Development and Identification of Psychometric Properties Work Engagement

Introduction

In this modern era, a company is faced with many challenges in running its business. The company is required to be able to follow global competition current. It should be able to maintain the assets it has in order to be competitive in globally. One of important assets a company has is employees. The company views employee as an asset or capital to develop and to achieve the company’s objective maximally [1]. Social change and acceleration rate in the society suppresses each of organizations to run their business nimbly and efficiently. Organization needs powerful resource to undertake adaptation process dynamically. Sustainable technology and digital development triggers some changes in the working process. All employees are required to work flexibly and to utilize technology to achieve an efficient working process [2]. It requires the company to pay special attention to the employees. The company should keep providing comfort and ensure that the employees do their job as a joyful experience. Working comfort and pleasure will give the employees a sense of being engaged with their job and company.

Work engagement has become a developing topic of discussion as it has significant impact on organization. Work engagement is defined as a positive mind condition with the indicators of vigor, dedication and absorption. Vigor

component refers to high energy and persistence. Dedication leads to high concentration and active participation in organization. Absorption refers to full concentration and joyfulness in the working process. These three indicators affect positively the organization; thus, employing the engaged employees, the organization can improve individual performance not only at team level but also at unit and organization levels. This makes the employees with high engagement an asset to their organization [3]. Work engagement should be a factor to which the leader of organization should pay attention because the antecedent of work engagement is, among others, leadership. The employees feeling engaged dedicate fully to organization and complete their job vigorously. The employees are motivated more intrinsically and therefore more committed to the organization. An engaged employee has initiative to modify his/her job into the more effective one [4].

Work engagement is the main predictor of employee’s success due to the presence of dedication by which the employees will be strong and will focus on working activity and thus show the better performance role. The engaged employees will open to new experience so that they tend to have initiative and innovation in completing the job. Likewise, the engaged employees will help other coworkers voluntarily, thus contributing to the improvement of team performance [5]. The engaged employees will be able to take better endeavor to complete the job becoming the main target of organization. the employees can find joy and enjoy the process in completing their job, thus capable of directing energy to complete the job independently [6].

Organizational change aiming to improve the effectiveness of working process often becomes stressor to the employees. The rapid change rate makes employees find uncertainty in their working process. However, the employees engaged in organization have adaptive advantage in dealing with uncertainty condition [2]. Work engagement is viewed a very valuable quality of employees in organizational environment. It is closely related to career progress because there is a process of improving working ability. It means that the organization investing in the improvement of employee engagement has predicted its organizational success. The engaged employees also tend to have low turnover intention so that they prefer staying in the organization. The employees with high engagement can motivate other coworkers to improve the effectiveness of working process. This condition implies that an organization encouraging the improvement of employee engagement is a mutually beneficial strategic decision (win-win solution) to both individual (employee) and organizational levels [7].

In Indonesia, the research studying work engagement has not been adjusted with Indonesian culture. The work engagement studies in Indonesia often overlap with the concepts of employee engagement, job satisfaction and work related flow. This study attempts to investigate furthers the work engagement through developing a measuring instrument more compatible to Indonesian culture. This research aims to develop an instrument to measure work engagement of employees in a company to be able to distinguish the engaged employees from the non-engaged ones.

Discussion

The work engagement developed has psychometric characteristics still needing improvement. The result of KMO calculation with score of 0.864 indicates that the subjects in the work engagement scale trial have been qualified for the standard of factor analysis. Furthermore, the cumulative percentage of 50,38% indicates that this scale can measure the employees’ work engagement of 50.38%. The work engagement scale has high Alpha reliability value, 0.885. The analysis on the item’s discriminating power found 18 items are removed as they have discriminating power below 0.3. The items are removed because the process of developing items is not compatible to the item writing principle. Azwar explains the principle of writing item as follows. Firstly, write the item using simple and understandable words and sentence. Secondly, choose non-ambiguous words or terms. Next, write items always based on the behavioral indicator. In writing item, consider the behavior to be revealed as well. The item written may not contain high social desirability. To avoid answer stereotype, some items are made favorable and some others unfavorable.

The items number 10 reading “I feel tired easily in the office” and number 13 reading “I feel bored easily when I do monotonous tasks” have discriminating power below 0.3 because the author assumes that both items cannot explain the negation of the indicator of high energy level. The two items have ambiguous meaning; the word “easily” in both items makes the subject confused in responding to them. The item number 28 reading “I prefer declining the job I think I cannot complete” is removed because the sentence in the item is too long and elaborate and therefore makes the subject confused. The item is considered as incapable of measuring the construct of resilience in work engagement. The item number 36 reading “I have felt satisfied with the job I undertake currently” measures the concept of work engagement from the resilience indicator. The item number 36 does not represent the negation of resilience. The word “felt satisfied” is not the negation of resilience.

Item number 11 reading “I delegate the task to my coworker if I cannot complete it” has discriminating power below 0.3 as it is considered having overlapping meaning with the item number 28 reading “I prefer declining the job I think I cannot complete”. Both items have the same essence, the delegation of task to others. The item number 11 measures the responsibility existing in the work engagement but not in the operational definition in the form of behavior often performed by the employees. Furthermore, the items number 20 and 23 are removed, belonging to the indicator of totality. The item number 20 reads “I complete the tasks just the way they are according to my capability”, and number 23 reads “I complete the task accordinthe capability” so that they are overlapping.

