Driving Employee Engagement Through Five Personality Traits: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

An attempt has been tried to explore the personality factors in predicting employee engagement among the middle-level employees in the IT industry. Based on an empirical investigation of 383 middle-level employees working in IT firms, the researcher cognizes their perception of various personality-related factors extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. The present study was exploratory in nature. A variance-based structural equation model (SEM) approach was adopted for the measurement of the model. The study confirmed that personality-related factors extraversion, conscientiousness neuroticism, and openness to experience significantly related to employee engagement. In addition to this extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience significantly predicted employee engagement, contrary, the insignificant effect was seen of agreeableness on employee engagement. Grounded to this study, it is strongly recommended that individual possess the extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, and conscientiousness qualities seen to be more engaged in their job while agreeableness person is seen to be less engaged. The corporate entity herein suggested that to keep the talented and valuable employees, must strategically think about these factors. To the best of my belief, this is the first and foremost article that address the personality-related factors in predicting employee engagement in the Indian context.

Keywords

Personality employee engagement EFA CFA

Introduction

Personality has been demarcated as the individual’s way of thinking, sentiment, and attitudinal behaviour together with the psychological mechanism (Nichols et al., 2008).¹ In the past few decades, researches were seen on dysfunctional and attitudinal behaviour on role stress and employees intention to quit the jobs^2–7 (Mayende & Musenze, 2014; Treglown, Zivkov, Zarola, & Furnham, 2018) although the majority of the studies confronted with the phenomena role stress and personality factors were significant predictors of burnout among the employees. The finding of the meta-analysis of 114 samples confirmed that personality traits explained 48.10% variance in employee engagement, 19.60% variance in conscientiousness, 14.10% variance in extraversion, whereas other dimensions (neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness to experience) least important.⁸ The result of 1,050 working adults applying hierarchal multiple regression identified that extraversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, and openness to experience significantly predicted the engagement level.⁹ Employee engagement has been accompanied to performance, retention, and organizational effectiveness (Saks, 2006; Mone & London, 2018).

Certainly, the low level of employee engagement leads to several bad consequences financial loss, loss in productivity. Disengaged employees cost US business firms up to $550 billion annually (Gallup, 2016). Engaged employees produce extensively better outcomes, more likely to remain with their organizations, healthier, and less frequency to quit (Harter, 2020). Hence, it is a matter of complexities how to craft, trigger employee engagement at the workplace in order to improve organizational effectiveness. To encounters this, researchers across the globe explored several means and intrusion by which to ameliorate engagement such as transformational leadership (Breevaart et al., 2013), well-being (Shuck & Reio, 2013), motivation (Thomas, 2009). Although these results are affirmative in revealing that employee engagement may be improved through intercession.

However, personality test may play a vital role in identifying potential candidate likely to more energetic to their work role, hence researches must ascertain which personality traits are most sturdily related to engagement. The term employee engagement still seemed to be equivocal in the academic domain (Macey & Schneider, 2008). Undeniably, demarcated what exactly organization need to be required, state engagement could be highly variable, unfavourable situations could affect state engagement behaviours (Macey & Schneider, 2008). Engagement could have three states; behavioural state, psychological state, and trait state (Macey & Schneider, 2008). The strong correlation was seen between three dispositional traits proactive personality (r = 0.44), positive affect (r = 0.43) and conscientiousness (r = 0.42) (Christian et al., 2011). Despite this ground-breaking work, a widespread and comprehensive empirical treatment of the personality traits-engagement relationship was still missing in the existing literature. A horde of questions left unanswered concerning (a) predictive validity of the other personality traits, (b) its relative importance in predicting employee engagement with which personality trait explains most the variance in engagement, (c) whether the relationships between personality traits and employee engagement are same across the facets of the engagement.

