Analysing the impact of employees' perceived customer value on employee engagement

Abstract

If South African organisations want to enhance employee engagement, they need to focus on the creation of an organisational culture that places emphasis on creating customer value, thus creating meaningful work. The aim of this study was to determine the influence of employees' perceived customer value on employee engagement in a South African manufacturing organisation. Integrating employee engagement and customer value would have significant implications for organisational performance and profitability. A literature study indicated that customer value is influenced by employee perceptions driven by a customer-centric organisational culture. Through creating customer value, employees had an impact on society and therefore created meaningfulness, subsequently influencing employee engagement and organisational performance. The research also investigated the impact of employee perceived customer value on meaningfulness at work as well as flourishing at work. In this study, a cross-sectional survey design was used. It drew a convenience sample of employees working in South Africa's largest water technology company in the sanitaryware and brassware sector (N=152). The scales administered were a Perceived Value Indicator Scale, Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, Meaningfulness at-Work Scale and Flourishing-at-Work Scale. The results indicated a positive relationship between employees perceived customer value and employee engagement, meaningfulness at work and flourishing at work. It was confirmed that employee perceived customer value did have an impact on employee engagement. Organisational leadership should create a customer-centric organisational culture that focuses on customer value, thereby creating meaningfulness and subsequently influencing employee engagement. This study contributes to the literature by analysing how organisational customer centricity has an impact on employee engagement, improves meaningfulness and flourishing at work of employees.