The focus of this paper is the relationship of employee engagement with organizational communication. Moreover, the research investigates the relationship of the demographic determinants with employee engagement in Albanian bank sector. The research shows that the communication satisfaction dimensions strongly impact employee engagement. The relationship between demographic variables and employee engagement is presented in the study as well. This research does have practical implications for bank sector, mainly for top management and human resources department as how to increase the engagement of the employees.
There is a general belief that there is a connection between employee engagement and business results; a metadata analysis conducted by Harter et al. (2002) [
The Gallup Organisation (2006) [
The paper research will focus specifically on employee engagement in Albanian bank sector. Apart of the innovation and technology advancement, which are important as a competitive advantage, the next step the companies are trying to go further is to win a competitive advantage on human resources. While it’s easy to copy, absorb and transfer the technology and innovation, imperative remains how to engage the company’s human resources. The research investigates into detail how communication practices impact the employee engagement and to what extent the demographic characteristics are related with employee engagement.
The definition of employee engagement is relatively unclear (Dalal et al., 2008) [
The term embracement to describe the investment of “self” and “energy into one’s role” (Goffman, 1959) [
The communication satisfaction construct presented by Downs and Hazen (1977) [
Frank & Brownell (1989) [
The lack or poor communication is perhaps the most common problem among companies nowadays. Most employees, regardless of their position in the organization, will cite communication as an area in their workplace that needs improvement (Prime Resources, Inc, 2009) [
The research has the objective to study the impact of employee organizational communication on employee engagement. In addition, the research objective is to investigate until what extends is the relationship of gender, age group, highest level of education, and position within organization, years of experience, and years of experience in the organization into the engagement of employees. On the basis of two main objectives, the following hypothesis will be investigated:
・ H1: Gender has positive relationship with employee engagement.
・ H2: Age group has positive relationship with employee engagement.
・ H3: Highest level of education has positive relationship with employee engagement.
・ H4: Country of study has positive relationship with employee engagement.
・ H5: Position within organization has positive relationship with employee engagement.
・ H6: Years of experience has positive relationship with employee engagement.
・ H7: Years of experience in the organization has positive relationship with employee engagement.
・ H8: There is significant relationship between employee engagement and employee communication and the employee communication is a predictor for the employee engagement level.
The primary data used in this research are collected through 405 questionnaires distributed to the employees in the bank sector.
The questionnaire had a dedicated section on general and demographic information questions. The second part of the questionnaire was composed of the questions measuring the organizational communication satisfaction. Since review of the literature clearly suggests that organizational communication plays a profound role in shaping employee attitudes, the communication is considered as an antecedent of employee engagement. The organizational communication satisfaction was measured through the Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ) developed by Downs Hazen (1977) [
The section dedicated employee engagement (characterized by vigor, dedication and absorption) is composed of questions to measure employee engagement through Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. The Likert scale, start- ing from 1 (I am not at all satisfied) to 5 (I am fully satisfied) is applied.
The questionnaire was distributed to 405 employees, part of the bank sector services in Albania, central and second levels banks. The non-response rate (Lohr, 2010) [
The questionnaire was previously piloted as a first phase among employees. The sample selection for bank selection distributed in the country is drawn randomly aiming to produce representative results at national level. SPSS 15.0 is used for the data analysis.
