Balanced between Support and Strain: Levels of Work Engagement

Balanced between Support and

Strain: Levels of Work

Engagement

Carolyn Timms, Paula Brough and Rosie Bauld

School of Psychology Griffith University

This presentation

• Presents some initial findings from the WLB project

• Is exploratory in nature

• Focuses on the importance of work

engagement as an indicator of workplace health

• Demonstrates that there are differences between employees in China/Hong Kong and Australia/New Zealand.

Why look at work

engagement?

• Schaufeli, W.B. (2005). The future of occupational health psychology. Journal of Applied Psychology: An International Review, 53, 502-517.

• Until recently ‘organisational health

psychology’ was a misnomer because the focus has been on ill-health.

• He pointed out that this logic is flawed because psychological health in the workplace is much more than the

absence of psychological strain such as burnout.

Schaufeli, 2005

“

productivity needs to be supplemented by a genuine occupational health

psychological perspective that considers the pursuit of workers’ happiness, health and betterment as legitimate goals and ends in themselves” (p. 514).

A consistent theme

This call has resonance with other work, for example:

Rousseau, 1995 (psychological contract) Mayer and Davis, 1999 (management

trustworthiness)

Kim and Mauborgne, 1998 (fair process) and 2005 (Blue Ocean Strategy)

Dedication

Absorption Vigour

Do previous findings on work engagement apply in Asia?

• Previous research with work engagement has been conducted in

Western countries.

• Culture in Western countries tends to be individualistic

• Only a handful of studies have

previously been

conducted in China

• Culture in China

tends to be collectivist

Aim and Hypothesis

• Aim: To establish a sense of commonality between employed individuals who reported particular levels of work engagement.

• Hypotheses:

1. Respondents’ attitudes towards aspects of their work environments will predict their levels of

work engagement

2. These findings will be consistent over national divides.

Participants in the Work-

Life balance project

• Australia (GU & ANU) n = 5235

• New Zealand (Waikato U) n = 719

• China (Lingnan U) n = 4096

• Hong Kong (UHK) n = 451

Gender and age

Anglo Asian

n % n %

Males 1954 33 1004 22

Females 4000 67 3543 77

M SD M SD

Mean Age

41.5 10.8 26.2 7.3

UWES z scores for

groups

Highly Engaged

Engaged ^Un- engaged

Dis- engaged

Very Dis- engaged

Dedication 1.30 .61 -.11 -.92 -1.84

Vigour 1.34 .55 -.11 -.81 -1.94

Absorption 1.38 .52 -.12 -.81 -1.90

16% 29% 29% 18% 9%

Work Engagement

• More Anglo in Engaged groups

• More Asian in Disengaged groups.

Measures used to

compare groups

• Work life balance: 4 items, 7pt Likert, developed within the current project.

• Work demands: 5 items, 5pt Likert, Boyar Carr, Mosley

& Carson, 2007.

• Family demands: 4 items, 5pt Likert, Boyar et al., 2007.

• Supervisor Support: 4 items, 6pt Likert, O’Driscoll, Brough & Kalliath

• Turnover Intentions: 3 items, 5pt Likert, Brough and Frame, 2004.

• General Health Questionnaire: 12 items, 4pt Likert, Goldberg, 1972.

• Generally consistent with higher

engagement

groups, although there was no

significant difference between Anglo

engaged groups and unengaged group.

Work-life Balance

Interesting aspect of work demands was that more

highly engaged groups reported higher work

demands – we thought this

instrument might have tapped into

‘challenge’ (Deci &

Ryan, 1987; Schabracq &

Cooper, 2000).

Work Demands

Supervisor Support

• Asks about helpful advice, sympathetic understanding,

concern, clear and helpful feedback and practical

assistance.

• Clear differences between

engagement groups on

Supervisor support.

• More turnover

intentions expressed by the disengaged groups.

• An interesting

difference between Anglo and Asian

respondents on this measure.

Turnover Intentions

General Health

Questionnaire

• Levels above 4 on the GHQ represent cause for concern.

• Clear evidence that disengagement in workers is linked to poorer mental health outcomes.

CAUSE FOR CONCERN

Work Engagement as a

measure of workplace health

• Maslach & Leiter (1997) saw burnout as a

‘barometer’ that measured workplace social dysfunction

• The current study indicates that

engagement could be a useful measure of workplace health

Conclusions

High levels of supervisor support and work

demands are consistently associated with levels of work engagement.

There was an observable pattern with work-life balance which was associated with levels of work engagement.

Low levels of work engagement are associated

with higher turnover intentions, and higher GHQ scores particularly in Anglo employees.