Influence of Employee Engagement on Performance of Private Secondary Schools in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

Employee engagement has come out to be a famous organizational concept in recent past among the human resource management practitioners. Essentially, it is the extent of employee commitment and particicipation that he or she has on their place of work as well as their involvement with the organization’s values and beliefs. However, not so much study has been done to establish how employee engagement influence organization performance. The study sought to establish the influence of employee engagement on performance of private secondary schools in Nairobi County, Kenya. The specific objectives were to; establish the influence of psychological state engagement on performance of private secondary schools in Nairobi County, assess the influence of behavioral engagement on performance of private secondary schools in Nairobi County, and investigate the influence of trait engagement on performance of private secondary schools in Nairobi County. The study was guided by Social Exchange Theory, Theory of Work Adjustment and Goal Setting Theory and was anchored on cross-sectional descriptive survey design. The study sample size was 305 respondents comprising of both teaching and non-teaching employees, who were administered with the questionnaires for quantitative data. Data was analysed descriptively using frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation as well as multiple regression analysis. The study found that most of the employees who are proud of their work and overexcited about their jobs, perform better in their work and consequently encourage better organizational performance. It was found that employees who concentrate a lot in their work as a show of high level of engagement, are engrossed in their work for good organization performance. Highly engaged employees are happy in their job would always persevere, feel enthusiastic and full of energy and all these trait engagement attributes would increase the overall organization performance of the secondary schools. Psychological, behavioral and trait engagement were found to be positively and significantly related to organization performance. Organizations should therefore constantly create a favorable and supportive working environment for its workers to boost their psychological, behavioral, and trait engagement with their employment, as this has been shown to increase their productivity and the organization's performance. The study also recommends that employers prioritize x enhancing the relationship between an employee's work and his or her skills, talents, and interests to increase their job engagement.