Sustaining Employee Engagement During a Public Sector Organizational Change

• In Event: Employee Engagement — Enhancing, Sustaining, Transforming

Short Description

The first year of a new presidential administration is a time when career civil servants navigate feelings that have been proven to impact engagement outcomes. Through the prism of organizational change, this presentation will identify practices that public sector leaders can utilize to sustain employee engagement during organizational change.

Detailed Abstract

Presidential Transitions

Every four or eight years, the United States (US) government undergoes a transition of power from one president to his successor. The US prides itself on a tradition of a peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next, no matter the political party. Berman (2016) states that the goal of the presidential transition is to minimize the chance for national security catastrophe and maximize the opportunity to deliver on campaign promises. Further, Berman (2016) argues that is mainly through sheer luck that presidential transition have not resulted in disaster.

Within federal agencies, Gaertner et al. (1983) found that career civil servants, at both front line- and Senior Executive Service- (SES) levels, often experience anxiety and uncertainty during the initial six month period between the election and when most of the new administration’s political appointees begin work at their collective federal agencies. The Partnership for Public Service (2016) argues this anxiety and uncertainty can impact two main outcomes of employee engagement, which are job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) (2015) has suggested that a career civil servants feeling about job security and their benefits package has a direct impact on their feeling of engagement. One of the first Executive Orders enacted by the Trump administration froze the pay of federal employees and asked OPM for a plan to shrink the federal workforce. In addition, a bill was introduced into Congress to overhaul the benefits packages afforded to federal employees. Lastly, the outcomes of presidential transitions are can create uncertainty and can threaten employee engagement if leaders fail to communicate effectively (2016). So, these myriad of variables create challenges for public sector leaders to sustain engagement during a presidential transition.

Organizational Change

Fernandez and Rainey (2006) define organizational change as initiative involving large-scale, planned, strategic and administrative change. Pettigrew (1987) conceptualizes change as consisting of three factors: 1) context; 2) content; and 3) process. Context refers to why the organizational change needs to happen. Content refers to what the actual organization is. And, process refers to how stakeholders are involved in the successful implementation of the change. Organizational change can alter the structure of the following things: 1) mission and strategy; 2) organizational structure; 3) personnel; 4) culture; 5) knowledge; 6) policies and legal agreements; 7) process; 8) technology; and 9) products and customer relations.

Interestingly, Gaertner et al. (1983) conceptualized a presidential transition as an organizational change. And, through this prism there is data to assess and develop a methodology to sustain engagement. For example, research by McKinsey found that 61% of public sector organizational changes are successful due to the following: 1) employee resistance to change; 2) management behavior that does not support change; 3) inadequate resources or budget; and 4) other obstacles. From the positive perspective, research has found that within the public sector, organizational change is seven times more likely to succeed when the organization assess its current performance, strengths and weaknesses to set a baseline for future improvement (Noblet, Rodwell, & McWilliams, 2006). Further, public sector organizational change programs are more successful when both the short-term performance and long-term health of the organization are addressed (Lovegrove, Ulosevich, & Warner, 2010). So, while presidential transition create challenges in regards to sustaining employee engagement, through the prism of organizational change, there are things that can assist public sector leaders to positively impact engagement outcomes.

Employee Engagement

Kahn (1990) was one of the first scholars to write specifically about employee engagement. He stated, “…everyday, workers choose to express and employ their selves or withdraw and defend their selves” (p. 692). Kahn defined employee engagement as the “harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles: in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, emotionally, and mentally during role performances” (p. 694). However, this presentation will define employee engagement as “individual employee’s behavioral, cognitive, and emotional state toward organizational outcomes” (Shuck & Wollard, 2010, p. 103).

Several scholars have built on Kahn’s (1990) phenomenological research about employee engagement and its antecedents with further conceptualization and empirical studies. For example, May and his colleagues (2004) surveyed 213 employees of a large insurance firm and found that the three psychological conditions each had a significant positive impact on employee engagement. Expanding on that research, Saks (2006a) surveyed 102 employees across various organizations and found that engagement mediated the relationships between the psychological conditions and job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intent-to-turnover, and organizational citizenship behavior. Similarly, Shuck, Reio, and Rocco (2011a) conceptualized outcomes of engagement into two categories––discretionary effort and intent-to-turnover. Further, Shuck et al. (2011a) surveyed 283 employees across various organizations and found that employee engagement impacted those two categories.

Purpose

Within in the public sector, presidential transitions creates factors that can have an adverse impact on an employee’s engagement state, and individual and organizational engagement outcomes. The purpose of this presentation is to use an integrative literature review on presidential transitions through the prism of public sector organizational change to provide practices for public sector leaders to sustain employee engagement.

Participant

• Russell Robinson, Federal Occupational Health, U.S. Department Of Health & Human Services