Employee engagement and meaningful work.

2013 ◽  
pp. 105-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Kahn ◽  
Steven Fellows
Keyword(s):  
Employee Engagement ◽  
Meaningful Work

scholarly journals Meaningful Work, Job Resources, and Employee Engagement

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 4045
Author(s):  
Simon L. Albrecht ◽  
Camille R. Green ◽  
Andrew Marty
Keyword(s):  
Employee Engagement ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Organizational Outcomes ◽  
Job Resources ◽  
Psychological State ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Positive Direct ◽  
The Relationship

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.

Authenticity, Religiosity, and Organizational Opportunity

2022 ◽  
pp. 65-94
Author(s):  
Ryan H. Sharp
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Employee Engagement ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
True Self ◽  
Positive Organizational Behavior ◽  
Organizational Dialogue ◽  
Religiosity And Spirituality

A relatively recent emphasis on increased authenticity in the workplace has opened conversations that have previously been considered out-of-bounds within organizational dialogue. With this emphasis has come an invitation for employees to bring their “whole self” to work. An individual's religious beliefs and spiritual inclinations are often at the heart of their so-called true self. Thus, as organizations have encouraged greater authenticity, discussions regarding religiosity and spirituality have followed. While there are some inherent dangers in incorporating religiosity and spirituality into the workplace, the primary purpose of this chapter is to show three natural ways in which these important parts of an individual's identity can be—or already are being—situated into existing and accepted areas of research. Thus, this theoretical piece provides a brief examination of the literature in the fields of positive organizational behavior, meaningful work, and employee engagement and will, in the process, analyze areas of crossover between these and religiosity and spirituality.

scholarly journals Job crafting, proactive personality and meaningful work: Implications for employee engagement and turnover intention

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Vermooten ◽  
Billy Boonzaier ◽  
Martin Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Employee Engagement ◽  
Financial Services ◽  
Turnover Intention ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Proactive Personality ◽  
Job Crafting ◽  
Financial Services Industry ◽  
Proactive Behaviour ◽  
Services Industry ◽  
Employee Disengagement

Orientation: Jobs in the financial services industry are in constant flux because of the ever-changing nature of the products and services provided to customers. This could result in employee disengagement and turnover intention.Research purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine the role of job crafting, proactive personality and meaningful work in predicting employee engagement and turnover intention among employees in the financial services industry based on the central tenets of the Job Demands-Resources theory.Motivation for the study: Organisations or incumbents may redesign jobs. The self-initiated proactive behaviour that incumbents exhibit to shape the meaning of their work is known as job crafting. The relationships that exist among job crafting, proactive personality, meaningful work, employee engagement and turnover intention were, therefore, investigated.Research design, approach and method: A quantitative cross-sectional survey design was used to gather primary data in service-providing firms across South Africa (n = 391).Main findings: Results demonstrated that job crafting, proactive personality and meaningful work significantly predict variance in employee engagement and turnover intention.Practical and managerial implications: Specific human resource practices and interventions are proffered to foster job crafting, proactivity and meaningful work and, in doing so, address employee disengagement and turnover intention.Contribution or value-add: The study highlights the importance of encouraging employees to craft their jobs as it has specific implications for prominent work-related outcomes, such as employee engagement and turnover intention, among employees in the financial services industry.

scholarly journals Development and Validation of the Workplace Dignity Scale

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Thomas ◽  
Kristen Lucas
Keyword(s):  
Employee Engagement ◽  
Turnover Intentions ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Development Project ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Dirty Work ◽  
Organizational Research ◽  
Predictive Relationships ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Development And Validation

As organizational scholars have become critically attuned to human flourishing in the workplace, interest in workplace dignity has grown rapidly. Yet, a valid scale to measure employees’ perceptions of dignity in the workplace has yet to be developed, thereby limiting potential empirical insights. To fill this need, we conducted a systematic, multi-study scale development project. Using data generated from focus groups ( N = 62), an expert panel ( N = 11), and two surveys ( N = 401 and N = 542), we developed and validated an 18-item Workplace Dignity Scale (WDS). Our studies reveal evidence in support of the WDS’ psychometric properties, as well as its content, construct, and criterion-related validity. Our structural models support predictive relationships between workplace characteristics (e.g., dirty work, income insufficiency) and dignity. Moreover, we observed the incremental validity of workplace dignity to account for variance in employee engagement, burnout, and turnover intentions above and beyond the explanatory effects of organizational respect and meaningful work. These results demonstrate the promise of the WDS for organizational research.

