Employee Engagement among workers in higher education institutions in Zimbabwe: Implications for organisational commitment

Abstract

In a world that is changing both in terms of the global nature of work and the diversity of the workforce, engaged employees may be a key to competitive advantage. Failure to effectively engage employees can result in wasted resources, sub optimal organisational performance, and deteriorating employee morale. On the other hand, successfully engaging and committing employees can result in higher levels of organisational performance as well as higher levels of job satisfaction, both of which are much needed in today’s environment. Employee Engagement is critical for organisational success and it’s a strong predictor of organisational commitment. The purpose of the study was to explore employee engagement among Higher Education Institution workers and its impact on organisational commitment. This study adopted the quantitative research approach particularly the correlational design. An explanatory-descriptive survey design was used as the strategy inquiry. This prompted the use of questionnaires; in this case, standardized instruments were used. The Gallup Worker Audit (GWA) by Gallup was used to gauge employee engagement. The Organisational Commitment Questionnaire by Allen and Meyer was used to measure organisational commitment. The total sample constituted 142 employees drawn from three HEIs. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations) for demographic characteristics, frequencies for engagement levels, chi-square tests for association between job posting (teaching versus non-teaching) and employee engagement, Pearson’s correlation between employee engagement and organisational commitment and regression analysis for engagement drivers. The outcomes of the research revealed the levels of engagement within HEIs at critical lows, with only 33.8% representing employees with high levels of engagement while the remaining 66.2 % have low levels of engagement. The findings also indicated that employee engagement can indeed act as a predictor of organisational commitment with the two sets of score correlated moderately and positively r = .607, p <.05.Job posting (teaching versus non-teaching) proved to have no association with employee engagement. The twelve drivers from Gallup Work Audit have an effect in driving employee engagement. The low levels of employee engagement in HEIs calls for managerial attention to drive engagement among employees for organisational success.