In the indicator of enthusiasm, there are two it to the minimum standard specified”. The two items have the same essence “completing the tasks according to ems removed, numbers 33 and 36. Item number 33 reading “I am often retarded in acquiring information related to the company development” and item number 36 reading “I prefer saying nothing when I am in the office” reflecting the negation of no enthusiasm in working. Both items are ambiguous and not referring specifically to certain situation. The item number 3 reads “The job I do now is a burden to me”. Item number 39 reads “I do the task assigned by my superior as the demand”. The meanings of sentences in items number 3 and 39 are the same, the demand in working. These two items are overlapping as it operates the indicator of enjoying the job rather than being measured from the presence of demand in working only.

In the indicator “focusing the job, all items (nos. 6, 9, 12, and 15) are removed. Item number 6 reads “I use handphone in the office only in relation to the job”. This item is removed because the meaning of handphone use in the office done very often to support the job and thereby cannot measure the focus on the job. The sentence used in the item is also too long and elaborate. Item number 9 reading “I do not access social media during office working hour” is removed because accessing social media during office working hour can be the employee’s job description. This item cannot be generalized into the employees operating in online sector. Item number 12 also has discriminating power below 0.3 “I can be disturbed easily by my coworkers when I complete my task”. This item is ambiguous because the word disturbed does not have specific meaning in the term of behavior so that the subject is confused in responding to the item. Item number 15 reads “I often think many things during working hour”. The word “often” in this item means that the behavior is performed continuously during working hour. It makes the subject confused in responding to the item. The word “often” can be corrected with “sometimes” meaning in certain situation only.

In the indicator of bond to the job, there are three items removal: items number 21, 24, and 27. The three items have discriminating power below 0.0 as they are assumed not to measure the construct of bond to the job. Items number 21 reading “I take extra hour to complete the tasks assigned by my boss” and number 24 reading “I complete my task well to make my boss happy” will be used more appropriately to measure an employee’s responsibility. Taking extra hour and completing the task are the employees’ responsibilities. Item number 27 reading “I am responsible for the tasks assigned by my boss in the office only” is more appropriate to be put into the indicator of totality as non-favorable item. Being responsible cannot measure the bind to the job. The indicator of bond to the job makes the subject confused in responding. The bind focuses more on the sense of belonging to the company so that the operationalization of behavior should be made clearer.

Considering the factor analysis, the items with loading factor below 0.4 are removed automatically. The items removed in the process of factor analysis are those number

30, 18, and 19. Item number 30 reads “I make checklist related to the tasks to do”. Item no. 30 measures the vigor aspect with the indicator of consistency in working. The item does not represent the consistency in working so that it is true that it has loading factor below 0.4. Item number 18 reads “Time feels passing so quickly when I work”. The item number 18 measures the absorption aspect with the indicator of bond to the job. The ite does not reflect the employees’ behavior of being bond to the job. The item is more appropriate to be mapped into the indicator of enjoying the job. The sentence in item number 18 means that the employees enjoy the job undertaken so that time feels passing so quickly. Furthermore, the item number 19 reads “I feel satisfied with doing the task surpassing the standard specified”. Item number 19 measures vigor aspect with the indicator of resilience in working. The sentence in the item does not reflect the resilience in working. The sentence “I feel satisfied” in the item number 19 has ambiguous meaning to the subject. The two items are removed because they cannot measure the aspects included. Following the analysis on the discriminating power of item and the factor analysis, out of 39 items 18 item remain. Loading factor ranges between 0.428 and 0.867. Item number 17 “I do the task assigned at the same day” has lowest loading factor, 0.428. Furthermore, item number 14 “I look for various references to support the completion of task assigned by my boss”. The item has good loading factor as it is assuemd to be able to measure operationally the dedication aspect with totality indicator.

Conclusion

Considering the result of KMO on work engagement scale with score of 0.864, it can seen that the trial can be done with the subject using factor analysis. The work engagement scale is composed of three aspects: vigor with load of 40%, dedication with 30% and absorption with 30%., consisting of 39 items. The items been trialled with 152 employees working in some organizational sectors with 21 items considered to be valid. The process of exploratory factor analysis on the items of work engagement scale found 18 items that can be used by the organization. the work engagement scale developed has been adjusted with organizational and cultural context of Indonesia and thus it is more understandable.

This research has some limitations, particularly related to methodological aspect. In aiken validity analysis process, the raters were students who were studying in the master of professional education program and they scored high the item validity. It may occur because not all raters do understand the concept of work engagement completely; some of them know it based on the operational definition only. The raters rate based on sentence similarity and clarity in the items so that high score given to an item is assumed not actually valid. Thus, many items are removed in the trial process. Furthermore, the sample used in this research was selected online. In completing online scale with many items, the subjects tend to respond to the items without reading comprehensivel so that they tended to give safe answer or response.