Graduation Year

2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

D.B.A.

Degree Granting Department

Business Administration

Major Professor

Dirk Libaers, Ph.D.

Co-Major Professor

Scott Hopes, DBA

Committee Member

Grandon Gill, DBA

Committee Member

Andrew Artis, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Timothy Novak, DBA

Keywords

Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Organizational Behavior, Leadership, Public Education System Personnel

Abstract

Actively disengaged employees cost the United States an estimated $450 billion to $550 billion in lost productivity per year. When employees are engaged, organizations experience less turnover, fewer safety incidents, and increased profitability. An important employee segment is Millennials, who are predicted to comprise as much as 75% of the workforce by 2025.

This three-article dissertation examines employee engagement, focusing on how Millennials experience employee engagement and the impact of perceived human resource management (HRM) practices on employee engagement. The first article is a generational workplace engagement paper focused on Millennials. It introduces a variety of academic and practitioner information relating to Millennial disengagement in the workplace. The article addresses the question, “Are U.S. Millennials working in a corporate environment more disengaged than other generations?” Article two is a field-based case study with an accompanying instructor manual. A main focus of the study is to determine what HRM factors contribute to employee (dis)engagement at a financial services organization.

The third article discusses a quantitative study that examines the relationship between perceived HRM practices and employee engagement and job satisfaction with a focus on generational differences between Millennial and non-Millennial employees in the public education system. The study results indicate there is not a significant difference between the way Millennials and Non-Millennials experience engagement; it also found that perceived HRM practices impact how employees experience engagement. These findings can help inform managers about employee engagement strategies and give scholars new paths to research.

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