Employee engagement and job satisfaction

Active employee engagement and job satisfaction are vital components in agency strategies for improved performance and productivity, and also for the retention of talented employees. With the growing complexity of our work and the tighter labour market, they are assuming even greater importance.

Employee engagement is a broad concept. It covers the level of commitment, both rational and emotional,¹ an employee has to the organisation that employs them, together with how effectively they work and their intention to remain with the organisation. Employee engagement can be described as a two-way relationship between the organisation and the employee, based on the effort expended by organisations to engage their employees, and the level of engagement employees offer their employer. The level of employee engagement in an organisation can vary considerably and will have implications for the strategies agencies use to influence productivity and retention.

Job satisfaction is a related concept. It reflects how content an employee is with their job. Job satisfaction equates to the emotional component of employee engagement (or how employees feel about their job).

Agencies’ understanding and ability to measure employee engagement and job satisfaction are essential to better understanding their workforce and to improving employee well-being, performance, and retention.

This chapter draws on information from the agency and employee surveys to explore levels of employee engagement and job satisfaction in the APS. It begins by looking at employees’ satisfaction with a range of factors identified in the literature as impacting on employee engagement and also looks at the related issue of APS identity and pride. It then examines employees’ satisfaction with a range of issues that contribute to their overall levels of job satisfaction. This is followed by a more detailed look at employees’ ability to maintain an effective work-life balance, an issue that can have an important impact on job satisfaction and employee engagement.

1 Rational commitment refers to the degree to which an employee believes that their manager, team or organisation is interested in their financial, developmental and professional needs. Emotional commitment is the degree to which employees value, enjoy and believe in their jobs, managers, teams and organisations. See Corporate Leadership Council 2004, Driving Employee Performance and Retention through Engagement: A Quantitative Analysis of the Effectiveness of Employee Engagement Strategies, CLC, Washington, D.C., <http://www.corporateleadershipcouncil.com>