Research Background and Hypotheses Development

In the past few decades, researches have been reported that a great deal of attention to personality factors. As a result, the big five personality factors emerged which measured individual personality characteristics. They were frequently labelled as (a) extraversion, (b) agreeableness, (c) conscientiousness, (d) neuroticism, and (e) openness to experience^1,2,11–15 (McCrae & Costa, 1997; Nichols et al., 2008; Brennan & Skarlicki, 2004b; Treglown et al., 2018). Personality characteristics prejudice individuals to views antagonistic events in certain ways and their physiological consequences. Most well developed and comprehensive models of personality are the big five-factor models (FFMs; Kokkinos, 2007) which theorize that personality can be best meticulously described as the neuroticism (capability to control the urge, cope with stress), extraversion (temperament towards positive emotions, high activity), agreeableness (the penchants towards interpersonal trust, consideration of others), conscientious (the propensity towards persistency) and openness to experience (scholarly snooping and artistic warmth) (Kokkinos, 2007) grounded to this theoretical background, little academic empirical researches seen into reality which demonstrated that personality trait also has a significant influences work engagement in the Indian context.

Figure 1.

Source: The author.

Therefore, this research contributes to two facets, firstly, contribute to the existing literature, the big five-personality factors as workplace employee engagement. Personality research focuses mainly on the five factors personality theory which is stingy distinctive the differences among the individuals’ temperaments^2–7 (Day et al., 1998; Elangovan, 2001; Fiorilli et al., 2015; Kokkinos, 2007.; Mayende & Musanze, 2014; Pradhan et al., 2018; Rouleau et al., 2012; Siong et al., 2006; Treglown et al., 2018).

Employee Engagement

An engaged workforce is vital for the organizational effectiveness. Engaged employees seemed as individuals who “are enthusiastic, involved in, cognitively attached to their organization and contribute to organization in achieving goals” (Meskelis & Whittington, 2020). Such employees have better extra-role performance,¹⁶ higher effectiveness (Chaurasia and Shukla, 2013). Contrary to this, disengaged employees reported unhappiness and dispirited (Gallup, 2013), high absenteeism,¹⁷ and turnover intention (Shusha, 2013). The level of employee engagement led consultant, academician, and scholar fraternity to identify the glut of antecedents of engagement. In an effort to capture the head and heart to enhance employee engagement, it is now generally recognized that engagement is the organizational and individual factors. Wide-range of researches are available, depicting that organizational factors led to influence employee engagement for instance performance management and HR practices (Whittington et al., 2017), organizational environment (J, 2014), leadership behaviour (Bakar, 2013) and job characteristics (Shantz et al., 2013). However, in addition to this, individual differences also significantly influence the level of employee engagement for instance individual emotion and self-efficacy (Saks and Grumman, 2001), core confidence (Gilstrap, 2015) and individual spirituality (Bakar, 2013).

Thus, for the organization, it becomes a frantic task to identify the engaged employees and retain them motivated. The personality traits would assist the organization in getting engaged and enthusiastic employees. Literature in this domain specifically in the Indian context lacking. No proper studies were demonstrated that addresses how the organizations can be best avail the personality traits in getting employees more engaged in their role performance. Therefore, this article explores and analyses the very nature of personality traits and their role in predicting employee engagement. In other words, the purpose of this article is to explore influence of personality traits on employee engagement.

Extraversion and Employee Engagement

The vague concept extraversion of the prominent five personalities has emerged in last 50 years, first deliberately viewed introvert-extrovert inducted by the Kim (2013), although, this was earlier observed by William James (1907) and other proposed similar concept, basically somewhat contrarily too (Kim, 2013; Cattell, 2001; Costa & McCrae, 1992; McCrae & Costaz, 1997; Kokkinos, 2007; Watson & Clark, 1997; Watson et al., 1994; Zimmerman, 2008).^15,18–23 An individual possesses extraversion attributes seemed to be more socially connected, happy, less introverted, more externally and objectively focused, more concerned towards the other people and the world around them. An individual having extraversion qualities behave to be supportive, courteous and sympatric, having less degree of turnover intention (McCrae & Costa, 1995). Positive linkage is seen between extraversion and engagement as an individual having a high degree of extraversion reflecting alertness, enthusiasm, and experiencing activation and more likely to developed identification with their organization (Christian et al., 2011). The empirical investigation revealed that the personality traits extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience. and neuroticism has seen to be negatively associated with intention to quit the job.²⁴ Researches confirmed that employees with a high degree of extraversion seemed to be more comfortable with networking, and having a higher level of connectedness intensity (Wanberg, Kanfer, and Banas, 2000). Employees concerning agreeableness attributes looked to be the decent, cheerful, and friendly, courteous and helpful to others at the workplace as well outdoor.

