Whether a Relationship Exists between Equity and Inclusion and its Effects on Employee Engagement

Equity, Inclusion, and the Link between Employee Engagements
Jessica Linton
University Affiliation
Abstract
Employee engagement is now a top priority among senior business executives. Having a workforce constituted of high-performing employees is important for business survival. Business leaders know that having employees that are highly motivated results in bottom-line performance, productivity, as well as innovation. There is, also, a cost reduction of retaining and hiring top talents in the competitive markets. Despite employers seeing the need for improved employee motivation, many of them are unable to develop tangible strategies to tackle the engagement objective. Many companies are encouraged to measure their levels of drive despite business performance being directly tied to employee commitment. To ensure that employee incentive remains a top priority in the organizational cultures, business leaders should invest in employee inclusion and equity. The capstone project establishes the relationship that exists between employee engagement and employee inclusion and equity providing avenues through which employers can improve their business performances. The capstone project also analyzes the different trends and effects of employee commitment and the factors that can help organizations improve employee motivation among under-represented groups of various populations. The employee engagement in various regions around the globe is also analyzed to bring out the effects of engaged and disengaged employees.

The regional differences in employee enthusiasm are linked to the employee inclusion and equity by the societal trends such as technological changes, demographic disruptions as well as economic changes.
Table of Contents
TOC o 2-2 t “Heading, 3″Abstract PAGEREF _Toc467958880 h 2
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION PAGEREF _Toc467958881 h 4
Background PAGEREF _Toc467958882 h 4
Problem Statement PAGEREF _Toc467958883 h 7
Thesis Statement PAGEREF _Toc467958884 h 7
Research Objective PAGEREF _Toc467958885 h 7
Research Questions PAGEREF _Toc467958886 h 8
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW PAGEREF _Toc467958887 h 9
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY PAGEREF _Toc467958888 h 22
CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH FINDINGS PAGEREF _Toc467958889 h 25
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS PAGEREF _Toc467958890 h 27
REFERENCES PAGEREF _Toc467958891 h 35

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTIONBackgroundHaving a positive relationship between the performance of an organization and the employee engagement is related directly to organizational cultures such as equity and inclusion. Equity in employment involves employers engaging all the proactive employment practices that will incorporate all the groups of a population in the workplace. Employee equity includes the treatment of employees in a similar way as well as ensuring that there are ways set in place to accommodate for the differences in different populations. Employers are, therefore, required to do away with all the barriers that could hinder given population groups from excelling in the workplace and receiving promotions (Alfes, Shantz, Truss, & Soane, 2013). For instance, employees in wheelchairs should be in a position to access buildings easily. Equity in the workplace also entails positive policies in areas of employee hiring, retention, training, as well as promotion.
On the other hand, employee inclusion in the workplace involves the employees being valued, supported, and respected despite their status in the society, their health, or their job positions. Employee inclusion also focuses on the needs of the individuals and ensuring that there are right conditions that ensure the employees achieve their full potential. Any organization that practices employee inclusion reflects it in their culture, relationships, as well as practices in the diverse workforce.
Employee equity and inclusion result in increased productivity, retention, customer loyalty, employee safety, as well as higher profitability levels. Employee engagement is also linked to the customer satisfaction (Cole, Walter, Bedeian, & O’Boyle, 2012). With employees being disengaged, they show a significant fiscal impact on the employer, increased sick leaves, and lowered productivity. However, having higher employee retention rates depends on the organization’s culture on employee equity and inclusion that in turn reduce the turnover rates. Organizations should aim at leveraging employee engagement to gain a competitive advantage and invest in it as a human resource strategic role. The competitive and financial advantages of having employees engaged in an organization can best be measured using the commitment and engagement initiatives. Unless employers measure the employee engagement, they will be misinformed of the strategies that improve the productivity of the organizations. They should, therefore, make use of employee surveys, gap analysis, and different focus groups that can help them obtain the data necessary for making important company decisions. Moreover, lack of employee engagement results in increased employee turnover that results in a decline in labor efficiency and ultimately affects the customer loyalty due to a decrease in the value of all stakeholders (Roof, 2015).
One of the ways to have an engaged workforce is articulating the elements that make up a successful employee and communicating the parameters of defining success. All employees need to be aware of what is expected of them and how their individual activities impact the total company performance. For instance, employees can evaluate themselves on the number of times people recognize their input, their access to tools for job performance, the nature of relationships with the supervisors, as well as the commitment of associates to doing quality jobs. Such individual evaluations widely reveal the level of employee engagement. Most of the highly engaged employees are focused on getting to their individual targets that are often tied to the company objectives. Employers have a responsibility of embedding and communicating goals to the employees through tactics such as company meetings and management briefings. It is difficult to transform employees from a non-engaged to engaged cultures without employers investing in effective hiring procedures.