The values of the respondents, coming from
Gender | Age-group | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Frequency | Percent | Frequency | Percent | |||
Male | 130 | 32.2 | 20 - 29 years | 149 | 36.9 | |
Female | 274 | 67.8 | 30 - 39 years | 204 | 50.5 | |
Total | 404 | 100.0 | 40 - 49 years | 34 | 8.4 | |
Highest completed level of education | 50 - 59 years | 17 | 4.2 | |||
Frequency | Percent | Total | 404 | 100.0 | ||
Upper secondary | 11 | 2.7 | Years of experience | |||
Bachelor | 120 | 29.7 | Frequency | Percent | ||
Master professional/scientific | 264 | 65.3 | Below 5 years | 133 | 32.9 | |
Doctorate/PhD | 9 | 2.2 | 5 - 10 years | 161 | 39.9 | |
Total | 404 | 100.0 | 10 - 15 years | 52 | 12.9 | |
Country of study | 15 - 20 years | 34 | 8.4 | |||
Frequency | Percent | 20 - 25 years | 6 | 1.5 | ||
State university in Albania | 290 | 71.8 | 25 years and above | 18 | 4.5 | |
Private university in Albania | 53 | 13.1 | Total | 404 | 100.0 | |
Total | 404 | 100.0 | ||||
Years of experience in the organization | Position within organization | |||||
Frequency | Percent | Frequency | Percent | |||
Below 5 years | 218 | 54.0 | Specialist | 275 | 68.1 | |
5 - 10 years | 164 | 40.6 | Low level manager | 85 | 21.0 | |
10 - 15 years | 15 | 3.7 | Middle level manager and senior leaders | 44 | 10.9 | |
15 - 20 years | 2 | 0.5 | Total | 404 | 100.0 | |
20 - 25 years | 4 | 1.0 | ||||
25 years and above | 1 | 0.2 | ||||
Total | 404 | 100.0 | ||||
“years in the organization 10 - 15 and above”, the percentage decreases rapidly. The data shows that the employee turnover becomes higher after ten years in one organization. After having 10 years experience in the company, the employees tend to change the organization, the turnover is quite distinguished. Another characteristics of the employees in bank sector is the young age, 87.4% are of group age 20 - 39 years. And the last characteristics presented are that 65.3% of employees hold a master professional/scientific. The composition is quite young, very well educated and after the tenth year of work they leave the company. The challenge is to engage the employees to turn as a competitive advantage while the HR of the company has invested in their trainings, on the job qualifications, etc.
To test the hypothesis on the significance of demographic section questions (gender, education, years in organization, experience, position within organization, age group) a correlation is established between all demographic variables and employee engagement. As already known, correlation is a bivariate measure of association (strength) of the relationship between two variables. It aims at ascertaining whether or not two variables) are varying together. It varies from 0 (no-relationship) to 1 (perfect linear relationship) or −1 (perfect negative linear relationship).
Employee engagement | ||
---|---|---|
Gender | Pearson correlation | 0.009 |
Sig. (2-tailed) | 0.000 | |
N | 6456 | |
Highest level of education | Pearson correlation | 0.080 (**) |
Sig. (2-tailed) | 0.000 | |
N | 6456 | |
Country of study | Pearson correlation | 0.081 (**) |
Sig. (2-tailed) | 0.000 | |
N | 6456 | |
Age group | Pearson correlation | 0.207 (**) |
Sig. (2-tailed) | 0.000 | |
N | 6456 | |
Years of experience | Pearson correlation | 0.240 (**) |
Sig. (2-tailed) | 0.000 | |
N | 6456 | |
Years of experience within organization | Pearson correlation | 0.129 (**) |
Sig. (2-tailed) | 0.000 | |
N | 6456 | |
Position within organization | Pearson correlation | 0.035 (**) |
Sig. (2-tailed) | 0.005 | |
N | 6456 |
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
characteristic and status in organization as below: no relationship with gender; it is significantly positive correlated (p = 0.000) with highest level of education of the employees; there is a positive significance relation- ship between the engagement and country of study because the p = 0.000) this case, Pearson Correlation is 0.080 so the independent variable Country of study explains 8% of the variance in the dependent variable that in our case is employee engagement) and to conclude employee engagement has a significant relationship with age group.
As shown in
There is a positive significance relationship between the engagement years of experience within organization because the p = 0.000. Employee engagement has a significant relationship with position within organization too. Thus it is accepted the hypothesis from H2 to H7, and drown off so far the hypothesis H1. The analysis regarding hypothesis H8 will continue Section 4.4.
In order to test the influence of demographic characteristics on employee engagement, ANOVA was performed in SPSS. The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used to determine whether there are any significant differences between the means of two or more independent (unrelated) groups.
