Changing work engagement: The longitudinal effect of a job redesign intervention among public sector employees

Abstract

Work or employee engagement might be increased through job re-design interventions such as top-down managerial interventions, bottom-up job crafting or bipolar ideals. However, there is a lack of specific understanding how public-sector employees react on specific top-down interventions aimed for increasing their vigor, dedication and absorption. In order to gain more insight into how a top-down (managerial) job re-design intervention could foster work engagement, we conducted a four-wave longitudinal diary study on the sample of white-collar employees and their respective supervisors from two public-sector organizations. Specifically, we explored the effect of the managerial job redesign intervention on public-sector employee work engagement between baseline (T1) and post-intervention (T4). We tested a multiple mediator-single outcome model in which a job design intervention influences work engagement by changing multiple job characteristics. Finally, we also checked for the extent to which change in work engagement can be explained by specific changes in certain job characteristics. Our results showed that work engagement of public-sector employees may also be enhanced by redesigning their jobs through a managerial job re-design intervention. Additional insights regarding work engagement and job re-design of public sector employees are given.

Keywords

• work engagement
• job design
• job interventions
• public-sector employees