Kahn’s Theory of Engagement

 

William Kahn, regarded as the intellectual father of the employee engagement movement, coined the term "personal engagement." Personal work engagement is defined by him as "the harnessing of organization members' identities to their work roles; through engagement, people utilize and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances." (Bedarkar et al., 2013).

To understand the phenomena, Kahn identified three factors that contribute to employee engagement as shown in the below diagram: psychological safety, psychological meaningfulness, and psychological availability (Bedarkar et al., 2013).

Figure 06: Kahn’s Model on Employee Engagement

Source: (Padhi, 2015)

Psychological Safety relates to employees' feelings of being able to express themselves fully without fear of negative effects to their self-esteem, position, or career. Employees who are psychologically safe will try to incorporate components of their lives outside of work (e.g., other work experiences, hobbies) into their jobs in a meaningful way (Allen, 2013).

Employees are Psychologically Available when they are mentally safe and their job is important to them. As a result, psychological availability refers to a circumstance in which employees draw on their entire selves in a focused and integrated manner to improve their role performance. According to Kahn, the more of ourselves we put into a character, the more thrilling and comfortable it becomes (Bedarkar et al., 2013). Employees' "feeling of possessing the physical, emotional, and psychological resources essential for investing themselves in role performances" is referred to as psychological availability. Employees who are psychologically accessible believe they are capable of leading the physical, mental, and emotional efforts required to complete their tasks (Allen, 2013).

Psychological Meaningfulness, according to Kahn (1990), refers to employees' feelings of being valued, worthwhile, and able to give of themselves in their workplace environment. (Allen, 2013).

Kahn (1990) claimed that specific psychological variables must be satisfied in order to create sentiments of involvement among employees. Employees must feel psychologically significant, safe, and available to fully participate in their professional position, according to his idea of engagement (Allen, 2013).

Kahn's model sheds important insights on the psychological circumstances that mediate the relationship between work-related characteristics and employee engagement (Rothmann, 2010).

References

Allen, J. A. and Rogelberg, S. G. (2013), Manager-Led Group Meetings: A Context for Promoting Employee Engagement. [Online]. Available at https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1177/1059601113503040. Accessed on 5^th May 2022.

Bedarkar, M. and Pandita, D. (2013). A study on the drivers of employee engagement impacting employee performance. [Online]. Available at https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.04.174. Accessed on 5^th May 2022.

Padhi, B. and Panda, A. K. (2015). A Study on Employee Engagement Models for Sustainability of Organisation. [Online]. Available at http://www.irdindia.in/journal_ijrdmr/pdf/vol4_iss4/13.pdf. Accessed on 5^th May 2022.

Rothmann, S. (2010) Factors associated with employee engagement in South Africa. [Online]. Available at http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2071-07632010000200005. Accessed on 5^th May 2022.