The regression analysis confirmed that agreeableness has a significant inverse impact on intention to quit (Jeswani & Dave, 2012).¹⁵ Additionally, the study confirmed that the personality traits agreeableness found to negatively influence the intention to quit the job.²⁴ Extraversion employees possess the quality of socially active, assertive, active, cheerful, and charismatic in nature. Such people often experience positive effects such as zeal, enthusiasm, motivation, enjoy the excitement and seen to be more engaged.²⁵ Extraversion is positively related to engagement. Finally, proactive personality would be significantly related to engagement, demonstrate motivation, alertness and are likely engaged.²⁶ Therefore, hypothesized as:

H₁: Extraversion will positively predict employee engagement.

Agreeableness and Employee Engagement

Agreeableness deals with maintaining the relationship with others, agreeableness people express their feeling, empathetic, control emotion, likely to more engage in their job (Panaccio & Vandenberghe, 2012). The second dimension of the five personality trait deals with agreeableness meaning thereby that trusting, caring, generous and gentle in human nature. Individual generally having an optimistic view, in return they expect others to help.²⁵ The study confirmed that work engagement acts as the full mediator between job resourcefulness and customer orientation and job satisfaction and turnover intention.²⁷ The positive linkage would be seen between agreeableness and engagement because agreeable individuals less anxious, self-conscious and likely to perceive their work culture as intimidating (Wildermuth, 2010). The study confirmed that significant relation between personality traits and job engagement, meanwhile agreeableness significantly predicted job engagement.²⁸ Agreeableness significantly predicted well-being (Sulea, van Beek, Sarbescu, Virga, & Schaufeli, 2015). The big five personality dimension agreeableness significantly predicted employee engagement.²⁹ The big five personality traits have a significant relationship with job performance.³⁰ Hence, hypothesized as:

H₂: Agreeableness will positively predict employee engagement.

Conscientiousness and Employee Engagement

Conscientiousness is strongest predictor of engagement affect work engagement through the internal motivational process. An employee having a high degree of conscientiousness seemed to be high achievement orientation and likely to a high level of engagement.³¹ The study of 1794 South African police officers confirmed conscientiousness to be a strong predictor of employee engagement.²⁹ Employees possess conscientiousness qualities seen to be more responsible, persistent, and caring in reaching their organizational goal (Singh, Singh, & Singh, 2014). A pattern of variation among personality trait can be summarized in the FFM. The sample of 7,134 employees working in German, Portuguese, Hebrew, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, suggested that personality trait structure is universal (McCrae & Costa, 1997). Conscientiousness should be positively associated with engagement because conscientious employees have a strong sense of responsibility and thus likely to more engaged in their job (Christian et al., 2011). It has been argued that certain personality factors imitate an inclination for engagement due to their human behaviour, preliminary results suggest that extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience and conscientiousness individual have a high level of engagement.⁹ The sample of 388 middle and upper level of management reported that personality traits affect employee engagement level negatively and act as moderators.³² Thus, hypothesized as:

H₃: Conscientiousness will positively predict employee engagement.

Neuroticism and Employee Engagement

Neuroticism refers to the individual differences in the world as threatening, problematic issues and distressing. A high score on neuroticism reflects the negative emotions (anxiety, depression, and anger). A positive relationship was seen between personality traits and job engagement. Personality traits dimension extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience significantly related to job engagement as a well significant predictor of job engagement dimension.²⁸ The significant five factors explained neuroticism as the tendency to parade poor emotional adjustment and concerned about the anxiety, insecurity, and hostility, anxious, depressed, and angry has ultimately had an inverse impact on intention to quit the job. Neuroticism (negatively emotionality) is the core dimension of the FFM.²³ Low level of neuroticism significantly predicted employee engagement.²⁹ Therefore, hypothesized as:

H₄: Neuroticism will positively predict employee engagement.

