The Influence of Employee Engagement on Discretionary Effort and Job Performance in the Cruise Line Customer Contact Center Workplace

Abstract

This nonexperimental, correlational study examined the relation among job fit, psychological climate, and employee engagement and discretionary effort and job performance. An Internet-based self-report survey was administered to a sample of 307 cruise line customer contact center reservation agents. The research hypotheses were evaluated using correlational and hierarchical regression analytic procedures. Job fit and psychological climate were linked positively and significantly with employee engagement and employee engagement accounted for significant variance in both discretionary effort and job performance. In evaluating the discretionary effort conceptual model, after statistically controlling for gender, ethnicity and amount of job experience, the results of the hierarchical regression analysis showed that employees who reported a positive psychological climate and job fit were more engaged and tended to report higher levels of discretionary effort. The results were similar for the job performance conceptual model. In both models, demonstrating a large effect size, employee engagement was a powerful predictor of the dependent variables. The implications for organizational and human resource development theory, research, and practice are pronounced. First, there was strong support for engagement theory in that there was compelling evidence of its predictive validity. Second, decided empirical support was found that linked a positive psychological climate and job fit to not only employee engagement, but also discretionary effort and job performance among call center workers, an understudied group in the travel industry. Third, there was considerable practical utility for the findings because it supports HR/D practitioners’ activities that would foster a positive psychological climate and job fit for the sake of building employee engagement, which consequently would promote greater discretionary effort and job performance.