Many companies fail to enter their mode of growth carefully and at the same time maintain a sharp focus on containing their business costs. Organizations are recommended to identify the three factors of success that include effective communication among employees, better customer service, and high-level employee engagements (Roof, 2015). They should also identify the benefits of having strong executive leaderships to maintain the cultures of employee inclusion and equity. Highly engaged employees help their employer in maximizing the business investments in the human capital, reduce turnover costs, improve productivity, as well as impact the bottom line directly. Talent management is also vital in that employees receive tools needed for their career success resulting in the outcomes that are being sought after in the marketplace. Employers must also submit to the win-win proposition that involves availing employees with tools needed for their success, appreciating and supporting their opportunities for growth, as well as giving them appropriate recognition and awards for any contributions they make.
The employee engagement is the emotional employee commitment to their employer’s organization and all its goals and objectives. Employee engagement goes beyond having workers that are willing to further the goals of an organization to having them naturally inclined to go beyond and above the mission of the organization. Moreover, employee engagement must have an element of discretionary effort. Employee engagement is important in that it ensures the existence of a continually promoted mutual commitment for both the employee and the employer and ensure that their institution is progressing and successful. Employee engagement is important in encouraging the natural drive of all employees in an organization as well as creating an attachment that leads to improved quality of work as well as higher production levels. Without employee engagement, the employer cannot be certain that the employees have commitment and passion that will drive them into investing themselves and expanding their discretionary efforts to see their employer excel in their business.
The relationship between employee inclusion and equity is distinct and leads to the promotion of employee engagement. While equity looks into appreciating the differences in the task force mix, employee inclusion looks into having the mechanism of employee equity to work in tandem with all the management structures.
The purpose of this capstone is to document the relationship that exists between equity and inclusion and the subsequent effects on the element of employee engagement. The scholarly research used for reference relates employee engagement to the positive outcomes of employee equity and inclusion. The report fully integrates academic insights to support the analysis done in this study.
Problem StatementMost organization have a problem with employee management and retention as a result of poor employee inclusion and equity strategies. Lack of proper employee inclusion and equity results in low levels of employee engagement, limiting employer’s success. The capstone, therefore, seeks to establish if there exists a relationship between equity and inclusion and thereafter elaborate the effect of the relationship on employee engagement.
Thesis StatementDespite the lack of equity and inclusion in many workplace cultures, employee equity and inclusion affects employee engagement. Employers realize that both elements directly influence employee engagement, which in turn results in the business success of the organization.
Research ObjectiveThe objective of this capstone project research is to understand:
The relationship between employee inclusion and equity in the workplace.
The effects that employee inclusion and equity in the workplace have on employee engagement.
Research QuestionsThe research questions that guided this research include:
How do employee inclusion and equity in the workplace relate to each other?
What are the ways in which organizations can create a culture of employee inclusion and equity in the workplace?
What are the effects of employee inclusion and equity in the workplace on employee engagement?
How does employee inclusion affect the overall business performance in an organization?
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEWMost of the human resource departments face the challenge posed by the rapid change of the workforce around the globe. Issues of inclusion and equity among employees result mostly from cultural evolution, emerging markets, generational turnovers, widespread immigrations, as well as advanced technology (Alfes, Shantz, Truss, & Soane, 2013). All these factors have led to the complicated industrial as well as corporate ecosystems that have both broken down the old barriers in retaining, recruiting, and developing talents and created new ones. The desire of business leaders in many world organizations led to the prominence of work equity due to the need for developing collaborative, creative, and cohesive working environments that promote growth (Alfes, Shantz, Truss, & Soane, 2013).
Employee equity involves having a mixture of similarities as well as differences such as values, beliefs, characteristics, behaviors, preferences, and backgrounds. However, employee inclusion is broken down further into visible traits such as physical abilities, race, body type, gender, and age. It is also broken down into the invisible elements of equity such as socio-economic status, religion, sexual orientations, parental status, and education. Organizations that take into consideration the above elements realize high inclusion levels and an ultimate increase in the levels of employee engagement (Cottrill, Lopez, & Hoffman, 2014). While employee inclusion is closely related to employee equity, it is different in that employee inclusion involves achieving an environment at the workplace that treats all the individuals in a fair and respectful manner and providing equal access to resources and opportunities. The main goal of employee inclusion and equity culminates to the organization’s success.
Having an employee task force that is highly engaged due to equity and inclusion has many advantages at all the levels of an organization (Shantz, Alfes, Truss, & Soane, 2013). Mainly, the organizations benefit from inclusion and employee equity by addressing the huge retirement crises through acquiring talents from the demographics that have previously been under-tapped. There has been a concurrent departure by the baby boomer generation from the most organization and a subsequent rise in the millennial generation in the current workforce. The result of the departure and entry has been a change in the implications on talent management strategies of most organizations. According to Roof (2005), the return on equity has been found to be at 53% higher than the average for most companies that have been ranked at the top executive board quartile regarding equity.
