The relationship between gratitude and work engagement: examining the mediating role of employee resilience

Background:
Work engagement as a concept is becoming increasingly sought after, not only in organisations but in the growing literature of Positive Organisational Behaviour (POB), an emerging field of organisational studies. While gratitude and employee resilience have both been found to predict work engagement, there is limited research on how these variables interact with one another. This paper explores employee resilience, and how it shapes the relationship between gratitude and work engagement.

Methods:
This study was a cross-sectional correlational design based on survey data from 456 people who were employees of various industries. Quantitative analyses were used and included methods such as multiple hierarchical regression and mediation analysis to explore the relationship between gratitude, employee resilience, and work engagement.

Results:
Results showed that both gratitude and employee resilience had a significant relationship with work engagement. The mediation analysis showed that when controlling for resilience, gratitude was no longer positively associated with work engagement, indicating that resilience fully mediated the relationship.

Discussions:
The findings of this study add to the literature on predictors of work engagement. The present study showed that employee resilience shapes the relation between gratitude and work engagement fully, suggesting that without a sense of resilience, grateful employees will not be more
engaged in the job.

Conclusions:
The results of this research emphasize the importance of integrating both gratitude and resilience to enhance workplace engagement. Cultivating both variables can keep employees engaged, benefiting not only their mental health but the organization as a whole.