18 Mar In this assignment, you will further your understanding of engagement and engagement behaviors by completing ‘Part One and Part Two Improving Engagement document’ – ‘See

[Type text][Type text][Type text]

COURSE — PART ONE

Improving Engagement

In this part of the course, you will further your understanding of engagement and engagement behaviors by completing a self-assessment.

Instructions:

· Choose a situation in which you were highly engaged. It may be your current job role as a “Senior Trainer” and position or a previous one.

· Contrast this experience with a situation in which you were neutral or actively disengaged.

· Based on the situations you identified, write an ‘X’ to indicate which of the engagement or disengagement indicators align with your experiences. Then, answer the reflection questions.

Complete the grid below

The Experience of Being Engaged
Indicate with an ‘X’ if your experience aligns with each of the following engagement indicators.
	When you are engaged, you look forward to going to work every day.
	When you are engaged, you feel energized from doing something that you personally value.
	When you are engaged, you don’t get discouraged when confronted by obstacles; you want to try harder.
	When you are engaged, time seems to pass quickly.
Reflect on these questions about your experience.
Describe that period of engagement with your work. · What did you feel? · How did you behave? · Which of your actions demonstrated your engagement?	Answer here…
How engaged were the people around you? How do you know?	Describe the behaviors you observed from your colleagues:
What factors do you think contributed to your engagement in this instance? Try to identify as many relevant factors as you can.	Answer here…

Complete the grid below

The Experience of Being Disengaged (or Neutral)
Indicate with an ‘X’ if your experience aligns with each of the following disengagement indicators.
	When you are disengaged, you are robotic, withdrawn, apathetic, or detached.
	When you are disengaged, you show a failure to develop close, constructive relationships at work.
	When you are disengaged, you show a lack of vigilance for quality; you are satisfied with “good enough.”
	When you are disengaged, you hide your true identity, perspective, capacity, and creative thoughts.
Reflect on these questions about your experience.
Describe that period of disengagement with your work. · What did you feel? · How did you behave? · Which of your actions demonstrated your engagement?	Answer here…
How disengaged were the people around you? How do you know?	Describe the behaviors you observed from your colleagues:
What factors do you think contributed to your disengagement in that instance? Try to identify as many relevant factors as you can.	Answer here…

Part Two

Conduct a Needs Assessment

In this exercise, you will reflect on the existing workplace factors that may be at the root of suboptimal levels of engagement.

Instructions:

Think about a work situation in which you yourself have been involved and experienced a low level of engagement (or even disengagement). Alternatively, identify a work group about which you have a lot of knowledge and that you have observed to be suffering from suboptimal levels of engagement.

Using the questions below as a guide, reflect on which issues associated with the three different drivers of engagement—psychological meaningfulness, psychological safety, and psychological availability—may represent potential explanations for the suboptimal levels of engagement.

At the bottom of the worksheet, summarize your hypothesis about the two or three factors you believe might be most important to address in an effort to increase engagement.

I. Briefly describe the work situation you have chosen to examine in this exercise:

Answer here…

II. Psychological Meaningfulness
Questions:	Describe your observations:
How meaningful or rewarding is the work itself? Is there significant variety, challenge, significance, and clarity associated with the tasks that make up the relevant job(s)?	Answer here…
How is the level of fit between employees’ (or your) knowledge, skills, and abilities and the demands of the job?	Answer here…
How strongly do employees (or you) identify with the values and mission associated with the job and with the broader organization?	Answer here…
Do employees (or you) have opportunities to make decisions that impact the way the job is done? What about input into decisions that impact the broader organization?	Answer here…
Do employees (or you) receive the feedback needed to understand how well they are doing on the job and which they can use to continually improve their performance and redirect their energies?	Answer here…
What is the quality of interactions among employees (or between you and your coworkers) like? Do people share information and coordinate well with each other? Do they help each other? Do they engage in meaningful interactions that are personally rewarding?	Answer here…
Do employees (or you) feel appreciated and valued for the work that they do?	Answer here…

III. Psychological Safety
Questions:	Describe your observations:
Do employees (or you) feel safe in expressing their views and ideas, or disagreement with the way things are done?	Answer here…
Does it seem certain employees have privileges (e.g., access to resources and opportunities) that others don’t?	Answer here…
Does the manager trust employees (or you), for example to be able to make good decisions or to act in the best interest of the organization?	Answer here…
Do employees (or you) trust the manager? Do they trust management in general?	Answer here…
Do managers’ actions align with their words (i.e., do they do what they say they will do)?	Answer here…
Are some employees (or you) working against negative or erroneous stereotypes?	Answer here…
Is there a norm for people to be open to learning, especially from mistakes and each other?	Answer here…

IV. Psychological Availability
Questions:	Describe your observations:
Are employees (or you) under significant levels of stress resulting from long working hours, intense pressures to deliver (results, deadlines), being understaffed, or difficult working conditions?	Answer here…
Are employees (or you) experiencing strain on the job as a result of feeling like they lack the preparation, skills, or confidence to do what is being asked of them?	Answer here…
Are there any other significant sources of frustration or anxiety that may be causing emotional exhaustion among employees?	Answer here…
Are employees being supported to meet their non-work needs? For example, being given flexibility in when/where they do some of their work, or having a manager and coworkers who are sympathetic to the challenges associated with juggling multiple roles?	Answer here…
Do employees have the opportunity to experience meaningful sources of engagement in their non-work lives?	Answer here…

1

Improving Engagement Cornell University ILR School

© 2022 Cornell University

,

Before you begin:

Please review  policy regarding  plagiarism  (the presentation of someone else's work as your own without source credit).

