Job Engagement
Job Engagement: Why It’s Important and How to Improve It
Darryl R. Roberts and Thomas O. Davenport
eople who are engaged in their jobs— those who are enthusiastic and involved in their day-to-day work—tend to do better work. This statement makes intuitive sense to most people and is our basic premise in this article. We cover three main questions related to this premise. First, what specifically does job engagement mean? Second, what is the economic case for the importance of job engagement—in other words, what is the hard evidence that job engagement really matters? Third, what can be done to improve job engagement? Throughout this article, we focus on employee surveys as an important means of measuring and improving job engagement.
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• Their work provides them with a sense of personal accomplishment. Job engagement is related to organizational commitment, but the two have important differences. Organizational commitment is most commonly defined in terms of an individual’s identification with the organization’s goals and values, willingness to exert effort for the organization, and desire to continue as part of the organization.1 For example, those who are high in organizational commitment say that: • They would recommend the company to a close friend as a good place to work; • They are proud to work for the company; and • They think the company is doing what it takes to be a leader in its industry. All else being equal, people who are engaged in their jobs tend to be committed to their organizations, and vice versa. In fact, in many organizations, job engagement and organizational commitment are closely related often enough that it makes sense to talk about a more general outcome—organizational engagement—that combines key elements of job engagement and organizational commitment. Job engagement and organizational commitment do not always track closely together, however—people can be engaged in their jobs but not committed to their organizations. A
WHAT JOB
Darryl R. Roberts and Thomas O. Davenport
eople who are engaged in their jobs— those who are enthusiastic and involved in their day-to-day work—tend to do better work. This statement makes intuitive sense to most people and is our basic premise in this article. We cover three main questions related to this premise. First, what specifically does job engagement mean? Second, what is the economic case for the importance of job engagement—in other words, what is the hard evidence that job engagement really matters? Third, what can be done to improve job engagement? Throughout this article, we focus on employee surveys as an important means of measuring and improving job engagement.
P
• Their work provides them with a sense of personal accomplishment. Job engagement is related to organizational commitment, but the two have important differences. Organizational commitment is most commonly defined in terms of an individual’s identification with the organization’s goals and values, willingness to exert effort for the organization, and desire to continue as part of the organization.1 For example, those who are high in organizational commitment say that: • They would recommend the company to a close friend as a good place to work; • They are proud to work for the company; and • They think the company is doing what it takes to be a leader in its industry. All else being equal, people who are engaged in their jobs tend to be committed to their organizations, and vice versa. In fact, in many organizations, job engagement and organizational commitment are closely related often enough that it makes sense to talk about a more general outcome—organizational engagement—that combines key elements of job engagement and organizational commitment. Job engagement and organizational commitment do not always track closely together, however—people can be engaged in their jobs but not committed to their organizations. A
WHAT JOB