{"id":6447,"date":"2021-09-22T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-22T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=6447"},"modified":"2021-09-09T09:49:39","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T13:49:39","slug":"employee-engagement-as-a-strategy-for-community-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2021\/09\/employee-engagement-as-a-strategy-for-community-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"Employee Engagement as a Strategy for Community Engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Guest Post
by Kathleen Riemenschneider<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kathleen Riemenschneider<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For more than two decades I have managed and developed education and community engagement programs, but while earning my doctorate in leadership studies I learned about \u2018employee engagement.\u2019 I began to wonder if there was a relationship between community engagement and employee engagement. There are similarities: both are about increasing involvement in the decision-making process or at least giving a group more input into activities \u2013 for community engagement this is more input into programming decisions, while employee engagement is about giving employees more input into the work environment. Like community engagement, employee engagement is a 21st<\/sup> century concept, in that both have increased in importance in the last 20 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering that a vast majority of highly engaged employees believe they can positively affect the quality of the organization\u2019s product and its customer service, Kumar and Pansari (2016) wondered if there were a relationship between employee engagement and customer engagement.[1]<\/a> In their study, Kumar and Pansari (2016) found that the more employees were engaged in their work, the more customers were engagement with the company, which led to high sales and profits. They encourage organizations to adopt an \u201cEngagement Orientation\u201d \u2013 a policy that ensures all strategies of an organization focuses on engaging employees and customers, maximizing value for all stakeholders. In other words, strategies that benefit employees can benefit customers which in turn benefits the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kumar and Pansari (2016) focused on for-profit companies. So, I have \u2018translated\u2019 their concept into non-profit arts terms (see figure 1). An increase in employee engagement can affect audience engagement and<\/em> community engagement which assists in meeting the four objectives of arts organizations \u2013 artistic, financial, market, and social (for more information of these objectives, see Radbourne (2003) and Voss, Cable, and Voss (2000)). Audience engagement is engaging an organization\u2019s current audience base, while community engagement is working with the community to decide programming. There is a double arrow between the two because 1) ideally, an organization\u2019s audience is reflective of the community, and 2) once an organization begins presenting programming with the community, the participants of these programs become part of the organization\u2019s audience. They are not mutually exclusive and influence each other (see Kim (2017) as an example). Audience engagement will directly influence the market objective since it is about customer satisfaction, while community engagement influences the social objective, which is focused on making arts accessible. Following Kumar and Pansari (2016), higher audience and community engagement can impact the financial objective. Although there is not research in a professional setting, a study (Meyer, 2006) that focused on integrating community engagement into the training of musicians found that the students felt community engagement made them \u201ca more conscious and conscientious performer\u201d (87).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What is Employee Engagement?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When discussing employee engagement, most researchers reference Gallup\u2019s three levels of engagement \u2013 disengaged, not engaged, and engaged (for more information, https:\/\/www.gallup.com\/topic\/employee_engagement.aspx<\/a>). Disengaged<\/strong> employees<\/strong> are not connected to the work or organization. They may have a pessimistic attitude and high absenteeism. The work also may not be done in a timely manner or not at all. Not Engaged<\/strong> employees<\/strong> do the minimum work required of them. The work that they are required to do gets done but nothing more, and they may have a lackluster attitude toward the organization and work. Engaged<\/strong> employees<\/strong> \u2018go above and beyond\u2019 what is required of them. They show initiative and are enthusiastic about the work. They have affinity for and are loyal to the organization. Most strategies of employee engagement focus on moving the \u2018not engaged\u2019 employees to the \u2018engaged\u2019 category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relationship of Employee Engagement and Community Engagement<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Strategies of employee engagement are being refined and several exists. Young Lee, Rocco, and Shuck (2020) examined several studies and developed a taxonomy of resources for employee engagement. They state that employees and employers are in constant negotiation about resources. \u201cEmployees strive to obtain, retain, and protect resources as a means of increasing their well-being and preventing future loss\u201d (p. 13-14). The resources, and their sub-categories in parentheses, are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n