Rural Healthcare - An Employee Engagement Perspective of Hospitals

Objectives: This is a survey on employee engagement level in hospitals of a rural district of India to find out the influencing factors and propose a strategic model. Methods/Analysis: Among the 11 public and 80 private hospitals, stratified random and disproportionate convenience sampling techniques were used to select the 35 hospitals and the 506 respondents. All levels of employees were included unlike the earlier researches conducted. An existing standard Employee Engagement questionnaire combined with a customer perception questionnaire was administered. In analysis, Descriptive and Multiple Regression were used. Findings: The present levels of engagement are 82.51% and customers are the most influencing factor for engagement. From the available research reports it is found in India the fully engaged employees are in the region of 9 to 17 % and the level of engagement is just above 70 %. The high level of engagement is different from various reports. The study has provided insights and information about employee engagement in hospitals so that the administrators can develop and implement strategies to improve the same thereby increasing employee commitment, service quality and customer satisfaction. Novelty/Improvement: A strategic model to improve the engagement level is proposed and thus the ultimate social contribution to provide better healthcare service to the people will be achieved.