found that those companies with a highly
engaged workforce improved operating income by 19.2% over 12
months, while those companies with low engagement scores saw
operating income decline by 32.75% over the same period.

Employees
demonstrate
the best job
performance in
challenging, yet
resourceful work
environments.

Organisations need to structure roles and responsibilities to allow for colleagues

supporting each other. It is important to create time for managers to carry out
performance management properly, incorporating recognition and reward, and to
provide training and development.
This must become a continual process to hold integrity and achieve buy in that the
employer is serious about engagement, and not just providing lip service.
Just as importantly, engagement cannot be imposed on employees. There needs to
be commitment to employee engagement at a senior level, and organisations need to
recognise that managers that provide support also need to be supported themselves.
Achieving engagement can have a dramatic motivational effect, resulting in low
levels of cynicism and excellent performance. Employees demonstrate the best job
performance in challenging, yet resourceful work environments. With engagement, a
high workload can in fact be a positive motivator rather than a negative issue.

4. Towers Perrin-ISR (2006) The ISR Employee Engagement Report

PERFORMANCE AND
MOTIVATION MATTERS

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT:
THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOURS

04
MEASUREMENT
Engagement is not as tangible as other outcomes that have more concrete KPIs.
However, there are clear indicators of high and low engagement.

A highly engaged employee:

or
ta

proa
ctiv in En
e, th er
ove exe eir o ge
rc w t
r
are even isi n
im
ts n
p
Not a

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other n
s

h o th
t
nt

d,
sk in han

by the ta
Absorbedis experienced as a

tiredness te following task

nt sta er than a negative
pleasa
ath
on , r
pleti
com
istic about

tim
Op cceeding now
su d in the

, they have

interests f work as well

tside o
ou

ure
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t
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n
o
c
s
o
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to
ff
Seen ing able uired e
d
l
in be the req essfu in han
c
in

e
to b

c
isti

Vigour,
dedication,
& absorption.

Positive, wit
outlook wh h an
recogn ich en op
c
appreciat ition o
io

tim ages
ur
d
an om
fr

t
den
nfi s and
o
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s
Re direc
e
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to r
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as

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at

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Indending to g and likely

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att

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in

The UWES (Utrecht work engagement) scale5 is the most often used scientifically
derived measure in the academic study of engagement. UWES covers three
engagement dimensions vigour, dedication, and absorption. There are also
commercial tools for measuring employee engagement, such as the 3Ease survey
tools or the ISA engagement scale6, which assumes that engagement has intellectual,
social and affective aspects.
Low engagement can be seen through factors such as high absenteeism and staff
turnover, as well as poor staff satisfaction levels as expressed in anonymous qualitative
surveys. A Gallup poll7 found that engagement levels could be predictors of sickness
absence, with more highly engaged employees taking an average of 2.7 days per year
off sick, compared with disengaged employees taking an average of 6.2 days per year.
5 Schaufeli & Bakker, 2010; Schaufeli et al., 2002
6 Soane, E., Truss, C., Alfes, K., Shantz, A., Rees, C. and Gatenby, M. (2012 in press) Development and Application of a New Measure of
Employee Engagement: The ISA Engagement Scale - Human Resource Development International.
7 Gallup, 2003, cited in Melcrum (2005), Employee Engagement: How to Build A High Performance Workforce

PERFORMANCE AND
MOTIVATION MATTERS

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT:
THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOURS

05
ADDRESSING INDIVIDUAL NEEDS
Fostering the right environment for an engaged workforce is a vital first step.
Beyond that it is important to recognise that engagement can be very personal to
the individual. The process needs to start by identifying some common profiles of
employees that demonstrate engagement behaviour. Then HR staff will have a better
understanding what an engaged employee looks like and organisations are in a
much better position to consider how they can go about replicating these behaviours
and developing positive attitudes towards engagement.
Psychologists (e.g. Azjen) believe that peoples attitudes and beliefs influence how they
intend to behave. This will therefore also be true for engagement behaviour. However
there are other influences on how people actually behave. Senior managers will
therefore need to investigate:

How is growth
perceived within
the organisation?

What is the likely perceived outcome of demonstrating engagement behaviour

(such as proactively solving customer queries)?
If an employee decides to go the extra mile to solve a customer query, what is the
likely outcome for the individual concerned? There may be a range of responses such
as praise and recognition from a line manager or improved earnings to ultimately
increased sales and profitability at an organisational level. On the other hand, there
may be no individual recognition or even criticism if the individual is not seen as
resolving the query quickly and efficiently. Therefore the likely outcome of going the
extra mile will affect the employees attitude towards doing it. Interestingly a Towers
Perrin study found that broadly three-quarters of highly engaged employees believe
they can impact costs, quality and customer service where in contrast only 25% of the
disengaged believe they can.
What is the contribution of the organisations culture to the employees beliefs?
A second influence on behaviour relates to the opinions and performance norms
of those around you. In the case of our example of going the extra mile, if other
workers are indifferent or cynical about the task then it is likely that an individual
employee may adopt these beliefs and expectations around what is acceptable
behaviour. Work team, department or organisational culture are powerful in
influencing the individual that certain behaviours are what are expected, the norm
so to speak. Leading by example and clarity of expectation are therefore important
influences in developing engagement behaviour
How confident is the employee in their ability to perform the required behaviour?
Consider how to develop staff so that they feel resourced and have confidence in their
competence to carry out the tasks they are asked to complete. Do some people get
promoted without the proper support to build their skills base? What autonomy does
the individual really have to make decisions? What support will they be given to test
theories? How is growth perceived within the organisation?

