Sustainable employee engagement: Addressing the dynamic challenges of engagement
(2025) MGTN59 20251Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- Over the past few decades, employee engagement has been increasingly recognised as a key driver of organisational success. Although previous research has examined psychological and organisational factors influencing engagement, few studies have examined how it varies over time. This study explores the dynamic and sustainable aspects of employee engagement in Swedish organisations, focusing on how engagement is understood, measured, and managed over time. Through a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with HR professionals and managers from six organisations across both public and private sectors, the study examines how engagement fluctuates in response to individual, organisational, and external factors.
The findings... (More) - Over the past few decades, employee engagement has been increasingly recognised as a key driver of organisational success. Although previous research has examined psychological and organisational factors influencing engagement, few studies have examined how it varies over time. This study explores the dynamic and sustainable aspects of employee engagement in Swedish organisations, focusing on how engagement is understood, measured, and managed over time. Through a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with HR professionals and managers from six organisations across both public and private sectors, the study examines how engagement fluctuates in response to individual, organisational, and external factors.
The findings indicate that all participating organisations acknowledge employee engagement as dynamic, and recognise several individual and organisational drivers such as organisational changes, workload, and employees' life circumstances, as primary contributors. Furthermore, the study found that organisations' engagement strategies address several dynamic factors that influence engagement. The findings revealed that recruitment might serve as one of the most sustainable strategies to foster sustainable engagement by hiring people who find the work meaningful. To sustain this engagement over time, leadership practices as well as career and development opportunities are suggested as effective long-term solutions. The findings also identified short-term strategies, such as recognition initiatives, resources, and social activities, as having the potential to support sustainable engagement. However, to maintain their impact over time, these strategies must be implemented consistently.
Finally, the study found that most organisations still rely heavily on annual surveys, despite acknowledging dynamic factors such as organisational change and timing to impact measurement results. A practical recommendation is therefore to adopt a more frequent approach to measuring, ideally by incorporating regular one-to-ones to account for the dynamic aspects of engagement. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9207403
- author
- Sander, Thea LU and Alfredsson, Lisa LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- MGTN59 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Employee engagement, Human Resources, Sustainable Human Resource Management, Leadership, Engagement Measurement
- language
- English
- id
- 9207403
- date added to LUP
- 2025-07-02 15:27:11
- date last changed
- 2025-07-02 15:27:11
@misc{9207403,
abstract = {{Over the past few decades, employee engagement has been increasingly recognised as a key driver of organisational success. Although previous research has examined psychological and organisational factors influencing engagement, few studies have examined how it varies over time. This study explores the dynamic and sustainable aspects of employee engagement in Swedish organisations, focusing on how engagement is understood, measured, and managed over time. Through a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with HR professionals and managers from six organisations across both public and private sectors, the study examines how engagement fluctuates in response to individual, organisational, and external factors.
The findings indicate that all participating organisations acknowledge employee engagement as dynamic, and recognise several individual and organisational drivers such as organisational changes, workload, and employees' life circumstances, as primary contributors. Furthermore, the study found that organisations' engagement strategies address several dynamic factors that influence engagement. The findings revealed that recruitment might serve as one of the most sustainable strategies to foster sustainable engagement by hiring people who find the work meaningful. To sustain this engagement over time, leadership practices as well as career and development opportunities are suggested as effective long-term solutions. The findings also identified short-term strategies, such as recognition initiatives, resources, and social activities, as having the potential to support sustainable engagement. However, to maintain their impact over time, these strategies must be implemented consistently.
Finally, the study found that most organisations still rely heavily on annual surveys, despite acknowledging dynamic factors such as organisational change and timing to impact measurement results. A practical recommendation is therefore to adopt a more frequent approach to measuring, ideally by incorporating regular one-to-ones to account for the dynamic aspects of engagement.}},
author = {{Sander, Thea and Alfredsson, Lisa}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Sustainable employee engagement: Addressing the dynamic challenges of engagement}},
year = {{2025}},
}