The impact of an onboarding programme on work engagement and organisational commitment in a tertiary institution

Abstract

The primary aim of the study was to explore the relationship between an onboarding progamme, work engagement and organisational commitment in a South African tertiary institution. The secondary aim was to ascertain whether the demographic characteristics of employees (gender, age, supervising/not supervising others, qualifications and tenure) differed significantly in terms of their onboarding experience, work engagement or organisational commitment. This was achieved through a quantitative survey completed by a stratified sample of n = 176 employees in a tertiary institution. The instruments that were used for the study were a biographical questionnaire, the Onboarding Experience (OE) Questionnaire, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9) and the Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ). The results revealed statistically significant relationships between onboarding experience and organisational commitment and between work engagement and organisational commitment. This was based on the analysis of correlational and inferential statistics. In terms of demographic characteristics, there were statistically significant relationships based on the OE, UWES and OCQ scores. Testing the mean differences revealed differences in onboarding experience, work engagement and organisational commitment based on demographic characteristics. Based on the results of the study, recommendations were made for industrial psychology professionals in terms of their onboarding, work engagement and organisational commitment practices, particularly within the tertiary education sector.