A descriptive analysis of current employee engagement in Vietnamese small and medium enterprises

Abstract

This research aims to describe a thorough picture about employee engagement in Vietnamese Small and Medium size enterprises (SMEs). Related theories and former researches on employee engagement were reviewed, the framework of engagement developed by Rutgers Center of Human Resource Strategy was applied into questionnaire design during the data collection period. Employee engagement was approached in three aspects including psychological conditions of engagement, psychological state of engagement and behavioral engagement. The results were coded and analyzed with SPSS software. Results showed employees in Vietnamese SMEs understood clearly their roles in the companies, experiencing high job security but low psychological safety and psychological availability. Despite the fact that the employees showed relatively high state of behavioral engagement, most of them did not have high affective commitment. Besides, gender difference in psychological empowerment and positive affectivity should also be taken into consideration. Proposals are made for managers of SMEs to enhance their employee engagement in the company.