The impact of work engagement and meaningful work to alleviate job burnout among social workers in New Zealand

Abstract

PurposeGrounding our research in the conservation of resources (COR) theory and the job demands-resources (JD-R) theory, this study addresses the research gap of examining the relationship between meaningful work and dimensions of job burnout with work engagement as the mediator, especially in times of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also attempts to understand if age plays a role in moderating the effect of these relationships.Design/methodology/approachThis study collected data using a questionnaire protocol that was adapted and refined from the original scales in existing studies. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze data collected from 530 social workers working in New Zealand nonprofit organizations (NPO).FindingsResults indicated that meaningful work only addressed one dimension of job burnout. Work engagement was found to have mediating effects on the relationships between meaningful work and all the dimensions of job burnout. Age does not have any moderating effect on these relationships.Originality/valueThis study addresses the lack of literature that collectively examines the constructs of meaningful work, dimensions of job burnout and work engagement in the same model. In doing so, this study provides a unique verification of job burnout as a multidimensional construct. At the same time, this study offers insights into the effect of these constructs in NPOs, unraveling the complexities that drive these NPOs' human resources (HR) processes.

Relationship Between Psychological Distress, Burnout and Work Engagement in Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review

“…The initial search strategies identified a total of 704 references, which were screened according to the topic of this review. A total of 24 studies (5,10,11,15,(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47) were finally selected (Figure 1). All the analysed studies were quantitative.…”

“…The initial search strategies identified a total of 704 references, which were screened according to the topic of this review. A total of 24 studies ( 5 , 10 , 11 , 15 , 28 – 47 ) were finally selected ( Figure 1 ).…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has in one way or another affected the work engagement of workers in general, as determined by studies carried out in different countries and work areas ( 10 – 12 ). Likewise, other factors may also influence work engagement such as sickness presenteeism (SP) (defined as continuing to perform duties in the workplace despite working below full capacity due to illness) ( 13 ), meaningful work ( 10 ), sleep quality ( 14 ), emotional intelligence ( 15 ), etc.…”

To predict and to explain: a multigroup analysis of gender on job and family satisfaction among hospitality employees

“…Besides, PLS-SEM supports model predictability analysis (Shmueli et al , 2019). PLS-SEM is adopted in different fields of studies including tourism (Tan et al , 2020), consumer behavior (Le et al , 2021), technology adoption (Tan et al , 2019b), education (Sim et al , 2020), HR (Tan and Yeap, 2021), as well as gender-related studies such as Pelegrini and Moraes (2021). Following the guidelines by Hair et al (2017), we analyzed the measurement model and structural model before performing measurement invariance that eventually leads to the multigroup analysis.…”

Employee Engagement Outlooks in the Era of COVID-19: Implications for Human Resource Management

“…Meaningful work positively impacts the work engagement of 530 social workers in New Zealand nonprofit organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic (Tan & Yeap, 2021). Concurrently, work meaningfulness was perceived to mitigate the negative effect of the COVID-19 crisis and engender work engagement for medical staff in an intensive care unit (Liu et al, 2021).…”