Companies that invest in employee equity and inclusion have been found to perform better since employees having different backgrounds, as well as lifestyles, challenge each other to achieve better results. Moreover, most company managers have agreed to the fact that employee equity mainly creates collaboration in their organizations. Lack of employee equity does not lead to deep breakthroughs and inquiries that better the company performance. The organizations that appreciate employee equity and inclusion do not become insular since the working teams are in a position to establish a wide range of business solutions. Notably, organizations that openly appreciate and advocate for the values of equity and inclusion appeal to a wider base of customers and suppliers (Patrick & Kumar, 2012).
Over the years, inclusion and equity in the workplace have gained corporate importance. Over 55 percent of companies promote employee equity while over 42 percent of employee equity programs are cheered by the human resource heads, CEOs, and the company’s top leaderships (Biswas, Varma, & Ramaswami, 2013). In North America, the employee inclusion and equity programs are designed to be centralized while those in Europe and Asia are relaxed. Nevertheless, all the regions in the world have a common practice of focusing heavily on promoting and hiring women. Focusing on women inclusion and equity in the workplace is as a result of their 50 percent constitution of the whole world’s population. The inclusion of women enshrined and embracing them as an equal entity within the organization ensures the pursuit and successful completion of common goals, (Sharma & Sharma, 2015).
Furthermore, women are easier to integrate into any company than men since men are highly represented in the high corporate levels of the workplace. Due to the overall cultural differences in the workplace, much of the world business leadership aim at filling in the huge gaps reflected in the world’s population. They mainly focus on the under-represented groups such as the workers who are over the age of 50, the ethnic and religious minority groups, as well as persons with disabilities (Dalal, Baysinger, Brummel, & LeBreton, 2012). With the fast-evolving workplace culture, business managers need to invest in ways through which they can overcome the hurdles that bar the under-represented groups from being included in the highest organization levels to create a culture of employee engagement that ensures continued business success.
Employers should always be ready to answer questions regarding their readiness in their talents and entire company to propel performance despite the impending changes. There are trends that raise a lot of challenges such as industrial disruption and consolidation, changing consumer and customer demands, talent availability, changing workforce expectations, and change in the requirements of the organization’s workforce. While it is necessary for business leaders to reset their strategies, execution of future growth is difficult without people (Aragón-Correa, Martín-Tapia, & Hurtado-Torres, 2013). However, employers should not just seek people, rather, they should invest in establishing a highly engaged workforce. With an engaged task force, the employers can be assured that the employees will fully commit their discretionary efforts to achieve excellent business results. Business leaders face challenges that result from macroeconomics, social changes, technological accelerations, and demographic trends as discussed below.
Macro-level Economics
The global economy has progressively stabilized due to the start of the Great Recession. The global GDP has grown at a rate of 2%- 3% in the last three years (Klarsfeld, Booysen, Ng, Roper, & Tatli, 2014). Nevertheless, looking at the worldwide highlights, the share of the total GDP has shifted. Mature economies have shifted at lower rates while the small emergent economies have grown and expanded at higher annual rates. As such, the emerging economies are expected to dominate over the mature economies by taking larger shares in the global GDP in subsequent years (Laurence, 2016). The challenge from emerging economies for most companies is that those who are operating in mature economies find it hard to have their employees remain engaged in the midst of cost concentration and struggles to grow. The companies that are operating in emerging economies, on the other hand, struggle in retaining and attracting talent from diverse populations for to meet the inclusion and equity standards needed to sustain growth and at the same time have the employees engaged in the economic contractions.
Technological Acceleration
Technological advancements offer companies a lot of opportunities but at the same time is accompanied by a share of challenges. Moore’s law clearly posits that the processing speed of computers will double biannually. However, the law was overtaken by an exponential growth in the rate of computer processing power and computing speeds (Downey, Werff, Thomas, & Plaut, 2015). To further Moore’s Law, Kurzweil stated that computers would ultimately be integrated into the human life aspects and end up being better performers than human beings. With the exponential acceleration, many people lose jobs and are replaced by computers. As such, organizations suffer a disrupted employee base. Furthermore, consumers access information instantly and end up preferring fewer face-to-face interactions. With the evolving business requirements, employees suffer from the constant need to remain relevant. Employee inclusion and equity is largely affected and so is employee engagement. In the competitive businesses, employers will forego inclusion and equity cultures to have employees that can way above the levels of working hard, learning, adapting, showing resilience, as well as speed.
