Talk:Employee engagement/Archives/2015

Article lead
I note that there has been some difference of opinions around the content of the lead (lede) section. I have made an edit that adds a summary of the content and sections that are contained within this article. I have limited these changes to try and follow MOS:LEAD. I would suggest that some of the sections of the article are in need of work and that completing this might make finding consensus for the lead section a more straightforward task. Drchriswilliams (talk) 12:45, 22 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I have never read the manual of style before, Chris, but have just done so. It seems to contain mostly sensible rules of thumb, plus some pitfalls to avoid: ". . . The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies . . .".  The 'original' intro did not reference the notability of EE, nor establish context other than in a trite fashion.  I agree that it scored very high on brevity, but at the expense of realistic accuracy. I have just read an essay by a friend of mine, who is a professor of management at a Scottish university. He was writing for students, and exhorting them to be fully aware of the tendency of management writings to be led by "fad and fashion". They needed to see the detailed research that justified any new proposition. EE is not short of research, but an interested student might be confused by the variety of theoretical perspectives on what has become in English=speaking spheres a common-place term - ubiquity without maturity, you might say. For this reason the intro on this topic will ideally encourage the reader to go deeper into the topic; or at the very least it will make clear that are many lively and fascinating controversies simmering under the surface of what seems at first sight to have become an innocuous everyday buzz-word. Please don't take offence, by the way; we were editing simultaneously,  Kind regards, Alasdair Fraser 86.17.152.168 (talk) 13:51, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * My understanding of an edit war is where editors repeatedly revert (and re-revert) without giving adequate reasons. I don't really think that is what has happened here, although obviously the situation (in common with the topic) is not black and white. There is an economical 'definition' of employee engagement, which is illustrated by the 'Janitor at NASA' anecdote. There is a British version of that story which has a medieval VIP asking a mason on the building site of Durham Cathedral: "What are you doing". (He was carving a gargoyle spout for one of the high towers) The mason replied that he was helping to build an edifice for the perpetual glorification of God Almighty. Positive psychology has been around a long time perhaps, just using different language. BUT employee engagement merits a more subtle and comprehensive overview,in addition to the 'accesible' one provided by the picture. Wikipedia is not a comic, is it? 86.17.152.168 (talk) 14:28, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Elevating EE to a 'property of the relationship' is tending toward original research (salted by some POV perhaps) . ..
. . . and it is fundamentally misleading to a beginner. Interested pyschologists, business academics, and HR practioners have differing perspectives on EE, and I have a lot of sympathy with the idea that it would be helpful to the Wikipedia reader to have a simple statement of what it is that they have different perspectives about. Against that is the explanation (Reissner and Pagan, 2013) that the work that an employee does can be a focus for engagement, alongside or instead of the employing organisation. It is quite possible for a Wikipedia topic to generate both consensus and controversy at the same time, and when this is the case, the intro should perhaps reflect this. Employee engagement can encompass the complex motivations that influence a person's affective, behavioural, and cognitive responses to their work environment; it can also refer to the purposeful structuring of that work environment by the more influential actors within the organisation that 'owns' the work environment. But the complexity does not stop there, as some of the characteristics of a work situation are not under the control of the organisation, but rather arise in other ways - societal consensus, or national economic reality, or even geopolitical flux. But I am sure we can agree that it was probably NOT helpful to describe EE as an emergent property! > If there is a convincing body of writing that depends on the assumption that the locus of EE is the relationship between an employee and their employing organisation, then this should be given prominence in the article. But that would not undermine the fact that EE is seen by HR practitioners as part of the effort to manage the relationship between employee and organization, for the benefit (realistically as well as optimistically) of all. > I like the picture of the lunar module, and the accompanying story, and this serves quite well as a 'folksy' view of engagement, to counterbalance the present, fairly sober, description of what the topic of EE encompasses. > Don't you agree? 86.17.152.168 (talk) 18:49, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi 86.17.152.168. I have just reverted your most recent effort (after last time) at changing the article lead. The primary reason being that your new lead creates a serious disconnect between the lead and the article body. Yes, there may be an approach to employee engagement where it is seen largely as the strategic machination of HR practitioners, but the article clearly focuses on employee engagement as a property of the relationship between an employee and his work or employing organization. If you do think that the former perspective is underrepresented in this article then my all means make appropriate additions along those lines. Do not, however, simply change the lead sentence to reflect your preferred view. Regards Andrew (talk) 00:34, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Have you not just changed the lead sentence to reflect YOUR preferred view? I find it strange that you use the word 'machination', as I am not aware of any tendency amongst HR practitioners to utilise EE in any way that is not up-front and honest.  