MIJBR / Vol.

3 / Issue 2 / July-December 2016---------------------- --------- e-ISSN: 2394-4161

p-ISSN: 2349-1701

FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT:

A STUDY WITH REFERENCE TO SOFTWARE COMPANIES

Dr. Kanagaluru Sai Kumar, Professor,

Department of Management, Narayana Engineering College,
Nellore–524004 (AP), India
E-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT
The study has been designed to review the perceptions and the feelings of the software employees on
specific factors and also their relationship with employee engagement. A sample of 150 respondents at
different levels of perception is studied with reference to various factors that are responsible for
employee engagement. The study attempted to identify the factors that were descriptive of the people.
The determinants of employee engagement that have been examined under this study include job
content, work relationships, job context, job outcomes, personal image, procedural justice, and job
environment. The opinion of the sample respondents is also analyzed based on various factors. These
results indicate that a large number of people in the sample have an agreement with the factors.
Regression analyses of these factors indicate that job content and work relationships significantly affect
the employee engagement.

Keywords: Employees, engagement, perception, job content, work relationships.

1. Introduction for the achievement of faster growth and the

achievement of employee engagement in the
Employee engagement is one of the key drivers
organizations, HR leads the way in designing,
for the success of any organization. Employee
measuring, and evaluating the proactive work
engagement means a measurement of energy and
place policies and practices that help attract and
passion that employees should have for their
retaining the talent with skills and competencies
organizations. Engaged employees are
necessary for growth and sustainability. In the
individuals who take action to improve business
views of Khan (1990), employee engagement is
results for their organizations. They stay, and
the harnessing of the organization members
strive-stay with and are committed to the
towards their work roles. He also added that, in
organization, say positive things about their
engaged people employ and express themselves
workplace, and strive to go above and beyond to
physically, cognitively and emotionally during
deliver extraordinary work. (Opas Piansoongnern
role performances. Britt et al (2001), in their
et al, 2011). Employee engagement is one of the
study on employee engagement found that
primary management tools in human assets
engagement in meaningful work can lead to
management (Cappelli, 2008). Because the
perceived benefits from the work. Another study
significant resource for firms competing is no
made by Harter et al (2002) linked the employee
longer land, capital, and other tangible assets but
engagement with variables such as employee
the human capital necessary to adapt
turnover, employee satisfaction- turnover, safety,
organizations to global competition and
productivity and profitability criteria. Fleming et
maximize the benefits associated with the current
al (2005), in their study identified that about 20
technological boom for effective employee
percent of American employees are disengaged,
engagement. (Ingham 2006, Ashton and Morton,
54 percent are neutral about their work and only
2005). Pradeep and Swetha (2012) opined that,
26 percent are actively engaged. The study made

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p-ISSN: 2349-1701

by Gibbons (2006), stated that, an organization’s various causative factors. Hence the present study
talent management strategy should also has been taken up with an intention to know the
contribute to employee engagement which refers factors that influence the employee engagement.
to a heightened emotional and intellectual
connection that an employee has for his/her job, 3. Statement of the Problem
organization, manager, or co-workers that in turn Every organization has its own policies for the
influences him/her to apply additional accomplishment of objectives. Continuous
discretionary effort to his/her work. updating and monitoring of these policies is
It is a fact that highly engaged employees make essential to keep the pace with change in time and
wholehearted contribution and helps in achieving to avoid any dissatisfaction of the employees. To
the organizational growth and at the same time study the engagement of the employees, various
disengagement leads to lower productivity and factors which are directly or indirectly related to
losses to the organization. An engaged workforce employees and software companies have been
may provide a buffer against the costly efforts of considered. These factors include job content,
disengagement and burnout, hence the present work relationships, job context, job outcomes,
study has been taken up to find out the causative personal image, procedural justice, and job
factors of employee engagement. environment etc,. The study is based on the
opinion of the employees working in various
software companies. The need for the study is to
2. Significance of the Study
ascertain various factors which are related to
The involvement of the employees plays an employee engagement. This study will help the
important role and is a key business driver in the managements of the software companies to
success of any organization. It develops the state develop more appropriate policies for their better
of healthy balance in the organization in which management.
employees make their respective contributions to
achieve the goals set by the top management. A 4. Objectives of the Study
high level of work engagement is possible when The purpose of the present study is aimed to
the employees are involved with, committed to, identify the impact of various causative factors
entrusted, and passionate about their work. Due that influence the employee engagement in the
to the rapid growth of technology in the software software companies. The following are the
industry in the recent past and its corresponding research objectives formulated to guide the study.
increase in the job opportunities at different 1. To study the overall opinion of the
fields, it becomes highly difficult to retain the respondents about employee
employees and to make them to work. As a result engagement;
competition also started among the software 2. To identity the relative importance of
companies. In a competitive environment each various factors that influence the
and every company is interested to improve its employee engagement; and
position by creating a strong base for its survival. 3. To suggest suitable measures, to
The competition was developed in terms of minimize the problems related employee
attracting large number of skilled employees by engagement.
satisfying their requirements. Highly engaged
employees make significant contributions in
achieving the organizational development, at the 5. Development of Research Model
same time disengagement can affect the financial A theoretical frame work for the employee
solidarity of the organization as well. As the engagement is developed based on the objectives
engaged workforce may provide successful and previous literature available on this field. The
outcomes to the organizations, studies of these model is developed in consistence with the
kinds are necessary to know the influence of various factors that represent employee

