PEOPLE.IDEAS.PERFORMANCE

98 experience autonomy, competence, and relatedness on a daily basis (Friedman, 2014, p. 270). Moreover, just autonomy can be experienced by employees through their sense of choice on the job. According to Bridger (Bridger, 2014) it is generally accepted that employee engagementt is an internal state of being characterized by the passion and energy of employees to give their best to the organization. In this respect Gebauer suggests that employees feel a deep and broad connection with their company that leads to a willingness to go above and beyond what is expected of them to help their company succeed (Gebauer, Lowman, 2008). From a functional point of view it appears that engagement may occur under these conditions: 1) when employees hold down work that both interests them and is in line with their personal values; 2) when managers treat employees the way that reinforces their natural tendency to reciprocate positively. On the other hand, it is necessary to mention that both these conditions have to be fulfilled for the employee engagement to be activated, which is sometimes rather difficult. However, equally important appears to be the question concerning specific conditions required by engagement. In this regard Macey shows that engagement requires a work environment that does not just demand „more“ but promotes information sharing, provides learning opportunities, and fosters a balance in people´s lives (Macey, Schneider, 2009). Cook specifies that engagement could be summed up by how positively the employee thinks about the firm, how positively he/she feels about the organization and how proactive he/she is towards achieving organizational goals of the firm (Cook, 2008). This implies that engagement reflects the degree to which employees perform their company roles in a positive and proactive manner, what they think about their employer and how they feel about their firm, or whether they feel emotional connection with their firm brand. However, since reality is usually far from ideal, one could be at times faced with uncertainty among workers and managers about the concept of engagement. Rothwell, therefore, draws attention to ways to overcome such negative tendencies through educating employees and discussing these issues with them well before any misunderstanding or contradiction may arise (Rothwell, 2015). In this respect, managers should demonstrate why engagement is more than a management fad and show employees its main benefits. As Macey outlines, employees should be informed that more engaged workers make their firm more successful, increasing its financial performance (Macey, Schneider, 2009) thanks to their higher productivity, innovation and lower sickness absence – that is what Holbeche highlights in her book (Holbeche, Matthews, 2012). This interconnection between individual items of firm performance and engagement is clearly and comprehensively illustrated in the graph called „ Employee engagement and key performance indicators “. All these positive effects of employee engagement are supported by the results of the study where highly engaged employees strongly correlated with low rates of absenteeism (Leonard, Trusty, 2014). Moreover, employee engagement leads to an increase in employee happiness and as a consequence could also improve their health, which is viewed positively by employees. Ttherefore, this information could be used as a tool to avoid any contradictions. Within the framework of employee engagement, lots of experts distinguish between the terms of full engagement and narrow engagement. The construct of full engagement incorporates both employee commitment and well-being leading to more beneficial outcomes for organizations and employees. As opposed to narrow engagement, this concept of full engagement emphasizes among other items also psychological well-being of employees,which brings much wider focus. On the other hand the concept of narrow