key: cord-0735170-3bt7i5g8 authors: Chanana, Nisha; Sangeeta, title: Employee engagement practices during COVID‐19 lockdown date: 2020-10-01 journal: J Public Aff DOI: 10.1002/pa.2508 sha: 9ccc5f90f5af3c08d056a25731395332b7a33716 doc_id: 735170 cord_uid: 3bt7i5g8 In the present business situation during the COVID‐19 pandemic, employee engagement has become one of the utmost prominent primacies for human resource managers and practitioners in organizations due to lockdown. The paper is to determine the engagement of employees by various companies during coronavirus pandemic. Organizations nowadays are constantly developing innovative and effective means to engage the employees during this tough time. This paper is a conceptual paper that is based on various research papers, articles, blogs, online newspapers, and reports of World Health Organization. During this pandemic situation, organizations are evolving many engagement activities like online family engagement practices, virtual learning and development, online team building activities, webinars with industry experts, online conduct weekly alignment sessions, team meet‐ups over video conference for lunch, short online game sessions, virtual challenges and competitions, online courses, appreciation sessions, communication exercises, live sessions for new‐skill training, online counseling sessions, recognition and acknowledgment session, webinars dealing with anxiety and stress, providing online guidance for exercise and meditation, social interactions in a virtual office, classrooms training modules digitally, e‐learning modules, and many more creative learning sessions. Work‐from‐home regime engagement activities are very fruitful for employees as well as for organizations. Those organizations doing these kinds of engagement activities for their employees are learning new skills and developing themselves. Employees are feeling committed to the organization and stay motivated during this tough time of COVID‐19 pandemic. Today, the business setup is changing in relation to the global pandemic of COVID-19. Human resource managers are persistently evolving innovative, creative, and effective ways to engage the employees in a healthier way during this difficult time. Employee engagement is a workplace attitude that is ensuing all adherents of an organization to give of their excellence every day, committed toward their organization's goals and values. Organizations always remember that employees who are well engaged in an organization will lead to productivity in the place of work, and this generates a higher customer satisfaction and, absolutely, developments in sales and profit in the company. The major challenge in theoretical literature is when we discuss the term "engagement" because there is a lack of a general definition of employee engagement. (Kahn, 1990) described in his study that engagement indicates physiological and physical existence of executing an organizational role. Psychological conditions of meaningfulness, safety, and availability are the three constructs that help engagement to develop in an organization. Further study suggests that in engagement, individuals employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally in their role performances. The cognitive facet is associated with beliefs of leaders, employees, and working environments. The emotional facet means employees positive or negative attitude toward the organization and the leaders. Physical facet means the physical force devoted in order to accomplish an organizational role. Kahn's model is tested by May, Gilson, and Harter (2004) and the result showed that meaningfulness, safety, and availability of psychological condition are positively associated with engagement. Schaufeli, Martinez, Pinto, Salanova, and Bakker (2002) develop the term job engagement and explained job engagement as a positive and a workrelated state of mind, and it is considered by strength, dedication, and absorption. This study explained employee engagement as the individual's involvement, satisfaction, and enthusiasm for work (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002) . This study suggests that engagement is closest to job involvement, well-being, and emotions (May et al., 2004) . Employee engagement comprises two important facets, that is, job engagement and organization engagement (Saks, 2006 ). An engaged employee always does care about their effort, work, and performance, and employees want to feel that their work, efforts, and performance could make a difference. Employee engagement is usually understood as an inner state of mind, that is, physically, emotionally, and mentally, that binds together the commitment, satisfaction, and work effort in an employee. Engaged employees support the organization to attain its mission, execute its strategy, and generate significant business results. Employee engagement can be enhanced by different HR practices comprising job design, recruitment, selection, compensation, training, and performance management (Vance, 2006) . Organizations that support employee engagement, intelligently manage talent, and communicate with employees honestly, accurately, and at the right time will ride the current market turbulence and be successful in the future (Robison, 2009) . Organizations and employees are both dependent on each other to fulfill their goals and objectives. Employee engagement should not be a one-time implementation, but it should be integrated into the culture of the company. Career development prospects, encouragement, communication, recognition, the flexibility of employee's hours, fair pay structure, transparent and open work environment, and participation in decision-making are the factors contributing to employee engagement at the workplace (Patro, 2013) . To improve the purpose of effective employee engagement, six C's parameters are essential, that is, clarity, confidence, convey, connect, credibility, and career. An engaged employee is attentive about their work and about the performance of the company, and they always desire to feel that their determinations and hard work could make a difference. Engaged employees lead to productivity in the workplace, and this generates higher customer satisfaction and positive rises in sales and also profit in the organizations. Confidence and communication