PERSONALquarterly 3/2020

6 SCHWERPUNKT _INTERVIEW PERSONALquarterly 03/20 Engagement Research and Practice Das Interview mit Prof. Dr. Arnold Bakker führte Dr. Katja Dlouhy PERSONALquarterly: Dr. Bakker, how did you start your research on engagement, and did your research affect the way you work? Arnold Bakker: My work engagement research actually started with its opposite – burnout. Wilmar Schaufeli had a position available for a post-doc researcher for which I applied. I star- ted with writing a research proposal on “burnout contagion,” which was awarded, and conducted several studies on how em- ployees may infect each other with the burnout “virus.” I also conducted research on loss cycles of job demands and burn- out, and then started to realize that many employees are not burned-out but rather very enthusiastically involved in their work. We then started investigating the new state we dubbed “work engagement.” I developed many, many items to assess the construct and then conducted five studies to determine the factor structure of a newmeasure, its nomological network, and predictive validity. This measure resulted in the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, which I published with Wilmar Schaufeli. PERSONALquarterly: Organizations want “engaged employees”, but what is engagement? Which myths or misunderstandings regarding engagement are common in practice? Arnold Bakker: Work engagement refers to a state in which em- ployees generally feel very energetic (vigor), very enthusiastic about their work (dedication), and totally immersed in their work activities (absorption). Individuals who score high on each of these three dimensions are said to be engaged in their work. Common misunderstandings are that engagement would be the same as organizational commitment or in-role perfor- mance, which it is not. The latter are possible outcomes of work engagement. Common myths are that people can be too engaged and that engagement is actually a bad thing. There is hardly any evidence for that. PERSONALquarterly: In your research, you focus on both work engagement and burnout. How are engagement and burnout related? Arnold Bakker: They are negatively related, but a low score on burnout does not imply a high score on work engagement. If a person indicated that he is not tired and not cynical, this does not imply that he is very vital and enthusiastic. The person could be “middle of the road” or may feel okay, but not really excited about work. The discussion of whether burnout and engagement are each other’s opposite keeps popping up in the literature. Theoretically, the concepts are opposites, but you need to measure both to really grasp the whole spectrum. PERSONALquarterly: Many organizations conduct an annual survey of engagement. How useful are these annual survey values for HR managers? Arnold Bakker: An annual survey gives an idea where the organi- zation, departments, or teams stand, but work engagement is like temperature – it changes from day to day. In order to have a better idea of the causes and consequences of work engage- ment, it seems very important to measure more frequently, and at least use repeated measurements to find out how employees are doing. PERSONALquarterly: What would you suggest when the engagement of employees in an organization is low? Are there HR practices or organizational-level interventions that universally increase engagement? Arnold Bakker: Yes. There are several organizational-level inter- ventions that universally seem to increase engagement. A first intervention is job redesign – organizations should always keep an eye on keeping a balance between the job demands em- ployees are exposed to and the job resources that are available. Job resources like feedback, support, opportunities for develop- ment, and skill variety should be stimulated, so that individual employees can better cope with their job demands. Organiza- tions could also invest in leadership training – to teach leaders how to regularly provide job resources and individualized at- tention to their followers. Our own research and that of others indicates that such interventions will increase employee work engagement and eventually have a positive impact on organi- zational performance. PERSONALquarterly: Engagement of employees can decrease over time, even when the organizational context has not changed. Are there ways how individuals can proactively increase their engagement?