1. INTRODUCTION:

Employee engagement is the level of commitment and involvement an employee has towards his organization and its values. It is a measureable degree of an employee's positive or negative emotional attachment to their job, colleagues and organization which profoundly influences their willingness to learn and perform at work. Employee engagement has a direct impact on the employee’s productivity. The most productive employees are those are not only committed and loyal; But also those whose outputs are healthy and gratifying both for themselves as well as for the organization they work for”¹.

“Employee engagement is the positive feeling that employees have towards their jobs and also the motivation and effort they put into it”².

“Engagement goes beyond satisfaction and commitment. To be fully engaged is to be involved in and enthusiastic about one’s work”³.

Employee engagement is a heightened emotional and intellectual connection that an employee has for his/her job, organisation, manager and co-workers that, in turn, influence him/her to apply additional discretionary effort to his/her work. Engagement is a persistent state of work fulfilment. This fulfilment translates into enthusiasm and passion, higher than average levels of concentration and focus, and an irresistible boost of energy – which forms the key components of engagement⁴.

“Fully engaged employee is one who is intellectually and emotionally bound with the organisation, gives 100 per cent, feels passionately about the job and is committed to live by its values. Such an employee goes beyond the basic job responsibility to delight customers and drive the business forward. It is also a powerful retention strategy”⁵.

Derek Stockley defines employee engagement as “The extent that an employee believes in the mission, purpose and values of an organisation and demonstrates that commitment through their actions as an employee and their attitude towards the employer and customers. Employee engagement is high when the statements and conversations held reflect a natural enthusiasm for the company, its employees and the products or services provided”⁶.

Corporate Executive Board defines engagement as “the extent to which employees commit to something or someone in the organization, and how long they stay as a result of that commitment”⁷.

2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

The employees can be biggest asset as well as biggest liability of any organization which depend on the organization treats its employees in this competitive era. Organizations need to accomplish competitive advantage over others, which is possible not simply through number of workforce but through talented and engaged workforce.

Today employee engagement has become a leadership priority as they constantly seek for different methods to keep their work-force engaged. The management of any business is finding difficult to keep its employee engaged while also implementing the policies defined. Employee turnover has taken different sectors in the industry by a storm, as employees are found to be constantly switching jobs thus causing high attrition rates. Hence employee retention and engagement has become a daunting task in these unstable economic times. Employee engagement policies are in place in almost all kind of the companies. Information Technology (IT) companies all over the world are pioneers in employee engagement initiatives. For instance, flexible working hours, work from home, home like working conditions and so on are largely provided by IT companies.

Further, Information Technology companies are the pay masters and provide more welfare measures to their employees to retain and engage their workforce when compared to the manufacturing companies. Although, few manufacturing companies provide good compensation as it is in IT companies, they are not able provide employee welfare measures like flexible working hours, work from home, home like working conditions and so on. Interestingly, in spite of these engagement initiatives of IT companies, the employee turnover is more in IT companies as compared the manufacturing companies. It prompts the researcher to study about level of employee engagement of employees in manufacturing and IT companies in Bengaluru, India.

3. REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

Employee engagement at work was conceptualized by Kahn⁸ as the harnessing of organizational members selves to their work roles. In engagement people express and employ themselves physically, cognitively and emotionally during role performance. Engagement is most closely associated with existing construction of job involvement and. Job involvement is defined as the degree to which the job situation is central to the person and his or her identity. He maintained that job involvement is a cognitive or belief state of psychology identification and job involvement is thought to depend on both need and saliency and the potential of a job to satisfy the needs. Thus job involvement results from a cognitive judgment about the needs satisfying abilities of the job. Jobs in this view are tied to one’s self image. Engagement differs from job in as it is concerned more with how individual employees his/her self during the performance of his/her job. Furthermore engagement entails the active use of emotions. Finally engagement may be thought of as antecedent to job.

Employee engagement has been defined as emotional and intellectual commitment to the organization or the amount of discretionary effort exhibited by employees in their job. According to Kahn engagement means to be psychologically as well as physically present when occupying and performing an organizational role. In engagement people express and employ themselves physically, cognitively and emotionally during role performance.

Employee engagement can be defined in different ways. An engaged employee is one who produces results, does not change job frequently and more importantly is the ambassador of the company at all times. The performance of an engaged employee is defined as follows “a result achieved by stimulating an employees’ enthusiasm for work and redirecting it towards organization success. This result can be achieved only when an employer offers an implicit contract to the employees that demonstrate specific positive behaviours which are aligned with organization’s goals”.