Openness to Experience and Employee Engagement

Openness to experience defined as the degree to which individuals perceive, imaginary creativity, and level of experience (Salgado, 2002). In a study, it was reported that gender differences across the culture for both college-age and adult samples, further stated that superlative degree of women on big five personality trait agreeableness, neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. Comparatively, men reported low degree themselves.³⁴ Openness to experience showed the valid predictor of training proficiency (Salgado, 1997). The study confirmed on 533 employees through the interview and questionnaire medium, intention to quit the job, leads to less performance, higher organizational deviance, and low degree of organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). The big five personality facet positively associated with engagement and explained 69% variance in engagement.³⁵ The higher level of association was seen between openness to experience and proactive socialization behaviour.³⁶ An individual high in openness to experiences exhibits imagination, curiosity, originality and open-mindedness and likely to be more engaged.³⁶ Thus, hypothesized as:

H₅: Openness to experience will positively predict employee engagement.

Methodology

Procedure and Sample

An attempt had been made to investigate the significant influence of prominent personality traits on employee engagement, further this study has emphasized the role of personality traits in driving employee engagement. The population of the present study is employees of the Indian IT firms. A self-administered online survey was conducted. Respondents were assured of the anonymity and confidentiality of their responses via a cover letter. The scope of the current study mainly emphasizes the empiricalbased cross-sectional in nature. A conceptual model was developed, an analysis mechanism and dimension scale was adopted from the existing literature. Convenience sampling method was followed to draw the sample of 1,000 middle-level employees from IT firms geographically located in NCR, New Delhi, India. The final sample of the study consists of 383 middle-level employees of IT firms.

Measurements

The herein study perpetual variable had been measured by the manifold statements received from the existing quantitative studies from the relevant literature. The Big five personality traits were retrieved from the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI: Costa & McCrae, 1992; Panayiotou, Kokkinos, 2007).^19,21 The 20-items measuring five dimensions of a healthy personality.

The extraversion = 4 items (I am the life of the party), agreeableness = 4 items (I sympathize with others’ feelings), conscientiousness = 4 items (I get tasks done right away), neuroticism = 4 items (I am relaxed most of the time), openness to experience. = 3 items (I have a vivid imagination). Employee engagement was measured using 4 items (I am enthusiastic about my job) scale developed by (Rich et al., 2010). The Cronbach’s Alpha for each scale were: 0.859 for extraversion, 0.816 for agreeableness, 0.930 for conscientiousness, 0.875 for openness to experience, 0.857 for neuroticism, and 0.808 for employee engagement. Respondents have to indicate their degree of agreement with each item on five-point Likert type scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 5 = Strongly agree).

Results

Demographic Finding

The present study was executed on the middle-level employees located at NCR and New Delhi India. The profile of respondents have been represented in Table 1. 27.7% respondents falling under the age bracket of more than 35 years (mean = 2.53, SD = 1.15), 36.9% respondents were having a post-graduate degree of (mean = 2.013, SD = 0.795), 44.76% respondents having 11–15 years’ experience (mean = 2.51, SD = 0.795). See Table 1 for additional information.

Table 1.

Demographic Profile, n = 383

Variables	Subgroup	Frequency	%	Mean	Standard Deviation
Gender	Female	383	100	1.00	0.051
Age	20–25 26–30 31–35 More than 35	100 83 93 107	26.3 21.7 24.3 27.7	2.53	1.153
Education	UG PG Other	118 142 123	30.9 36.9 32.2	2.013	0.795
Experience	0–5 6–10 11–15	118 142 123	26.19 29.05 44.76	2.513	0.795

Source: Primary data.

Correlation coefficient is reported as the linear association between two variables. It may take the range of ±1. A correlational value zero indicates that no association between measured variables similarly closer the value of r coefficient ±1 irrespective of the direction, the stronger the linear relationship between the two variables.³⁷ In the present study, significant and moderate association was notice among the variables. Table 2 shows that extraversion (r = 0.378, p < .01), agreeableness (r = 0.249, p < .01) conscientiousness (r = 0.526, p < .01), openness to experience(r = 0.455, p < .01) and neuroticism (r = 0.611, p < .01) positive correlation with employee engagement.

Table 2.

Descriptive and Correlational Statistics

Scale	N	Mean	Std Deviation	P_E	P_A	P_C	P_O	P_N	E_E
P_E	383	2.8508	.73886	1
P_A	383	2.7723	.79440	.355**	1
P_C	383	4.0013	.62299	.321**	.264**	1
P_O	383	3.4965	.82457	.478**	.254**	.442**	1
P_N	383	3.8292	.60573	.272**	.201**	.500**	.362**	1
E_E	383	3.9272	.50576	.378**	.249**	.526**	.455**	.611**	1

Source: Primary data.

