The relationship between sense of coherence, work engagement and burnout in a Public-Sector organisation

Abstract

The objective of this study was (i) to determine the relationship between sense of coherence, work engagement and burnout; and (ii) to determine whether, in terms of the various socio-demographic groups, namely, gender, age, race, marital status, number of years in current position and number of years in public service, the sample differed significantly in terms of their levels of sense of coherence, work engagement and burnout. A quantitative study, using primary data, was conducted using a convenience sample (N = 172) of middle managers in a public service organisation. The psychometric properties of the Orientation to Life Questionnaire, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale and the Maslach Burnout Inventory Scale were investigated before the hypothesis was tested. The statistical analysis of the data included descriptive statistics as well as inferential statistics. The Kaiser-Meyer Olkin and Bartlett’s test of sphericity techniques were used to determine the exploratory factor analysis of all three measuring scales. A correlation analysis between the one-factor sense of coherence, one-factor work engagement and the three burnout sub-dimensions (exhaustion, cynicism and professional efficacy) was conducted. The Pearson product-moment correlation was used to determine the strength of the relationships between the variables. The level of significance was set at a 95% confidence interval level (p ��������0,05). Standard multiple regression analysis was used to establish whether there is a significant relationship between sense of coherence, work engagement and burnout. The Wilk’s lambda technique was used to test the results for significance, while Levene's test of equality of error variances technique was used to test the results for significance on the sense of coherence and work engagement scales with regard to the demographic groups. The results showed that there was a significant relationship between the participants’ sense of coherence, work engagement and burnout levels. Significant differences were also found between respondents in the marital status group and the burnout dimension, depersonalisation or cynicism. The results also reflected the wellbeing status of middle managers and indicated that the respondents were flourishing (feeling good as they scored a high sense of coherence and functioning well as indicated by a high score for work engagement). It is anticipated that the findings of the study will contribute valuable knowledge to employee wellbeing programmes in public service. The study concludes by making recommendations for future research practice.