Employee Engagement as a Contemporary Issue in HRM--A Conceptual Framework

For past several years, ‘Employee Engagement ’has been an important concern in the corporate world. Products and process alone can't help organizations to sustain loyal customers. They also need highly-motivated, dedicated and involved employees who are very passionate about their work and their organization; in short, they need "engaged employees". But, nurturing engaged employees requires a lot of effort and skill on the part of HR managers and calls for a different HR philosophy in the organization. It is a buzz word that employers think they understand, but face difficulties and challenges while practicing. ‘Employee Engagement ’cannot be a cosmetic intervention in enhancing commitment towards job, motivation or productivity. Corporate culture plays an important role in enduring positive impact of such engagement programs. This paper throws light on how ‘Employee Engagement ’can be increased. This work also tries to identify the key drivers of ‘Employee Engagement ’, its different attributes together with the ways to measure it, how to handle disengaged employees and modern ‘Employee Engagement ’practices in corporate. Findings from various researches and surveys are used in the present work to measure the effect of ‘Employee Engagement ’which includes issues like productivity, profitability, focus on customer and various other related matters and the factors that contribute to employees being engaged. In this paper, secondary data from various research findings and surveys are employed and explores implications for theory, further research and practices by synthesizing modern ‘Employee Engagement ’activities being practiced by the corporate with the review of findings from previous researches/surveys.