Rubric

Project Rubric

Project Rubric
Criteria	Ratings	Pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeAnalysis No credit: Learner does not demonstrate an understanding of the models presented in the course. Partial credit: Learner makes suggestions and recommendations using appropriate models. Full credit: Learner performs a thorough analysis AND makes creative suggestions and recommendations based on appropriate models.	10 pts Full credit 6 pts Partial credit 0 pts No credit	10 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome Effort No credit: Learner does not complete some project parts. Responses and posts do not demonstrate depth of thought. Partial credit: Learner enters text on all project parts, but the depth does not demonstrate a high degree of effort. Learner does not demonstrate a full understanding of the concepts in the course nor an appropriate application to workplace engagement issues. Full credit: Depth of learner responses demonstrates appropriate effort.	10 pts Full credit 6 pts Partial credit 0 pts No credit	10 pts
Total Points: 20

,

How Engagement Predicts Performance

In this video, Professor Nishii explains the differences between the drivers that promote job satisfaction and the drivers that promote engagement, as well as the research that demonstrates that engagement is a far greater predictor of individual performance than is satisfaction. The factors that drive engagement are focused much more on the facets of the work that people do and their immediate work context. These are more within the control of immediate managers than are the drivers of satisfaction.

So, engagement is important because it predicts performance. And making this distinction that we've talked about between engagement and other employee attitudes, like satisfaction, is important because it is engagement, and not satisfaction, that predicts performance. What you see here in this table, are the results of some research that link satisfaction and engagement on the one hand, with firm-level performance on the other. And what you'll see here is that although satisfaction and engagement are related concepts, they're correlated about .6, it turns out that only engagement is associated with return on assets and with profits at the firm level and satisfaction is not. And this is because engagement refers to the psychological and behavioral energy, associated with work. It's that energy that yields performance. Satisfaction as I've said refers more to how people feel about the organization, what the organization does for them, and how content they are with the employment kind of arrangement that they have with the organization. It tells us nothing about their work-related behaviors or engagement. Here's another graphic. This is from a research study that looks at how engagement versus other attitudes, and satisfaction is one of the attitudes in this study, are associated with individual level employee performance. And what you'll see here is that there's some drivers in the three circles in the left column, and it's not that important for us to delve into what these really mean, but what you'll see is that these drivers influence engagement there on the top, and satisfaction. And for now, we'll just focus on those two. But it is only engagement that significantly predicts performance, satisfaction does not. You can identify which relationships or paths, are statistically significant by looking for the ones with the little asterisks on them. So you'll see here that engagement is associated with, predicts performance, task performance, as well as what some people refer to as citizenship behaviors. These are the kinds of behaviors that go above and beyond the call of duty. They might not be part of one's formal job description. But research is pretty clear in showing that the difference between an average worker and a great worker. The difference between a mediocre company and a super company is the willingness of employees to engage in these discretionary behaviors, the above and beyond the call of duty kinds of behaviors. And it is engagement that predicts employees' willingness to engage in these citizenship behaviors.

Two Forms of Engagement Energy

There are two forms of engagement energy, as Professor Nishii explains: psychological energy and behavioral energy. Psychological energy refers to psychological absorption and focus. Being fully absorbed in one’s work comes close to what has been called  flow, a state of optimal experience that is characterized by focused attention, clear mind, mind and body union, effortless concentration, complete control, loss of self-consciousness, distortion of time, and intrinsic enjoyment. Behavioral energy refers to people's actions. It may be useful to keep in mind that sometimes people experience psychological and behavioral engagement in some but not all aspects of their jobs.

So when it comes to engagement, it's important to realize that there are really two forms of engagement energy. The first is psychological, and refers to things like absorption and focus and intensity of your attention. Flow, mental resilience and enthusiasm. And the other is behavioral energy. So that's when that psychological engagement gets translated into behaviors. Ideally, behaviors that are strategically focused and help the organization to fulfill its mission. These engagement behaviors refer to things like being willing to and able to anticipate opportunities to take action. And taking action rather than feeling like problems are something that management should take care of. Involves being proactive, and taking initiative and actively finding ways to expand ones skills. And also persisting in the face of obstacles. And the reason it's important to distinguish between psychological engagement and behavioral engagement, is that the psychological experience of engagement can be expressed in various ways. And so knowing whether or not it is translated into the types of behaviors that drive organizational performance is really important for organizations to know. So, if you see that employees are highly engaged from the psychological perspective, but the behavioral outcomes of engagement don't follow, that could be because of a number of different things. It could be because employees are not totally clear on how to channel that energy in a way that would be most beneficial for the organization. But it could also be because there are constraints in the environment that make it difficult for the employee to actually be able to engage in the behaviors that are desired by the organization. That's why it's important to distinguish between the two.

,

Engagement and High Potentials

You might assume high-potential employees are among the most engaged, but research shows that not to be the case, as Professor Nishii explains in this video. The percentage of employees who are actively disengaged ranges from 10-20%, and the estimate is higher among "high potentials," or star players, as compared to average employees. The high-potential employees are the ones you do not want to lose, and this suggests that you have to increase your efforts to keep young stars engaged. That may mean recognizing them early and often, exciting them by linking their individual goals to corporate ones, and letting them help solve the company’s biggest problems.

Okay, so I wanted to talk a little bit about engagement and high potentials. So high-potential employees are presumably the employees that offer the most value to organizations. The employees the organizations really care most about keeping. And you might be surprised to

Related Tags

Academic APA Assignment Business Capstone College Conclusion Course Day Discussion Double Spaced Essay English Finance General Graduate History Information Justify Literature Management Market Masters Math Minimum MLA Nursing Organizational Outline Pages Paper Presentation Questions Questionnaire Reference Response Response School Subject Slides Sources Student Support Times New Roman Title Topics Word Write Writing