Who are the most engaged at work? A meta‐analysis of personality and employee engagement

Abstract

Summary In order to identify the employees who are most likely to be engaged in their work, we conducted a meta‐analysis of 114 independent samples ( N = 44,224) to provide estimates of the relationship between eight personality traits and employee engagement. Results indicated that these personality traits explained 48.10% of the variance in engagement. Supporting energy management theories, relative weights analysis revealed that positive affectivity was by far the strongest predictor of engagement (31.10% of the explained variance; ρ = .62), followed by proactive personality (19.60%; ρ = .49), conscientiousness (14.10%; ρ = .39), and extraversion (12.10%; ρ = .40), whereas neuroticism, negative affectivity, agreeableness, and openness to experience were the least important. We highlight the importance of positive affectivity for engagement and support personality‐based selection as a viable means for organizations to build a highly engaged workforce. Implications for using personality assessment to select engaged employees are discussed.