MONASH

BUSINESS
SCHOOL

MGF2661 Human Resource

Management
Week 3
Employee Engagement
Technological Disruption and HRM

Dr Susan Mayson
Moving on to Week 3 Learning objectives

Examine the contribution of employee engagement

as a way of refocusing SHRM on employees and
employee wellbeing

Understand and critically examine the impact of

technological disruption on managing work and
employment

Explore ways in which technology can be used by

HRM to respond to contemporary challenges to the
organisation of work

MONASH
2 BUSINESS
SCHOOL
Reading for this week (plus tutorial article)
• Text
– Nankervis et al., 2020/2017 Chapter 1.
PLUS
• Reading 3a: Arnold B. Bakker , Simon Albrecht , Gruman, J.,
Macey, W., and Saks, A. (2015) "Work engagement, human
resource management practices and competitive advantage:
an integrative approach",Journal of Organizational
Effectiveness: People amd Performance, Vol 2, No 1, pp 7-35
• Reading 3b: Strohmeirer, S. and Parry, E (2014) HRM in the
Digital Age. Editors’ introduction, Employee Relations 36(4)

MONASH
BUSINESS
SCHOOL
 Going back to Beer et al’s criticisms of
the SHRM Model
• Prime focus on how • Takes overly simplistic
employee productivity & economic assumptions
performance contributes to about the value of human
business success resources and human
• Narrow focus on financial behaviour that simplifies
outcomes and performance our understanding of
indicators
motivation, engagement,
• Loses sight of the value, meaningfulness of work
needs, interests and
complexity of humans as • Re Davidson et al view
employees/ resources employees as resourceful
rather than resources
▪ SHRM view (Hard)
Employees are valuable firm
resources (‘owned’ by the
firm)
▪ Extract value from HRs to
achieve strategic goals
▪ Resources deployed for
organisational purposes
▪ Focus on cost
effectiveness and
efficiency (greatest value
at lowest cost)
▪ Harvard/HRM view (Soft)
Employees are valuable
resources/resourceful
▪ Value enhanced through
investment in the resource
▪ Value protected through
‘stewardship’ (meet needs,
protect interests)
▪ Focus on tradeoffs
between effectiveness and
efficiency eg Virgin 2.0
5
 Employee engagement returns the focus of HRM to meet
employee needs

Employee (work) engagement (EE)

“….a positive, affective-motivational
state of high energy combined with
high levels of dedication and a strong
focus on work” (Bakker and Albrecht,
2018: 4)
• EE is linked to high levels of ‘creativity, task performance,
OCBs and client satisfaction which are outcomes of
interest to HRM

• Employees can be/should be psychologically invested in

The definition implies that the work in order to be motivated
experience of work is key to employee
and organizational success • This leads to high levels of performance, commitment
and retention

This suggests a key role for HRM in • the concept of job resources helps us to understand
shaping employees’ experience of
work by meeting their needs intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
Engagement

▪ Employee (work) engagement

– “….a positive, affective-motivational state of high energy
combined with high levels of dedication and a strong focus on
work” (Bakker and Albrecht, 2018: 4)
– “….the level of an employee’s psychological investment in their
organization” (AON, 2018: 2)
▪ These definitions imply that the experience of work is key
to employee and organizational success
– Employees can be/should be psychologically invested in work in
order to be motivated
– This leads to high levels of performance, commitment and
retention

7
Aon Engagement Model
Other factors relevant to employee engagement
▪ Job resources
– Physical, psychological, social or
organizational (HRM) factors such
as equipment, social support of
colleagues, flexible work practices
– These may reduce job demands
and help employees achieve their
goals
▪ Personal resources
– Cognitions and beliefs eg self-
efficacy, self-esteem, optimism,
resilience, beliefs related to level
of control over self and the
environment
▪ HR practices
– Practices that impact on job
resources eg flexibility, support for
team work, transformational
leadership
Bakker & Albrecht 2018: 4-5
▪ Job demands-resources
theory
▪ Job characteristics and
personal resources may
impact on employee
engagement and lead to
improved productivity
▪ High challenge work
requires organizational
support + employees with
personal resources to
engage in such work eg
feedback, employee
development, org. support
9
 • Job resources (intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation)
• Aspects of work that help
people achieve their goals and
meet their needs eg personal • “One reason why
Predictors of growth and development
• These may help manage job why work engagement
employee demands and/or help
employees cope with high job
demands
is such a popular
concept is a very good
engagement • Personal resources
• Cognitions and beliefs eg self-
predictor of important
efficacy, self-esteem, employee, team and
optimism, resilience, beliefs
related to level of control over organizational
self and the environment outcomes”
• Personal characteristics such
as resilience, optimism & self-
efficacy may be valuable job
• (Bakker & Albrecht,
resources 2018; 5)
• HR practices
• Practices that impact on job
resources eg job design
including flexibility, support for
team-work, transformational
leadership
• Organisational level resources
• Strategic alignment
(employees see what they are
doing contributes to strategic
goals of the organization)
Bakker & Albrecht 2018: 4-5
.