Workplace Spirituality and Employee Job Behaviour

Paradigm ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rabindra Kumar Pradhan ◽  
Lalatendu Kesari Jena
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Commitment ◽  
Job Performance ◽  
Work Environment ◽  
Employee Engagement ◽  
Affective Commitment ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Workplace Spirituality ◽  
Organizational Studies ◽  
Professional Career

Effective employee job behaviour is often driven by suitable work environment that continually provides a meaningful job assignment throughout one’s professional career. Recent researches in organizational studies have strengthened the notion of workplace spirituality for creating meaningful job, delight, contentment and hope at work that generate employee engagement, and organizational commitment. Such type of job behaviour is expected to produce better job performance of employees while deriving higher productivity of the organization. Keeping this in view, the present study was designed to examine the role of workplace spirituality in employee job behaviour through the construct of employee engagement and organizational commitment. The findings revealed that factors of workplace spirituality significantly and positively influence job behaviour dimensions. It also reported that workplace spirituality has significant effects on vigour and affective commitment. The meaningful work dimension of workplace spirituality was found to be significant predictors of employee engagement and organizational commitment. The study has a number of implications for academicians and human resource (HR) professionals for devising suitable mechanisms to create individual–organization fitment interventions.

Engaging employees beyond the office freebies

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 112-116
Author(s):  
Sue Eaglebarger
Keyword(s):  
Employee Engagement ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Performance Indicator ◽  
Management Practice ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Behavioral Model ◽  
Key Performance Indicator ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Engagement Strategies ◽  
Internal Communications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on the key roles played by both human resources and internal communications in developing, implementing and measuring employee engagement strategies and activities. Although the management practice has been widespread since the early 2000s, many are still confused or skeptical of engagement. Design/methodology/approach This paper aims to define engagement and its importance with regard to attracting and keeping top talent, highlighting Aon Hewitt’s behavioral model and Gallup’s research. Findings Recognizing that employee engagement is a key performance indicator, this paper highlights how Lawson Products is creating growth and sustainability with its number-one asset, employees. Originality/value By considering the opportunities Lawson Products is providing for its employees to do meaningful work, to learn, to be involved without being micromanaged and to make an impact, readers will take away proven ideas to draw and engage today’s top talent.

Does My Engagement Matter?

2019 ◽  
pp. 287-301
Author(s):  
Brad Shuck
Keyword(s):  
Employee Engagement ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Psychological State ◽  
Individual Experience ◽  
Original Theory ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Precise Meaning ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Role Engagement

This chapter articulates the link between employee engagement and meaningful work, acknowledging the complexity of this task against a backdrop of confusion over the precise meaning of engagement, which remains a contested and potentially exploitative construct. The chapter highlights the limitations of the predominant conceptualization of engagement as a positive, active, work-related psychological state, arguing that this encourages a focus on performance-related outcomes at the expense of a deeper understanding of the individual experience, context, and processes of engagement. Reverting to William Kahn’s original theory of personal role engagement as being fostered by the experience of meaningfulness, it is argued that individual engagement is associated with the fluctuating interpretation of whether or not a situation can be construed as meaningful. Thus, engagement and meaningfulness, while not synonymous, are symbiotically linked.

scholarly journals Pro-Environmental Employee Engagement: The Influence of Pro-Environmental Organizational, Job and Personal Resources

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Simon L. Albrecht ◽  
Andy Bocks ◽  
Jack Dalton ◽  
Anthea Lorigan ◽  
Alec Smith
Keyword(s):  
Employee Engagement ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Job Resources ◽  
Environmental Responsibility ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Personal Resources ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Corporate Environmental Responsibility

As organizations continue to respond to the existential challenge that is climate change, the extent to which employees engage in environmental sustainability is critical to that response. This study introduces new measures of pro-environmental employee engagement, pro-environmental job resources and pro-environmental meaningful work. Based on engagement theory, a model is tested that shows how perceived corporate environmental responsibility, pro-environmental job resources (supervisor support, involvement, information) and pro-environmental meaningful work (a personal resource) influence pro-environmental employee engagement. Online self-report survey data were collected through convenience sampling from 285 full-time and part-time employees (aged 18–89 years) working across a range of occupations and organizations in Australia. Data were analyzed using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM). In support of the proposed model, CFA and SEM results generally yielded a good fit to the data. Eight of nine proposed direct effects involving corporate environmental responsibility, pro-environmental job resources (modelled as a higher-order construct), pro-environmental meaningful work, and pro-environmental engagement, were significant. All proposed indirect effects within a re-specified model were significant. The final model explained 51% of the variance in pro-environmental job resources; 20% in pro-environmental meaningful work; and 71% in pro-environmental employee engagement. Overall, the results indicate that perceived organizational, job and personal resources play a motivational role in enhancing pro-environmental employee engagement. The study contributes a theory-based model and new measures of employee pro-environmental resources and engagement. The model can be applied to help organizations assess and develop interventions to address the critically important issue of environmental sustainability. Future research directions and study limitations are discussed.

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