Demographic Shifts
The world has experienced significant shifts in its populations. The least developed countries such as India have recorded the highest population growths. Most of the baby boomers aged 50-68 work longer hours compared to their previous generations. Due to the limited number of employees from the generation X, the availability of talent has become limited. Additionally, the Millennials have an agitated power that calls for the “voice of the employee” (Roof, 2015). The workforce dynamics have been disrupted by the influx of the Millennials. Due to a large number of Millennials in the workforce, there is a huge influence on the other generations to creating a working environment that has non-negotiable expectations such as career improvement, transparency, flexibility, and learning. The evolved dynamics in labor influence companies in that there are different expectations for companies that are necessary for engagement to occur.
Social Trends
Social trends around the world have created tension in areas related to wealth distribution, access to education, access to health care, and the high levels of fairness expectations. Employers directly influence the wealth of their employees, their education, and health care, as well as experiences in employment through tools such as benefits, pay, and development programs (Karatepe, 2013). Failure to meet the employee expectations for wealth, health, education, and professional development subsequently jeopardizes the engagement of the affected employees.
Most employees desire to work for organizations that reward for performance to all members of staff regardless of origin, have a collaboration culture, have an employer reputation, and support all career trajectories. However, due to the Great Recession, most companies have dismantled reward packages, shifted more cost and risks to their employees, received rewards that are individual-based, and exhibited uncertainty in employment (Roof, 2015). In many mature markets, the brand’s alignment for employees has trended down with most employers calling for the design of employment contracts that are focused on roles as per the market demand rather than talent and loyalty. However, for companies to retain their valuable employees and sustain their engagement, they need to plan on how to re-recruit the talents that are already existing in their organization for future roles.
While the definition of employee engagement bases on the employees maximizing their value to the employer, the definition of what is needed for engagement to happen is a changing target determined by the employee and is not only based on the presence of competitive rewards (Yalabik, Popaitoon, Chowne, & Rayton, 2013). Organizations should come up with new strategies that redefine the value propositions of employees to balance the demographic, economic, technological, as well as social challenges. Furthermore, all employees prefer working in exciting companies to companies that are dormant and with a single mode of activities. Designing exciting workplaces will engage the employee talents in the right practices by setting up healthy, strong, and engaging cultures that are propelled by performance orientation, strong reputations, as well as excellence in leadership.
The Millennials have also set the pace for employee engagement and initiated the evolution of the employment contract designs. Most prosperous employee engagement advocates are based on career opportunities, reputation, and pay, communication, as well as management of performance. The best employers propel their employee engagement, shareholder value, and revenue growth to the top quartile levels of engagement. They also display stronger cultures through employee inclusion and equity, cultural reputations, strong leadership, and orientation in a performance that results in high levels of employee engagement (Rees, Alfes, & Gatenby, 2013). Such companies successfully record high rates of revenue growth, total shareholder returns, and operating margins. Therefore, employers should take a firm management stand as they have the key to engaging their employees. They should use their multiplier effect and control the top drivers for employee engagement that revolve around employee equity and inclusion.
Equity and inclusion in the workplace result in a work-life balance that is based on the organizational policies that balance the need for employee engagement with the nurturing of other employee interests outside of work (Klarsfeld, Booysen, Ng, Roper, & Tatli, 2014). Organizations that exhibit high levels of employee engagement have well-founded initiatives that support employee professional and personal well-being. Equity and inclusion in employment call for strategies that overcome the challenges of retaining and recruiting skilled employees in the current job market. Further, inclusion and equity among employees are vital in creating as well as maintaining positive workplace cultures. Without the work-place culture being appreciated by the employees, the result is the loss of identity among the workers as well as loss of guiding behavior that is required to reduce the uncertainty of employee action.
Without employees being treated equally and being included in the organization’s activities such as training and meetings, the employee engagement is broken as well as the link to employer success. Organizations should aim at creating initiatives such as current initiatives that help in creating environments that result not only in an effective workforce but also a productive employee base. Administrators must also realize that any investment done toward employee engagement, be it having a culture of equity or inclusion, equally, translates to the success of the organization’s goals and mission. Furthermore, any highly engaged workforce must be maintained by a nurtured teamwork and collaboration scheme that calls for inclusion and equity. It also calls for recognition and appreciation of the employees performing well in all company activities (Chrobot-Mason & Aramovich, 2013). Additionally, organizations can achieve high employee engagement by emphasizing on the inclusion of all the employees from different departments in all the activities that present opportunities in professional development.
The research involved analyzing an employee survey that aimed at looking into the goals needed to achieving an organizational employee engagement culture. The survey focused on areas that are largely influenced by employee inclusion as well as equity. The programs for conducting the research were divided into four groups discussed below.
Recognition and Awards
There are different programs for adoption by an organization and company employees that enhance connections of employees and that avail multiple ways through which employees can be recognized for exceptional performances. It is also vital that employers provide their employees with platforms through which they can recognize the exceptional performances by their co-workers. Recognition and offering awards to employees are motivated by the presence of evaluation and developmental programs. Some employers have established different recognition levels such as “Team Excellence Awards,” “Bravo Excellence Awards,” and “Bravo Awards” (Rees, Alfes, & Gatenby, 2013). The awards foster inclusion and equity since, they are awarded by performance. As such, all the employees who meet the reward standards are recognized regardless of their position in the company.