PERFORMANCE AND
MOTIVATION MATTERS

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT:
THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOURS

06
TAKING ACTION

Walk the talk

& truly understand
and believe
in the benefits
of creating an
engagement culture.

A good starting point is to identify and include engagement behaviours in the

corporate competency framework. Consider psychometric testing to assess behaviours.
Organisations that are ahead of the game are working hard to define engagement
competencies. A good start point is to look at the existing competency framework and
identify the behavioural indicators that help to define the organisations expectations of
what engaged employees look like. For example, if Maintaining a Customer Focus is
one of the organisations core competencies, this will be identified by a number of key
behaviours which can be observed. These might be:
i) Maintains consistent and frequent contact with internal and external customers
ii) Meets customer expectations
iii) Ensures that all activities are focused on better serving the customer
iv) Continually gathers and analyses information relating to customer needs and preferences
Consistent observation of items (iii) and (iv) might indicate an engaged employee in the
context of this job role and organisation. In essence, there are four key areas where HR
and leadership teams can help boost employee engagement:
1. Take a close look at your leadership: Having leaders understand their roles and
responsibilities is a priority in setting the tone of the culture of the organisation. There
needs to be a top down articulation of the importance of engagement, where leaders
walk the talk and truly understand and believe in the benefits of creating an engagement
culture. The Corporate Leadership Council has said that engaged organisations grew
profits as much as three times faster than their competitors8.
2. Review your recruitment strategy: Plan to recruit people with a higher propensity to be
engaged. Most recruitment involves person specifications so if particular behaviour predicts
future engaged behaviour, look for examples of that by asking people about how they have
reacted to particular situations in the past. Once you have identified a set of beliefs that might
underpin engagement it is possible to use psychometric testing as part of recruitment.
3. Ensure your staff have the right core skills through training and development:
The right training and development is vital so that employees feel competent in their
ability to do their jobs and do not disengage as a result of stress or to distance themselves
from apparently unachievable objectives.
4. Performance management and continual motivation is essential: Engagement
can be seen as an outcome from behaviour and rewarding desired behaviours can
reinforce the goals of an organisation. Effective performance management is not done
well in many organisations. It is essential that, as a starting point, managers carry out
basic performance management with employees setting objectives, appraising progress,
rewarding people for doing well and supporting people who need it.
8 Corporate Leadership Council /Corporate Executive Board (2008). Improving Employee Performance in the Economic Downturn

PERFORMANCE AND
MOTIVATION MATTERS

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT:
THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOURS

07
CONCLUSION
Organisations that have ensured employee engagement is a top priority will be more
successful than those that have not. The evidence will be clear to see on the bottom
line. But employee engagement is not just about hitting sales and service nirvana in a
thriving enterprise.

It is also about
identifying where
there is high
engagement and
capitilising on that.

When the going gets tough and the company faces sometimes unpleasant change
such as the need to introduce a pay freeze or reduce staff headcount, engaged staff
will be better resourced to approach change positively. Fully engaged with a company
that they believe has their interests at heart, employee fear of change will be reduced.
This is not just about identifying and addressing poor engagement; it is also about
identifying where there is high engagement and capitalising on that. There is
significant association and influence between employee engagement and innovation
as well as a strong correlation between highly engaged staff and client satisfaction.
It is clear that an organisation founded on an engaged workforce is in a great position
to go from strength to strength.

Five top tips for creating employee engagement in

your work environment
1. Include engagement behaviours in the corporate competency framework
2. Take a top down approach and get high-level buy in to the goal of creating an
engaged workforce
3. Develop profiles describing what attributes engaged employees will display in
your organisation, so that everyone knows what engagement looks like
4. Incorporate attributes predicting employee engagement into person
specifications used for recruitment
5. Make time for performance management supported by reward and
recognition in order to achieve and maintain engagement

Co-authors: John Sylvester is Director at P&MM Motivation, the award winning motivation and performance
improvement company. Follow on Twitter @johnsylvester.
Ruth Patel is anindependentbusiness psychologist (DipPsych., MSc., MBPs, Level A&B accredited) and founder of
Unlocking People Potential.

PERFORMANCE AND
MOTIVATION MATTERS

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT:
THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOURS

ABOUT SODEXO
Engagement encourages employees to buy-in to the goals, ambitions and corporate
ethos of an organisation in a way that will inspire them to drive the business forward
proactively and generate success.
Sodexos dedicated motivation division helps organisations to engage their workforce
through award winning recognition schemes and branded incentive schemes
which improve performance and talent retention and, unlike cash incentives, provide
detailed reporting to demonstrate return on investment.
Headquartered in Milton Keynes, the company is part of Sodexo, which employs over
500 people from a wide range of specialist and vertical sector backgrounds.
For further information please visit www.staffmotivationmatters.co.uk.

1 Bakker & Bal, 2010; Halbesleben & Wheeler 2008

2 Salanova, Agut, & Peiro, 2005
3 Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2009b
4 Towers Perrin-ISR (2006) The ISR Employee Engagement Report
5 Schaufeli & Bakker, 2010; Schaufeli et al., 2002
6 Soane, E., Truss, C., Alfes, K., Shantz, A., Rees, C. and Gatenby, M. (2012 in press) Development and Application of a New Measure of
Employee Engagement: The ISA Engagement Scale - Human Resource Development International.
7 Gallup, 2003, cited in Melcrum (2005), Employee Engagement: How to Build A High Performance Workforce
8 Corporate Leadership Council /Corporate Executive Board (2008). Improving Employee Performance in the Economic Downturn

PERFORMANCE AND
MOTIVATION MATTERS

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT:
THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOURS