Shift in Employee Engagement Drivers Following Covid-19 Pandemic: A Literature Review

Yuvika Sing
Ph. D. Student, School of Management Studies, Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab, India; and Assistant Professor, ICFAI University, Himachal Pradesh, India; and is the corresponding author. E-mail: yuvikasingh23@gmail.com

Shivinder Phoolka
Assistant Professor, University School of Applied Management, Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab, India. E-mail: shiviphoolka@gmail.com

Today, employee engagement has become a critical issue for every organization. Earlier, while organizations considered employees as a strategic tool, they are now believed to be strategic partners in a business. Employee engagement is connected with organizational outputs such as productivity, retention rate, creativity, customer satisfaction, and sustainability. This study focuses on the concept of employee engagement drivers that affect employee engagement at workplace, and the challenges faced by organizations and employees before and after the Covid-19 pandemic. An extensive literature review was done on such drivers, to find out whether there is some shift in the engagement drivers before and after the emergence of the pandemic and whether the shift is a slight or a major one. Fifty-one research publications on employee engagement, published in various journals between 1970 and 2022, were examined, and databases such as Web of Science, EBSCO, and ProQuest were used.

Introduction

Earliest studies on employee engagement were limited to employees in state hospitals and counsellors, and then the focus shifted to the manufacturing industries (Porter et al., 1974; and Khan, 1990). Factors like employee motivation, retention, and job engagement have become the prime focus for human resource managers, which in turn may lead to higher production, high quality results, and profits. Over the years, the toughest challenge has been to identify engagement techniques, as a highly engaged employee can set new standards of work at the workplace.

Engagement can be defined as the extent to which the employees perform for their organization as measured by their hard work, involvement and passion for work (Corporate Leadership Council, 2004; Storey et al., 2009).

Employee engagement is a process through which an organization wins the employees' commitment, which in turn leads to overall success (Dicke et al., 2007; and Vance, 2006). Engagement drivers help foster employee engagement at the workplace. If one just follows a chronological order, one can see that different researchers have given different dimensions to employee engagement over the years. Porter et al. (1974) conducted a study on 60 newly employed technician trainees and the findings revealed a significant relationship between employee attitude, turnover rate, and organizational commitment. The psychological experience of work drives the behaviors of both individuals and groups (Kahn, 1990; and Kular et al., 2008). Superiors need to understand the level of engagement and engagement interventions for wiser decisions (Seijts and Crim, 2006; and Storey et al., 2009). Intensive communication with staff members and unions is very important for firms (Purcell, 2009). A good framework of engagement interventions can lead to increased profits and employee satisfaction (Sundaray, 2011). Driving forces require continuous efforts on the part of leaders as well as individuals (Carnegie, 2012; and Richard and Mark, 2015). Mehrzi and Singh (2016) conducted a study in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on public sector employees, and it was found that teamwork, leadership, organizational support, and culture are connected with engagement. Handy's framework for culture reveals a connection between employee engagement and workplace culture in public sector organizations in Ghana in Africa (Brenyah and Darko, 2017). So, there is a need for identifying whether there was a shift in the engagement drivers and whether new dimensions emerged.

Objective
The main objectives of this study are:

• To offer a descriptive, analytical view of employee engagement drivers at workplace.
• To propose a conceptual framework based on the review of literature for the important key drivers of employee engagement.
• To study the shift in the engagement drivers after the emergence of Covid-19.

Data and Methodology
The paper gathered the necessary information with the help of 53 research publications for a better understanding of the engagement drivers. Databases such as Web of Science, EBSCO, and ProQuest were used for the purpose.

