Rules of (employee) engagement: A comprehensive model

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine a comprehensive model of employee engagement that included a diverse set of (1) personal factors, (2) environmental factors, (3) job attitudes, (4) work outcomes and (5) health outcomes. The author hypothesized that the personal factors and environmental factors would have direct effects on the job attitudes, as well as the work and health outcomes. Additionally, the author hypothesized that the job attitudes would have direct effects on the work and health outcomes. Structural equation modeling was used to test the aforementioned hypotheses via survey data collected from North Carolina K-12 teachers (N = 4,908). Moreover, the author used relative importance analysis to determine the most useful predictors of a novel outcome variable, namely, employee net promoter score. The results provided support for the job demands-resources (JD-R; Demerouti et al., 2001) framework for employee engagement. Moreover, the research positioned certain personal (e.g., core self-evaluations) and environmental factors (e.g., emotional demands), as well as engagement and burnout as important predictors of work and health outcomes (e.g., turnover intentions and psychological distress). The implications of the study include: (1) The influence of personality traits in engagement models, (2) possible levers for enhanced work and health outcomes, (3) evidence for engagement and burnout as distinct constructs, (4) nuanced interpretation of challenge and hindrance demands, and (5) seminal research on factors related to employee net promoter score. The study also offers a number of practical implications related to teachers such as school interventions for reducing turnover and personal coping strategies for well-being.