1. Employee engagement in Higher
Education
Professor Geoff White
29 March 2012

2. Why should HE managers be
interested in engagement?
• Employee engagement is seen as key to
improved business performance and employee
wellbeing.
• CIPD research has repeatedly shown the links
between the way people are
managed, employee attitudes and business
performance.
• When employers deliver on their commitments to
employees they reinforce employees’ sense of
fairness and trust in the organisation.
• Line managers are key to the link between
employee performance and ‘discretionary
behaviour’ by employees.

3. Why should HE managers be
interested in engagement?
A poorly engaged workforce tends to:
• Have lower performance levels
• Pay lower attention to quality issues
• Be less innovative
• Have higher levels of absenteeism
• Has higher labour turnover
• Be less likely to recommend their workplace (or
its products) to others

4. 2009 McLeod Review
The McLeod Review of employee engagement –
conducted for the UK government in 2009 –
recommended:
• The government should work to raise awareness
of the benefits of engagement and the
techniques to achieve these.
• A senior sponsor group should be set up to
boost understanding.
• The government and its agencies should work
together to ensure that support is tailored to the
needs of different sectors.

5. What do we mean by employee
engagement?

6. What do we mean by employee
engagement?
• ‘A combination of commitment to the
organisation and its values and a willingness to
help out colleagues (organisational citizenship).
• It goes beyond job satisfaction and is not simply
about motivation.
• Engagement is something an employee has to
offer; it cannot be required as part of the
employment contract’.
CIPD

7. What does research show?
• CIPD engaged a research team led by Kingston
University to measure and analyse levels of
engagement.
• Three main measures – social, affective and
intellectual engagement.
• Social engagement is actively seeking
opportunities to discuss work with colleagues.
• Affective engagement is feeling positive about
doing a good job
• Intellectual engagement is thinking hard about
the job and how it could be done better.

8. CIPD Research Findings
The research measured these factors in terms of both degree
(how engaged was the employee?) and frequency (how
often was the employee engaged?).
Degree of engagement
• 8% strongly engaged
• 70% moderately engaged
• 1% very weakly engaged
• 21% neither engaged nor disengaged
Frequency of engagement
• 18% engaged on a daily basis
• 59% engaged ‘once a week’
• 22% engaged ‘a few times a year’
• 1% report never being engaged

9. CIPD Research Findings
• Scores for social engagement were lowest
• Scores for affective engagement were highest
• Scores for intellectual engagement were
intermediate.
Why do we think this might be the case?

10. More CIPD research findings
• Women more likely to be engaged than men
• Older workers are more engaged than younger
• New recruits more engaged than long stayers
• Managers are more engaged than other staff
• Those on flexible contracts more engaged than
those who are not.
• Public sector workers show higher levels of
social and intellectual engagement while private
sector workers are more engaged affectively.
• Question: What are employees engaging with
and what are implications for the organisation?

11. What are employees engaged
with?
• Tasks, work or the job
• Colleagues and work teams
• Line managers
• Their profession
• The organisation
• Clients and customers
• Their families and friends

12. Sectors with the most engaged
and disengaged employees
Engaged employees
• HR consulting and training (46%)
• Energy/utilities (40%)
• Legal and business services (34%)
• Association/not for profit (34%)
Disengaged employees
• Academia and HE (23%)
• High technology (24%)
• Chemicals (24%)
• Retail (24%)
• Government (25%)
Blessing White (2008)

13. Drivers of engagement
• Opportunities to feed your views upwards
• Feeling well informed about what is happening in the
organisation
• Believing that your manager is committed to the
organisation.
• Involvement in decision making
• Freedom to voice ideas, to which managers listen
• Feeling enabled to perform well
• Having opportunities to develop your job or role
• Feeling the organisation cares about your health and
wellbeing
• Matching people to the right jobs.

14. Measuring engagement: some
possible measures
• Absence rates • Goal achievement
• Industrial climate (ETs?) • Market segmentation
• Participation rates • Output
• H&S figures • Quality
• Return on investment • Cost-effectiveness
• Profit • Response rates
• Turnover • Cost savings
• Customer satisfaction • Sustainability

15. Assessment tools
• The engagement survey
• The employee survey
• The manager’s interview
• Customer surveys

16. Manager strategies for
engaging employees
• Allowing workers to feed their views (employee
voice) up the organisation.
• Keeping employees informed about what is
going on in the organisation.
• Employees need to see that their managers are
engaged with the organisation’s values and
objectives in order to feel engaged.
• Having fair and just management processes for
dealing with performance issues.

17. Strategies for engagement:
CIPD research findings
• ‘Meaningfulness’ is the most important driver of
engagement for all employee groups.
• Two-thirds of employees found meaning in their
work.
• Senior management vision and communication
are key drivers whereas senior management
effectiveness is negatively related to
engagement.
• Positive perceptions of one’s line manager are
strongly linked with engagement.

18. Conclusions? What can you do to be
effective in engaging employees?
• Involve employees in decisions affecting their
work.
• Be prepared to listen to employee voice and act
upon it
• Communicate key organisational messages
• Provide a motivational model – show enthusiasm
for own work
• Think about job design and new methods of
working to engage colleagues
• Offer help with job development opportunities