Research suggests that both training and career development are the drivers of employee engagement. Training directly improves job performance, which leads to the employee having more confidence in their ability, which directly relates to job engagement. The development of an employee’s career also improves their engagement⁹. Karatepe¹⁰ suggests that training and empowerment lead to high performance work practices through greater employee engagement.

Rewards and recognition of both formal and informal varieties are significant factors in employee engagement. Organizations typically have financial rewards available to employees but research has shown that it is also vitally important to offer psychological rewards such as recognition and encouragement, or customer feedback on a frequent basis as well. Recognition and rewards increase job satisfaction and engagement.

Numerous research articles reveal that engaged employees remain with their employers due to a higher level of investment in wanting to see the organization succeed as well as having a reduced intention to leave the company.

Alternatively, articles also cite various studies that disengaged employees show a significantly higher rate of turnover and intentions to leave the organization.

4. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

The primary objectives of this study are presented here under;

1. To know demographic and work related characteristics of the sample employees

2. To analyze level of employee engagement based on demographic and work related characteristics of the sample employees

5. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

5.1 Method of data collection:

This study is based on primary data. The quality of data is invariably tied to the method and technique used for data collection. Hence, survey method through structured questionnaire is adopted to collect primary data for this study as it is found suitable for this research.

The study is confined to the selected manufacturing companies and IT companies in Bengaluru, India. The IT companies selected for the study are Infosys and Wipro and the manufacturing companies selected are Biocon and Toyota Kirloskar Motor. The companies are selected based on their market share in their respective industry.

5.2 Sampling frame:

This study employs two different sectors and so, two samples are employed. Sample size of the study has been determined using Krejice and Morgan (1970) equation. Total numbers of the employees in the selected manufacturing companies are 13895 and in IT companies are 373692. According to Krejice and Morgan equation, sample size of the study is 378 when population size is less than 25,000 and sample size of the study is 384 when population size is less than 5,00,000, but more than 2,50,000. Therefore, sample size of the employees in manufacturing companies is 378 and sample size of the employees in IT companies is 384.

Snowball sampling method has been adopted in this research considering the availability and approachability of the employees for the purpose of data collection effort. However, due consideration is exercised for the proportionate representation of the sample population.

5.3 Instrument:

Research instrument is the structured questionnaire. Questionnaire comprises of 2 sections 1 and 2.

Section 1 includes 33 statements to measure employee engagement. Each statement represents one of the 12 variables which are Career Development, Effective Management of talent, Leadership, Respectful Treatment of Employees, Empowerment, Fair Treatment, Pay and Benefits, Satisfaction, Talent Recognition, Emotional Factors, Clarity of Company Values, Policies and Practices and Communication. Each statement is on a five point scale with 1 being “strongly disagree” and 5 being “strongly agree”.

Section 2 relates to demographic and work related characteristics of the sample employees.

6. DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION:

The following are demographic and work related characteristics of the employees working in the companies selected for the study;

1. 54.9% of the sample employees in the IT companies are male and 45.1% of the sample employees in the IT companies are female while 82.9% of the sample respondents in the manufacturing companies are male and 17.1% of the sample respondents in the manufacturing companies are female.

2. 53.1% of the sample employees in the IT companies are married and 47.9% of the sample employees in the IT companies are single while 78.4% of the sample respondents in the manufacturing companies are married and 21.6% of the sample respondents in the manufacturing companies are single.;

3. 69.3% of the sample employees in the IT companies have less than 5 years of work experience and 30.7% of the sample employees in the IT companies have more than 5 years of work experience while 71.6% of the sample respondents in the manufacturing companies have less than 5 years of work experience and 28.4% of the sample respondents in the manufacturing companies have more than 5 years of work experience.

4. 93% of the sample employees in the IT companies work in middle level and junior level management and 7% of the sample employees in the IT companies work senior level management whereas 96.3% of the sample employees in the manufacturing companies work in middle level and junior level management and 3.7% of the sample employees in the manufacturing companies work senior level management

5. 93.8% of the sample employees in the IT companies earn less than 10,00,000 per annum and 6.2% of the sample employees in the IT companies earn more than 10,00,000 per annum whereas 98.2% of the sample employees in the manufacturing companies earn less than 10,00,000 per annum and 1.8% of the sample employees in the manufacturing companies earn more than 10,00,000 per annum.

