Human resource management practices and employees’ engagement in small and medium enterprises in Tanzania

Abstract

Employees’ engagement is a very important concept in business management. It plays a vital role in determining the performance of business organizations including small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Despite its importance in business management, there is limited knowledge on how human resource management (HRM) practices influence the two major categories of employees’ engagement: job engagement and organizational engagement. This study examined the influence of HRM practices on employees’ engagement in Tanzanian SMEs. Data were collected from 483 SMEs using survey method and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results revealed that employees’ communication had positive influence on both organizational engagement and job engagement. Also organizational support had significant influence on both organizational engagement and job engagement. The conclusion is that the presence of support and communication are the only HRM practices which have a significant influence on both job engagement and organizational engagement. Hence, SMEs can use employees’ communication and organizational support to influence organizational engagement.