Relationship Between Employee Engagement and Personality

Disengagement has been an alarming condition at workplace since it accounted as a ratio of nearly 2 to 1 disengaged employees against engaged employees. The situation is affecting companies around the globe causing deterioration of revenue growth, competitive advantage and an increase of staff turnover. In Malaysia, only a small percentage of the workforce is engaged while majority of workforce is found as disengaged. There are many studies conducted relating to factors that contributed to engagement and disengagement but they are not many studies conducted in the Malaysian context on the relationship between personality and engagement. Factors that contributed to disengagement are frustration, stress, burnout, disengaged team, the effect of generational gap, working in silos and ineffective downward communication. This study investigates the significance of the Five Factor Model or Big Five personality traits in relation with three elements of engagement factors referred to as Vigor, Dedication and Absorption