6.1 Analysis of engagement level of the employees working in the IT and manufacturing companies based on demographic and work related characteristics

To study about employees’ engagement based on demographic and work related characteristics, Students “t” test and One way ANOVA have been employed and the results of the study are tabled below;

Table – 1: Engagement level of the employees working in the IT and manufacturing companies based on demographic and work related characteristics

Particulars	Test	T or F – Value		P – Value		Level of significance
		IT Companies	Manf. Companies	IT Companies	Manf. Companies	IT Companies	Manf. Companies
Gender	Students “t” test	-.985	.149	.478	.340	Not significant	Not significant
Marital status	Students “t” test	-.780	-.878	.298	.323	Not significant	Not significant
Total Experience	One way ANOVA	5.825	6.130	.001	.000	Significant	Significant
Managerial level	One way ANOVA	1.359	.546	.004	.580	Significant	Not significant
Gross Annual Income	One way ANOVA	2.788	2.905	.040	.035	Significant	Significant

Source: Primary data

The above table reveals the following results with regard to engagement level of the sample employees;

1. There are no significant differences in engagement level of the sample employees based on gender. Therefore, both in IT and manufacturing companies, male and female employees have almost same level of engagement.

2. No significant differences prevail in engagement level of the sample employees based on marital status. Both in IT and manufacturing companies, married and single employees have almost same level of engagement.

3 Significant differences are displayed in the results of the study in engagement level of the sample employees based on total experience. In IT companies, employees possessing less than 3 years of the experience have more level of engagement while employees possessing more than 10 years of the experience have more level of engagement in manufacturing companies according to the mean scores.

4. There is a significant difference in engagement level of the sample IT employees based on managerial level. The IT employees working at middle level management have higher level of engagement followed by senior management employees and finally, by junior management employees. But, there is no significant difference in engagement level of the sample employees based on managerial level in the manufacturing companies.

5. Significant differences exist in engagement level of the sample employees based on gross annual income. Both in IT and manufacturing companies, employees earning more than 10,00,000 have more level of engagement as per the mean scores.

As per the results of the study, engagement levels among the employees working IT and manufacturing companies differ on some basis and do not differ on some other basis. To be specific, there are no significant differences among the IT and manufacturing companies on the basis of gender and marital status. Further, there are significant differences among the IT and manufacturing companies on the basis of total experience and gross annual income.

There is a significant difference in engagement level of the sample IT employees based on managerial level whereas there is no significant difference in engagement level of the sample employees based on managerial level in the manufacturing companies. The reason behind this result may be the interpersonal relationship between employees and superiors followed in the IT companies.

7. CONCLUSION:

This article has made an attempt to identify and analyze level of employee engagement in manufacturing and information technology companies in Bengaluru, India. The study has been empirical in nature and adopts survey method of data collection. Structured questionnaire method is employed to collect data from employees working in manufacturing and information technology companies. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that level of engagement among the IT and manufacturing employees differ on the basis of managerial level.

8. REFERENCES:

1. Malavika Desai, Bishakha Majumdar and Ganapathy P. Prabhu. A study on employee engagement in two Indian businesses. Asian Journal of Management Research. 2010: 81-97.

2. Macey, W.H., and Schneider, B. The Meaning of Employee Engagement. Industrial and Organizational Psychology. 1(1): pp 330, 2008.

3. Falcone, P. Preserving restless top performers: keep your top performers engaged so they don’t jump ship once job opportunities arise. HR Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.allbusiness.com/humanresources/workforce management hiring /8749791.html.

4. http://derekstockley. com. au/newsletters-05/038-employee-engagement.html

5. Employee engagement report, 2011. Beyond numbers: A practical approach for individuals, managers and executives. www. Blessing white. com/content/ reports /blessingwhite- 2011-ee-reportspdf.

6. Employee engagement: Maximizing organisational performance.http://www. right. com/ thought - leadership /research/ employee-engagement---maximizing-organizational -performance.pdf.

7. Corporate Executive Board. Driving performance and retention through employee engagement.(2004). Washington, DC.

8. Kahn, W. The Impact of Personality on Engagement and Disengagement at Work. Academy of Psychological Contracts. Academy of Management Journal, Management Journal. Vol 33, No 4, p 692.

9. Anitha, J. Determinants of employee engagement and their impact on employee performance. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management. 2014: 63(3): 308-323.

10. Karatepe, O. M. High-performance work practices and hotel employee performance: The mediation of work engagement. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 2013: 32: 132-140.

Received on 23.08.2017 Modified on 15.09.2017

Asian Journal of Management. 2018; 9(1):302-306.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2018.00045.8