Drivers of employee engagement: differences by work area and gender

Abstract

Purpose Previous studies have not integrated the impact of the area of study into the notion of employee engagement. The purpose of this study is to empirically measure the association between employee engagement and the two antecedent factors of perceived organizational support (POS) and employee loyalty across different areas of study. Design/methodology/approach A nationally representative survey of 2,408 adults in the USA collected by the worker representation and participation survey (WRPS) was used. A multinomial logit regression was used to estimate the impact of POS and loyalty across different areas of study. Findings The findings of this study consistent with the previous studies showed that POS and employee loyalty are positively and significantly associated with employee engagement. This study found by a decline in the level of support from a “lot of support” to “somewhat support,” the degree of engagement declines by about 50 per cent. Further, it found that the level of engagement changes across different areas of study. For instance, professional and skilled workers are more engaged compared to other groups of workers. The findings were similar for the variables of loyalty to supervisors and loyalty to organizations. Moreover, the findings showed that conditioned on being loyal, women are more engaged than men. Originality/value This is the first study that uses WRPS to understand how the level of engagement varies across different kinds of study.

Is working from home the new workplace panacea? Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic for the future world of work

“…Employee engagement can be defined as 'a positive, fulfilling motivational state of work-related well-being' (Wood, Oh, Park, & Kim, 2020, p. 242). Employee engagement has consistently been correlated with several important organisational outcomes (Bailey, Madden, Alfes, & Fletcher, 2017) that constitute a competitive advantage (Schneider, Yost, Kropp, Kind, & Lam, 2018), such as enhanced commitment and performance, reduced absenteeism (Schaufeli, 2013), enhanced organisational financial returns and organisational effectiveness (Khodakarami & Dirani, 2020) and positive financial and customer metrics (Bailey et al, 2017;Schneider et al, 2018).…”

“…Working from home, or remote work, is a flexible working arrangement (FWA), which consistently correlates with important organisational benefits, such as improved employee engagement and performance (Conradie & De Klerk, 2019;Lee, 2018;Rudolph & Baltes, 2017), and reduced absenteeism (Schaufeli, 2013), enhanced financial returns and organisational effectiveness (Khodakarami & Dirani, 2020). However, extensive remote working can also yield disadvantages, such as social isolation and reduced employee engagement (Sardeshmukh, Sharma, & Golden, 2012;Vander Elst et al, 2017).…”

Influences on User Engagement in Online Professional Learning: A Narrative Synthesis and Meta-Analysis

“…For example, professional learning for teachers tend to include reflective activities (Yang & Liu, 2004), whereas medical professions tend to have knowledge check activities such as tests or quizzes (Baia & Strang, 2016). This in turn could result in differences in engagement processes between industries (Khodakarami & Dirani, 2020).…”

Employee engagement and work-related outcomes

“…This work provided merit to an ongoing discourse between researchers, who argue that engagement is particularly about the job role and those that claim that engagement can be exhibited through a diverse set of roles (Schaufeli et al, 2002;Schaufeli and Salanova, 2007;Macey and Schneider, 2008;Guest, 2013). In particular, this model can be observed through multiple foci of engagement, as an employee can be engaged toward different characteristics within the organization (Khodakarami & Dirani, 2020). Therefore, an employee could be engaged to the job, the leaders, the organization, or exhibit the engagement toward more than one of these.…”