The relationship between work engagement and organisational commitment among nurses in a private hospital in Klang valley

In current healthcare industry, specifically in private hospital sector in Klang valley, loyal and committed employees are very important to sustain the organisation competitiveness as these loyal and committed employees specifically nurses directly contribute to quality of service and organisational performance in a hospital. In recent studies have revealed that the nursing turnover remains as one of the major issue in the healthcare industry globally. Particularly in Malaysia, with the opening of more new hospitals will resulting to severe shortage of nurses and may resort to poaching nurses from each other within the healthcare industry. Thus, it is vital for the organisation to focus on organisationals’ commitment and work engagement to and retain the experience employees and maintain the excellence quality of service. Therefore, this study purposely to examine the relationship between work engagement and organisational commitment dimensions. Using self-administrative questionnaire, this study involved 123 respondents among nurses in a private hospital in Klang Valley. Statistical analysis was performed to examine the relationship between work engagement and organisational commitment dimensions which is affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment. Regression analysis revealed that work engagement has a strong positive relationship with affective commitment and moderate positive relationship with continuance commitment and normative commitment. The result of this study provides a better understanding and guide to Human Resources Department and the Management of the importance of work engagement and organisational commitment in developing retention strategies and retaining current nurses in this private hospital. Appropriate action could be planned to enhance the work engagement among the nurses to reduce the intention to leave and improve the organisation performance.