The “Bravo” awards are at a level that aims at providing mechanisms through which employees can thank their colleagues. The “Bravo” awards can be given to employees that have been nominated by their co-workers for outstanding achievements. For instance, the employees can receive gift cards worth $40. With such a reward system, over 80% of the employees will receive rewards by the end of the year leading to higher levels of employee engagement (Rees, Alfes, & Gatenby, 2013). The main objective of these awards include:
Offering encouragement for positive as well as constructive feedback from employees.
Motivating employees toward achieving excellent performance from the ground level in all the activities.
Helping the employees comprehend their work value as a major contributor to the mission of the organization or their department.
To encourage employee retention by having the employees appreciate their stay with one another.
The “Bravo Excellence” awards, on the other hand, are a level higher than the “Bravo” awards. They are awarded by the directors at the different departments after performing an evaluation and review. The criteria for awarding the “Bravo Excellence” awards could be finished products and services with high quality in tight deadline conditions, outstanding customer service, or excellent, innovative ideas (Yalabik, Popaitoon, Chowne, & Rayton, 2013). The employees that receive the “Bravo Excellence” awards could be named in the organization’s newsletters that are printed monthly.
Professional Development of Employees as Leaders
Professional development is a major component of employee engagement. It offers a positive belief to the employees that they have potential growth that leads to promotion. Continuous employee training opportunities ensure that employees benefit from inclusion and equity resulting in higher levels of employee engagement. Organizations should also ensure that there are managers responsible for planning operations that make it easier for employees to prepare for their next steps in their career. To ensure inclusions and employee equity, the organizations can offer ongoing development through mentorships, onsite seminars, leadership academies as well as brown bag presentations. Employees should receive equal opportunities such as all members of the department attending informal brown bag presentations during lunch breaks.
Employee Networking and Enhancement of Morale
To build a better workplace, the literature review reveals that there is a program called the “A-Team.” The team involves having different representatives from different work sectors and with definite objectives. The “A-Team” program develops three goals which include:
Developing interaction opportunities among staff and their families. The goal concentrates on staff inclusion in different interactive activities.
Acknowledging the value as well as the contribution of all the employees both in the past and present. As such, the program ensures there is equity while upholding the value of each in the program.
To utilize team building tools and awareness to ensure that the customer services are improved.
The group met fortnightly to plan their activities and events that promoted employee morale and enhanced engagement. The “A-Team” program was set in an organizational setup and was made open to all employees who received approval from the supervisor. The group’s mission was to create an environment that fostered increased interdepartmental collaboration as well as employee networking. As such, all employees were given equal inclusion chances to participate in different activities of the group and later assess the effect on their engagement. The effect of the group on the organization was an increased morale as well as the commitment to the institution’s main goals and mission since most of the employees got to meet their colleagues from other departments. Such a setting motivates the employees to put more effort after sharing the different work encounters under the same organization’s management umbrella in different joint activities of the “A-Team” (Truss, Alfes, Delbridge, Shantz, & Soane, 2013).
“Team Excellence” awards are given to the different teams in an organization for exhibiting collaboration between departments or forming unique partnerships that lead to innovation actions and better service delivery. The recipients of the “Team Excellence” awards are recognized at luncheons and receive gifts such as sweatshirts with “Team Excellence” prints. The names of the team members could also be distributed to different departments written on plaques. However, teams must be comprised of more than three members that are directly responsible for the projects leading to measurable and positive outcomes and that ran for over 35 hours. The qualifying teams must also present elements such as paradigm shifting, cost-saving, innovation, new or better partnerships in business, improvised business models, or improved sustainability. The main goals of “Team Excellence” awards include:
Supporting improved partnerships among employees and ensuring inclusion of cross-departmental teams.
Necessitating paradigm was shifting, cost-saving, innovation, new or better partnerships in business, improvised business models, and improved sustainability.
Motivating employees to partner and ensure excellent performance achieved through team environments.
Fostering employees to perceive the value of their work in fulfilling the mission of the entire organization.
Additionally, there exist a recognition program that is based on the employee tenure. With every five years of service, employees should receive awards to keep them motivated and engaged in the organization. For instance, the employee can receive a 2% increase in their pay for every 5 years of service offered. Additionally, the organization can offer luncheons to employees who hit five, ten, and fifteen years of service to the organization (Kubicek, Korunka, & Ulferts, 2013).
Employee Wellness
It is important that organizations develop employee wellness initiatives. For instance, the organizations can foster several opportunities for their employees to access health care services taking into consideration that medical costs have soared over the years all over the globe (Cole, Walter, Bedeian, & O’Boyle, 2012). As a result, the organizations achieve high levels of employee engagement through employee inclusion and equity after they all receive equal priority in the initiatives of medical access. Organizations should realize that full-time employees are more dedicated to workplace coordination when they are healthier since they feel more involved in inclusion as well as equity.