among both employees and organizations are also essential. This unification between the enterprise and the employee is a necessity as both are able to best in performance (Sarangi & Nayak, 2016) . Employee engagement is built on belief, reliability, commitment, and communication between an organization and its adherents. Organizations can increase engagement by enhancing employee decisionmaking, commitment, and transparency from senior leadership. Employee engagement is the level of enthusiasm and commitment an employee feels toward his/her job (Chandani, Mehta, Mall, & Khokhar, 2016) . Employee engagement is an approach that proliferates the chances of business achievement, subsidizing to organizational and individual performance, productivity, and well-being of employees. The severe respiratory disease recently appeared in Wuhan (Hubei province), China. Epidemiological examinations have suggested that the epidemic was related to a seafood market in Wuhan, China (Fan et al., 2020) World Health Organization also provides some recommendations and advice for the public. According to WHO, maximum persons infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and convalesce without requiring any special treatment. Those people who are old and individuals who have medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory disease are more likely to develop severe illness. According to WHO guidelines, individuals should protect themselves and others from COVID-19 infection by washing their hands or using an alcohol-based rub frequently. According to the report of WHO (World Health Organization, 2020c), the COVID-19 virus spreads primarily through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes. According to the research, there is no effective vaccine or approved drug treatment against COVID-19 developed. In this situation, most of the countries go for lockdown, so that spread of COVID-19 will break soon. Several countries have also closed borders to avoid international travelers from spreading the virus (Ghosh, Brindisi, Shahabi, Mackenzie, & Andrew, 2020) . According to Business Insider (Kaplan, Frias, & Mefall-Johnsen, 2020) , most of the countries are executing measures to slow the spread of the COVID-19, from national quarantines to school closures. Most of the countries are applying some form of restriction to the public like lockdown, social distancing, and wearing a face mask when you step out of your home. As per the need of the hour, most of the organizations started working online and initiated a work-fromhome (WFH) regime. Due to lockdown, most of the organizations provide the facility to their employees to work from home. But work from home is difficult for employees as they do not feel the organizational climate at home, as lack of concentration due to frequent invasion of family members; work-life conflict arise due to this. Even they do not have proper equipment and tools (computer, mouse, printers, scanners, headphones, webcam, internet connection, and dedicated workspace-a quiet place to work). Most of the employees feel stressed due to rising cases of COVID-19 in the world. They are not sure about their job security and also about their salary. Due to these problems, employees could not concentrate/focus on their work, so there is a need for employee engagement. The prime responsibility of the organization is to take care of their employees' well-being and Employee engagement can be used as a mediator to develop the attitudes, intention, and behavior of employees to an improved work performance (Andrew & Sofian, 2012; Saks, 2006) . Andrew and Saudah (2012) concluded that employee engagement can be utilized as a mediator to enhance the behavior, intention, and attitudes of employees toward a better work performance. Basquille (2013) recommended that managers should be supported by the executive to provide development assistance, career support, and recognition. These factors enhance employee engagement effectively. Patro (2013) revealed that companies have to provide their employees the freedom to make their work interesting and forming an environment for having an engaged work life. Further study suggests that employee engagement should be a continuous process of learning, improvement, and action. Therefore, organizations today should actively look forward to fulfilling employee's expectations and generate an impact on the performance of the employee, which directly marks the organization's performance. Bedarkar and Pandita (2014) of the study suggests that the more employees are engaged in the workplace, high will be their commitment toward the organization or institution. Lee et al. (2016) study outcomes suggest that it is a challenge for HR professionals to keep present employees engaged with their jobs. Results revealed that workers are moderately engaged, meaning some may be detached from their current roles or fearful of losing their jobs. Job satisfaction is a significant driver of work engagement. Garg, Dar, and Mishra (2017) result revealed that there is a positive relationship between job satisfaction and work engagement. Further analysis showed that employee job satisfaction leads to employee engagement. Employee engagement link to financial performance comprising revenue growth, profit margins, shareholder return, and operating income is almost three times greater than organizations with disengaged personnel. It also elaborates that higher employee engagement level results in lower absenteeism and job stress and better well-being and health. Further research shows that employee engagement has an effect on a company's bottom line and is sturdily linked to business performance (Saks, 2017) . Employees those dispositional happiness experience at higher level always practice higher levels of employee engagement (Barreiro & Treglown, 2020) . Employee engagement is critical for an organization to retain their valued employees. It is very essential for an organization to do effective utilization of human resources in an organization. Without employee engagement, an organization cannot survive for a lengthy period. The maximum of the nations is in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this difficult situation, work-from-home regime is implemented by most of the organizations. But work-from-home regime is challenging for