Note: **p < 0.01.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) is a multivariate statistical procedure that is used to test how well the measured variables represent the number of constructs. It is a tool that is used to confirm or reject the measurement theory. To what extent the scale correlates with another measure of the same construct. Broadly speaking, CFA is the advanced step of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to decide the factor edifice in data set (StatWiki, 2021). The convergent validity of the construct determines up to what extent multiples methods of measuring a construct provide the same results. Eminent scholarly communication is available expressing certain determinant of the convergent validity. The first one is factor loading; the standardized loading estimates. The present study meets this criterion on the loading, meaning thereby that all loading greater than 0.7. The second determinant was average variance extracted (AVE) which is calculated as the mean-variance extracted for the loading of the construct; the recommended range for the AVE should be more than 0.5. The third determinant is the composite reliability (CR) which is computed from the square sum of the factor loading for each construct and the sum of the error variance terms for a construct. The threshold range of the CR is more than 0.7 (Cronbach, 1951; Field, 2005; Malhotra, 2005; Hair, 2011).

This study reached benchmark limits (see Table 3 for additional information). The measurement model is used for the qualitative assessment of the validity and reliability of the constructs included in the study (Henseler et al., 2009). In this research, we first conducted a CFA, to verify whether the predetermined sets of variables were interrelated in the hypothesized manner.

Table 3.

Scale Items and CFA Factor Loading (Standardized)

Label	Construct	Loading	AVE	MSV	CR	CA
PE1	I am the life of the party	0.761***	0.611	0.282	0.862	0.859
PE2	I don’t talk a lot	0.796***
PE3	I talk to a lot of different people at parties.	0.868***
PE4	I keep in the background	0.693***
PA1	I sympathize with others’ feelings	0.715***	0.528	0.166	0.817	0.816
PA2	I am not interested in other people’s problem	0.711***
PA3	I feel others’ emotions.	0.750***
PA4	I am really interested in others.	0.729***
PC1	I get tasks done right away.	0.915***	0.772	0.324	0.931	0.930
PC2	I often forget to put things back in their proper place	0.919***
PC3	I like order.	0.883***
PC4	I don’t make a mess of things	0.791***
PN1	I have frequent mood swings.	0.683***	0.626	0.378	0.868	0.857
PN2	I am relaxed most of the time	0.894***
PN3	I get upset easily	0.874***
PN4	I seldom feel sad	0.689***
PO1	I have a vivid imagination	0.847***	0.704	0.282	0.877	0.875
PO2	I am not interested in abstract ideas.	0.789***
PO3	I have no difficulty understanding abstract ideas	0.879***
EE1	I am enthusiastic about my job.	0.651***	0.521	0.378	0.812	0.801
EE2	At my work, I feel energetic	0.715***
EE3	I am very involved personally in my work.	0.734***
EE4	I am “emotionally attached” to my organization.	0.782***

Source: Primary data.

Notes: AVE: Average variance extracted, CR: Composite reliability, MSV: Maximum shared variance, CA: Cronbach alpha.

***p < .001.

The construct reliability was assessed using CR. For CR, the benchmark limit is 0.7 and above (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988) is considered to be adequate. In the present study, the value of CR ranged between 0.812 and 0.931. Therefore, all the constructs and their dimensions were reliable (Table 3). Cronbach alpha is statistical tool used to measure the internal consistency of the responses in a data set meaning by how closely items of a set are correlated as group. It is said to be a measure of scale of reliability. The alpha coefficient for all variables ranges from 0.801 to 0.930, suggesting that items have high internal consistency. Reliability coefficient of 0.70 or more considered too acceptable in most social science researches.³⁹

Furthermore, convergent validity and discriminant validity were also examined. Convergent validity was measured through, AVE. All the constructs and their dimensions attained the benchmark of >0.5 (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).⁴⁰ It was observed that each construct was related more strongly and closely to its measures than with the other constructs included in the study with the factor correlation of >0.8 (Brown, 2015). Moreover, the square root of AVE for each construct was found to be higher than its co-relational value (Chin et al., 1997). See Table 3 for additional information.

