Crossover of work engagement and friendliness among working dyads
The social nature of employee well-being is still poorly understood. Our aim was to study the bidirectional crossover process of work engagement and friendliness between dentists and dental nurses working as a dyad. We hypothesized that person A’s positive patient contacts (job resource) boosts her/his work engagement (both self- and other-rated), which is positively associated with partner B’s work engagement through the friendliness of person A, and similarly from person B to A.
Structural Equation Modeling analyses among 470 Finnish dentist-dental nurse dyads confirmed the indirect effects of positive patient contacts on partners’ work engagement from both dentists to dental nurses and vice versa. In conclusion, work engagement driven by positive patient contacts can cross over between employees through friendly behavior. In addition to general job resources, work engagement can be enhanced by promoting positive communication skills at work.