The opportunities for inclusion and equity regarding the employee wellness can be extended by offering all of the worker’s options for healthy eating and exercises through the organization’s cafeteria as well as lunch hour exercise classes. Organizations can also offer gym membership discounts to members to ensure equity and inclusion which in turn leads to high employee engagement across all departments. Organizations should also aim at offering employees privacy during their time at work and as such provide “wellness rooms.” With such rooms, employees can attend to personal needs through employee identification. For instance, the rooms can create some privacy for breastfeeding mothers, employees that need power naps, or those that need to attend to medical needs. As such, the organizations increases the levels of employee inclusion.
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGYThe participants of the research were employees at a utility companies. They were all aged 18 and above. The data was collected at the company’s engagement survey database that had engagement surveys administered in 2013, 2014, and 2015. The employees that participated in the engagement research had worked for the company for more than six months. Workers under contract were not invited to the survey since they were employed by an outside staffing agency.
The sample consisted of 67% males and 33% females. 23% of the respondents were aged between 44 and 52. The respondents below the age of 25 were the least frequent with a percentage of 3.2%. Most of the respondents were whites constituting a percentage of 50% followed by Hispanics constituting 24%, followed by Asians constituting 16%, and finally, African Americans constituting 10%. The participants that were union members constituted 81% while those that were non-union members constituted 19%.
The departments that met the below criteria were treated as a single responding unit. The criteria that was used for inclusion in the engagement survey was:
More than ten employees had to participate in the survey.
The participants had to clarify on their union memberships.
In total, the research had 180 responding units with the number of employees that responded to the survey ranging from 30 to 2684 giving a standard deviation of 298.55 and median of 261.39. Since the survey was conducted for several years, some departments were represented more than once.
Employee engagement was captured via the employee engagement index that consisted of 10 survey questions. The survey question were then benchmarked against some top US performing companies. The response format in the survey used the Likert measuring scale where employees expressed how strongly they disagreed or agreed with the statements in the survey. The scores were then reverse coded for the high scores to represent the greater employee equity and inclusion in the workplace. The mean engagement scores were then computed for each department. From the Table 2 below, it is evident that items varied annually. There was a reliability test that was done to determine the reliability of dimensions for the internal consistency as illustrated in Table 3 below.
In the study, I adopted the definition of employee engagement as fulfilling, positive, work-affiliated state of an employee’s mind that is characterized by absorption, vigor, as well as dedication. The definition of vigor was defined as having high energy levels as well as the willingness to exert discretionary efforts and persistence in work. Dedication, on the other hand, was defined as having a strong enthusiasm, involvement, pride, as well as a sense of significance for the company. Finally, absorption was defined as the state of being deeply engrossed and having high concentration levels in the workplace. The Cronbach’s alphas over the three years were reliable since they ranged between .82 and 84 for vigor, .85 to .86 for dedication, and .86 and .87 for absorption.
Table 1: The number of survey items used for each dimension
Year Vigor Dedication Absorption
2013 5 6 3
2014 5 6 3
2015 5 4 1
Table 2: Cronbach’s Alphas for Every Year
Year N Vigor Dedication Absorption
2013 5449 .84 .86 .86
2014 6099 .82 .85 .88
2015 8850 .83 .85 .87
CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH FINDINGSFrom the first set of analyses that examines the departments that had less than 250 participants, the mean engagement scored was between 3.62 and 3.98. The dedication was the dimension that scored the least with a median of 3.62 and a standard deviation of .25 followed by absorption that had a median of 3.65 and a standard deviation of .26. Vigor was the dimension that scored the least with a median score of 3.62 and a standard deviation of .47. The survey response rate, defined as the individual’s decision to participate in the engagement survey, was neither low nor high. It has a median of .51 and a standard deviation of .19. From the survey findings, the groups that were more engaged had higher participation rates which is a proof that their departments had higher inclusion and equity rates.
The department leaders who participated in the engagement survey noted that employee engagement has risen steadily due to the stabilization of the global economy. From their business analysis, most of them noted that over 48% of the companies globally believe that all organizations have a similar composition of engaged and disengaged employees in comparison to the competitors. However, 28 percent of the companies feel that they have a lot of disengaged employees.
The employees from the different surveyed departments noted that the main drivers of employee disengagement included having poor relationships with the managers, lack of pride for the organization, and lack of trust in the way the company’s senior leadership manages the organization as shown in figure 3 below. The three drivers are motivated by a lack of employee inclusion and equity in the organization’s culture. As a result, the employees are disengaged from employing their discretionary efforts to the company activities.