employees as well as for organizations during this difficult situation. Due to this problem, companies need to engage their employees in refined ways with the help of various employee engagement practices. This paper is to determine the various creative and innovative ways of employee engagement, so that employees can easily do work from home and stay committed, satisfied, and motivated during this pandemic situation. To determine the employee engagement practices during COVID-19 lockdown. This paper is a conceptual paper based on secondary data. Conceptual articles get organized manifold varying streams of content to provide some new understanding (Chermack & Passmore, 2005) . The data col- (Torraco, 2005) . Literature reviews purpose is to précis the present form of literature linked to certain phenomenon (Chermack & Passmore, 2005) . Employee engagement is very essential for all the organizations during this COVID-19 pandemic situation. In a lockdown, employee engagement practices keep them motivated, committed, satisfied, and contented in this tough time. According to the American Management Association, engagement levels can be improved, even throughout the tough periods, if companies take care and make the right decisions at the right time. According to the study, higher engagement levels are linked to improved productivity and a healthier bottom line. In good times or bad, worker engagement should be a top priority of organizations (Vickers, 2019) . According to The Guardian, employee engagement helps to increase strong positive attitudes among people toward their work and their organization in difficult times. Organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and organizational citizenship are the factors that play a major role to make up employee engagement. According to the newspaper, when employee engagement is high, organizations do better. To enhance employee engagement in difficult times, organizations should make more efforts toward the employees so that employees feel that their organization is genuinely interested in them (Robertson, 2012) . According to Groove Management Blog (Formato, 2014) , leadership needs to be more visible in tough times than at any other time. If organizations want their employees be engaged, then leaders should take responsibility and motivate them to 2. Explicitly support your employee-so they remain motivated during tough times. 3. Solicit employee feedback-ask employees to freely share information, both frustrations and ideas for developments in a productive way. 4. Communicate upfront with employees-leaders should communicate openly and honestly, so employees perform more effectively. 5. Commit to your employee's employment-so employees should be committed to your organization. Matkin (2016) mentioned that vision should be clear and concise and should be properly communicated to the employees, so they can get direction during tough times. In an organization, there should be open-door policies; this kind of platform gives employees a voice. Organizations should be fully transparent with their employees; this kind of transparency builds trust among the employees toward the organization during difficult times. Article published in Nature (Fan et al., 2020) stated five tips to help support employees working from home. These are: 1. Create a healthy workspace-encourage workers to create a healthy workspace at home. Encourage employees to work ergonomically from home as best they can and review their work-athome setup. 2. Maintain a routine-encourage employees to stick to a routine and to maintain boundaries between their "work" time and "home" time. 3. Do not forget to be social-communication with colleagues is a great stress reliever. An organization should set up a session for fun activities that would normally take place in the office. their employee's well-being; it can help reduce absenteeism, boost engagement, and performance. saging and video and voice calling platforms can help to keep teams connected. It is important to invest in a recognition platform that allows employees to send and receive recognition. As organizations develop various engagement practices to implement full-time remote work policies due to COVID-19, here are some practices to keep your employees engaged in their jobs work-from-home regime. According to Sarkar (2020) India has adopted many of its classrooms training modules digitally and introduced e-learning modules, quizzes, master classes by managers, and many more creative learning sessions, which employees can access on their phone while in quarantine at home. ITC Hotels has rolled a number of e-learning courses targeted at specific roles and levels through primary channels of E-learning to provide an opportunity for self-learning which can be accentuated through anytime app-based hosting. Clix Capital is also hosting live e-sessions on its learning platform. Various companies are doing employee engagement practices in a very innovative and creative manner to keep their employees satisfied and committed toward the organization. It is very essential to do employee engagement practices during this difficult time of the pandemic. Engaging employees has become very essential in today's pandemic situation due to COVID-19. Thinking of seizing the top position devoid of the support of your employees would surely be a dream in this current situation of lockdown. Organizations know very well that engaged employees are the key to success in this tough time. That is why businesses must look forward to keeping their employees satis- All the organizations should adopt innovative and creative employee engagement practices during this tough time of pandemic COVID-19 to keep employees motivated, stimulated, committed, satisfied, and blissful in this tough time. Work-from-home regime is nowadays very essential; it would be successful only with the help of online practices. Organizations should be implementing an online practice approach to stay in the competition during this difficult time. Virtual relations should be crucial for companies to enhance the engagement of employees. Engaged employees always achieve objectives very smoothly. Management also look into how to engage employees in order to be able to encourage a positive organization culture. 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