ASSESSMENT OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT TO REALIZE ORGANIZATION'S VISION AT ETHIOPIAN ELECTRIC UTILITY (A Case of Addis Ababa Area)

Abstract

Employee engagement has gained popularity over the past twenty years. Advocated positive outcomes of employee engagement make organizations develop the culture of engagement at work as a priority for organization. Although much is written on the subject of employee engagement, little is known about the engagement of employees at the utility organizations. An engaged employee is aware of business context, and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organization. This study has the objective of assessing employee engagement using Gallup model. It also addresses the problems of gaps through the survey done at EEU, Addis Ababa area employees. Methodologically, the research is conducted using descriptive survey method and a mixed approach of data collection used; the sample sizes was 287 employees and were selected using stratified random sampling technique. For qualitative, Process owners were selected for interview through purposive sampling. The data collected through questioners (Gallup Q12& its replication of), Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) were used for interpretation while the qualitative data were content analyzed for triangulation. The study in EEU shows organizational and employee objectives are not clear and well-discussed between employees and their supervisors, employee engagement doesn’t reinforce the alignment. Hence, the research indicates that effectiveness of the current engagement system of the company is negatively affected by the absence of clarity on and alignment between organizational and employee objectives and lack of adequate discussions. Therefore, the company should come up with the concept of employee engagement as a central strategic human resources management issue which requires a separate strategy in maintaining motivated, satisfied, committed, and empowered workforce, decision makers also have to exert maximum effort to achieve their intended objective, as employees are the key for organization’s survival, success and so as to improve organizational performance.