FACTORS INFLUENCING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT: A STUDY AMONG CARCAR

WATER DISTRICT EMPLOYEES

by: Kimberly B. Alesna

MA in Psychology Major in Industrial Psychology

Abstract

Various studies have been conducted to determine the factors associated with
Employee Engagement. Amongst all facets of Employee Engagement, three
facets have been pre-determined in this study (Intellectual Engagement,
Affective Engagement and Social Engagement) which will be analyzed if there is
really a significant relationship to three variables: Age, Educational Attainment
and Number of Years in Service. Based on a sample of 30 respondents, at Carcar
Water District, and the results of Multiple Regression analysis, Age and Number of
Years in Service has a positive relationship with Intellectual Engagement. And the
Educational Attainment of the employees has a positive relationship with
Affective Engagement. While Social Engagement has a negative relationship to
Age & Educational Attainment. Thus this study recommends that Intellectual
Engagement has the highest influence to the variables of Age, Educational
Attainment and Tenure.

1.0 Introduction

“Before you win in the marketplace, you must win first in the workplace.”
(BigSpeak Speakers Bureau, 2011, 5:43) This is a notable quote by Douglas Conant,
former CEO of Campbell Soup Co. in 2011 who gained recognition and prestige
by switching Campbell’s decline in market value and employee engagement. In
Campbell’s, the notion is that employees must have to be fully engaged in the
efforts of the organization and that you can’t ask them to devote meaningful
intense energy and effort to the work unless they believe that you are personally
invested in them as human beings (BigSpeak Speakers Bureau, 2011, 4:29). An
engaged employee is someone who commits to the organization and its
mandate, and will stay long in the organization as a result of that commitment
(Wellins & Bernathal, 2005-2015). At present, Employee Engagement is one of the
biggest issues in almost all organizations. It is a concept gaining significant
importance because it involves the organization’s most prized possession – the
human resource. As many organizations strive to keep up with the demands in
the industry from competition, globalization and any other challenges, one of the
most important factors that HR managers need to focus on will be the physical
and mental well-being of its employees. Carcar Water District has no recorded
issues regarding high turnover and problems reaching its organizational targets
for over the past 5 years, but no previous study about determining the factors of
employee engagement has been conducted in the organization. This study talks
about the different factors that greatly affect employee engagement in Carcar
Water District as against to the Age, Educational Attainment and Number of Years
in Service of its employees.

Around the world, a lot of researchers have discovered several factors that
affect the engagement of an employee in an organization. According to
Schaufeli & Bakker (2004), the opposite of work engagement is burnout. “Contrary
to those who suffer from burnout, engaged employees have a sense of energetic
and effective connection with their work activities and they see themselves as
able to deal well with the demands of their job.” (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). The
Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) which is a developed self-report
questionnaire which constitutes three aspects of work engagement: vigor,
dedication, and absorption. With the UWES, vigor, dedication and absorption are
measured through structured qualitative interviews with Dutch employees which
showed that engaged employees are active human beings who take initiative at
work and generate their own positive feedback although they indicated that
they get tired sometimes, unlike burned-out employees who experience fatigue
as solely negative, they described it as a rather positive because it is associated
with accomplishments (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). In a research conducted by
Yee, S.J. (2012) to the western-based MNC organizations in Penang Free Trade
Zone in Malaysia, had the interest in studying four drivers which are believed to
have played a significant impact to employee engagement across an
organization. These four drivers are the following: involvement and participation,
internal communication, recognition and rewards and work-life balance. The
study proved that employee engagement in the workplace is fundamental to
improving and maintaining organizational effectiveness and can be achieved
through the four drivers indicated as long as there is a strong relationship between
employee and employer (Yee, S.J., 2012). Also, in a review paper by Chandani et
al. (2016) on the factors affecting employee engagement which reviewed
around thirty academic and popular research papers/literature, the researchers
have come up with different factors which are mostly mentioned in the research
papers. The research findings states that various factors have been discussed of
engagements which are at macro i.e. at organizational level and micro i.e.
individual level. Different employees lay different emphasis on the variables
affecting engagement, and there is no one fixed model that shows the relevance
and significance of the influence of all these variables with variations which may
arise due to difference in individual and job characteristics, gender diversity,
ethnic diversity and etc. (Chandani et al., 2016). Moreover, the research
concluded that organizations can improve engagement by opportunity thinking,
enhancing employee decision-making, commitment, sense of involvement, instil
positive emotions about work and sense of community.

