Profession as a major drive of work engagement and its effects on job performance among healthcare employees in Greece: A comparative analysis among doctors, nurses and administrative staff

Abstract

Objectives The current research explores how employees’ work engagement in the Greek healthcare sector influences their job performance level in each profession. A secondary objective is to examine the correlation between work engagement and demographics. Method In order to achieve these objectives, a questionnaire containing Likert 5 point-scale questions was used to collect data from 269 participants. Our sample, drawn from the healthcare sector, consisted of 85 doctors, 139 nurses, and 45 administrative staff. Regression analysis was used to investigate the relationship between work engagement and job performance among the different professional groups. Results Our findings showed that a strong correlation exists between work engagement and job performance among doctors, but this relationship is weak among administrative staff and nurses. Additionally, though doctors scored higher on engagement and lower on job performance as compared to administrative staff and nurses, a reverse trend was found among the last two employee categories. Engagement levels were also found to increase with age, though not necessarily with experience. Conclusions The most important conclusion is that although work engagement levels significantly affect employee job performance as hypothesised, the relationship is much stronger among doctors than among nurses or administrative staff. This implies profession has a major role in driving work engagement and, thereby, performance. Furthermore, age seems to be significantly linked to the level of work engagement, indicating that more mature employees are more likely to be engaged with their work as compared to less mature ones.