Employee engagement and internal branding: Two sides of the same coin?

Abstract

<p>This study examines the link between employee engagement and internal branding. It seeks to understand which antecedent factors healthcare professionals consider important for employee engagement and what kinds of implications this engagement-related information may have for internal branding. The study reviews the literature on employee engagement and internal branding and presents a conceptualisation of the linkage between the two concepts. The empirical portion content analyses more than 1200 answers to open questions to examine employee engagement in the case organisation, a large private healthcare organisation in Finland. The findings suggest the following eight antecedent factors to be particularly important for healthcare professionals’ employee engagement: organisational culture, reward, working environment, training, HR practices, reputation and values, communication, and physical environment. Based on the empirical and theoretical analyses, it can be said that the antecedent factors of employee engagement and elements of internal branding can be considered two sides of the same coin.</p>