S businesses to strive for those standards those best

President Reagan to create best practices for Organizational excellence in motivating U.S.
businesses to strive for those standards. Those best practices became the Malcolm Baldrige
award. "In November 1991, David Garvin wrote in the Harvard Business Review; The Malcolm
Baldrige National Quality Award has become the most important catalyst for transforming
American business. More than any other initiative, public or private, it has reshaped managers'
thinking and behavior. The Baldrige Award not only codifies the principles of quality
management in clear and accessible language. It also goes further: it provides companies with a
comprehensive framework for assessing their progress toward the new paradigm of management
and such commonly acknowledged goals as customer satisfaction and increased employee
involvement" (Garvin, 1991).
Understanding the best practices for employee engagement is of great benefit to the leaders and
managers on the front line because they are the ones who can impact employee engagement the
most. Gallup estimates in the State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders
that "managers account for about seventy percent variance in employee engagement scores
across business units" (Beck & Harter, 2015). This study is significant because, as we can see
from the research, Employee engagement ends and begins with the leaders and managers, and
they are currently producing poor results.
Definition of Terms
Defined terms are in Italics :
Employee Engagement: "the ability to capture the heads, hearts, and souls of your employees to
instill an intrinsic desire and passion for excellence" (Fleming, Asplund 2007).
Engagement: Describes employees who are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to
their workplace (Gallup, 2020).
Disengagement: Describes employees who are emotionally disconnected from their workplace
and less likely to be productive (Gallup, 2017).

Literature Review
This literature review is being written to determine the best practices for leaders in employee
engagement. One of the recurring problems throughout the literature review is the cost of
engagement on business, which can negatively affect the economy. Also, Americans not engaged
in their work can lead to a lack of quality products and services here in the U.S., which again
could lead to a downturn in the U.S. economy. The Best practices that were determined through
analysis of literature review are:
Work-Life Balance
Management & Employee Relations
Organizational Alignment
Personal Development and Career Growth
What is Employee Engagement
According to Anitha (2014), people are the most valuable asset; you can't duplicate people and
what they bring to the table. Employee engagement can be a massive competitive advantage if
managed and engaged in the correct manner. Every business and or organization has a different
definition for employee engagement in Anitha's literature review we gain a greater sense of what
employee engagement means to our peers, which will aid us in determining the best practices for
leaders.