People Engagement and New Fashions in HRM Practices: Social Responsibility, Digital Transformation, Happiness and Well-Being

In all too many businesses, the engagement strategy is based more on ‘acts of faith’ than on any sound evidence. Organizational studies provide useful evidence for the critical appraisal of the role of some ‘new and fashionable’ Human Resource Management (HRM) trends and developing much better insights on how to support employee engagement and positive employee-organization relationships. This chapter analyses the link between engagement and some development and innovation trajectories of HRM systems that are receiving a great deal of attention due to their association with particularly relevant trends that seem to engender the interest of the new generation of workers: social impact; digital innovation; well-being and happiness. These fashions are decidedly linked to the social, cultural, technological and demographic changes taking place. They appear to offer new opportunities while calling for the attention of those designing and managing employee management systems to activate their energy, passion and performance. There is evidence that empowering and developing HRM practices could support the different features of employee engagement. More interestingly, the positive effect of HRM practices does not related to a single practice in isolation, but a combinative positive effect of job design, leadership style and HRM architecture that together impact on the people engagement. However, these trends also suggest some caution and critical thoughts that are discussed in the chapter.