Job satisfaction, organisational commitment and work engagement in an insurance company

Abstract

Retaining talented employees and keeping them healthy and well are increasingly important challenges for organisations in the age of the knowledge worker. Organisations are interrogating aspects such as the reasons why some employees are more satisfied, committed and engaged to their organisations than others. Another question is: what should managers do to ensure employee wellness within their organisations? This study explores the relationship between job satisfaction, organisational commitment and work engagement. Spector’s (1997) Job Satisfaction Survey, Allen and Meyer’s (1990) Organisational Commitment Questionnaire and Schaufeli and Bakker’s (2004) Utrecht Work Engagement Scale were administered to a sample of 220 employees from a South African insurance company. The findings show mixed results with regard to significant correlations between job satisfaction, organisational commitment and work engagement. The majority of the findings suggest that there are significant correlations, of a large and medium effect, between scales, including a number of positive relationships of varying strength between job satisfaction, organisational commitment and selected components of work engagement. The findings could benefit organisations as they could contribute to a better understanding of what motivates their workers, particularly their levels of satisfaction, commitment and engagement, and what the combined effect of these might be on the retention and wellness of employees.