Media Releases

Want to improve employee engagement? Make it part of the performance management process

August 17, 2011

TORONTO, ON – The per­for­mance man­age­ment process should eval­u­ate and focus on employ­ee engage­ment in addi­tion to job per­for­mance, accord­ing to a paper pub­lished from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to and Uni­ver­si­ty of Guelph. Engage­ment involves high lev­els of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with one’s work in terms of atten­tion, absorp­tion and feel­ing inte­grat­ed in the per­for­mance of one’s tasks and roles.

The paper’s authors – Pro­fes­sor Alan Saks from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to and Pro­fes­sor Jamie Gru­man of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Guelph – con­tend per­for­mance man­age­ment should involve an eval­u­a­tion of employ­ee engage­ment and that for many com­pa­nies enhanc­ing employ­ee per­for­mance can be best achieved by chang­ing the focus of the per­for­mance man­age­ment process to a focus on the man­age­ment of employ­ee engage­ment.

“Many com­pa­nies do not rec­og­nize the impor­tance of employ­ee engage­ment to orga­ni­za­tion­al per­for­mance,” says Saks. “Cur­rent approach­es to increas­ing engage­ment in orga­ni­za­tions are lim­it­ed because they are not direct­ed at indi­vid­ual employ­ees and they are not part of the per­for­mance man­age­ment sys­tem.”

The researchers believe that incor­po­rat­ing engage­ment into per­for­mance man­age­ment is impor­tant for improv­ing engage­ment and per­for­mance man­age­ment. “Engage­ment helps pre­dict job per­for­mance,” says Gru­man. “Employ­ees who feel engaged in their tasks do a bet­ter job, are less like­ly to make mis­takes, and bring more ener­gy, ded­i­ca­tion and vigour into their per­for­mance. There is also mount­ing evi­dence that high­er lev­els of engage­ment cor­re­late with low­er turnover and less absen­teeism. Thus, it makes sense to focus on employ­ee engage­ment as part of the per­for­mance man­age­ment process.”

The paper, pub­lished by Human Resource Man­age­ment Review, out­lines three psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tions that sup­port per­son­al engage­ment:

•         Psy­cho­log­i­cal mean­ing­ful­ness  –  asso­ci­at­ed with per­cep­tion that one’s role is worth­while and valu­able
•         Psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty – asso­ci­at­ed with one’s per­cep­tion of how safe it is to bring one­self to a role with­out fear of dam­age to self-image, sta­tus or career
•         Psy­cho­log­i­cal avail­abil­i­ty – asso­ci­at­ed with the phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal resources that can be brought to a role

Saks says there are con­crete steps that orga­ni­za­tions and man­agers can take dur­ing the per­for­mance man­age­ment process to fos­ter employ­ee engage­ment. “Man­agers should make the changes that each employ­ee needs to expe­ri­ence mean­ing­ful­ness, safe­ty and feel avail­able to become ful­ly engaged in their work. Some employ­ees might need more auton­o­my in their work, more chal­lenge, more input, or per­haps more sup­port or train­ing.”

Accord­ing to Saks, “Mak­ing employ­ee engage­ment part of the per­for­mance man­age­ment process not only makes it an on-going and con­stant issue rather than a once-a-year sur­vey, it also sig­nals to employ­ees that it is impor­tant and the orga­ni­za­tion is com­mit­ted to improv­ing the engage­ment of its employ­ees.”

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For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:

Joy­ann Cal­len­der
Media Rela­tions Offi­cer
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
416–978-6974
joyann.callender@utoronto.ca