Employee Engagement and Internal Branding: Two Sides of the Same Coin?
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Employee Engagement and Internal Branding: Two Sides of the Same Coin? Kati Suomi1 · Saila Saraniemi2 · Mervi Vähätalo1 · Tomi J. Kallio1 · Terhi Tevameri3
© Reputation Institute and Springer Nature Limited 2019
Abstract This study examines the link between employee engagement and internal branding. It seeks to understand which antecedent factors healthcare professionals consider important for employee engagement and what kinds of implications this engagementrelated information may have for internal branding. The study reviews the literature on employee engagement and internal branding and presents a conceptualisation of the linkage between the two concepts. The empirical portion content analyses more than 1200 answers to open questions to examine employee engagement in the case organisation, a large private healthcare organisation in Finland. The findings suggest the following eight antecedent factors to be particularly important for healthcare professionals’ employee engagement: organisational culture, reward, working environment, training, HR practices, reputation and values, communication, and physical environment. Based on the empirical and theoretical analyses, it can be said that the antecedent factors of employee engagement and elements of internal branding can be considered two sides of the same coin. Keywords Employee engagement · Internal branding · Healthcare · Knowledge-intensive organisations · Services
Introduction In the post-industrial age, recruiting and retaining competent personnel can be considered one of the most important responsibilities of employers (e.g. Hillebrandt and Ivens 2013; Edlinger 2015; Tanwar and Prasad 2016). Given the shortage of competent healthcare professionals in many Western countries, once professionals are recruited, engaging them with an organisation can be considered crucial. It is well acknowledged that attracting the best talents is important, but motivating them to stay is even more so (Tanwar and Prasad 2016; see also Whelan et al. 2010). Thus, in the current study, we focus on both employee engagement and internal branding. Harter et al. (2002, p. 269) described engagement as an ‘individual’s involvement and satisfaction
* Kati Suomi [email protected] 1
Pori Unit, Turku School of Economics at the University of Turku, PL 170, 28101 Pori, Finland
2
Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
3
The Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment, Helsinki, Finland
with as well as enthusiasm for work’, and Maslach et al. (2001) came close to Harter et al. (2002) in suggesting that engagement constitutes employees’ involvement, energy and efficacy. By internal branding we refer to ‘a doctrine to ensure employees’ delivery of the brand promise by shaping employees’ brand attitudes and behaviours’ (Punjaisri et al. 2008, p. 407). Indeed, one of the critical success factors for service organisations today is service employees’ job performance enabled by engagement (Lee et al. 2014). Lee et al. (2014) sugges
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