Work Engagement and the Positive Power of Meaningful Work

Predicting work engagement among young adult cancer survivors: A moderated mediation model

INTRODUCTION

Early research on cancer survivors was focused on exploring cancer treatments. More recently, attention has shifted to cancer survivorship research, focusing on cancer survivors as individual persons, including the multiple facets of survivors' quality of life but is inapplicable in the context of work-related role played in the young adult cancer survivors' lives. However, in recent studies on the outcomes of long-term survivorship, some of the main areas of cancer survivorship research revolves around employment issues of young adult cancer survivors. In the present study, the focus is given on the role of workplace spirituality as a mediator on the association of employee resilience and workplace social support on work engagement in a Malaysian setting, taking into consideration gender and age differences.

METHODS

Using a quantitative research paradigm, data were collected from 270 respondents at Pediatric Institute Kuala Lumpur Hospital. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM) to test the direct, indirect, and mediation effects.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The findings revealed that workplace spirituality did mediate the influence of employee resilience and workplace social support on work engagement. The findings also indicated that gender and age moderated the association of employee resilience and work engagement via workplace spirituality.

Social Media Bullying in the Workplace and Its Impact on Work Engagement: A Case of Psychological Well-Being

The hotel industry has transformed the social and official interaction and communication landscape due to information technology. This has created a new venue for bullying, known as cyberbullying. This study aims to examine the impact of workplace cyberbullying on the work engagement of hotel employees while examining the mediating role of psychological well-being and work meaningfulness using the job demand resource model and conservation of resource theory. The data (n = 470) were collected from 4-star and 5-star hotel employees in Pakistan. The results reported that psychological well-being mediates the relationship between workplace cyberbullying and work engagement. Moreover, work meaningfulness also mediates the relationship between psychological well-being and work engagement. Findings suggest that the hotel industry of Pakistan should acknowledge the presence of cyberbullying and design policies and procedures to maintain a healthy work environment for employees’ psychological well-being and ensure that hotel employees find their work meaningful.

The IWH-BEAT Questionnaire Validation

Positive Psychology has been devoted to enhancing well-being within organizations during the first two decades of the current millennium. Unfortunately, little data is available on current assessment related to positive psychology practices in the workplace. Therefore, to assess organizational well-being in a valid and reliable way, a new scale has been created and validated by the Institute for Wellbeing and Happiness at Tecmilenio University in Mexico: the BEAT Questionnaire whose main contribution to previous models is the element of meaningful work. EFA and CFA were carried out to determine and confirm the scale's structure; internal consistency tests were performed too; additionally, convergence with measures of engagement, labor resources, and worker relations were also confirmed, and discriminant validity was tested by comparing associations with job search intentions and negative relationships in the workplace, yielding an instrument with four clearly defined latent dimensions, composed by 24 highly consistent items, convergent with three other valid and reliable scales. All procedures complied with statistical requirements, delivering a valid and reliable instrument for measuring well-being in the workplace.

Work Engagement Among Public Employees: Antecedents and Consequences

This study is an investigation of the relationships among job meaningfulness, work engagement, and performance, including testing for a possible mediation effect of work engagement on the relationship between job meaningfulness and performance. We examine task interdependence as a boundary condition that facilitates employee engagement using two-stage multiple-source respondent data drawn from a sample of 183 Uzbek employees from public organizations and their 47 supervisors to test the hypotheses. The research findings confirm a positive association between job meaningfulness and engagement and the relationship between work engagement and performance. Mediation analysis using bootstrapping indicated that work engagement explained the influence of meaningfulness on performance. Furthermore, task interdependence negatively moderated the relationship between meaningfulness and engagement. This study responds to calls for researchers to identify the key and situational drivers of work engagement as well as examine the importance of meaningfulness in the public sector. It also increases the external validity of the findings by examining the relationship between engagement and performance in a non-Western context, namely, Islamic Uzbekistan. Despite the limitations of this research, the empirical findings contribute to the growing body of research on work engagement and meaningfulness in public organizations.

Job Crafting and Work Engagement: The Mediating Role of Work Meaning

One of the most widely researched personal resources is job crafting, for which several studies have confirmed the existence of a positive relationship with engagement. Some authors suggest that it would be necessary to go deeper into the mechanisms that can help us explain this relationship. Therefore, the aim of this study is to ascertain the possible influence of the meaning of work on the relationship between job crafting and engagement. The sample is composed of 814 workers (50.4% women) with an average age of 41.68 years (SD = 9.78). The results were obtained by simple mediation analysis using PROCESS. The meaning of work mediates the relationship between job crafting and engagement, this influence being especially significant in the case of cognitive crafting. This study confirms the positive relationship between job crafting and engagement. However, in the case of some types of job crafting, increased levels of engagement only occur if the individuals also manage to increase the levels of meaning attributed to the work role. Therefore, in order to improve the well-being levels of working people, it would also be necessary to help them understand how these changes help them to attribute more meaning to their work.

