Suzzy Krist Addo
School of Finance & Financial Management, Business University Costa Rica
Email: allagebeautyent@gmail.com
Abstract
often hear the term employee engagement being spoken about in various contexts. We are often told by management experts that engaged employees are a source of sustainable competitive advantage. During earlier periods of organizational theory and practice, it was common for the HR (Human Resources) function to take care of administrative aspects such as payroll and mediate in the industrial disputes between labor and management. Not anymore. With the rise of the services sector and the advent of the knowledge economy, employees are no longer yet another factor of production and instead, they have become the key factor, which makes or breaks the firms. Indeed, one of the icons of the Indian Software Industry, Mr. NR Narayanamurthy has gone as far as to say that employees are the only capital that the software industry has. In this context, it is important to connect the terms employee engagement and its use in the actualization of the concepts introduced in the previous paragraphs. Therefore, this article examines how engaged employees can contribute to not only their careers but also become sources of competitive advantage for the firms.
Keywords: Employee Engagement, Knowledge Economy, Human Resources
