Employee engagement and organisational commitment for better performance

Employee engagement and organisational commitment are very important concepts affecting work performance and the attraction and retention of employees.

To foster employee engagement and commitment to the workforce, organisations have to invest substantially in HR policies and practices.

Employee engagement refers to an employee's psychological state (i.e. one's identification with the organisation), his/her disposition (e.g. one's positive feeling towards the organisation), and performance (e.g. one's level of discretionary effort).

In brief, it captures the effective (feeling), cognitive (thinking) and behavioural (acting) dimensions of an employee. 

True employee engagement should blend with employee enablement in order to ensure employee effectiveness. Employee enablement deals with matching employees with positions.

The motivated employees are highly engaged with the right resources, and with the right level of decision-making authority where HR professionals have to play a vital role.

High organisational commitment can be associated with increased engagement, and high engagement can be associated with increased commitment.

On the other hand, employees can be engaged in their work even when they are not committed to the organisation, except in so far as it gives them the opportunity to use and develop their skills, for instance some knowledge workers.

Organisational commitment is about identification with the goals and values of the organisation, a desire to belong to the organisation and a willingness to display effort on its behalf.

Enhancing employee engagement and organisational commitment ensures that the organisation is perceived as a great place to work, i.e. it becomes an 'employer of choice'. Perhaps one solid way to ensure it is through the creation of a conducive organisational climate.

To sum up, we identified that employee engagement and organisational commitment are the engine of the organisationally engaged employees' performance and also ensure proper harmony between their work, family, society and learning. 

The relationship and contributions between employee engagement and organisational commitment should be appropriately blended to achieve better results and performance. 

Professor Dr Md Abu Taher is a Member, University Grants Commission of Bangladesh.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.