Employee work engagement: Determinants and its association with employee happiness and organizational commitment

The purpose of this study is to describe engagement at work of selected employees working for at least one year in a paper manufacturing company based in Metro Manila. It also sought to determine the association of the level of their engagement at work with their personal characteristics, level of their organizational commitment in the workplace, and the level of their happiness at work. The research made use of a quantitative methodological approach and utilized a self-administered structured survey questionnaire as its data collection tool to gather data using simple random sampling from 76 employees working in a manufacturing company based in Metro Manila. The data gathered was analyzed using descriptive statistics to find the mean scores, frequencies, and percentages. Meanwhile, parametric inferential statistics were used to test the associations of variables. Findings revealed that among the personal characteristics of the employees, age, position, and monthly income were significant factors in determining their level of engagement at work. It also showed that their level of organizational commitment has significant positive associations with the level of employee engagement. Associations between the level of employee engagement and the level of employee happiness were also examined and findings revealed that there is a significant and strong positive correlation between the two variables. Findings also reveal that despite high levels of work engagement and employee happiness, organizational commitment levels were only moderate. Since continuance commitment was not significant in determining employee engagement, this means that despite having high levels of work engagement and employee happiness, an employees commitment could falter once better opportunities presents itself. Although high work engagement entails high levels of happiness, and affective and normative commitment determines engagement, it is still highly recommended for companies to offer competitive benefits and compensation packages to keep their employees fully committed since they exhibit moderate levels of continuance commitment