Hardiness, Supervisor Support and Work Engagement: Empirical Evidence from Tertiary Institutions in Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

In times past, researchers have studied different variables that predict work engagement of employees but few of such studies have looked at the influence of hardiness and supervisor support on employees’ work engagement especially in Ogun State, Nigeria. This study therefore, examined the extent to which hardiness and supervisor support influence the work engagement of employees in public and private tertiary institutions in Ogun State, Nigeria. A sample of 476 employees selected through stratified random sampling technique was used. Hardiness, supervisor support and work engagement of employees were measured with standardized scales while three hypotheses postulated were analyzed with multiple regression and correlation analysis at .05 level of significance. Findings reveal that 43% of the variance in work engagement were accounted for by hardiness and supervisor support showing that hardiness and supervisor support jointly contributed to employees’ work engagement (F(2, 473) = 181.496, p .05) which had no significant contribution. Finally, there was a significant positive relationship between supervisor support and work engagement ((r = .659, p .05), and hardiness and supervisor support (r = .037, p > .05) These findings stress the important role of hardiness and supervisor support on the work engagement of employees. Implications of these findings is that managers need to create and boost needed managerial support at the various levels of employment to enhance employee engagement to meet organisational goals. Although hardiness is found to have no significant influence on work engagement, yet it is noted that individuals who are high in hardiness may be more likely to build and maintain a social network compared to those who are low in hardiness, hence the result of this research may be significant to employers on manpower development for better work commitment and engagement. It would therefore, be beneficial to provide hardiness trainings to new hires in the work place since previous researches has established that hardiness training may increase levels of hardiness in workers improving their job performance while leading to a reduction in attrition rate.