A survey of employee engagement

Abstract

This exploratory study examined the overall level of engagement for employees of a public rehabilitation service agency, and the extent to which demographic and work life variables such as gender, office location, job title, and years of service contributed to their levels of engagement. Engagement was examined as a positive social work construct and was compared to the negative concept of burnout (Freeney, Y. & Tiernan, J. 2006 & Schaufli, W. B. & Bakker, A. B. 2004). The researcher utilized a cross sectional internet survey to survey 308 employees of a state-wide rehabilitation agency located in the Midwest region of the United States, using a purposive non-probability sampling strategy. She queried respondents to collect data on their levels of engagement in aggregate and anonymous form. Analysis was conducted using t-tests and correlations. Results indicate no differences in engagement scores for males and females, for individuals working in rural versus urban office environments, or for years of service in the agency. Participants who supervised at least one other person scored higher than individuals who did not supervise anyone.