The Relationship between Gratitude, Wellbeing, Spirituality, and Experiencing Meaningful Work

Poor mental wellbeing not only affects an individual and their family, but it also affects the workplace and the society as a whole. Consequently, it is crucial to investigate approaches that can promote a positive mindset in order to enhance wellbeing. This study aimed to explore the association between gratitude, wellbeing, spirituality, and experiencing meaningful work. A sample of 197 participants (69.5% female) completed measures of gratitude, experiencing meaningful work, spirituality, and several wellbeing indices. Gratitude was significantly positively associated with happiness, life satisfaction, flourishing, positive affect, spirituality, and experiencing meaningful work. A mediation analysis revealed that the relationship between wellbeing and experiencing meaningful work was partially mediated by gratitude. Additionally, spirituality did not moderate the relationship between gratitude and experiencing meaningful work. Overall, the findings indicate that fostering a grateful mindset could enhance wellbeing and work engagement, which in turn could lead to the experience of meaningful work.

Meaningful Work, Job Resources, and Employee Engagement

Meaningful work and employee engagement have been the subject of increasing interest in organizational research and practice over recent years. Both constructs have been shown to influence important organizational outcomes, such as job satisfaction, wellbeing, and performance. Only a limited amount of empirical research has focused on understanding the relationship within existing theoretical frameworks. For this study, meaningful work is proposed as a critical psychological state within the job demands-resources (JD-R) model that can therefore, in part, explain the relationship between job resources and employee engagement. Survey data collected from 1415 employees working in a range of organizations, across a number of industries, were analyzed with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM). In support of expectations, job variety, development opportunities, and autonomy, each had a significant and positive direct association with meaningful work. These job resources also had a significant and positive indirect effect on employee engagement via meaningful work. Although job variety, development opportunities, autonomy, and feedback had significant positive direct associations with engagement, contrary to expectations, supervisor support had a negative association with engagement. The final model explained a sizable proportion of variance in both meaningful work (49%) and employee engagement (65%). Relative weights analyses showed that job variety was the strongest job resource predictor of meaningful work, and that meaningful work was more strongly associated with employee engagement than the job resources. Overall, the results show that meaningful work plays an important role in enhancing employee engagement and that providing employees with skill and task variety is important to achieving that goal. Practical implications, study limitations, and future research opportunities are discussed.

Global Challenges as Opportunity to Transform Business for Good

Using insights from Peter Drucker’s Theory of the Business framework, the authors show that global challenges such as pandemics and climate change are contributing to a critical misalignment between businesses and their increasingly complex external environments, leading to a growing malaise in many organizations. Central to this misalignment are seven legacy assumptions which no longer serve businesses effectively. Seven new assumptions better reflect today’s external environment and point to how businesses can thrive (“Do Well”) by making a positive difference in society (“Do Good.”) The authors propose a set of change management methods and tools along with specific steps that leaders and organizations can take to transform their businesses into what they define as Positive Institutions.

The Influence of HRIS Usage on Employee Performance and Mediating Effects of Employee Engagement in Five Stars Hotels in Jordan

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the role of employee engagement with their work as a mediating factor in the relationship between utilisation of a human resource information system (HRIS) and employee performance in five-star hotels in Jordan. A conceptual framework based on social exchange theory and content analysis of similar previous studies was developed. A quantitative approach and simple random sampling were used to obtain data via questionnaires completed by 221 human resources (HR) employees working at 21 five-star hotels in Jordan. The response rate was 71%. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse and verify the study variables. The findings revealed that use of a HRIS had a significant positive influence on both employee performance and work engagement, while the latter acted as a partial mediator between HRIS utilisation and employee performance.

