Investigating strengths and deficits to increase work engagement : a longitudinal study in the mining industry

Abstract

Mining remains one of the main contributors to the South African economy. However, the industry is not without challenges. To remain competitive, organisations need to invest in their human capital and employ the best strategies to realise their bottom-line. One way to do this is to ensure that they have an engaged workforce. In literature, there are abundant studies on the antecedents of work engagement. Furthermore, it has been confirmed, by making reference to the JD-R model, that job resources are the main predictors of work engagement. Additional forms of job resources, namely perceived organisational support (POS) for strengths use and POS for deficit correction have been identified and their relation to work engagement over the short term has been established. However, to verify their long-term causal effects on work engagement, a longitudinal perspective is deemed necessary. Therefore, the objective of this study was to test the relationship between job resources POS for strengths use and POS for deficit correction and work engagement over time. This was done in order to gather a better understanding on the long-term relationship between the constructs in employees within the mining industry of South Africa. Statistical analysis was conducted by making use of the SPSS and Mplus programs. A longitudinal research design was followed and data was collected in two waves. The sample sizes for the first and second waves were 376 and 79, respectively. To test the hypotheses, structural equation modelling (SEM) was conducted. In order to adequately handle the smaller sample size, Bayesian estimation was employed to establish the longitudinal relationships. The results indicated a positive relationship between POS for strengths use and POS for deficit correction with work engagement in the shorter term. However, longitudinally, only POS for deficit correction had a significant positive relationship with work engagement. Although POS for strengths use did not significantly predict work engagement over time, there is merit in adopting this approach in the short term. The results of this study thus confirmed the importance for organisations to adopt a combined strengths use and a deficit correction approach when employing developmental strategies. This, in turn may enhance their employees’ work engagement and their dedication to their work and the organisation. Recommendations to organisations, employees and literature were made after conclusions were drawn