Research Problem

Employee engagement has been one of the topics of debate in recent years due to its importance in business. It has been suggested that highly engaged employees can improve their productivity, motivation, and performance which can significantly reduce the recruitment and selection costs as the market for hiring is highly competitive.  The modern business environment has become highly competitive and the market has become highly volatile (Sendawula et al., 2018). The workforce plays a key role in providing a sustainable competitive advantage to businesses, so leaders need to manage their workforce for improving their productivity. The workforce needs to be highly motivated and engaged for being productive so managing the workforce can change their behaviour (Al-dalahmeh, Khalaf & Obeidat, 2018).  Therefore, the current study investigates the influence of engagement of the employees on their performance but the study is limited to the millennials.

Financial incentives such as compensation and bonuses, and intangible rewards can provide sustainable motivation to the employees for being committed, dedicated and diligent, which can have a positive influence on the engagement of the performance (Sendawula et al., 2018).  However, the majority of the studies have failed to consider the impact of engagement on the millennials, and its importance for the millennials (Al-dalahmeh, Khalaf & Obeidat, 2018). Therefore, the research will examine the importance of engagement for the millennials and its influence on the engagement level of the millennials. The millennials constitute the majority of the workforce in the global market so it is necessary to understand the significance of engagement for these employees.

Based on the above research problem, the study will address the following objectives:

• To investigate the importance of employee engagement for the millennial employees
• To examine the impact of employee engagement on the performance of the millennial workforce
• To recommend suitable strategies for improving the engagement level of the millennials

• What is the importance of employee engagement for millennial employees?
• What is the impact of employee engagement on the performance of the millennial workforce?

The research has used a secondary systematic literature review where past studies on the employee engagement of millennials have been examined to identify the relationship with employee performance.  The data has been collected from peer-reviewed journals for examining the impact of engagement on employee performance where 4 peer-reviewed journals have been used (Snyder, 2019).  These peer-reviewed journals have been chosen by initially developing key search terms and looking for the most article on the topic.

Sendawula et al., (2018) investigate the contribution of employee engagement and training on the performance of the employees in the healthcare sector in Uganda.  The data was collected from 150 respondents from four hospitals and regression analysis was used to examine the association between the variables.  The results showed that employee engagement can predict the performance of the employees by 45%, and there is a positive correlation between employee engagement and performance.  The research has been significantly important for the policymakers, government, and managers for improving the performance of the employees in the health sector.  However, as the study was cross-sectional, it was unable to examine the change in behaviour of the employees were not possible.  In terms of the knowledge of the researcher, the study examined the mediation role of employee engagement on the performance of the employees, and also provided partial evidence empirically on the mediation role of employee engagement on the relationship between employee performance and training in Uganda Healthcare sector.  However, the study focused on employees from different age groups so the results are implied to all employee age groups.  The results showed that engaged employees are aware of the context in business, and can effectively work with other employees to improve their performances providing significant benefit to the businesses.  The engagement has been characterized by absorption, energy, efficacy, dedication, enthusiasm, and involvement which is a catalyst for the performance of the employees.

Research Objectives

Motyka, (2018) conducted a systematic literature review for examining the relationship between employee engagement and performance. Low employee engagement has been identified as one of the most important economic problems, and it is one of the potential problems of declining performance among the workforce.  Thus, the literature examines the concept of work engagement and its implication for the employees.  It summarises past studies based on their categorization and order and identifies the gaps in knowledge. It facilitates in proposing an agenda for future studies.  The findings are described synthetically and provide both academic and practical implications.  The studies have a statistically significant relationship between employee engagement and the performance of the employees at the individual level. Other studies investigated have shown a relationship between work engagement, and contextual performance which includes aspects such as extra-role behaviour, organizational citizenship behaviour, employee retention, turnover, absenteeism, innovative behaviour, active learning behaviour, knowledge sharing, creativity, productivity, career, and organizational commitment, proactivity, adaptability, decision making quality, safety behaviours and adaptability.  However, there have been studies showing mixed results where work engagement has been the antecedent of analytical decision making and not the intuitive decision making.  Similarly, it has also been revealed that engagement has not been related to the turnover intention and other studies have shown that organisational citizenship behaviour is not linked with engagement. 

