Engagement is a form of total immersion of an individual in work. This attitude brings several advantages for both employees and organizations: it can improve quality, productivity, customer relations and increase workforce loyalty. Any organization therefore benefits from having a committed workforce. But how can the employerreallyincrease the level of engagement of its employees? Do employees have a role to play?
Your employees have several external resources that influence their engagement at work, such as their human capital (skills), their social capital (network and connections at work), and their family capital (work-life balance). Can the employer have a positive impact on these 3 commitment-generating capitals? You guessed it. You can actually positively influence these 3 levers of engagement. There is also a fourth form of capital, psychological capital (PsyCap), less known but which is nevertheless critical to promoting employee engagement.
Le PsyCapis a state of mind during which an employee draws on his positive psychological resources to enable him to achieve success.[1]In other words, are your employees willing to come and thrive at work? Are they in a good psychological position?
To remember the elements that make up thePsyCap, we can retain an acronym:HERO. In fact, the dimensions of thePsyCapare Hope (Hope), the feeling ofEpersonal effectiveness,Rresilience andOoptimism. These are four ingredients that could incidentally transform any employee and manager into a “hero.” in your organization.
The role of the employer
Although it comes from an internal resource of the individual, thePsyCapcan be facilitated and reinforced through the adoption of certain behaviors from your leaders. These can:
- Inspire thehopecommunicating clear objectives that are aligned with employee skills and abilities;
- Create a feeling ofefficiencyby creating an environment that promotes skills development while providing continuous feedback;
- Stimulate theresilienceby offering support through the creation of a “ safe space”where the employee is allowed to make mistakes;
- Generate theoptimismby having a two-way discussion when setting goals so that they are realistic.
Will you now be concerned about the psychological capital of your employees? How do you play the role of superHEROin your organization? Reply to us by email to give us examples and we will feature you in our next conference! (info@icebergm.ca)
SOURCE:
[1] Thompson, Kenneth R.; Lemmon, Grace; Walter, Thomas J. (2015). “Employee Engagement and Positive Psychological Capital,” Organizational Dynamics, 44, 185—195
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