Exploring correlation of nurse manager meaning and joy in work with employee engagement

To determine the correlation between meaning and joy in work among managers with employee engagement.

The Institute of Healthcare Improvement and the National Patient Safety Foundation both recognize the link between joy and meaning in work and an optimally performing healthcare system. The relationship between manager joy and employee engagement is unknown. Furthermore, the Meaning and Joy in Work Questionnaire (MJWQ) has not been previously used with nurse managers.

A descriptive correlational design was used with results from a prospective survey of nurse managers correlated with pre-existing employee engagement quality data. Chronbach's alpha was used to measure internal consistency of the tool in this population.

No significant correlation was found between nurse manager meaning and joy in work and employee engagement (r = 0.216; NS (n = 28)) or employee perception of their manager (s = 0.227, NS (n = 28)). A significant strong correlation between employee engagement scores and employee perception of their managers (r = 0.774. p < .001 (n = 28)) was identified. Internal consistency was moderately high: value/connections (alpha = 0.736), meaningful work (alpha = 0.933), caring (alpha = 0.817) and total instrument score (alpha = 0.923). Effect size = 0.28.

While we did not find significant correlation between manager meaning and joy in work with employee engagement, the MJWQ may be a valuable tool to explore nurse manager's meaning and joy in work and the potential relationship of this construct to employee engagement and associated outcomes. The expansion of the sample size across multiple healthcare systems may lead to different results.