Al-dalahmeh, Khalaf and Obeidat (2018), evaluate the engagement of the employees working in the IT industry and its impact on the performance of the organisation where job satisfaction has been checked for its mediating role in the business.  The study examined the Jordanian banking sector where the IT Departments’ employees were investigated. The data was collected from 429 employees and regression analysis was conducted to check the association between the dependent and the independent variables. The results showed that the engagement of the IT employees significantly affected organisational performance. The research also implies that the IT department in the banking sector in Jordan have tried their best for promoting and facilitate the engagement of the IT employees for improving the performance that yields a positive result for the bank.  The study has also presented various recommendations for future research, and the most effective was the application of the research design in other sectors, countries, and cultures to identify the changes in results and significance of the relationship.

Carter et al., (2018) examined the influence of self-efficacy and employee engagement on the individual performance of the employees.  Very few studies have examined the relationship between self-efficacy on job performance in an objective setting.   In terms of the employee engagement studies, there has been a lack of rigorous individual studies and the majority of the studies have been on the organizational level for linking the employee engagement and performance of the organization. Moreover, its benefits have been discussed in business literature.  The research evaluated the additive and individual impact of employee engagement and self-efficacy on job performance at the individuals has remained unknown.  The study conducted a longitudinal study by considering the financial services firms in Australia.  The data was used to measure job performance objective which showed that the additive impact has a 12% and 39% explaining capability.  Therefore, it is essential for the practitioners in human resource management for addressing the engagement of the employees for boosting their job performance and encourage scholars for incorporating different measures while performing the job.

Conclusion

The evaluation of the literature has clearly shown that the millennial perspective is missing in all the studies, and the majority of the other studies have not narrowed down the research to look into the influence on the millennials.  The millennials have different values compared to the previous generations so there are other factors that are considered more important for motivating and engaging the employees. There have been studies showing mixed results where work engagement has been the antecedent of analytical decision making and not the intuitive decision making.  Similarly, it has also been revealed that engagement has not been related to the turnover intention and other studies have shown that organisational citizenship behaviour is not linked with engagement. It implies that there have been mixed opinions among the past authors considering the overall demographic age group but the results are expected to be different for the millennials. The millennials constitute the majority of the workforce in the global market so it is necessary to understand the significance of engagement for these employees.  The study shows that in the majority of the instances, employee engagement has been identified to have a significant influence on the performance of the employees in the different sectors.  The studies have also shown the mediation role of employee engagement on the performance of the employees so the individual performance of the millennials has not been examined.  The results from the healthcare sector are similar to the banking sector, which implies that the majority of the companies are trying their best to improve the engagement level of the employees. 

References

Al-dalahmeh, M., Khalaf, R., & Obeidat, B. (2018). The effect of employee engagement on organizational performance via the mediating role of job satisfaction: The case of IT employees in Jordanian banking sector. Modern Applied Science, 12(6), 17-43.

Carter, W. R., Nesbit, P. L., Badham, R. J., Parker, S. K., & Sung, L. K. (2018). The effects of employee engagement and self-efficacy on job performance: a longitudinal field study. The international journal of human resource management, 29(17), 2483-2502.

Motyka, B. (2018). Employee engagement and performance: a systematic literature review. International Journal of Management and Economics, 54(3), 227-244.

Sendawula, K., Nakyejwe Kimuli, S., Bananuka, J., & Najjemba Muganga, G. (2018). Training, employee engagement and employee performance: Evidence from Uganda’s health sector. Cogent Business & Management, 5(1), 1470891.

Snyder, H. (2019). Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines. Journal of business research, 104, 333-339.