C/HR/46. Dissertation + Proposal. What motivates firms to invest in initiatives aimed at improving levels of employee engagement?

Many firms in the private, public and voluntary sector face levels of staff turnover, employee morale and motivation, staff commitment and job satisfaction that are lower than they would hope. This refers to what we call employee engagement. When employee engagement is low, or lower than a firm wants it to be, productivity and profitability are likely to be severely affected. However, there are a plethora of other potential reasons why firms may want to invest in employee engagement initiatives. After all, employee engagement is not just about the bottom line, or at least, this is what this dissertation aimed to investigate. This was achieved by conducting a focus group with a practitioner firm that sold employee engagement schemes, two other focus groups with firms who had implemented such schemes and a questionnaire sent to those firms to elicit further information. The results were analysed and discussed in light of the literature review. The literature review provides a comprehensive discussion of the key literature on employee engagement, which comprises detailed discussion of job satisfaction, employee commitment and motivation theory, as well as related aspects of work and physical conditions, job characteristics and roles, teamwork and co-workers, and the impact of leadership. This dissertation would be useful for anyone interested in employee engagement or its major facets Ï job satisfaction, employee commitment and motivation theory Ï for which there is a comprehensive literature review. It is also useful in highlighting how to perform and analyze primary research and then apply those findings to the literature that has been set out.