Factors Affecting Employee Engagement in India: A Study on Offshoring of Financial Services

The objective of this study is to explore factors that affect employee engagement in financial offshore organizations in India. Sixty employees involved in offshoring financial services were interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to analyze data collected in the study. Three main themes were identified: (1) implicit benefits, (2) organizational culture and (3) organizational policies. The findings of this study are important due to their practical implications. First, the factors will encourage employers to make more employee friendly policies, and second, by resolving the employee issues raised in this paper, it is anticipated that the employers will be able to enhance the overall efficiency of their workforce and improve the employer-employee relationship. Keywords: Employee Engagement, Financial Services, Offshoring, Organizational Culture, Thematic AnalysisCompanies in India are increasingly devising new ways and means to optimally utilize their workforce. However, only eight percent of the employees in India are engaged in their workplace (Kohli & Grover, 2013). Like other industries, engaging employees in the offshoring industry is also becoming a priority for human resource (HR) managers (Thite, 2010). Offshoring is an emerging business in the world market (Lewin, Massini & Peeters, 2009) with financial services being one of the industries that includes activities like banking, trading, financial analysis, auditing and hedge funds accountancy (Palugod & Palugod, 2011). Companies including Delloite, Ernst and Young (EY Overby, 2003). According to Kahn (1990), engagement is defined as the attachment of the organization members to their job roles. Considerable research has been done on differentiating employee engagement from the other related constructs and making it measurable. For example, an employee is engaged if he can freely express himself physically, cognitively and emotionally in his official role (Kahn, 1990; Purcell, 2006; Rich, Lepine, & Crawford, 2010). In offshoring, that entails dividing a process into several separate activities and assigning of few of these abroad (Michel & Rycx, 2012), the concept of engagement is particularly important. It is because, the offshoring of financial services demands intense cognitive work during odd hours in order to gain from the time lag between two countries (Amiti & Wei, 2009; Kikuchi & Long, 2010). High HR turnover and high employee stress are a few of the side-effects surfacing in the offshoring industry. Nevertheless, researchers argue that the solution lies in the concept of employee engagement (Lockwood, 2007). This research bridges the gap between employee-employer concerns. The first section reviews the literature on employee engagement and offshoring. The second section describes the methodology used to conduct the. The third section includes results and discussion. The last section examines the managerial implications of this research.Literature ReviewThe term, engagement it is defined as the emotional, physical and cognitive attachment of employees to their work. Due to its orientation towards practice, researchers have explored (e.g., Arrowsmith & Parker, 2013; Francis et al., 2013; Jenkins & Delbridge, 2013; Reissner & Pagan, 2013; Townsend, Wilkinson, & Burgess, 2014; Truss et al., 2011;) and tested (e.g., Alfes et al., 2013; Bakker & Xanthopoulou, 2013; Bhatnagar, 2012; Biswas, Varma, & Ramaswami, 2013; Cabrera, Collins, & Salgado, 2006; Juhdi, Pa'wan, & Hansaram, 2013; Rees, Alfes, & Gatenby, 2013; Salanova & Schaufeli, 2008; Shantz et al. …