Introduction
Engagement at work was conceptualized by Kahn, (1990) as the µharnessing of organizational members¶ selves to their work roles. In engagement, people employ andexpress themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances.The second related construct to engagement in organizational behavior is the notion of flow advanced by Csikszentmihalyi (1975, 1990). Csikzentmihalyi (1975) defines flow asthe µholistic sensation¶ that, people feel when they act with total involvement. Flow isthe state in which there is little distinction between the self and environment. Whenindividuals are in Flow State little conscious control is necessary for their actions.Employee engagement is the thus the level of commitment and involvement an employeehas towards their organization and its values. An engaged employee is aware of businesscontext, and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefitof the organization. The organization must work to develop and nurture engagement,which requires a two-way relationship between employer and employee.¶ Thus Employeeengagement is a barometer that determines the association of a person with theorganizationEngagement is most closely associated with the existing construction of job involvement(Brown 1996) and flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Job involvement is defined as µthedegree to which the job situation is central to the person and his or her identity (Lawler &Hall, 1970). Kanungo (1982) maintained that job involvement is a µCognitive or belief state of Psychological identification. Job involvement is thought to depend on both needsaliency and the potential of a job to satisfy these needs. Thus job involvement resultsform a cognitive judgment about the needs satisfying abilities of the job. Jobs in this vieware tied to one¶s self image. Engagement differs from job in as it is concerned more withhow the individual employees his/her self during the performance of his / her job.Furthermore engagement entails the active use of emotions. Finally engagement may bethought of as an antecedent to job involvement in that individuals who experience deepengagement in their roles should come to identify with their jobs.When Kahn talked about employee engagement he has given important to all threeaspects physically, cognitively and emotionally. Whereas in job satisfaction importancehas been more given to cognitive side.
HAPPINESS AT WORK
Dr Laurel Edmunds and Jessica Pryce-Jones have researched the issue of happiness at work atlength and have produced the following definition from their findings:
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Happiness at work is about mindfully making the best use of the resources you have to overcome thechallenges you face. Actively relishing the highs and managing the lows will help you maximize your performance and achieve your potential. And this not only builds your happiness but also that of others--who will be affected and energized by what you do.
The use of positive psychologyin business has become an increasingly popular and valuable tool withwhich to manage and develop staff.
This then has a flow-on effect for the community that they work in.When these practices are put in place in a community²in this case the business²generally the outcome is
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[pic][pic] a real, direct benefit to the productivity of the business and to a happier and healthier employee asdiscussed by Rath & Clifton (2005).
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With the major advances in technology, particularly in a modern office environment, a greater range of information has become easily available at employees¶ fingertips. Staff today generally have a muchbroader knowledge of business environments, and therefore their minimum expectations of what a modernworkplace should provide to keep them happy and motivated is fairly high. Very basic programs can beimplemented to meet these needs and expectations. As an example, if we achieve target µA¶, a new filteredcoffee machine will be installed to replace the instant coffee in the staff room.
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hese minor rewards canhave a large impact on the staff¶s happiness and moods²indeed, the frequency of minor positive rewards iscritical for success.One of the main benefits to a business with a well-planned and well-run program is increased productivitythrough greater output and less down time.
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hrough a successful positive psychology program, staff candevelop a deeper satisfaction in their workplace relationships, and therefore the quality of their work tendsto improve, as well. A proactive business manager in today¶s business world caters to the needs of his or her staff either by ensuring a well-run in-house program or by bringing in experts to facilitate thedevelopment of one.
REVIEW OF LITERATUREOn employee emgagement
1. A global study of over 50,000 employees found that those employees who are most engaged perform 20% better and they are 87% less likely to leave.
Corporate Leadership Council 2004
2. Along with a survey of 664,000 employees at 50 global companies, Towers Perrin-ISRcompared the financial performance of companies with varying levels of employeeengagement over a 12 month period. It found that three financial indicators ± operatingincome, net income and earnings per share ± rose when engagement was high and fell when engagement was low.
People Power, ISR/Towers Perrin, 2006
3.Engaged employees indicate a better understanding of how to meet customer needs ± 70%versus 17% of the non-engaged workers.
Measuring True Employee Engagement, Right Management, 2006
4. A CIPD research report found that engaged employees take less sick leave, perform better and are more likely to recommend the organisation they work for and are less likely to quit.