Figure 1: Drivers of Employee Disengagement as per the Engagement Survey
Figure 3: Graph showing the different levels of employee disengagement based on different drivers.
Most of the team leadership that helped analyze the data from the engagement survey agreed that any organization’s culture should be intentionally developed over a period of time. The success of any company must also result directly from the administrative leadership’s emphasis on the value of each and every employee. Despite there being more challenges in the government entities compared to private businesses, all companies must learn to deal with their share of budget cuts, bad press, as well as unsupportive management. Each company proves its ability to succeed when faced with adversity depending on how remarkable the internal culture accommodates all the stakeholders. It is the role of every employer to ensure that their organizations have different viable strategies that aim at fostering a unique culture.
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONSThere has been a great research on the issues of inclusion and employee equity. However, there continue to be upcoming developments on the concepts and agreements of the workplace equity and inclusion constructs. The engagement of employees as discussed in the capstone attracts a lot of interest from many employers from different organizational sectors. Most employers should not give up the old aspiration and desire to increase motivation among employees and win their commitment to their job. From the above literature, employers are informed on the penalties that their organizations may face if their cultures do not promote employee engagement about competitive organizations. Additionally, the meaning of work and employment relation rules have shifted into space concerning the employee characters that appeal to the employers. Nevertheless, advocating for employee engagement without understanding both the positive and negative consequences, the major requirements of success, and the implementation processes results in a stagnated effort to establish inclusion and equity cultures in an organization. With the employers seeking to increase employee inclusion and equity, inclusion characteristics such as ethnicity and sexual orientation have been equated to organization success. Moreover, there has been a balance in the starting salaries of minority groups and women as well as comparative performance ratings. However, heterosexism has been observed to result in fewer promotions of the associated employees as well as lower compensation. As a result, there is still more effort needed to improve the status of employee inclusion and equity.
This capstone highlights the importance of having employees develop their professions as a major component of employee engagement. As such, they will be offered a positive belief too in their growth potentials leading to promotion. With progressive employee training opportunities, employees benefit from inclusion and equity resulting in higher levels of employee engagement. Organizations should also develop employee wellness initiatives. The organizations can also foster several opportunities for their employees to access health care due to medical costs soaring in the recent years all over the globe.
Also, organizations need to focus on outcomes such as employee equity and inclusion that should be integrated into the organization’s business strategies, planning activities as well as goals. They should also maintain corporate memberships with different organizations with the aim of providing access to informed specialists on the variety of issues regarding employee equity and inclusion. It also improves employee inclusion and equity when organizations highlight the employees are coming from different backgrounds on the career pages, recruitment publications, diversity statements as well as promotional literature during job applications and recruitment advertisements.
Organizations that experience high levels of employee engagement have ensured that their cultures have well-founded initiatives that support employee professional and personal well-being. Employers should, therefore, take advantage when equity and inclusion in employment call for strategies that help overcome the challenges of retaining and recruiting skilled employees in the current job market. Moreover, inclusion and equity among employees are important since it creates as well as maintains positive organizational cultures. Without the workplace culture being appreciated by the employees, the consequences are the lack of identity among the workers and a guiding behavior that is necessary for the reduction of the uncertainty of employee action. The capstone, therefore, ascertains that actively including all employees in the organization’s activities and treating them equally, results in a high collaboration that leads to a pursuit of common objectives.
This capstone also educates employers and employees on the benefits of diversity and employee inclusion. Organizations that promote and achieve employee equity have higher rates of employee retention as well as an increased level of customer loyalty. Moreover, for the public institutions, high levels of employee diversity and inclusion ensure that there is effective service delivery that promotes the improvement of communities that have different needs. The success of the employee equity and inclusion initiatives largely rests on the managers and leaders of institutions who ensure the effectiveness of established policies. Moreover, employee participation is essential to achieve the projected levels of employee diversity and inclusion of all the under-represented groups. Finally, it is important that all organizations seeking to incorporate the elements of employee equity and inclusion give a broad definition of the two elements and ensure that they encompass the broad range of initiatives to suit the varying needs of the employees and the customers alike. Diversity in the workplace is not only of moral importance but also of worldwide significance.
With the extensive research and comparisons of different organization cultures, it is certain that there exist a relationship between employee equity and inclusion. The two elements also have an effect on the employee engagement since when implemented in properly designed strategies, employee inclusion of under-represented populations and their equity leads to high levels of employee engagement.
