Deciphering employee disengagement: a qualitative exploration of the psychological experiences of employees and managers

Abstract

There is a lack of clarity around employee disengagement in academic scholarship, including how the construct is best defined, conceptualised and measured. Review of the extant literature indicated consistent overlooking of the main disengagement construct. I argue that existing approaches to disengagement are limited by theoretically flawed and empirically unfounded assumptions, typically viewing disengagement through the lens of low engagement or burnout. Such positioning obfuscates the construct and denies the possibility of its recognition as a qualitatively distinct separate construct from others with which it may share some conceptual space.

Using an exploratory qualitative approach, this research aimed to increase construct clarity of employee disengagement, inclusive of managers’ perspectives and disengagement experiences and explore whether the disengagement construct is independent from low engagement. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty-eight participants, twenty-six of whom had managerial responsibilities. Interviews explored participants’ personal disengagement experiences including their construal of the disengagement construct and the characteristics of their experiences.

This research found disengagement to be a complex, multifaceted, internal and highly personal emotionally laden psychological experience of perceived vulnerability to one’s personal self at work. The thoughts and feelings characterising disengagement experiences motivated behaviours towards self-protection through the withdrawal of the personal self. Disengagement was interpreted as triggered by the interplay between the external environmental stimuli and individuals’ personal need to protect their identity. Ultimately, and in all cases, a disengagement response was the decision of the individual. Disengagement had both positive and negative personal and professional outcomes, which were generally behavioural and conducive to the creation of distance between the self and work. Disengagement had function including as a coping mechanism. Different types of disengagement were interpreted with some experiences presenting disengagement as a decisive and even assertive choice made by the individual, while others framed it more passively. This research found employee disengagement to be qualitatively different to employee engagement.

I contribute to the literature by increasing understanding of disengagement as a highly affective construct of bipartite composition, the experience of which is distinct from low engagement and other constructs. As such, this research indicates that disengagement should be recognised as an independent construct.