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engagement as shown in fig.1. The development generalization of the result. The actual field
of this model will provide a sound base and will survey was conducted over a period of one month
helps in further examination as to what extent can between March 2016 and April 2016, wherein
these factors influence the satisfaction of personal interviews were employed to obtain the
students. required information from the selected
respondents.
6. Research Methodology
Instrument Used Data Analysis
The Instrument in the name of structured The primary data collected have been sorted,
questionnaire is framed to collect the primary classified and tabulated in a format and analyzed
data from the sample respondents. It consists of by using statistical package for social sciences
the demographic characteristics of respondents (SPSS16.0). An appropriate statistical procedure
such as gender, age, educational background, like multiple regression analysis has been used
length of experience etc. Employee engagement for inference. The multiple regression analysis
was measured by a questionnaire prepared on the allows for simultaneous investigation of the
basis of the earlier studies done by Pradeep and effect of two or more independent variables on a
Swetha (2012). The questionnaire is included dependent variable. The dependent variable for
with seven factors, namely, Job content, Work this study is the employee engagement.
relationships, Job context, Job outcome, Personal
image, Procedural justice, and Job environment. 7. Results and Analysis
Each of the factor in the questionnaire is Profile of the Respondents
measured on a four point Likert’s scale, in which, The table1 reveals that 71.34 percent of
1 indicated “strongly disagree”, 2 indicated respondents were male and the rest 28.66 percent
“disagree”,3 indicated “agree”, and 4 indicated were female employees. An analysis of the age of
‘strongly agree”. Contents and validity of the the respondents indicates that 6 percent were with
statements were established by experts consisting less than 30 years, 20.66 percent were with 30-35
of top officials and other important persons years of age, 43.34 percent were with 35-45 years
working with the software companies. Each of of age and the remaining 30 percent were with
the experts on the panel was asked to verify the above 45 years of age. An analysis of the length
instrument for clarity, wording, overall of experience of the respondents indicates that
appearance and meaning in addition to content 13.34 percent were with less than 5 years, 30
and validity. The instrument was pilot tested with percent were with 5-10 years of experience, 40
a group of people, not included in the sample. percent were with 10-15 years of experience and
the remaining 16.66 percent were with above 15
Data Collection years of experience. The analysis further shows
A survey Instrument in the form of close ended that, with respect to gender, the employees are
questionnaire was developed for the purpose of male dominated also with respect to age; most of
collecting the main data for the study. This study them are in the age group of 35-45 years of age
was conducted with the employees working at with 10-15 years of experience.
different software companies located in and
around Chennai. Various factors such as Reliability
precession, accuracy, time and cost constraints The internal reliability of various factors of the
were taken into consideration in selecting the questionnaire was verified by calculating
respondents. Using non-probability sampling Cronbach’s alpha. Cronbach’s alpha is used to
technique, a total of 150 respondents were measure the reliability of the instrument that
selected as a sample for the study. Proper care ranges from 0 to 1, with values of 0.6 as lower
has been taken in selecting the respondents in level of acceptability (Nunnalym 1978), .The
order to maintain uniformity and to improve the Cronbachs alpha estimated in the present study