Employee inclusion and equity will remain dominant in the in boardroom discussions and human resource divisions all over the world as the factors that that will significantly change the workforce in many organizations. Employee inclusion and equity help in maintaining the continuity of talent as well as widen the segments of the market by fitting the concepts together. The benefits of bringing together a workforce of diverse employees that are positively empowered leads to the success of organizations through improved financial performance and innovative problem solving that create greater appeal to customers. There are different practices that ensure that organizations take the full advantage of the power of employee equity and inclusion. They include:
Building Timelines for Different Talents
Size constraints in different populations make the employee hiring process challenging since organizations must ensure they achieve the right kind of talents in their workforce. Building a task force that is sensitive regarding employee inclusion and equity is barred by the unfolded concerns that a company must sacrifice to meet their target quota. The companies must, however, accept that getting high-quality candidates to meet the inclusion and equity quota is difficult. Companies should continually engage in including diverse talents in their business. As such, the human resource managers will always be ready to hire diverse talents with confidence and speed.
Leading with Flexibility and as an Example
Having work arrangements that are flexible results in the development of an inclusive and diverse workforce. For instance, employers can offer work-from-home options thereby alleviating the pressure of hiring candidates from diverse populations and societal groups that fit for a given role but are unable to relocate. Flexibility in the workplace ensures that hired employees reduce the impact of leaving the support from family and friends that help in services such as childcare. Furthermore, flexibility allows for the hiring of women that deserve the senior levels but are held back by the bulk of household and childcare responsibilities. Nevertheless, flexibility in the workplace is not achieved by simply setting up a list of organization policies. Employers must demonstrate to their employees that there are times at which family issues take precedence.
Emphasizing Coaching and Mentoring
The employees from the under-represented groups and at the low levels in an organization should be provided with the access to training as well as leadership opportunities. As a result, they will be able to boost the efforts of the organization to create a more inclusive and equal team of senior leadership through qualified and eligible promotions. Mentoring programs in organizations provide employees with a sense of belonging and a safe environment to discuss the most sensitive issues.
Despite the huge workload needed to better the cultures of employee engagement, there are important norms and cultural practices that are distinct in most of the highly engaged companies in most regions of the world. First, employers communicate performance metrics and business objectives through different channels tying them to the organizational missions and objectives. Additionally, employers in the highly engaged global companies use the benchmarking strategies and are also highly reinforced at all levels of management. Employees also receive responsibilities of a fair level motivating them to solve any problems they encounter when undertaking their responsibilities creatively. The top companies also have a characteristic recognition program that rewards the top performing employees regardless of their societal orientation.
From this capstone, it is evident that employee inclusion and equity is best approached using the bottom-up, top-down approach. Despite the importance of senior level executives supporting the efforts of employee equity and inclusion, the employee involvement in achieving their equity and inclusion is also significant. Engaging all employees at different levels is an effective method of reaching the important masses as well as communicating the need for inclusion and equity in the workplace. Employees from various diversities are always eager to join the employee engagement cultures but are not confident enough to take the initiative (Downey, Werff, Thomas, & Plaut, 2015). As such, employers must take up the responsibility of notifying the employees the different channels through which they can support and contribute to the efforts of achieving high levels of employee equity and inclusion.
Some of the ways through which employees can participate and contribute to their inclusion, equity, and ultimate engagement include:
Identifying the vision of the company, the diversity goals, and their connection to the business objectives. The employees can also commit to the efforts of comprehending the ways in which equity and inclusion impact their role and how their role in the organization impacts the inclusion initiative in the company.
Participating in workforce engagement surveys by responding with honesty and openness to help comfortably express concerns and as a result support equity and inclusion efforts.
Actively engage in equity and inclusion efforts through joining employee resource groups, volunteering to serve on different committees that are charged with organizing equity-related activities and events. Employees can also become mentors, mentees, or organizers of co-mentoring programs. Despite the involvement and time consumption, such activates result in professional as well as personal development.
Becoming culturally competent by taking the time to learn different religions, cultures, races, and backgrounds from colleagues representing these population diversities.
Treating people according to their wishes since not all social practices and activities are comfortable for everyone. For instance, using offensive language may cripple employee inclusion into different groups in the workplace.
Encouraging positive changes in the organization. As such, employees can take the responsibility of speaking on diversity and inclusion matters as seen in most Millennial employees. As such, the employees will not be in a position to ignore the powerful voices seeking the unity and equity of different diversities. Moreover, the employers who have such employees are assured of increasing employee engagement to employ all their discretionary efforts to achieve an environment that will foster success and progress in the organization.
Welcoming the ideas that differ from your own as well as supporting colleagues and teammates. Employees should also embrace the fact that employee inclusion and interaction with diverse populations uncovers creativity that helps improve the already established processes.
Understanding the elements of employee inclusion and equity helps employees grow their organizations. Some of the elements include socio-economic backgrounds, geographic origins, sexual orientations, as well as education levels. The differences add value to the organization.
Committing to progressive improvements by being willing to learn, listen to the concerns raised by colleagues as well as accepting feedback from authorities. The employee should not be blinded by their enlightenment since even the most experienced personalities get opportunities to grow in favorable working environments.
Tolerating and educating the co-workers that have not yet appreciated the value that employee inclusion and equity brings to an organization since negative behaviors often result from ignorance.
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