Performance and Engagement

Summarising  majority of recent researches on field covering topic of job performance linkage to job engagement some conclusions can be drawn – there are three shared factors among successful companies: engagement, job satisfaction and performance.

Engagement contributes significantly to company’s performance, because the more employee identifies himself with work in the widest cope of this term, i.e., is more attentive, integrated and focused on role performance, open minded towards other co-workers, the more efforts he puts in his work, the more outcome for a company can be gained.

There are a lot  of recent studies covering topic on relationship between employee engagement and performance. For example Bakker and Bal (2010) came to conclusion that employee engagement can predict performance among teachers. Also linkage between engagement and performance in firefighters job was in scope for Rich, Lepine and Crawford (2010). Some researches also indicate that employee engagement level influences company’s revenue growth. Gallup researches also have found strong correlation between engagement and a range of outcomes like customer satisfaction, profit, productivity etc.

Engaged Performance is defined as a result that is achieved by stimulating employee’s enthusiasm for their work and directing it towards organizational success ^[1]. This is much more beyond the materiality and tangibility – this is about investment of emotionality, passion.

Performance indicators usually are from one or more categories

• People metrics – different data, i.e., employee turnover
• Customer metrics – satisfaction rate
• Operational metrics – such as safety
• Financial metrics – i.e., sales growth.

There are various models of performance management processes, focusing on predictable set of variables involving some variables, assessing performance and providing feedback. Mainly all models has similar first step – performance agreement which explains what will be expected from employee, goal setting ; the next is engagement facilitation – job design and different forms of resources support that enables to perform; next is one is appraisal and feedback such as 360◦, multisource, etc  – this focuses on justice and trust as drivers of engagement.