Job Crafting and Intent to Leave: The Mediating Role of Meaningful Work and Engagement

Managing turnover is an essential human resource practice. One of the modern approaches that could have the potential to increase staff retention is the stimulation of employees’ job crafting, the set of changes regarding job demands and job resources that employees proactively make. Based on self-concept theory, we expected meaningful work and work engagement to serially mediate the negative relationship between job crafting and intent to leave. A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 235 Romanian employees who responded to questionnaires about all variables. The mediation hypotheses were tested with bootstrapping procedures using structural equation modeling. Meaningful work and work engagement serially mediated the negative link between job crafting and intent to leave. Our results suggest that implementing job crafting interventions could reduce employees’ intentions to leave the organization. Future studies could verify whether these interventions may represent a new management practice to effectively control turnover.

Meaningful work and well-being: a study of the positive side of veterinary work

OBJECTIVES

Mental health is a growing concern in many healthcare professions, including veterinary medicine, as research suggests that veterinarians report higher levels of distress, burnout and suicidal ideation than other healthcare occupations and the general public. A recent literature review found that about twice as many articles published on veterinary wellness refer to the negative aspects of mental health (eg, stress and depression) compared with the positive aspects of well-being. Little attention has been devoted to examining the positive aspects of veterinarians' work, and few models have been developed to explain their well-being. This paper empirically assesses a veterinary model of work-derived well-being based on the theory of eudaimonia. Eudaimonic well-being reflects having fulfilling work that contributes to the greater good. Three core clusters of job characteristics are hypothesised relevant to veterinarian well-being that include: actualising self, helping others (animals or people) and a sense of belonging (to team or profession). In addition, meaningful work is proposed as the mechanism through which situational job characteristics may exert a positive influence on well-being.

METHODS

Survey data from 376 veterinarians in clinical practice were analysed using path analysis.

DISCUSSION

Meaningful work is important in understanding the well-being of veterinarians. Job characteristics (self-actualising work, helping animals and people and a sense of belonging) contribute to a sense of meaningful work, which in turn is related to eudaimonic well-being. Excessive job demands (work overload, financial demands and physical health risks) appear less relevant in understanding meaningful work but are clearly important in having negative consequences for veterinarians' well-being.While strategies that cultivate meaningful work may be effective in nurturing veterinarians' well being, several limitations of this study should be noted. First, due to the cross-sectional data, definitive statements about the causal ordering of variables cannot be made. Second, the data were derived from a single source such that monomethod bias may be an issue. Third, the data rely on self-report measures and the responses may be influenced by social desirability or response biases. Lastly, while the sample may be representative of the veterinarians throughout a large geographic area in Canada, it may not represent the work arrangements of veterinarians in other countries.

CONCLUSIONS

The significance of these findings is that they may shift research attention from focusing on the harmful, demanding aspects of veterinary work to better understanding the deeply meaningful aspects that improve veterinarians' well-being. In addition, the results may stimulate consideration of strategies that move beyond individual-level interventions that focus on veterinarians adopting better coping strategies and becoming more resilient. This may lead to adopting organisational and occupational-level strategies that can involve promoting more positive and supportive workplace cultures and developing more professional resources for promoting wellness and meaning in the profession of veterinary medicine.

Perceived Organizational Politics, Engagement, and Stress: The Mediating Influence of Meaningful Work

The research aimed to assess proposed associations between organizational politics and employee engagement, employee stress (or more correctly 'strain'), and work meaningfulness. Very few studies have examined these associations. Confirmatory factor analyses established the dimensionality and reliability of the full measurement model across two independent samples (N = 303, N = 373). Structural equation modeling supported the proposed direct associations between organizational politics, operationalized as a higher order construct, and employee stress and employee engagement. These relationships were shown to be partially mediated by meaningful work. As such, politics had significant indirect effects on engagement and stress through meaningful work. The results also showed a significant and direct association between stress and engagement. Overall, the results shed important new light on the factors that influence engagement, and identify work meaningfulness as an important psychological mechanism that can help explain the adverse impact of organizational politics on employee engagement and stress. The results also support the dimensionality and validity of a new set of measures of perceived organizational politics focused on generalized perceptions about the use and abuse of relationships, resources, reputation, decisions, and communication channels. More generally, the results serve as a platform for further research regarding the negative influence of organizational politics on a range of individual and organizational outcomes.

Reaping the benefits of meaningful work: The mediating versus moderating role of work engagement

This study examined whether meaningful work may improve one's quality of life outside of the workplace (i.e., work-to-life enrichment). More importantly, we proposed and tested competing hypotheses regarding the role of work engagement in the relationship between meaningful work and work-to-life enrichment. Specifically, we investigated whether work engagement served as a mediator of this relationship, as suggested by the job demands-resources model, or instead a moderator, as suggested by conservation of resources theory. Two-wave survey data were collected from 194 respondents recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Analyses showed that meaningful work was positively related to work-to-life enrichment over time (i.e., 3 months later). Additionally, work engagement mediated but did not moderate the relationship between meaningful work at Time 1 and work-to-life enrichment at Time 2. We suggest that organizations foster a sense of meaningfulness in employees to facilitate engagement and in turn enrich employees' lives beyond the workplace. Therefore, not only organizations, but individuals as well may reap the benefits of meaningful work.