Engagement model

No. 1, pp. 7-35.

Albrecht, S.L., Bakker, A.B., Gruman, J.A., Macey, W.H. and Saks, A.M.
(2015), “Employee engagement,human resource management
practices and competitive advantage: an integrated approach”, Journal
of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, Vol. 2
A theory to help us: Job demands-resources
theory
▪ Theory proposes that a
combination of job characteristics
and personal resources will predict
job performance through work
engagement
▪ Engagement occurs where work is
challenging if they have sufficient
job and personal resources
▪ HR can provide organizational
support and other resources eg
feedback, employee development,
org. support
▪ Job resources are positively
related to work engagement
▪ Challenge work demands
can strengthen work
engagement
▪ Hinderance work demands
can weaken the link
▪ Work engagement is
positively related to
performance through job
crafting (choosing ways to
overcome work challenges)
12
tutor

13
Work Engagement

Fig. 1. The model of work engagement (based on

Bakker & Demerouti, 2008).
▪ Job and personal resources independently or together
predict work engagement and have a particularly positive
impact on engagement when job demands are high;
engagement, in turn, positively affects job performance.
▪ Importantly, the feedback loop in the model shows how
employees who are engaged and perform well are able to
create their own resources (job crafting), which then
foster engagement over time and create a positive gain
spiral.

14
Job-demands-resources and work engagement : a case
study close to home!

▪ Challenging work: teaching online in

the world of Corona Virus and lock
down
– In 2020 Dept of Management staff and TA
had to put teaching online at very short “Engagement is a two-way
notice conversation. Make sure employees
– Personal resources very important eg can voice their concerns and
resilience and optimism questions… recognize that different
– Job resources provided by the university eg people will have different
leadership, flexibility, recognition that we needs…and show you are acting
are all facing a major challenge (but ..new
quickly on employee feedback”.
skills???) https://focus.kornferry.com/employee-
– Leadership and scope for feedback engagement/engagement-from-emergency-response-
to-greater-resilience
important
– Intrinsic motivation – personal growth and
development, upskilling
– Strategic alignment – strong realization of
the importance of Monash as a teaching
and learning institution

15
Engagement and psychological wellbeing

▪ Workplace social capital

– Helping others (and being helped) within work teams
– Different teams recognizing each other’s contributions to
solving/completing work tasks
– Teams believe manager takes their needs and views into
consideration when making decisions
– Shared agreement within the organization about how tasks
should be completed
“By focussing on collaboration, helping behaviours,
communication, mutual trust, and shared understandings of
work tasks, social capital clearly qualifies as a job resource”

Ohsalert.com.au – Boosting social capital boots psychological wellbeing 16

 Work motivation theory (White & Bryson 2013)

▪ Interested in the potential of HRM to enhance intrinsic work motivation

through “values and the rewards achieved when they are fulfilled through
work” (p. 388).

▪ Intrinsic job satisfaction: subjective rewards gained from doing work well
that reflect feelings of accomplishment, growth, development, self-esteem,
personal satisfaction (p. 387)
– Personal values and goals can be fulfilled using HRM leading to satisfaction
and commitment
– Focus on ‘high involvement’ HR practices/systems

▪ Key HRM domains relevant to this

– Participation
– Team-working
– Development
– Selection
– Incentives (rewards) 17
A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE

▪ It has been argued that literature on the subject mostly presents

engagement as a ‘win-win’ situation without acknowledging the impact on
employees (Jenkins and Delbridge, 2013). [Note the title of this article, Jenkins, S.
and Delbridge, R. (2013) ‘Context matters: examining "soft" and "hard" approaches to employee
engagement in two workplaces’, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol. 24,
no. 14, pp. 2670–91.]

