A comprehensive study of Employee Engagement: Contemplating 7-D model in view of NIFTY 50 companies

The study has been initiated to unfold the conceptual reality of a commonly used terminology in organization behaviour studyemployee engagement. The engagement of employees towards an organization is determined by their affective, cognitive and behavioural attributes which are in turn linked with various internal and external factors. These factors are identified and presented in various models with some specific focus area. Employee engagement index, the measuring indicator, is a reflection of multiple self-determining factors. This study unveiled the factors while analysing the annual reports for FY 2018-19 of NIFTY 50 companies. The key focus areas have been identified and an all-encompassing 7-Dimensional model has been proposed to determine the objectiveoriented factors to prepare relevant questionnaire for ascertaining Employee Engagement Index. Keywords— Employee Engagement, Engagement Models, Engagement study of NIFTY 50 companies, Engagement Drivers.


INTRODUCTION
In Human Resource Management, the key resource factor is 'Human' where the organization is driven by the wellbeing and mental health of them. They are the employees of the organization. In this context, the mental health of the employees is driven by various internal and external factors or driving forces. The most talked about are motivation level, behavioral attributes, organizational bonding, work culture, leadership skills etc. This paper will unveil one such factor that drives the mental framework of the employees and subsequently the organizational outcome in terms of profit, higher stock price, achievement of target. This is employee engagement. The broadly used term is sometimes loosely meant and the actual essence is also diluted very often. This indicator not only highlights the mental framework of the employees but also reflects the organizational potential to utilize the employees towards achieving its vision. Study by ADP Research Institute's (ADPRI) et al(2019) on employee engagement titled new global study of Engagement have found that 84% of employee are merely 'coming to work' and are not contributing entirely to their organizations. KPI metrics by Survey Sparrow et al (2019) have shown that Enterprise with highly engaged employees have 41 percent lower absentee rates and 59 percent less turnover. Companies with an engaged workforce have 5 times higher shareholder returns and highly engaged employees are 21 percent more productive. Employee Engagement has been well defined by David Macleod as "This is about how we create the conditions in which employees offer more of their capability and potential". This essentially creates a solid link between the ability and skill sets of the employees with the objectives and vision of the organization. Various models have been developed to ascertain the outcome of the employee engagement by measuring employee engagement index (EEI). The calculation of employee engagement index is usually based on multiple parameters and specific weightages to each of the parameters.
role performances". The second approach to the concept of engagement was in research on burnout. Maslach and Leiter et al. (1997) and Maslach et al. (2001) conceptualized engagement as opposite or the positive antithesis to the three burnout dimensions: exhaustion, cynicism, and sense of inefficacy. Schaufeli et al. (2002) provided a third approach for employee engagement, asserting that job engagement and burnout were independent states of mind and inversely related to each other. Wellins and Concelman et al (2005) suggested that engagement is an amalgamation of commitment, loyalty, productivity and ownership. Wellins and Concelman (2005) further said that engagement is the illusive force that motivates employees to higher (or lower) levels of performance. According to Robinson et al (2006), employee engagement can be achieved through the creation of an organizational environment where positive emotions such as involvement and pride are encouraged, resulting in improved organizational performance, lower employee turnover and better health. Robertson

III. INITIAL THEORY FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The purpose of the research was to assess and analyze the existing models related with employee engagement and to establish an all-encompassing model to reflect the relevant aspects in a manner that suits the engagement factor. The Indian companies which are part of NIFTY 50 Index were analyzed based on their Annual Report to assess the focus and mention of Employee Engagement. The employee engagement is usually measured considering weighted average of various relevant indicators / factors. This questionnaire is usually prepared with a focused methodology ( Figure: 1) and some standard practices followed either globally ( Figure: 2) or in alignment with company vision and mission statements. We have pointed out such parameters in the global context and zeroed in on India's perspective with the listed companies with considerable market capitalization. We have studied Annual Reports for FY 2018-19 of all the companies and captured the number of times they have used employee engagement term in it reflecting their willingness to consider this as a defining factor. Once the study is performed, the outcome was analyzed based on multiple defining questions which were expected to be answered while fetching the employee engagement. All these questions are not answered in any of the existing models resulting in partial veracity of the models. We proposed the pertinent questions that act as inputs to the engagement black box and the output, the employee engagement index, consists of most of the deciding indicators.

