Talk:Employee engagement/Archives/2017

Lead section again

Please don't be lazy, DrChris . . . . . . . . please explain why you think that the previous intro better fits the topic, as it is presented in the article? It seems that being bold is something that you approve of in general (but maybe you approve of being lazy as well?). Where there is a complacent consensus, bold editing may be required. The article references at [5] the CIPD's online view of the EE concept, in which they now recognise that the locus of employee engagement varies, with the organisation only being one of several targets. Somtimes a 'pat' definition of an idea is helpful, sometimes it ain't - here the intro needs to point clearly to the richness and complexity of the topic, as well as indicating its current ubiquity. And if it can make some reference to the related concept of 'work engagement', so much the better. :It is clear from the McLeod report that the term 'employee engagement' has not achieved a pre-defined meaning that always exists independently of the context in which it is used. Academic writers will typically define their use of the term, whereas commentators may not think that doing so is required (or they may feel it is better to let the reader 'feel their way'). Wikopedia is a dictionary, which accesses both sorts of sources, and has readers with various requirements and reasons; it is not helpful to have an intro which does not point to the lively debates around the topic, but prefers a trite textbite. I am open to the idea of informed consensus, but not proprietorial consensus! Have a nice Sunday! Alasdair (Banknock) 86.17.152.168 (talk) 13:12, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi Alasdair. I thought I had provided a quite clear explanation in both the edit summary and on the talk page. You could have replied in the new section I created, rather than creating a further section with a title that includes a personal insult. I don't particularly support any of the previous versions and I have clearly stated that I recognise there is disagreement over what should be included. I reverted the addition of "an essential concept in the armoury of Human Resource practitioners" to the lead because the the article main text of the article does currently support this. The main text of the article does not (yet) make any direct mention of "human resources". The changes I made were so that the lead complies with MOS:LEAD]. As I suggested before, improving the sections of the article might be a better place for people to direct their energy. I only intervened here at the suggestion that someone not involved in the current edit-war might provide a more neutral perspective. Drchriswilliams (talk) 13:39, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry Chris, as I said in reply to your post, no insult was intended (mild reproof, at worst). I don't have any basic point of view about this topic, beyond that it is endlessly fascinating, and shows that Pschology can be useful sometimes. I do know that the term is used differently by different kinds of writers. It is impacted by individual Psycology, as well as by Social Psychology; and is some kind of cash-cow for management consultancies. I have read various manifestations of this article, and I know that the current one (authored mostly by Adhib, I think) reads much, much better than previous ones. I am surprised that Human Resources is not mentioned directly in the article, but it is mentioned in many of references (I have checked out almost all of them). I would be surprised if any contributor to the article could honestly substantiate an objection to HR as the common province of EE being given mention in the intro. Human Resource Management, currently, is the context for EE. Kind regards, Alasdair 86.17.152.168 (talk) 14:13, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Alasdair, I'm not sure I entirely understand your complaint that sentence #1 is a 'trite textbite'. The value in moving it one ontological step up into the abstract is that it thereby encompasses all the more concrete loci or causal factors/contexts that the various tribes claim as the One True fulcrum of the topic. EE is philosophically funky, because while it appears at first glance simply to describe a psychological state of mind we all recognise - engagement - the Subject of whom it posits that state is defined in a specifically relational way, ie, as a Subject standing in a specific kind of relationship to an organisation. It therefore performs as a sort of conceptual pun, admitting a wide range of semantic freight between one pole, where "organisation engages employee" and the other, where "employee engages with organisation". The relationship is therefore central, and whether or not engagement describes that relationship is indisputably a property of it - whichever particular detail one happens to care about at the less abstract level (such as the Work Engagement concept, for example). Adhib (talk) 18:15, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

EE is a fundamental concept in efforts to describe, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the nature of (etc etc)

Reading an MIT paper, I recently discovered that I am <a non-tech geek> and that WP wants to encourage the likes of me to improve articles and maybe even create new ones. I am unemployed, so I have the time, but I am also old, so I have a well-developed sense of how to mindfully make the most of my remaining days. If I had written what I wanted to write, i would have said 'in the 21st C, EE has become a fundamental concept . . . ' I chose to compromise, since I am aware of the justified sensitivities around editing leads (particularly if you are in IP mode) 82.32.112.174 (talk) 08:07, 19 November 2017 (UTC)