Senior Lecturer

The paper explores the popular notion of „employee engagement ‟ through ongoing attempts to reform and modernize the UK public sector. It considers how employee engagement is gaining currency across many public services both as a measure of employee outcomes and as a workplace approach to improvement. We draw on survey data (n=2181) from three UK organizations – an NHS hospital Trust, a local government authority and a central government department – to assess how public sector employees‟ perception of their job, their managers and involvement-oriented practices relate to their level of engagement with work. We find that, contrary to the prescriptions of recent government policies and initiatives, engagement is not strongly related to perceptions of organizational improvement but is closely linked to the more fundamental concerns of the fit between individuals and their jobs and having clear work objectives. The findings have policy implications about how best to inculcate an engaged public sector workforce and also managerial implications about where to target efforts to increase positive employee outcomes