The authors attempted a structured evaluation of the literature addressing several facets of employee engagement. The study achieved this by employing the approach recommended by Cerchione and Esposito (2016), which demonstrates how to carry out a structured literature review. The method of Cerchione and Esposito (2016) for conducting a systematic literature review does, in fact, include the contributions of Easterby-Smith et al. (2012), Petticrew and Roberts (2006) and Pittaway et al. (2004). As a result, we divided the study into four stages as seen in Figure 1:

lack of flow of complete information are some of the major stumbling blocks in the way of engagement (Mehrzi and Singh, 2016). Health factors, the capability of the person to work, sociocultural factors, and organizational culture have a great impact on engagement levels (Kular et al., 2008). The unpredictability of socioeconomic scenarios, changing demographics, unpredictable employee behavior, work fatigue, burnout, aging of the employees, and employee diversity in the context of age, gender, or culture act as barriers in engaging employees in any organization (Imperatori, 2017). Reactive decision making, lack of transparency in messages, inappropriate management styles, a wrong channel of communication, long working hours, and low trust levels also act as hurdles in employee engagement (Serrat, 2017).

During the Pandemic (2019-21)
The Covid-19 outbreak has almost shut down the industries globally for a while, leading to underemployment or unemployment. The managements in most of the sectors felt that the employees were not fully engaged as they were working from home and could not be supervised as compared to the situation before the pandemic when everything was normal. But can one say that employees working from home are not facing any challenges or they do not deserve increments or promotions (Rubeena and Naz, 2020). A recent survey in the US shows that 73% of the employees believe that they are more efficient while working from home (Guttmann, 2021). In a survey on 1100 US employees, 38% found themselves exhausted after the full week virtual meetings, while 30% found that they are stressed out which is a matter of concern. A study by Twingate and Doodle in 2020 on US employees also revealed that 40% of employees faced mental stress and exhaustion due to video calls; 10% faced system hacking while working online; 59% felt more secure in accessing the Internet from office; and 52% believed that due to noise disruptions during online meetings, they lost their focus and engagement (Robinson, 2020). On comparing the engagement drivers in Figure 8, one can clearly understand how the engagement drivers have suddenly transformed due to the pandemic situation as well as online mode of work, as it is easier to engage the employees when they are physically present at the workplace, as compared to virtual mode.

Conclusion
The findings of the study have a number of real-world implications for managers and their businesses, as the findings reveal the factors that boost employee engagement, which in turn enhances organizational output. It can be concluded that employee engagement is not only the most important factor for the success and growth of a business organization but also is responsible for different outcomes in different sectors. Organizations must target employee engagement to grow and to get a competitive advantage in the current scenario. The study found that leadership, career growth/appreciation, communication, teamwork, wellbeing, training/counselling and supportive work environment are the most important drivers, which must be kept in mind while dealing with the employees. On the other hand, aging, employee diversity, and improper communication act as barriers to employee engagement. Although the drivers may have changed a bit after the pandemic, the organizations must adopt an empathetic approach towards the employees. Any situation or crisis can be handled with a collaborative approach involving the employees and the employers. The study is the first systematic attempt to review the engagement drivers before and after the pandemic. Applying real-world data to the suggested conceptual framework would make for an intriguing study topic. To strengthen the proposed framework, it is possible to collect data from various national and international businesses using surveys and structural equation modeling approach. If one or more of the assumptions are proved correct, then useful employee engagement strategies can be framed based on that. Policymakers can then decide on specific policies while keeping in mind the employee engagement drivers. The findings of this study could also have serious implications for regional and national development, particularly in relation to how they may affect employee engagement efforts.

Future Scope: Future research can address many of the limitations of this study. Firstly, to reduce the study gap in the literature pertaining to public and private organizations, future researchers can empirically explore the links between various drivers of engagement according to their importance by adding additional moderators and mediating variables. Secondly, due to the time and scope constraints, the number of variables chosen from the literature review for this study was limited. So, future researchers can combine the elements to create shorter scales and sub-scales as needed to meet their research needs for factors promoting engagement.

Thirdly, engagement studies can be carried out for less explored samples like academic staff as well as students in higher education sector, social workers, doctors, bankers in both public and private sectors and other service-related professions, as very few studies have been conducted in these areas.

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