Since there is no conducted research on the factors influencing employee

engagement in Carcar Water District, the research shall explore through the three
chosen variables: Intellectual Engagement, Affective Engagement and Social
Engagement in which for her will greatly influence employee engagement with
regards to Age, Educational Attainment and Number of Years in Service of the
CWD employees. It is a need for today’s working environment to be motivated,
energized, eager, willing and committed to continue to perform. Carcar Water
District needs to identify what is are the driving factors for employee engagement
despite the diversity of its workforce demographics.

The researcher assumes that from these pre-determined factors, one

predictor will have higher influence to the employee demographics in Carcar
Water District and will be identified later on in the study to create different
employee engagement approaches. According the Beattie and Waterhouse
(2013), employee engagement should be a key element for the development,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation of HR and corporate strategy. And
most importantly, after knowing the factors affecting employee engagement in
CWD, there will be engaged employees which will have high performance,
organizational commitment and retention.

2.0 Conceptual Framework

According to Chandani, et al. (2016), engagement has three different

facets, intellectual engagement, affective engagement and social
engagement. Intellectual engagement refers to dedication or commitment to
performing better, affective engagement or feeling better after performing one’s
job and lastly social engagement which is involved in communicating with others
about enhancing one’s work. Intellectual engagement will be measured through
the employee’s commitment to his/her work and expression of staying in the
company for a long time. Second, affective engagement will be measured
through knowing an employee’s feelings upon the performance of his job
whether in simple tasks or complex job assignments. Lastly, social engagement
will be measured through the employee’s communication with co-employees,
management about enhancing his/her job. These factors shall then be used in
the creation of employee engagement approaches to new employees,
engaged employees, not engaged and disengaged employees. Chandani, et
al. (2016), talked about the levels of engagement in employees. For him,
engaged employees are those who work with vigor and passion towards the
achievement of the organization’s goals. Employees who are not engaged
participate but not with passion and vigor towards the organizational goals. While
disengaged employees are those who are unhappy in their work and show such
unhappiness.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

*Age
*Educational Attainment
*Number of Years in CWD

Intellectual Affective Social

Engagement Engagement Engagement

Feelings upon the Communication

Commitment
Performance of Job

Creation of Employee
Engagement Approaches
3.0 Research Design and Methodology

This study used the descriptive type of research design, specifically the
survey method in knowing what really are the factors influencing employee
engagement. The study was conducted in Carcar Water District, a Government
Owned and Controlled Corporation (GOCC) in Carcar City, Cebu. The target
population are the employees working in CWD whether in permanent,
contractual or job order employment status. The researcher chose 30 respondents
through a random sampling procedure for the dry run of the questionnaire. The
main tool used in gathering the data was a researcher-made questionnaire in a
5-point Likert Scale with twenty four (24) items. The researcher wrote a letter to the
General Manager of CWD and asked for his approval regarding the conduct of
the study on Employee Engagement. Then, afterwards, the GM approved of the
conduct of the study and the researcher started to distribute the questionnaires
to the respondents not in one setting but randomly, in any time of the day from
8am to 5pm. The researcher finished the 30 target respondents in one week. The
responses to the answers from the questionnaires were then tabulated by the
researcher through Microsoft Excel®. Afterwards, the researcher used MiniTab 13
application for the statistical treatments and calculations. The results of this study
may or may not be applicable to all other water utility government offices but it
could also be useful to all other organizations because the topic of Employee
Engagement is widely acknowledged in the industry. The researcher had only
focused on only 3 facets of employee engagement which she considered to be
important but future researchers could also dig deeper on the other facets which
were not included in this study for a bigger study on Employee Engagement.
4.0 Results & Discussion

The researcher used Multiple Regression as the regression analysis for the study.
Multiple regression is a statistical analysis tool which involves a single dependent
variable and two or more variables (predictors).
Intellectual Affective Social Engagement
VARIABLE Constant Engagement Engagement
Factor Regression Regression Regression
Equation P Value Equation P Value Equation P Value
Age (- 4.0) + 0.448 0.198 + 0.093 0.750 - 0.059 0.846
Educational (11.5) - 0.0125 0.818 + 0.0566 0.227 - 0.0160 0.740
Attainment
Number of (- 33.5) + 0.447 0.070 - 0.033 0.871 + 0.052 0.807
Years in CWD