The results show that employees group age 50 - 59, are the most engaged (mean = 4.38) (
Aiming to analyse hypothesis H8, the authors will investigate weather in the model analysed and the data collected, if do exist a significant statistical relationship between communication and employee engagement. If a significant relationship will result, then the research will go in depth to establish a econometric model to measure the impact has the communication on employee engagement. Correlation will indicate and measure the relationship among two variables: Independet variables referring to Communication (organizational perspective, personal feedback, organizational integration, supervisory communication, communication climate, horizontal communication , media quality, subordinate communication) (Downs/Hazen 1977) [
As already known, the correlation values vary from −1 to 1. The data produced
The theoretical model for the simple regression is:
where x―communication organization.
SPSS Statistics generate quite a few tables of output for a simple regression analysis. In this section, we put only the three main tables required to understand the results from the multiple regression procedure.
Sum of squares | df | Mean square | F | Sig. | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gender | Between groups | 261.002 | 50 | 1.883 | 17.494 | 0.06 |
Within groups | 648.149 | 6405 | 0.122 | |||
Total | 909.151 | 6455 | ||||
Highest level of education | Between groups | 1283.284 | 196 | 6.547 | 52.632 | 0.000 |
Within groups | 778.611 | 6259 | 0.124 | |||
Total | 2061.895 | 6455 | ||||
Country of study | Between groups | 1695.432 | 196 | 8.650 | 29.501 | 0.000 |
Within groups | 1835.258 | 6259 | 0.293 | |||
Total | 3530.690 | 6455 | ||||
Position within organization | Between groups | 1696.417 | 196 | 8.655 | 42.207 | 0.000 |
Within groups | 1283.512 | 6259 | 0.205 | |||
Total | 2979.929 | 6455 | ||||
Age group | Between groups | 2335.984 | 196 | 11.918 | 52.679 | 0.000 |
Within groups | 1416.056 | 6259 | 0.226 | |||
Total | 3752.039 | 6455 | ||||
Years of experience | Between groups | 6345.674 | 196 | 32.376 | 50.418 | 0.000 |
Within groups | 4019.223 | 6259 | 0.642 | |||
Total | 10,364.897 | 6455 | ||||
Years of experience within organization | Between groups | 1748.441 | 196 | 8.921 | 34.692 | 0.000 |
Within groups | 1609.432 | 6259 | 0.257 | |||
Total | 3357.873 | 6455 |
From the result of the table, R can be considered to be one measure of the quality of the prediction of the dependent variable; in this case, Employee Engagement. A value of R = 0.675, indicates a good level of prediction. R2 value (also called the coefficient of determination), which is the proportion of variance in the dependent variable that can be explained by the independent variables. R2 = 0.630 that the independent variables explain 63.0% of the variability of the depended variable.
The F-ratio in the ANOVA
The general form of the equation to predict the theoretical model of employee engagement it is generated by
Gender | Age-group | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mean | Std. deviation | Mean | Std. deviation | ||
Male | 3.59 | 0.69 | 20 - 29 years | 3.59 | 0.61 |
Female | 3.71 | 0.62 | 30 - 39 years | 3.65 | 0.65 |
Total | 3.67 | 0.64 | 40 - 49 years | 3.83 | 0.56 |
Highest completed level of education | 50 - 59 years | 4.38 | 0.61 | ||
Mean | Std. deviation | Total | 3.67 | 0.64 | |
Upper secondary | 3.68 | 0.86 | Years of experience | ||
Bachelor | 3.74 | 0.71 | Mean | Std. deviation | |
Master professional/scientific | 3.65 | 0.60 | Below 5 years | 3.6 | 0.6 |
Doctorate/PhD | 3.32 | 0.44 | 5 - 10 years | 3.7 | 0.7 |
Total | 3.67 | 0.64 | 10 - 15 years | 3.9 | 0.5 |
Place of study | 15 - 20 years | 3.9 | 0.2 | ||
Mean | Std. deviation | 20 - 25 years | 3.8 | 1.1 | |
State university in Albania | 3.64 | 0.65 | 25 years and above | 4.1 | . |
Private university in Albania | 3.69 | 0.68 | Total | 3.7 | 0.6 |
University in another state | 3.79 | 0.60 | Position within organization | ||
Total | 3.67 | 0.64 | Mean | Std. deviation | |
Years of experience in the organization | Specialist | 3.65 | 0.63 | ||
Mean | Std. deviation | Low Level Manager | 3.7 | 0.68 | |
Below 5 years | 3.64 | 0.59 | Middle level manager and senior leaders | 3.69 | 0.68 |
5 - 10 years | 3.55 | 0.70 | Total | 3.67 | 0.64 |
10 - 15 years | 3.73 | 0.51 | |||
15 - 20 years | 3.88 | 0.48 | |||
20 - 25 years | 4.00 | 0.48 | |||
25 years and above | 4.38 | 0.59 | |||
Total | 3.67 | 0.64 |
Regression analysis also revealed that the employee engagement can be predicted correctly by employee communication since the r2 coefficient of the determination is 0.630.
