What Influences Employee Engagement?

Employee Engagement

Organisations today are very concerned with employee engagement. Raphael Eppler, human resources expert and the CEO of Eppler Consulting, describes it as the extent to which employees feel passionate about their jobs and committed to the success of their organisation. “This is quite different than employee satisfaction,” he explains, “which is achieved with high pay, relatively easy work, a close geographical location to home and training on the job. That is, employees think of themselves with no regard to what they can contribute to the organisation.”

Employee engagement is achieved when employees believe in the organisation, connect to it emotionally and find ways to contribute through their work. For this to happen, Eppler explains, human resources managers must lend their attention to organisational culture and organisational climate.

Organisational culture are the values, beliefs and basic assumptions that must be aligned with the behaviour of the organisation. Organisational culture must be shaped by the aims of the organisation and, in turn guide strategy. Management must communicate well in order to create the desired culture among employees.

Organisational climate is the meaning employees give to the policies, practices and procedures they experience and the behaviours that they observe being rewarded, supported and expected.


Eppler explains that two more factors further affect engagement – how employees perceive the managerial culture and direct management. “The way employees experience their direct manager has a great influence on their perceptions,” he says. HR must help managers to understand this.

Employee Engagement Survey

Eppler is CEO for a leading organisational and business consultancy in Israel. The company delivers surveys for large institutions that measure employee engagement. The surveys usually expose both strengths and weakness in employees' eyes, enabling the HR department to address the weaknesses and encourage the strengths.

With reference to measuring employee engagement, for example questions include - How proud are you to work for the organisation? Would you recommend your organization as a workplace that is good to work for? Would you recommend the organisation to customers?

“We apply specific models of culture and climate to help each organisation achieve its particular goals. It’s not copy-paste,” he says, “Only professionals in the field can properly design such a survey for an organisation.” He teaches the models he uses in our Human Resources Management programme.

“Employee engagement, culture and climate are concepts that work together,” he stresses, “They cannot be taken out of the context of this relationship, as only the integration of these concepts can produce the right impact for the organization's sucess.”