Factors of employee engagement at the workplace. Do years of service count?

Abstract

This article deals with employee engagement in SMEs when the employee's years of service are taken into consideration. The aim of the paper is to show if seniority influences engagement and if there are further factors that have major impact on employee engagement. To fulfill the aim quantitative methodology was applied. It is based on the analysis of data that derives from an engagement survey that was conducted in 2017 with 70 SMEs globally that belong to the mechanical engineering industry. The sample consists of 5,078 employees that participated in the engagement survey. The survey was standardized based on the engagement model from Aon Hewitt and consisted of 74 questions. The organizational structure of the different legal entities is similar due to the common industry and types of employees who are mainly Service and Sales representatives. This also leads to a similar HR strategy and allows to compare the results. The data from the engagement survey was analyzed with IBM SPSS software that provided the regression analysis. The results indicate that the construct of employee engagement is complex and there is not only one influencing variable. However, seniority does have an impact. The engagement of recently hired employees is around 27% higher than for employees with higher seniority. Additionally, employees with a high seniority show less interest when it comes to rewards and recognition.