The regression model for employee engagement:
The data analysis show that when the independent variable differs increases by one unit in Likert scale (not at all satisfied) into (not satisfied), the level of employee engagement in the organisation is increased by 12.44%. Indeed, when the independent variable increases by four units in Likert scale (not at all satisfied) into (highly satisfied), the level of employee engagement in the organisation is increased by 49.76%.
The theoretical contribution of this paper lies in establishing and testing a model of the relationship between
Correlations | |||
---|---|---|---|
Employee engagement | Organizational communication | ||
Employee engagement | Pearson correlation | 1 | 0.575** |
Sig. (2-tailed) | 0.000 | ||
N | 6456 | 6456 |
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Model summary | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Model | R | r square | Adjusted R square | Std. error of the estimate |
1 | 0.675a | 0.630 | 0.630 | 0.52 |
aPredictors: (constant), organizational communication.
ANOVAs | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Model | Sum of squares | df | Mean square | F | Sig. | |
1 | Regression | 890.412 | 1 | 890.412 | 3185.950 | 0.000a |
Residual | 1803.770 | 6454 | 0.279 | |||
Total | 2694.183 | 6455 |
aPredictors: (constant), organizational communication. bDependent variable: employee engagement.
Coefficientsa | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Model | Unstandardized coefficients | Standardized coefficients | t | Sig. | ||
B | Std. error | Beta | ||||
1 | (Constant) | 1.464 | 0.040 | 36.794 | 0.000 | |
Organizational communication | 0.622 | 0.011 | 0.575 | 56.444 | 0.000 |
aDependent variable: employee engagement.
employee engagement and organizational communication, and investigating the demographic determinants of employee engagement. Analysed and tested in bank sector in Albania, we proved that demographic dimensions were related with employee engagement. The data analysis proved that employee engagement had a positive relation with the years of experience; employees with more years of experience were more engaged. In addition, the research proved that group age had a positive correlation with employee engagement (the highest level of engagement mean = 4.38 resulted group age 50 - 59 years).
The analysis shows that the position in the organisation has a relationship with employee engagement and the data show that the low levels of managers are more engaged than the group of middle and highest level of managers. The level of education significantly has a relation with employee engagement, while it is proved that gender has no significance on employee engagement, and man or woman can be engaged almost equally.
Communication practices in the organisation, significantly impact the employee engagement data show. The good practices and establishing a healthy communication climate will enhance employee engagement.
The model is tested in developing countries still facing political and economic challenges. May be some results can be different in countries with high level of stability and good practices of organisations established.
Employee engagement research studies are interesting to be analysed under the view of other factors that might influence, as for the role of the leadership, different styles which is more correlated and linked.
One of the limitations of the study may be that the communication practices in the organisations are relatively new, considering that the private sector in Albania was liberalised after the year 1991. Newly presented practices of communication need still to be improved until considered well structures and strong basis. The horizontal communication, informal one, need further to be analysed.