Abstract
BackgroundWork engagement is one of the most important outcomes for both employees and employers. Although the findings to date, integrated 40 intervention studies aiming to improve work engagement, consistent results have not yet been produced, suggesting the importance of further intervention studies. This study aims to investigate the effects of gratitude intervention programs focused on two important work engagement factors among Japanese workers: personal and job resources.MethodsThis study will be a two-arm, parallel-group cluster (organization) randomized control trial. Japanese organizations and nested employees will be recruited through the first author’s acquaintances using snowball sampling. Organizations that meet the inclusion criteria will be randomly allocated to intervention or control groups in a 1:1 ratio within the company unit. The intervention groups will be provided with a 1-month long gratitude intervention program, which aims to promote reciprocal gratitude exchanges within the same organization. The program consists of psychoeducation, gratitude lists, and behavioral gratitude expression. The control groups will not receive any intervention. The primary outcome will be work engagement measured by the Japanese version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale at baseline and after 1 (immediate post-survey), 3, and 6 months. Multilevel latent growth modeling will be conducted to examine the effectiveness of the intervention program.DiscussionThis study will be the first cluster randomized controlled trial applied to the investigation of gratitude intervention aimed at improving work engagement among Japanese workers; to promote reciprocal gratitude exchanges within a given organization; and to include both gratitude lists and behavioral gratitude expression. Gratitude interventions have several strengths in terms of implementation: the objectives of the exercises are easy to understand and implement; it does not require much time or expense; they tend to have lower dropout rates; and they do not require experts in psychology. Although implementation difficulties have been common in previous interventions targeting work engagement, gratitude intervention may be suitable even for workers who have limited time to devote to the tasks.Trial registration: This study was registered at the University Hospital Medical Information Network Clinical Trials Registry (UMIN-CTR, ID=UMIN000042546): https://upload.umin.ac.jp/cgi-open-bin/ctr/ctr_view.cgi?recptno=R000048566 on November 25, 2020.
Highlights
Work engagement is one of the most important outcomes for both employees and employers
High work engagement is positively associated with well-being [2] and physical and mental health [3]
The Job Demands-Resource model (JD-R model) explains the link between these variables. This model proposes that job and personal resources activate a motivational pathway leading to work engagement and better well-being [7]
Summary
Work engagement is one of the most important outcomes for both employees and employers. This study aims to investigate the effects of gratitude intervention programs focused on two important work engagement factors among Japanese workers: personal and job resources. Increased work engagement is linked to high employee performance [4] and low turnover [5]. Many studies have focused on developing interventions to increase work engagement, and scientific evidence of their effectiveness has been accumulated. This review identified job and personal resources as important determinants of work engagement. The Job Demands-Resource model (JD-R model) explains the link between these variables This model proposes that job and personal resources activate a motivational pathway leading to work engagement and better well-being [7]. Job and personal resources are important targets for developing work engagement interventions with greater effects
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