Working Life: Employee Attitudes and Engagement, CIPD, December 2006
5.Engaged employees take an average of 2.69 sick days per year while the disengaged average 6.19. G allup 2003
6.Gallup UK study shows only 19% of employees are actively engaged, a similar proportionare actively disengaged (20%) and the vast majority 61% are neutral representing untapped potential. A CIPD survey is slightly more optimistic with 35% of employees indicating activeengagement with their work.
Gallup UK quoted in Meere 2005 Employee Attitude and Engagement Survey, CIPD, 2006
7. A 2004 study found that moving employees from strong non-commitment to strongcommitment can result in a 57% increase in discretionary effort. They state that moving fromlow to high effort levels can result in a 20% improvement in employee performance. They
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[pic][pic] coin this the ³10:6:2 rule´ in that a 10% increase in commitment can lead to 6% increase ineffort and this results in an improvement in performance by 2%.On happiness at work
Work is tough´ to ³Work is fun´ For the last 200 years, all through the industrial age, work has been perceivedas tough, unpleasant and hard. In fact, that¶s why we get paid. And for mostof the industrial age, this was mostly true, with many jobs being hard, boringor even dangerous.
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oday, this is less and less so and there are many, many more interesting,creative, fun, pleasant and happy workplaces to choose from. But none of thiswill matter if we go on expecting work to be hard and rough ± for the simplefact that we tend to get what we expect.
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herefore we must change our thinking, and start expecting work to be fun.
³Success requires hard work´ to ³Success requireshappiness´ Interestingly, you don¶t need to give up on success in order to be happy.Studies show that happy people are more likely to be successful! Whichis hardly surprising when you remember that people who are happy at workare also more motivated, energetic, likable, creative and productive.
³Happiness at work is nearly impossible´ to ³Happinessat work is easy´ Everything we need to create happy workplaces is easy to get and readilyavailable to almost any workplace in the world. It¶s not about budgets,mission statements, strategies or corporate policies.
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ow co. handles the problems
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ow to measure Employee Engagement?
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allup research consistently confirms that engaged work places compared with leastengaged are much more likely to have lower employee turnover, higher than averagecustomer loyalty, above average productivity and earnings. These are all good things that prove that engaging and involving employees make good business sense and buildingshareholder value. Negative workplace relationships may be a big part of why so manyemployees are not engaged with their jobs.
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tep I: Listen
The employer must listen to his employees and remember that this is a continuous process. The information employee¶s supply will provide direction . This is the only wayto identify their specific concerns. When leaders listen, employees respond by becomingmore engaged. This results in increased productivity and employee retention. Engagedemployees are much more likely to be satisfied in their positions, remain with thecompany, be promoted, and strive for higher levels of performance.
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tep II: Measure current level of employee engagement
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Employee engagement needs to be measured at regular intervals in order to track itscontribution to the success of the organisation.But measuring the engagement (feedback through surveys) without planning how tohandle the result can lead employees to disengage. It is therefore not enough to feel the pulse²the action plan is just as essential.
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tep II1: - Identify the problem areas
Identify the problem areas to see which are the exact areas, which lead to disengagedemployees
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tep IV: Taking action to improve employee engagement by acting upon theproblem areas Nothing is more discouraging to employees than to be asked for their feedback and seeno movement toward resolution of their issues. Even the smallest actions taken to addressconcerns will let the staff know how their input is valued. Feeling valued will boost
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morale, motivate and encourage future input. Taking action starts with listening toemployee feedback and a definitive action plan will need to be put in place finally.
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enerating engagement
Recent research has focused on developing a better understanding of how variables such as quality of workrelationships and values of the organization interact and their link to important work outcomes.
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84% of highly engaged employees believe they can positively impact the quality of their organization's products,compared with only 31 percent of the disengaged.
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From the perspective of the employee, "outcomes"range from strong commitment to the isolation of oneself from the organization.
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T he study done by the
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allup Management Journal has shown that only 29% of employees are actively engaged in their jobs.
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hose "engaged" employees work with passion and feel a strong connection to their company. About  of the business units scoring above the median on employee engagement also scored above the median onperformance.
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Moreover, 54% of employees are not engaged meaning that they go through each workdayputting time but no passion into their work. Only about  of companies below the median on employeeengagement scored above the median on performance.
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Access to a reliable model enables organizations to conductvalidationstudies to establish the relationshipof employee engagement to productivity/performance and other measures linked to effectiveness.
