Please help with providing each student a brief response to fellow students' posts in a substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend their thinking.

James Njoroge (Student 1)

Hello Everyone,

• What are the principles of workforce engagement and motivation?

There are several self-explanatory principles of workforce engagement and motivations. Once a company understands what it means to engage and motivate, positive outcomes will automatically flow. According to our textbook, "Employees are motivated through exciting work, responsibility, and recognition," and engagements provide "a powerful means of achieving the highest order individual needs of self-realization and fulfillment." (Evans & Lindsay, 2020. pg 178). If a company can realize the above, it will have laid a strong foundation of what it means to have strong principles of workforce engagement and motivation.

• How can positive workforce engagement lead to favorable outcomes and results?

Companies can inevitably yield fantastic outcomes and results when positive workforce engagement is introduced. Several favorable outcomes and results come to mind when I think of positive workforce engagement.

1. Increases value and efficiency in the company. By doing this, Employees will feel valued and motivated to work harder without burnout since it's from their heart, and they don't feel forced.

2. "Develops the skills and leadership capability of individuals, creating a sense of mission and fostering trust" (Evans & Lindsay, 2020. pg 178). This is so important, and I do recall in the army, this is one of the most utilized workforce engagement and motivation principles. It is with no doubt that this principle yields good results, especially in creating trusted leaders in the army

3. "Increases employee morale and organizational commitment" (Evans & Lindsay, 2020. pg 178). Sometimes, especially when there is difficulty at work, employee morale can decrease, and commitment becomes wiggly. Creating activities and an environment that can increase morale and commitment will yield fantastic results.

• What impact did the engagement have on the organization and its workforce?

There is a vast impact engagement can have on the organization and its workforce. Instilling engagement means you are instilling positive energy into an organization and its workforce. This will keep the workforce engaged and help them stay motivated and achieve more. The workforce will also feel like part of the team, and they will feel more comfortable working as a team rather than as individuals, yielding a lot more results for the company.

• What short and long-term outcomes emerged?

Several short-term outcomes emerge from positive workforce engagement and motivation. In the short term, employee excitement to come to work will increase, and there will be few to no latecomers and absentees unless it's an emergency. Discipline, love, and respect for each other will also increase. Everyone will feel like part of the team and not as competitors or enemies. This will also lead to long-term outcomes. If discipline, love, and respect for one another increase, employee will value the company as their own and do what they must to uplift the company. This will increase efficiency and productivity, resulting in higher profit margins. Another long-term outcome is that the employee can make long-lasting workflow and culture that can be passed on to future employees, attracting more customers and resulting in higher profits.

• How does your organization measure the impact?

There are many ways to measure the impact. If there is a considerable decrease in latency and few to no absences for a certain period, that can be measured as a result of positive engagement and motivation. If productivity has increased and many more tasks are accomplished, that can be measured as an impact. Also, certain things can be tracked for a certain period and be used to measure the impact. For example, how many employees have started going for lunch breaks together? Or how often do they hang out during off days or weekends? Or how engaged are employees to each other's personal life, like birthdays, anniversaries, kid's names, pets, spouses, etc.? If there is an increase in how well each employee knows each other, that can also be measured as an impact.

-James. Njoroge

Joseph Bales (Student 2)

• What are the principles of workforce engagement and motivation?

"High performance workforce management practices are built on understanding the principles of workforce engagement and motivation" (pg.178).These principles include:

1. Engagingemployees in their work and make them a part of the "fabric" of the organization. This means that the employee comes to work with personal meaning and motivation which will, in turn, allow the employee to provide better quality products and production.
2. Involvingemployees in every aspect of the business to include: "quality and productivity improvement, measuring and monitoring results, budget development, new technology assessment, recruiting and hiring, making customer calls, and participating in customer visits" (Evans & Lindsay, 2020, pg.180).
3. Motivatingemployees with tangible or intangible motives. For example, incentives, bonuses, recognition, advancement, achievement, etc. All these factors help to motivate employees to do their best.

Overall, as our textbook states, "employees are motivated through exciting work, responsibility, and recognition" (Evans & Lindsay, 2020, pg.178).

• How can positive workforce engagement lead to favorable outcomes and results?

Positive workforce engagement can lead to favorable outcomes and results by job retention, a greater work environment, higher quality productivity, and larger profitability.

• What impact did the engagement have on the organization and its workforce?

The impact that engagement has on the organization and its workforce is that it has a higher profit and less employee turnover.This allows the company to also have customer satisfaction due to increased effectiveness and efficiency with products and production.

• What short and long-term outcomes emerged?

Short term outcomes would be that it increases the workforce commitment, less turnover, more motivation to be effective/efficient from the employees. Long term outcomes would be that it causes a positive work environment, higher profits, and satisfied, returning, customers.

• How does your organization measure the impact?

There are a few ways that our organization measures the impact of workforce engagement and motivation. For example, we do quarterly employee recognition and monetary incentives for employees who broaden their skills by taking courses that would benefit the company, like a CDL course. Overall, we try to encourage and thank our employees on a weekly basis with things like buying breakfast or lunch for them, or just a simple "thank you for your hard work and dedication email".