Employee engagement in the South African short-term insurance sector: repositioning communication climate as a job resource

Measuring employee engagement is a popular means for contemporary organisations to assess employee commitment and engagement. It is evident from literature that a strong relationship exists between improved employee engagement levels and positive business outcomes. However, globally and in South Af...

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Main Authors: Annerie Geyer, Estelle De Beer
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Johannesburg 2024-12-01
Series:Communicare
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/jcsa/article/view/2992
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author Annerie Geyer
Estelle De Beer
author_facet Annerie Geyer
Estelle De Beer
author_sort Annerie Geyer
collection DOAJ
description Measuring employee engagement is a popular means for contemporary organisations to assess employee commitment and engagement. It is evident from literature that a strong relationship exists between improved employee engagement levels and positive business outcomes. However, globally and in South Africa, employees tend not to be engaged, with non-managerial employees showing lower engagement compared to their managerial counterparts. From this perspective, disengagement, resulting in untapped employee potential, has significant financial implications. Traditional employee engagement models list a positive communication climate as one of many job resources that contribute to improved engagement, alongside resources such as performance feedback, employee autonomy and opportunities for learning and development. Against this background, this research argues that a positive communication climate could possibly play a more expanded role in driving non-managerial employee engagement than is currently recognised. Survey data were collected from four short-term insurance organisations in the South African financial sector. Data analysis was done using factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The results show a reasonable fit and support the notion that a positive communication climate may have an impact on all job resources, which could lead to higher levels of employee engagement among non-managerial staff. The results show that communication climate may possibly be the foundation of job resource effectiveness. As such, management can address communication climate when seeking to improve engagement levels of non-managerial employees.
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spelling doaj-art-3ee9758472e947d1a7e48a9346b67c8d2025-01-20T08:39:34ZengUniversity of JohannesburgCommunicare0259-00692957-79502024-12-0143210.36615/ac950394Employee engagement in the South African short-term insurance sector: repositioning communication climate as a job resourceAnnerie Geyer0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8704-4708Estelle De Beer1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1265-2703University of PretoriaUniversity of Pretoria Measuring employee engagement is a popular means for contemporary organisations to assess employee commitment and engagement. It is evident from literature that a strong relationship exists between improved employee engagement levels and positive business outcomes. However, globally and in South Africa, employees tend not to be engaged, with non-managerial employees showing lower engagement compared to their managerial counterparts. From this perspective, disengagement, resulting in untapped employee potential, has significant financial implications. Traditional employee engagement models list a positive communication climate as one of many job resources that contribute to improved engagement, alongside resources such as performance feedback, employee autonomy and opportunities for learning and development. Against this background, this research argues that a positive communication climate could possibly play a more expanded role in driving non-managerial employee engagement than is currently recognised. Survey data were collected from four short-term insurance organisations in the South African financial sector. Data analysis was done using factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The results show a reasonable fit and support the notion that a positive communication climate may have an impact on all job resources, which could lead to higher levels of employee engagement among non-managerial staff. The results show that communication climate may possibly be the foundation of job resource effectiveness. As such, management can address communication climate when seeking to improve engagement levels of non-managerial employees. https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/jcsa/article/view/2992communication climatedriversemployee engagementjob resourcessub-Saharan Africastructural equation modelling
spellingShingle Annerie Geyer
Estelle De Beer
Employee engagement in the South African short-term insurance sector: repositioning communication climate as a job resource
Communicare
communication climate
drivers
employee engagement
job resources
sub-Saharan Africa
structural equation modelling
title Employee engagement in the South African short-term insurance sector: repositioning communication climate as a job resource
title_full Employee engagement in the South African short-term insurance sector: repositioning communication climate as a job resource
title_fullStr Employee engagement in the South African short-term insurance sector: repositioning communication climate as a job resource
title_full_unstemmed Employee engagement in the South African short-term insurance sector: repositioning communication climate as a job resource
title_short Employee engagement in the South African short-term insurance sector: repositioning communication climate as a job resource
title_sort employee engagement in the south african short term insurance sector repositioning communication climate as a job resource
topic communication climate
drivers
employee engagement
job resources
sub-Saharan Africa
structural equation modelling
url https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/jcsa/article/view/2992
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