Examining the impact of leadership behaviours on employee engagement across virtual, hybrid, and regular work environments

Abstract

Leaders understand that employee engagement is crucial to their success, so much work has gone into this area, and employee engagement levels globally have been improving. However, the levels of employee engagement can be significantly enhanced. Simultaneously, the increasing prevalence of virtual and hybrid work introduces a work context worth investigating so that leaders know how to respond to achieve the best outcomes for all stakeholders in each work context. This research aimed to understand how leader behaviours influence employee engagement in each work context. The extant literature shows that the meaningfulness of work is most influential on employee engagement, whilst safety and availability are other crucial antecedents. This quantitative research retained and examined data from 208 out of 232 responses across virtual, hybrid, and regular work contexts. A combination of stepwise multiple linear regressions and moderation analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS software to determine relationships between leadership behaviours, employee engagement, and the extent of virtual work. As a meta-category, only relations-oriented behaviours were significantly positively correlated to employee engagement in virtual, hybrid, and regular work environments. ‘Empowering' was the specific behaviour that showed consistent positive and significant correlations to employee engagement across virtual, hybrid, and regular work contexts.