Abstract
(1) Background: Both employees and organizations benefit from a work environment characterized by work engagement and job satisfaction. This study examines the influence of work-group social capital on individuals’ work engagement, job satisfaction, and job crafting. In addition, the mediating effect of job crafting between social capital on the one side and job satisfaction and work engagement on the other side was analyzed. (2) Methods: This study used data from 250 health-care employees in Sweden who had completed a questionnaire at two time points (six to eight months apart). Analyses of separate cross-lagged panel designs were conducted using structural regression modeling with manifest variables. (3) Results: Social capital was predictive of both job satisfaction and work engagement over time. The results also indicated that higher degrees of social capital was predictive of more cognitive and relational, but not task-related job crafting over time. There was no clear evidence for a mediating effect of job crafting for social capital to work engagement or job satisfaction. (4) Conclusion: It would be beneficial for the health-care sector to consider setting up the organizations to promote social capital within work groups. Individual workers would gain in well-being and the organization is likely to gain in efficiency and lower turnover rates.
Highlights
Employees who like their jobs and are engaged in their work tasks are likely to experience higher degrees of psychological empowerment [1], better health [2,3], a better sense of psychological coherence [4], and less compassion fatigue [5]
We examined the associations between social capital, work engagement, job satisfaction, and job crafting using two-wave data from health-care professionals working in public health care in Sweden
Do senior employees redesign their job tasks by adding, reducing, or rearranging the order of the separate tasks?; what motives for either job-crafting behavior are senior and junior employees referring to in doing so? From a wider perspective, we suggest that the following questions should be addressed: (1) what other characteristics than social capital have significance for employees to craft their work?; (2) when does job crafting promote well-being?; and (3) are there any differences in job-crafting behaviors between different health-care professions and what are the implications? Further research inspired by these questions has the potential to add to the knowledge of how employee engagement and satisfaction can be promoted in a wider range of workplaces
Summary
Employees who like their jobs and are engaged in their work tasks are likely to experience higher degrees of psychological empowerment [1], better health [2,3], a better sense of psychological coherence [4], and less compassion fatigue [5]. From an organizational perspective, having satisfied and engaged employees is associated with lower rates of personnel turnover [6,7], higher degrees of organizational commitment [8], better patient care quality [9], and increased work effectiveness [5,7]. Public Health 2020, 17, 4272; doi:10.3390/ijerph17124272 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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