▪ Look out for similar mention in Guest (2017) Week 4 Reading

• Criticism that the managerialist orientation within engagement literature
ignores the ‘dark side’ of engagement for employees, that is, the negative
impact for employees when management seek to increase discretionary
effort to improve performance (George, 2011)
• It remains to be assessed how engagement initiatives relate to the current
global economic and political climate of adversity and cost control (Truss et
al., 2013) or .. Covid related issues – new ways to work, pluralism … ?

18
 In summary………
• Employee (work) engagement (Bakker and Albrecht)
– Focuses on ways in which employees find work
meaningful and beneficial
– Points to the view that HRM should/could
create the conditions/resources for meaningful
and engaging work (SHRM may have to invest
more to do this)
– Intrinsic work motivation provides a theory to
help us understand the importance of
employee needs
– Critical perspective
 • Pace, scope and unevenness
of change across the globe
Technology causing disruption
and HRM “15 percent of the global workforce,
or the equivalent of about 400
million workers, could be displaced
by automation in the period of 2016
to 2030. At the same time, 550
million to 890 million new jobs could
be created from productivity gains,
innovation, and catalysts of new
labor demand, including rising
incomes in emerging economies and
increased investment in
infrastructure, real estate, energy,
and technology
https://www.mckinsey.com/Featured-Insights/Innovation-and-Growth/
 All of this
•
has Some implications (according to McKinsey)
– Greater scope for global inequality (uneven
implications growth, conflict, migration etc) – may have
impact on MNCs and the decisions they make
for about managing their activities globally.
– Potential to increase attention on gender
organizing & parity globally. At the organizational level –
full utilization of the workforce and
managing addressing issues of diversity and inclusion
work and – Imperative to manage change to benefit from
digital technologies and the changing nature
the of work.

workforce
 • Technology changes leading to changes to work
and employment leading to changes in the kind
of work done and skills required to do the work
Implications – Skills required vs redundant skills
– Reskill/upskill/redeploy/outsource
for HRM workers (HR planning, training and
development)
– Employ workers with required skills
(recruitment)
– Retain highly skilled workers
(retention)
– Redundancies (HR planning, HR &
the Law)
– Overall impact on the workforce
• Diversity and inclusion (HR and the law
re possible discrimination)
 • HRM impacted by technology
– Changes to the workforce
HRM in the • Digital employees
Digital Age – How to do HRM
(Strohmeier • Understanding digital work/impact
of digital work
et al 2-14) – Use of technology to deliver HRM
• Digital employee management
– Not just administrative functions
but also performance
management, training and
development, work design,
work-life balance
Again an
• Due to COVID 19 most businesses have moved
example their workforce out of the office and they are
now working from home which comes with a

close to number of challenges

– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqZiBu
gq4ts
home • Technologies used to support this and link people
(may also be used to check in on people
– Microsoft Meetings
– Zoom
– Others?
 Digital
Employees

hrm Digital Work

Digital
Employee
Management
Challenge for HR
Strohmeier & Parry
 • Technological change and
disruption has global impacts on
In how work is done and how
employees (and their skills) are
summary viewed and managed
• HR is impacted in terms of the
changing nature of work due to
technology as well as how HR uses
technology to deliver services
• Remote working raises a number of
implications for staff working at
home re wellbeing but also
completing work efficiently and
effectively (how do employers
ensure this?)
 Prepare for next week
Week 4 Managing Diversity and Wellbeing
Readings :
Text : Nankervis et al., 2020/2017 Chapter 3. Read pages 89-96 ; 110-113 ; 115-122.
• Reading 4a: Deloitte The diversity and inclusion revolution : Eight Powerful Truths
https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/deloitte-review/issue-22/diversity-and-
inclusion-at-work-eight-powerful-truths.html
OR
• Reading 4b: Guest, D. (2017) Human resource management and employee well-
being: towards a new analytic framework. Human Resource Management Journal,
27(1), pp. 22-36.
AND
• Starbucks and the impact of implicit bias training
https://theconversation.com/starbucks-and-the-impact-of-implicit-bias-training-96491