Hypothesis Testing

Before testing hypothesizes, CFA has been employed to critically examine the nature of latent variables, correlation matrix, factor dimension, validation of the scale as well as the internal consistency in the observed data. To check the proposed hypothesis of the study, the research has followed the structural equation model (SEM) approach for testing the hypothesis. Conceptually SEM is a combination of CFA and regression (Neeraj, 2020). The various indices have been presented in Tables 4–6. From all aspect the results of CFA and SEM are satisfactory.

Table 4.

SEM Fit Indices

Fit Indices	Cut Off Values	Study Model	References
Absolute fit measure			(Byrne & Byrne, 2013) Hair et al.⁴¹ Raykov & Marcoulides (2000) Tabachnic & Fidell (2007) Arbukle, 2008; Harrington, 2008 Schumacker & Lomax (2010)
CMIN/DF	1–3	1.841
RMR	<0.05, <0.08	0.026
RMSEA	<0.05, <0.08	0.047
Incremental fit measure
CFI	>0.90	0.964
TLI	>0.90	0.958
GFI NFI IFI	>0.90 >0.90 >0.90	0.916 0.925 0.964

Source: Primary data.

Table 5.

Variance Inflation Factor for all Variables

Variables	VIF
Extraversion (PE)	1.40
Agreeableness (PA)	1.18
Conscientiousness (PC)	1.52
Neuroticism (PN)	1.38
Openness to experience (PO)	1.50
Employee Engagement (EE)	1.83

Source: Primary data

Note: ***p < 0.001.

Table 6.

Hypothesis Summary

			Estimate	SE	C.R.	P-value	Decision?
EE	–	PE	0.086	0.042	2.147	.032	Significance
EE	–	PA	0.027	0.034	0.798	.425	Not Significance
EE	–	PC	0.156	0.045	3.463	***	Significance
EE	–	PO	0.106	0.036	2.949	.003	Significance
EE	–	PN	0.340	0.058	5.914	***	Significance

Source: Primary data.

The measurement model is used for the qualitative assessment of the validity and reliability of the constructs included in a study (Henseler et al., 2007). In this research, we first conducted a CFA, to verify whether the predetermined sets of variables were interrelated in the hypothesized manner. The initial CFA findings suggested an adequate model fit with the following indices: CMIN/DF = 1.84, GFI = 0.916, TLI = 0.958, CFI = 0.964, IFI = 0.964, RMSEA = 0.047. Broadly speaking CFA is a statistical interdependence technique to validate the factor structure of a set of latent variables. CFA statistics produces several indices chi-square (CMIN/DF) revealed the amount of the observed and expected covariance matrices. Comparative fit index (CFI) is equal to the discrepancy function adjusted for the sample size (Benson & Fleishman, 1994; Curran et al., 1996; Moutinho & Hutcheson, 2014; Ansari & Khan, 2020).^42–46 (See Table 4 for additional information.)

Before testing the proposed the hypothesis of the study, the researcher conducted CFA to ensure validity and reliability of the instrument adopted herein. No doubt the adopted scale were well tested but to make it more robust of scale as well tool in the Indian context, the researcher has employed the statistics as mentioned above. Beta Coefficient standardized partial regression signify the power of the relationship between the latent variable in the proposed model (Ansari & Khan, 2020; Moqbel et al., 2013).^44,47 The asterisk * shows the beta coefficient with the significant level at 0.05, the symbol ** shows the significant level at 0.01, and the symbol *** shows the beta coefficient with the significant level at 0.001. The “ns” revealed a regression coefficient that was not statistically significant. R² values denote the variance explained in percentage by the variables in the model.

The path coefficient has been presented in Figure 2, in which each hypothesis is linked with each other. Bizarrely, it was come to know out of the five hypotheses, four seen to be supported and 52.8% variance explained in employee engagement. Extraversion was seen to be significantly related to employee engagement (β = 0.086, p < .05, C.R. = 2.147). No significant relationship was seen between the agreeableness and employee engagement (β = 0.027, p > .001, C.R. = 0.798). Additionally, the conscientiousness has a significant impact on employee engagement (β = 0.156, p < .001, C.R. = 3.463) indicating the direct effect of conscientiousness in predicting employee engagement. In practical terms, a 1 unit increase in conscientiousness leads to 1.56 unit increase in employee engagement.

Figure 2.

Source: The author.