AGE

The Table revealed that Age and Intellectual Engagement have a positive
relationship. This would mean that the higher the age, the more intellectually
engaged are the employees towards work. Also, Age and Affective
engagement. While Age and Social Engagement have inverse relationship. The
RE would tell us that an additional year to the age will lower the level of social
engagement by 5% from the previous SE. Overall: Age is highly influential to
intellectual engagement.

EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT

With regards to the variable Educational Attainment, the table revealed that
Educational Attainment and Affective Engagement have a positive relationship.
While Educational Attainment has an inverse relationship with Social Engagement
and Intellectual Engagement. This means that the higher the Educational
Attainment of the employee, the higher the Affective Engagement there is. In
overall, Educational Attainment greatly influences the Affective Engagement of
the employee.

NUMBER OF YEARS IN CWD

In the table, it revealed that the Number of Years in Service and Intellectual
Engagement have a positive relationship. The longer the employee is of service
in CWD, the higher the Intellectual Engagement there is. Also, Number of Years of
Service and Social Engagement have a positive relationship. Whilst, Affective
Engagement has an inverse relationship with the Number of Years in CWD.
Overall, the Number of Years of Service highly influences the Intellectual
Engagement of the Employees.

The lower P values of the predictors are, the more it has something to do or is
related to the independent variable (predictor).

5.0 Conclusion

Therefore, this study implies that Employee Engagement is influenced by the

diverse workforce demographics in an organization. The more intellectually
engaged employees with the commitment, involvement and strives to be better
at work belong to the older employees with the higher number of years in service.
Which is opposing to the study by Robinson, Perryman & May (2004) which states
that employee engagement was highest during the first year in service and then
declined from one until five year’s tenure. Furthermore, employees with higher
educational attainment are more emotionally connected with the work and work
culture. It is also helpful for further research to look at the levels of employee
engagement in CWD to be able to determine the drivers of employee
engagement and how it will relate to organizational performance.

Employee engagement is a two way process between the employee and its
employer, in accordance to Jha, B. & Kumar, A. (2016) in their study about
Employee Engagement as a Strategic Tool to enhance performance in
organizations. It is very important for employers to take care of their workforce.

7.0 References:

BigSpeak Speakers Bureau. (2011, July 6). Douglas Conant: Former CEO,
Campbell Soup Co., New York Times Bestselling Author, Keynote Speaker
(Video File). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFCxF-d-UIB

Wellins, R. S., & Bernthal, P. (n.d.). Employee Engagement: The Key to Realizing
Competitive Advantage. Retrieved from
https://www.ddiworld.com/employee-engagement
Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) Preliminary Manual, Version 1.1.
Occupational Health Psychology Unit of Utrecht University, Utrecht,
Netherlands, 2004

Yee, S. J. (2012). A Survey of Factors Influencing Employee Engagement.

Retrieved from
eprints.usm.my/26454/1/A_SURVEY_OF_FACTORS_INFLUENCING.pdf

Chandani, A et al., (2016). Employee Engagement: A Review Paper on Factors

Affecting Employee Engagement. Indian Journal of Science and Technology.
Retrieved from
www.indjst.org/index.php/indjst/article/download/92145/68962

Beattie, R. & Waterhouse, J. (2013). Employee Engagement, Disengagement and

Change (pdf). Retrieved from
https://wwww.web.csc.gov.ph/phocadownlad/userupload/hrsympo

Jha, B. & Kumar, A. (2016). Employee Engagement: A Strategic Tool to Enhance

Performance. Journal for Contemporary Research in Management from
http://dawn-svims.in/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/4.-Employee-
Engagement-A-Strategic-Tool-to-Enhance-Performance-Bhavesh-Jha-Aman-
Kumar.pdf

Robinson, D., Perryman, S. & Hayday, S. (2004). The Drivers of Employee

Engagement. Institute for Employment Studies from https://www.employment-
studies.co.uk/system/files/resources/files/408.pdf