I really don't see the disconnect that you see - the article acknowledges that there are multiple published definitions of work/employee engagement, and it is a fact that some researchers even wish to distinguish between employee engagement and work engagement. Generalising in the interest of brevity,  what HR practitioners are interested in is the realisable benefits that can accrue to the stakeholders in their organisation. The article states that multiple definitions of EE cause difficulties for researchers in this field; is this surprising when the various constructs which are involved in the idea of EE are themselves subject to live and purposeful debate. I am not partial to the view that EE is 'old wine in new bottles'.  Rather, I believe that human employees bring very complex and subtle motivations and commitment to their work tasks, and EE (or WE) effectively encapsulates this . . . and the wide spread of the idea arises (it seems to me) because it is useful to practitioners.   86.17.152.168 (talk) 17:18, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi 86.17.152.168. Please don't misconstrue any equivalence in our approaches here. This is not a case of two editors pushing their personal preferences. This is a case of you looking to alter the lead in a way that does not reflect the article body, and me, as per relevant wiki-policies, having a problem with that. Yes, the article body mentions that EE is multiply defined, but as the article stands those definitions are all to do with the relationship between the employee and the organization/workplace. Again, if you do think that EE as an HR tactic is underrepresented in this article then make appropriate additions in the article body in the first instance.
 * Moving on, I have reverted your latest changes to the lead. My edit summary should make it clear why I did so. In general, and in the interests of article stability, I would recommend you make suggestions here before applying them to the article. Regards Andrew (talk) 23:44, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Reading the article shows that EE (or WE) is 'all about' the interaction of the employee and the situation in which they work. Sometimes, the formal organisation is only a small part of that situation, the informal context being more important. One of the writers quoted in the article takes a Marxist perspective, analysing in depth what is 'really going on' in a typical 'let's improve our employee engagement scenario'. It is gratifying and valuable to see the article reflect the breadth of research that has been pursued in elucidating the (sometimes simple - sometimes elusive) concept of employee engagement. Therefore it seems to me it is not a good good idea to patronise the Wiki reader by simplifying the topic's definition. It is not just a matter of the nexus between an employee and an organisation, so for those readers who only read the intro, the intro needs to do a better job. By all means improve the intro, Andrew; or would Adhib or another informed soul care to contribute? The greatest value in the idea of employee engagement lies in its recognition of the richness and complexity of the relationships (involving both people and ideas) that exist in the work context, combined with a belief that it is possible to make worthwhile discoveries from studying these relationships. The article offers a good starting point for anyone interested in this topic, and the intro should be the best it can be - surely you would agree? 86.17.152.168 (talk) 12:12, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi 86.17.152.168. You make some points here that I can agree with in the abstract, but they don't change my feeling about your latest efforts at improving the lead. If you would like to continue the conversation I suggest that you stick more closely to discussing the detail of your changes, or alternatively by asking me for clarification on any of my points. Maybe some of your desires for the article can be captured in an altered lead, but I don't think you have achieved this to date; and certainly not without creating liabilities in other areas. Again, and in line with Drchriswilliams's views below, I would recommend looking to improve the article body first, before fiddling around with the lead. Regards Andrew (talk) 03:27, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Time to split some hairs, people!
It is a good idea to merge employee engagement with work engagement into a single article, however, we may need to take note that there is a differece between employee engagement & work engagement. Work engagement is a sub-set of employee engagement - another sub-set would be the organization engagement (Saks, 2006; Macey & Schneider, 2008) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.120.55.113 (talk) 06:22, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Do not peddle your own wares in this article
I'm looking at you Rmc883. Unless you can confirm here that you are neither the author nor have a commercial or familial interest in the author's success, I will delete your contributions to this article as violating Wikipedia's conflict of interest principles, and am minded to report your other edits to the 'pedia for advertising. Adhib (talk) 17:23, 12 June 2015 (UTC)