However, Neuroticism has been the significant relationship with employee engagement (β = 0.34, p < .001, C.R. = 5.914) meaning thereby that direct effect on employee engagement by the neuroticism. In practical terms, every 1 unit increase in neuroticism, would consequently lead to an increase in employee engagement at 3.4 unit. On the other hand, openness to experience has a significant impact on employee engagement (β = 0.106, p < .05, C.R. = 2.949), indicating a direct effect on employee engagement by openness to experience.

Full collinearity test was obtained through VIF. A VIF lower than 5 suggests no collinearity between variables and other variables. It was clear from Table 5 that in the present study there is a lack of multicollinearity, thus, researcher can go ahead with any barriers (Field, 2005; Hair et al., 2016; Liu & Bakici, 2019; Moqbel et al., 2013; Wakefield & Wakefield, 2016).

Discussion and Conclusion

There is an ongoing discussion that work-related stress leads to job burnout and consequently affect the intention to quit the organization (Schwarzkopf et al., 2016). The path analysis yielded noteworthy findings on how personality traits influence engagement level and human behaviour. Specifically, personality factors have direct positive effects on employee engagement in the organization. The four of five big personality traits Extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience significantly predicting employee engagement in this study, while agreeableness has seen to affect engagement level negatively.

The final model revealed that the four dimensions of personality significantly positively predicted employee engagement and 52.8% total variance explained in employee engagement which is a good sign in the social science domain.

The finding of this study akin to the hitherto scholarly communication available on personality traits extraversion,³⁶ agreeableness Barrick & Mount, 1993; Mooradian & Swan, 2006; Hurtz & Donovan, 2000), conscientious (Barrick & Mount, 1993; Erdheim et al., 2006), openness to experience (Lounsbury et al., 2003).

From the facts and findings obtained by the study, it was concluded that employee engagement significantly predicted by the personality traits. Additionally, the practical implication has been discussed in the next section titled practical implications. First, the researcher examined the efficacy of personality traits in predicting the employee engagement and acknowledged 52.8% variance explained in employee engagement by extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to express combined together. Neuroticism and conscientiousness of personality traits were seen to be the strongest predictors of employee engagement. Worthy to note that a person who possesses these qualities—“kind,” “cooperative,” “sympathetic,” “talkative,” “assertive,” and “excited”—is likely to be more engaged in their job comparably other. Extraversion was seen to be the strongest predictor of employee engagement.⁹ Specifically, employees with a strong willingness to help others at work, avoid hurting other’s feeling, and not seen as confrontational, exhibits higher levels of engagement at work.

Our results provide an insightful perspective towards big five personality traits and employee engagement. Although previous studies have highlighted the significance of personality traits and employee engagement, none of them has confirmed which facets of FFM is more contributory in driving employee engagement. Scholarly communication suggested that the impending of pre-employment strategies for soundly improving employee engagement, likely to be integrating the personality traits into the recruitment process (Whittington et al., 2017).

Discussion and Practical Implications

Empirical researchers existed in the literature highlighting that job satisfaction is single variable which works as a motivating factor to employees for getting better role performance (Kahn, 1990; Rich et al., 2010) but this study opposite to others, revealing “central life interest”—a trait-based approach which leads to better engagement. Adoption of the personality traits works as the toolkit for leader in getting better employee engagement level. Job characteristics, leadership, and personality should all be directly related to work engagement and ultimately performance. Kahn (1990) further stated that dispositional individual differences ultimately shape the employee engagement. Individual who are hardworking, confident, and motivated seemed to be more engaged (Macey & Schneider, 2008).¹⁰

One memorable declaration by a practitioner: “regarding trait engagement, there is need to be reliable and well-validated measurement scale which could be employed in the selection process, for that I would be enthusiastic to pay.”⁵⁰ (p. 73) On a practical level by indulgent dispositional predictors of engagement, organizations can employ these personality traits in the selection process. Employees high on extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to express, would definitely more engaged in their role performance. By incorporating these tools in their selection benchmarks, organizations can steep the prospect of finding high-performance candidates. Notably, many organization already incorporated personality traits in their selection process (Rothstein & Goffin, 2006). The positive consequences would be seen in the overall improvement in engagement level, this high level of engagement triggering organizational effectiveness. In summary, as a best practice recommendation, practitioners could consider this in their selection process.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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