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p-ISSN: 2349-1701

for computing satisfaction was 0.717, which is analysis with a view to understand the impact of
much higher than the acceptable level, the various factors that will influence employee
constructs were therefore deemed to have engagement. The set of factors such as job
adequate reliability. content, work relationships, job context, job
outcomes, personal image, procedural justice,
Measuring the Overall Satisfaction of the and job environment is taken as independent
Respondents variables and employee engagement is taken as
Majority of the respondents have indicated that dependent variable. The statistical representation
they were satisfied (73 percent) with the of the regression equation is as follows.
strategies of the companies for effective Employee engagement = bo + b1 (job content) +
engagement of employees as seen from Table 2. b2 (work relationships) +b3 (job context) +b4
An analysis of the total responses of the (job outcomes) +b5 (personal image) +b6
respondents reveals that 32 percent (48) (procedural justice) + b7 (job environment).
respondents were highly satisfied and 41.34 Where bo = Constant (the value of dependent
percent (62) of the respondents were satisfied variable when the value of the independent
with the company strategies. It can also be seen variables is zero), also called the Intercept. b1, b2,
from the table that 26.66 percent of the b3,……..b7 are known as regression coefficients,
respondents were dissatisfied. When the which represents the estimated change in the
percentage of disagreed respondents is compared mean value of the dependent variable for each
with the total number of respondents, this will not unit change of the seven independent variables.
be a sizeable number. In spite of much Regression results and analysis of variance are
satisfaction by majority of respondents, the shown in the table 4 and table 5.
reasons for the dissatisfaction must be taken care From the regression analysis, the above equation
of by the managements of the companies. can be written as follows.

Employee Engagement = bo + 1.671 (Job content)

Test of Multicollinearity
+ 1.331 (Work relationships) +0.257 (Job
To determine the presence of multicollinearity
context) +0.396 (Job outcome) +0.717 (Personal
among the various independent variables in the
image) +0.577 (Procedural justice) + 0.567 (Job
study, two major methods have been used. These
environment). The measure of strength of
methods include the calculation of both a
association in the regression analysis is given by
Tolerance test and a Variance Inflation Factor
the coefficient of determination denoted by R2.
(VIF). The results of the multicollinearity test
The R2 value for the present study is 0.702, which
were shown in Table 3. It is evident from the table
shows that 70.2% of the variation in total
that none of the tolerance levels of the
employee engagement can be explained by the
independent variables is less than or equal to 0.01
seven factors or independent variables. The
and all variance inflation factor values are well
model is statistically significant at a confidence
below 10. Further, the Durbin – Waston value for
level of 99 percent.
the present study was 2.134, which is at the
acceptable range of 1.3 and 2.5 shows that there The factor job content (Beta = 0.322), and work
were no auto correlation problems in the data. relationships (Beta = 0.280), shows that the
Thus, the measures selected for assessing the relationship between these factors and corruption
independent variables in the study do not reach is highly significant at1 percent. These results
the levels indicating the multicollinearity indicate that these two factors are the important
problem. factors responsible for employee engagement.
The study results also reveal that the other factors
Factors Affecting Employee Engagement such as Job outcome, personal image, and
To satisfy one of the objectives of the study, the procedural justice also influence the employee
surveyed data were further used for regression engagement and are significant at 5 percent,

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while the other factors such as job context and job proper relations with the supervisors and fellow
environment also influence the corruption factor, works in the organization.
but the relationship of these factors with
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p-ISSN: 2349-1701

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Figure 3: Factors Influence the Employee Engagement

Job content Work

relationships
Job context

Job Employee
outcomes Engagement

Job
environme
nt
Personal Procedural
image justice

Table 1 - Demographic profile of respondents

1.Gender No of Respondents Percentage
a) Male 107 71.34
b) Female 43 28.66
Total 150 100.0

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2.Age
(a) Less than 30 Years 09 6.00
(b) 30-35 Years 31 20.66
(c) 35-45 Years 65 43.34
(d) Above 45 Years. 45 30.00
Total 150 100.0
3.Experience
(a) Up to 5 years 20 13.34
(b) 5 to 10 years 45 30.00
(c) 10-15 years 60 40.00
(b) Above 15 years 25 16.66
Total 150 100.0

Table 2 - Overall Opinion of the Respondents Table 3 - Test of Multicollinearity

Satisfaction Level Frequency Percentage Collinearity Statistics
Strongly Disagree 15 10.00 Independent Variables Tolerance VIF
Disagree 25 16.66 Job content 0.514 1.725
Agree 62 41.34 Work relationships. 0.412 1.526
Strongly Agree 48 32.00 Job context 0.542 1.594
Total 150 100.0 Job outcome 0.352 1.258
Personal image 0.522 1.657
Procedural justice 0.364 1.568
Job environment 0.526 1.422
Table 4 - Regression Analysis
Un standardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients
Variables
B Std. Error Beta t Sig.
(Constant) 28.503 .704 40.491 .000
Job content 1.671 .289 .322 5.785 .000

Work relationships. 1.331 .298 .280 4.468 .000

Job context .257 .328 .053 .785 .434

Job outcome .396 .318 .084 1.246 .014

Personal image .717 .295 .157 2.429 .016

Procedural justice .577 .301 .123 1.916 .057

Job environment .567 .746 .051 .760 .448

Table 5 - Model Summary and Anova Results

R R Square Adjusted R Square df1 df2 Sig. F Change

.838 .702 .692 8 265 .000

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MIJBR – MITS International Journal of Business Research