Mental Well-Being and Its Impact on Work Engagement: A Study of Selected Indian Public Sector Undertakings.

Abstract

Objective: Today the effective management of work force has still been a matter of great challenge due to various folds of generations in the light of digital technology. This study explores the relationship between mental well-being and Work Engagement among employees selected from three Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) viz POWERGRID, MSPDCL and MSPCL.

Methods: Using a cross-sectional field survey, data were obtained from 379 employees of the three PSUs. Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale is used for measuring Mental Well-being and a short version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) by Schaufeli. ANOVA, t-test and correlation study are employed.

Results: More than 60 % of the employees falls in the moderate category of mental well-being, 17.41% falls in low category of mental well-being and 18.73 % falls in high category of mental well-being. A statistically significant correlation of 0.517** is found between mental well-being and work engagement. Independent t-test shows that there is no statistically significant difference in mental well-being among male and female employees, while there is a significant mean difference among male and female work engagement scores, male having higher mean score than female. There is significant mean difference in mental well-being among Executives and non-executive employee(higher), while there is no significant mean difference among Work engagement between the two category Executives and non-executive employee. Through ANOVA it was found that mental well-being and work engagement mean difference between the employee groups based on age shows higher mental well-being and work engagement in age group 36-40 years and 41-50 years from 25-30 years.

Conclusions: This study suggest that mental wellbeing can significantly positively impact work engagement. Organizational HRD activities like trainings have an impact on the mental well being of the employees.

Research Implications: Such findings contribute to our better understanding of the relationship between mental well-being and Work engagement. Further such concept has been shown to have direct effect on productivity, hence the significance.

Originality/value: This study addresses the gap in the body of knowledge regarding the significance of mental well-being and Work engagement among employees of the three Indian Public Sector Undertaking, POWERGRID, MSPCL and MSPDCL.