Safe to Engage: Chronic Illness and Organisational Citizenship Behaviours at Work

Abstract

The aim of this study is to extend current models of employee work engagement to include chronic illness in order to better understand and predict workforce participation for the chronically ill. Using a sample of 604 participants, the current study examined the relationship between work engagement, perceptions of psychological safety at work and the performance of organisational citizenship behaviours for employees with chronic illness (N = 92) compared to a referent group of general employees (N = 512). Results indicate that for chronically ill employees, psychological safety partially mediates the relationship between engagement and the performance of organisational citizenship behaviours. These results suggest that the development of a workplace environment characterised by feelings of safety, interpersonal trust and mutual respect will foster the performance of engaged work behaviours for a group of employees vulnerable to the experience of a reduced sense of personal efficacy in the workplace and consequent premature retirement.