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It is an important principle of industrial and organizational psychology(i.e. the application of psychologicaltheories, research methods, and intervention strategies involving workplace issues) that validation studiesshould be anchored in reliable scales (i.e. organized and related groups of items) and not simply focus onindividual elements in isolation.
To understand how high levels of employee engagement affectorganizational performance/productivity it is important to have ana priorimodel that demonstrates how thescales interact.
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There is also overlap between this concept and those relating towell-being at workand thepsychological contract.
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engagement, creating an environment thatencourages employee engagement is considered to be essential in the effective management of humancapital.
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Ways to how companies encourage good working relationships:
Foster inter-departmental communication and working, giving employees opportunities to share ideas andexperiences
Encourage face-to-face communication where appropriate, so that colleagues have more worthwhilediscussions than email alone allows
Encourage a culture where people can express feelings
Learn to listen effectively and without judging, this will help you understand your colleagues better
Ensure no staff member is working in isolation but feels supported and involved in the business

Treat all team members with respect and be aware of cultural sensitivities
Provide opportunities for socialising outside of work e.g. family days.
This will help employees relate to eachother and may help with conflict resolution in the workplace
Discourage cliques. Although it is healthy for colleagues to form friendships, cliques can fuel office politics
Put positive working relationships at the heart of your business culture by including it as a corporate value
A good corporate social responsibility plan will give staff the chance to work together on non work-relatedprojects that also benefit the outside community Communicate well and often, and ensure a supportive attitude Critical appraisalEmployee engagement
Employee Engagement is the buzz word term for employee communication. It is a positive attitude held by the employees towards the organization and its values. It israpidly gaining popularity, use and importance in the workplace and impactsorganizations in many ways.Employee engagement emphasizes the importance of employee communication on thesuccess of a business. An organization should thus recognize employees, more than anyother variable, as powerful contributors to a company's competitive position.Thereforeemployee engagement should be a continuous process of learning, improvement,measurement and action.We would hence conclude that raising and maintaining employee engagement lies in thehands of an organization and requires a perfect blend of time, effort, commitment andinvestment to craft a successful endeavor.HAPPINESS AT WORK
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appiness at work is an umbrella concept that includes a large number of constructsranging from transient moods and emotions to relatively stable attitudes and highly stableindividual dispositions at the person level to aggregate attitudes at the unit level [pic][pic] the workplace, happiness is influenced by both short-lived events and chronic conditionsinthe task, job, and organization. It is also influenced by stable attributes of individuals suchaspersonality, as well as the fit between what the job/organization provides and theindividual¶sexpectations, needs, and preferences. Understanding these contributors to happiness,together with recent research on volitional actions to improve happiness, offer somepotential And there is reason to think that improving happiness at work is a worthy goal.Evidence suggests that the ³happy ± productive worker hypothesis´ may be more truethanwe thought. At the transient level, individuals are indeed happier than usual when theybelieve they are performing better than usual. At the person level, meta-analytic evidenceshows that happiness-related constructs such as job satisfaction, engagement, andaffectivecommitment have important consequences for both individuals and organizations.
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appinessat the person and group level is related to core and contextual performance, customer satisfaction, safety, attendance, and retention. Relationships are strongest when bothhappiness and outcomes are conceptualized and measured broadly.
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he use of narrowmeasures of happiness-related constructs and an emphasis on predicting core taskperformance may have resulted in organizational researchers underestimating the totalimpactof happiness at work. As suggested by Krause (1995), it is time to move beyond Wicker¶s(1969) dismal conclusion that attitudes seldom predict more than 10% of the variance inlevers for improving happiness at workbehavior. When attitude measures are consistent in target and scope to behavior measures,and when the attitudes in question are salient, stable, and have been formed based onpersonal experience, as is true of happiness at work, they can indeed predict behavior.
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he importance of helping employees be happy at work may be increasing.
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here iswidespread consensus that employment relationships are changing. Employers andemployees are generally more loosely connected. Job security, loyalty, and averagetenureare lower than in the past. Employer-employee relationships seem to be more contingentonboth parties being satisfied with the exchange and continuing to meet each others¶expectations (c.f. Roehling, Cavanaugh, Moynihan, & Boswell, 2000). In thisenvironment,happiness at work is likely to be the glue that retains and motivates the high qualityemployees of the futur
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