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Abstract
Due to the high workload, working within the healthcare industry can be quite demanding. This often results in high rates of absenteeism, unfulfilled vacancies, and voluntary turnover among healthcare workers. We expect that job autonomy is an important resource for work engagement and health of healthcare workers because it satisfies the basic need for autonomy. However, we propose that this relationship between job autonomy and work engagement and health can be explained by self-leadership. Self-leading individuals take initiative and responsibility and are assumed to use self-influencing strategies (e.g., goal setting, self-observation, creating natural rewards) as a way to improve motivation and general well-being. Employees from two healthcare organizations (N = 224 and N = 113) completed a questionnaire containing measures of job autonomy, work engagement, general health, and self-leadership. The hypothesized model was tested using a series of regressions, and the results confirmed the indirect relationships between job autonomy and work engagement and general health, respectively, through natural rewards strategies. The behavior-focused and cognitive self-leadership strategies were, as mediator, marginally significant: positively for work engagement and negatively for general health. Self-leadership behavior was not related with work engagement and general health. Implications of the findings for theory and practice on healthy healthcare workers are discussed.
Highlights
Working within healthcare is often valued as meaningful, energizing, and engaging as this type of work is expected to generate feelings of meaningfulness and joy throughout a career (De Cooman et al, 2008; Toode et al, 2011)
Because our measures of job autonomy, self-leadership strategies, and work engagement consist of multiple dimensions, we model these constructs as second order factors with underlying first order factors
We tested a model in which all variables load on one single factor [χ2(665) = 5710.37, p < 0.001, RMSEA = 0.15, CFI = 0.38, TLI = 0.34]
Summary
Working within healthcare is often valued as meaningful, energizing, and engaging as this type of work is expected to generate feelings of meaningfulness and joy throughout a career (De Cooman et al, 2008; Toode et al, 2011). Self-determination theory (SDT, Deci et al, 2017) explains that people have a basic psychological need for autonomy, which they want to satisfy Through satisfaction of this need, people are allowed to make their own choices and bring activities in line with their own values and interests, leading to intrinsic motivation, vitality, personal growth, and general health (Ryan and Deci, 2000, 2008). The basic assumption is that, if employees are well educated for their profession, they are assumed to be willing and able to autonomously regulate their own job tasks responsibly. They are able to solve daily problems and proactively ask feedback from colleagues if necessary. The facilitation of job autonomy is needed for being able to professionally do one’s job as healthcare professional (Hall, 1968)
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