PHRPG, Chapter of the Human Resource Planning Society

PHRPG, Chapter of the Human Resource Planning Society

An association for the development of human resource professionals

Philadelphia Region

Establishing a relationship between employee engagement and productivity

In 2002, the Philadelphia Human Resource Planning Group (PHRPG) Research Committee (Dr. Mickey Fineberg, Co-chair) studied the relationship between employee engagement and productivity as measured by the McCormick Employee Engagement Inventory (MEEI)©.

The MEEI© was developed as part of Dr. Marie T. McCormick's dissertation research in 1999 exploring engagement as a factor impacting employee satisfaction with large-scale organization change. Dr. McCormick's study involved some 340 respondents within two organizations. The research demonstrated significant correlations between levels of engagement (as measured by the MEEI©) and the degree of respondent satisfaction with large-scale change.

The Research Committee believed that employee engagement goes beyond mere "job satisfaction." Thus, employee engagement was defined as a personal state of authentic involvement, contribution and ownership. This led to the hypothesis that employee engagement is a reliable factor in differentiating distinct levels of organizational productivity.

Four regional, national, and international organizations including healthcare, educational and pharmaceutical companies participated in this research project. The database for this research included 740 employees. Participating organizations selected and reported their own quantitative measures of productivity. They also provided high or "benchmark" productivity units and units with distinctly less productivity in order to test the hypothesis.

The research found that employee engagement in benchmark productivity units was significantly higher than lower productivity units where productivity measures were valid and unit comparisons were between highly similar businesses. This was the case in 3 of 4 organizations assessed.

It was also learned that where the hypothesis was supported, engagement levels reached minimum scores of 4.0 ("Agree") out of a possible 5.0 ("Strongly Agree"). Additionally, key engagement factors comprised: customer focus, confidence in achieving goals, inclusion and collaboration, and personal responsibility to make things happen.

Upon completion of the research conducted in 2002, Delta Consultants and McCormick Consulting Group formed a business partnership to refine the MEEI© and offer it to organizations interested in measuring employee engagement.