Yeah Man, That’s The Good Stuff: Defining the Slippery Nature of Employee Engagement

In one specific way, employee engagement is a lot like love: It’s tough—very tough—to define. And maybe nailing down a definition of employee engagement is a losing battle. Maybe it’s just “the good stuff” that managers everywhere want from their employees, that which keeps them satisfied, productive, and likely to stick around.

But slippery definitions can be quite problematic for people obsessed with precise measurement—and for good reason. Without a clear definition of what we’re trying to measure, it’s very difficult to create a valid way in which we can assess current attitudes among employees and connect those attitudes to other business outcomes. Fuzzy definitions also make it tough to provide clear recommendations to managers.

What is clear, however, is that employee engagement is a hot topic. For example, a Google search of the phrase “employee engagement” yielded about 638,000 results. Academic research also suggests that employee engagement has significant positive relationships with a host of desirable outcomes, including satisfaction, safety, and retention (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002). So what are we talking about when we talk about employee engagement?

Without devolving into the metaphorical nature of popular country-music lyrics like Kenny Chesney’s song “The Good Stuff,” here are a few definitions of employee engagement from a variety of sources:

• “Work engagement is defined as a positive, fulfilling work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption” (Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma & Bakker, 2002)
  
  
• “Engagement is seen as the antipode of burnout” (Langelaan, Bakker, van Doornen, & Schaufeli, 2006)
  
  
• “Rather than a momentary and specific state, engagement refers to a more persistent and pervasive affective-cognitive state that is not focused on any particular object, event, individual, or behavior” (Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova, 2006)
  
  
• “Employees feel engaged when they find personal meaning and motivation in their work, receive positive interpersonal support, and operate in an efficient work environment” (Development Dimensions International Inc. white paper)
  

So how do you define employee engagement? Is it even worth defining? Is it just “the good stuff?” If so, how do we increase employee engagement, especially in a tough economy when employees face increasing job insecurity, tight budgets, and, presumably, a big dose of occupational stress? At the very least, thinking about these issues may provide clarity to our efforts regarding human resource management as it relates to employee engagement.

Perhaps together we can get a better idea of what constitutes employee engagement and what it looks like. Let’s think. Let’s discuss.