IV. PRESENTATION AND EXPLANATION OF PREVAILING MODELS AND DATA 4.1 Employee engagement models:
All these models are relevant and explicitly contain in-depth study of the engagement factor. However, most of them talk about one or two dimensions of the input factors namely need, motivation, leadership, performance, benefits etc. These factors are oriented either towards internal factors or inclined towards external factors. When Maslow's Need Hierarchy is matched with engagement, the outcome tends to correlate the psychological health with engagement factors (Table: 1). Highly engaged Gallup's Engagement Hierarchy focuses on basic needs, management support, team work and growth factors where the questionnaire is prepared considering the broad elements namely 'What do I give?', 'What do I get', 'Do I belong?' and 'How can we grow?' All these questions and its potential answers are weighted with a predetermined weightage and the employee engagement index is calculated Aon Hewitt's Model of Engagement is exhaustive in terms of explaining engagement factors ranging from need, motivation to work culture and leadership. The drivers ensure engagement outcomes and the employees have been classifies as Say (actively engaged in propagating best practices of the organization and actively engaged), Stay (Inclines towards organizational goals) and strive (feeling difficulty to achieve targets) (Table: 2). The employee outcomes lead to business outcomes in all relevant parameters like operational, financial, customer health and human resource health.

Fig: 5: David Zinger Model
Once all these established models are analyzed from organizational point of view and its effectiveness in a specific organizational environment are evaluated, it is found that all these models are generic models and based on various theories pertaining to organizational behavior. While assessing the result of the study (Table: 3), it is observed that the very word 'employee engagement' or 'employee satisfaction' had appeared as high as 9 times for the companies like Cipla and TCS. For Public Sector Undertaking like Indian Oil Corporation Limited, the count is 7 and for State Run bank SBI, it is 5. This outcome, along with the low mention of the term in earlier reports and a sustainable increasing trend, reflects a positive sentiment among companies to focus on employee engagement. The methodology and the processes of these companies for the assessment of Employee Engagement Index have been analyzed and it has been observed that the existing models have been used toevaluate it consist limited scope of coverage.

Scope and limitations of research
The research aimed at understanding, identifying and analyzing the prevailing models of employee engagement. Various relevant models have been thoroughly studied and the annual reports of all NIFTY 50 companies have been used as the basic data points. The usage of engagement / satisfaction terms has been counted to assess the focus of the companies in employee engagement. The models used to prepare the engagement questionnaire have been analyzed and a suitable model has been proposed. The key limitation of this research is the non-availability of other data points. The index is measured for most o the companies in last 2-3 years whereas the historical data is unavailable. The detailed methodology of the calculation is also not stated explicitly in many of the cases barring which performing the statistical analysis was not possible to correlate the index with profitability and operational efficiency.

V. DISCUSSING AN ALL-ENCOMPASSING MODEL
While contemplating on an all-inclusive questionnaire, this research work identifies the relevant broad areas which are to be considered to calculate the index. The questions like 'How', 'What', 'By whom', 'When', 'Why' and 'Which

VI. MODEL OUTCOME AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The proposed model, as the name suggests, covers a wide range of input factors to enable an employee to righty figure out the answers / responses against a question posed against him to evaluate his engagement. The six steps / inputs of the organization to assess the seventh dimension are essentially require sample testing. We have performed the sample survey in Rau-Pithampur Industrial area of Indore, Madhya Pradesh, Mansarovar RIICO Industrial Area of Jaipur, Rajasthan and GIDC Industry area of Halol, Gujarat, India among approximately 250 employees at each of the places. It covered wide range of companies from Pharmaceutical, Automobile, Electrical equipment, FMCG and Services sector. The result outcome emphasizes the popularity of transactional and delegative leadership, positive reinforcement, motivation factors over hygiene factors, planned goal setting for higher employee engagement whereas the sample crowd was indecisive between the priority of esteem and safety needs. This sample study reinforces the fact that the proposed model and its placement to define the questionnaire has fared well amongst sample crowd. In continuation with this, sector specific outcome of the sample testing reinforced that 'one size fits all' approach does not hold good in this case. Employee engagement calculation and study require focused area at various levels of the proposed dimensions resulting in an encouraging and near-perfect result. This adds strength to both-the study and the recommended model.