TITLE:
Using EENDEED to Measure Remote Employee Engagement: Influence of the Sense of Belonging at Work and the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) on Virtual Employee Engagement
AUTHORS:
Franklin M. Lartey
KEYWORDS:
Remote Employee Engagement, Leader-Member Exchange, Sense of Belonging, LMX, EENDEED, Belongingness, Relatedness
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies,
Vol.10 No.2,
April
29,
2022
ABSTRACT: One organizational trend inherited from the effect of the COVID-19
pandemic is the increased number of remote workers around the world. Extending
and validating previous knowledge on traditional workplace employees to the
growing population of remote workers is a requirement for research communities,
and employee engagement is one of them. Using EENDEED, a validated instrument
for measuring remote employee engagement, this study analyzed the influence of
1) belongingness or sense of belonging at work and 2) Leader-Member Exchange
(LMX), on remote employee engagement. After uncovering the 2-factor structure
of belongingness (positive and negative belongingness) and validating the
2-factor structure of EENDEED which includes PERFORMANCE and SELF-RELIANCE, a
multiple regression analysis was conducted on a dataset of 267 participants,
all remote workers within the United States of America. The results of the
statistical analysis confirmed the
existence of a significant positive relationship between LMX and EENDEED, as well as positive belongingness and EENDEED. Findings showed that there was
no significant relationship between negative sense of belonging and remote
employee engagement. The study also confirmed LMX to be a better influencer of
engagement as compared to belongingness. This research contributed to knowledge
by extending the relationship between LMX, belongingness, and engagement to the
population of remote employees. In other words, the perceived notion of the
relationship between the managers and their remote employees from the
employees’ perspective is of great importance in keeping the employees engaged.