Challenge Demands, Hindrance Demands, and Psychological Need Satisfaction

The job demands-resources (JD-R) model provides a well-validated account of how job resources and job demands influence work engagement, burnout, and their constituent dimensions. The present study aimed to extend previous research by including challenge demands not widely examined in the context of the JD-R. Furthermore, and extending self-determination theory, the research also aimed to investigate the potential mediating effects that employees’ need satisfaction as regards their need for autonomy, need for belongingness, need for competence, and need for achievement, as components of a higher order needs construct, may have on the relationships between job demands and engagement. Structural equations modeling across two independent samples generally supported the proposed relationships. Further research opportunities, practical implications, and study limitations are discussed.

Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to argue in support of a model that shows how four key HRM practices focused on engagement influence organizational climate, job demands and job resources, the psychological experiences of safety, meaningfulness and availability at work, employee engagement, and individual, group and organizational performance and competitive advantage.

Design/methodology/approach

– This conceptual review focuses on the research evidence showing interrelationships between organizational context factors, job factors, individual employee psychological and motivational factors, employee outcomes, organizational outcomes and competitive advantage. The proposed model integrates frameworks that have previously run independently in the HR and engagement literatures.

Findings

– The authors conclude that HRM practitioners need to move beyond the routine administration of annual engagement surveys and need to embed engagement in HRM policies and practices such personnel selection, socialization, performance management, and training and development.

Practical implications

– The authors offer organizations clear guidelines for how HR practices (i.e. selection, socialization, performance management, training) can be used to facilitate and improve employee engagement and result in positive outcomes that will help organizations achieve a competitive advantage.

Originality/value

– The authors provide useful new insights for researchers and management professionals wishing to embed engagement within the fabric of HRM policies and practices and employee behaviour, and organizational outcomes.

Role Efficacy

Several studies have been carried out in the recent past on effectiveness in the workplace in IT sector. Authors and researchers have made in depth studies of the internal dynamics of the organizational structure, organizational culture, organizational learning, managerial behaviour and resistance to change and recommended many methods in negotiating the complex aspects that a specific role is likely to bring to the organization in this sector. With this in view, a study on Role Efficacy has been carried out on major multinational organizations across the IT industry in India. The main purpose of the study was to examine the level of role efficacy in IT companies. A secondary purpose was to investigate the influence of role efficacy on the lines of employee engagement, motivation and attrition. Role Efficacy Scale developed by Udai Pareek (1980) has been used to assess the level of role efficacy possess by the 55 employees of various IT companies in India. The result of this study reveals that above mentioned three issues were widely affected on the middle management in the IT companies. Key finding of the present piece of work is role efficacy has been found to be one of the instrumental factors in determining the level employee engagement, motivation and attrition. The implications of the finding have also been discussed in terms of the culture of organizations of the IT sector.

Job embeddedness, work engagement and turnover intention of staff in a higher education institution: An exploratory study

Orientation: The world economy is becoming increasingly knowledge driven, and intellectual capital is now considered as a human resource that affords organisations a competitive advantage. A high turnover rate in higher education and the importance of retaining staff are concerns that have resulted in increased interest in psychological variables, such as job embeddedness and work engagement that may influence employee retention.Research purpose: The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between job embeddedness, work engagement and turnover intention of staff in a higher education institution.Motivation for the study: Research on how employees’ job embeddedness and work engagement influence their turnover intention is important in the light of organisational concerns about retaining knowledgeable staff in the current higher education environment.Research design, approach and method: A cross-sectional quantitative survey was conducted on a non-probability purposive sample (N = 153) of academic and non-academic staff in a South African higher education institution.Main findings: Correlational analyses revealed significant relationships between job embeddedness, work engagement and turnover intention. Multiple regression analyses showed that organisational links and dedication significantly and negatively predict turnover intention.Practical/managerial implications: When designing retention strategies, management and human resource practitioners need to recognise how job embeddedness and work engagement influence the turnover intention of higher education staff.Contribution: These findings contribute valuable new knowledge that can be applied in the retention of staff in the higher education environment.