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