Conflict and Employee Engagement

Literature Review and Hypothesis Development

Work-family conflict is one that affects the turnover intention of employees of the company. The increasing work-family conflict of employees in an organization will have an impact on the intention of employees to leave the company. Daderman and Basinska explained the high demands at work that require employees to be able to balance their work and family life. If one of the parties (work and family) cannot adjust, they will potentially lose their personal resources. 

The relationship between work-family conflict and turnover intention has been studied in many previous studies. Several studies have described positive relationships between work-family conflict and turnover intention. Other researchers revealed that the higher the WFC conflict, the lower the turnover intention, and/ or vice versa. Therefore, the first hypothesis proposed is as follows:

H₁: The higher work-family conflict,the higher the turnover intention of employees. 

Job engagement is defined as "a positive state that satisfies an employee related to his work; it is characterized by strength, dedication, and absorption". Engagement is an investment of resources for the benefit of individuals, but it does not necessarily reward individually. This pattern improves employment relationships between individuals and organizations; in return, it builds new resources for individuals (respect and recognition, professional improvement, and social skills). The findings of previous studies show that the higher the work-family conflict (WFC), the lower job engagement and vice versa. This shows that work-family conflict has a negative effect on job engagement; therefore, the second hypothesis proposed is as follows:

H₂: The higher the work-family conflict,the lower the job engagement.

The driving force in employee engagement has positive consequences for the organization because it deals with individual attitudes, intentions, and behavior. Engagement also plays a role in reducing company risk. This can happen because employees are more dedicated to creating more value for the organization, are have interactions with customers and other stakeholders more consistently, and have less desire to leave the company.This explains that employees who have high engagement have a lower tendency to leave the organization. The findings of previous studies indicate that the higher the job engagement, the lower the turnover intention and vice versa. The third hypothesis proposed is as follows:

H₃: The higher the job engagement,the lower the turnover intention of employees.

Work-Family conflict is a form of obstacle faced by employees to get resources between two important domains in the lives of individuals. If the demands at work are too high and someone has to reconcile them with domestic work (housework), and no one has to give up something, they will probably lose their resources. Therefore,the work-family conflict has a negative impact on individual attitudes and behavior. Meanwhile, emotional exhaustion is a form of a feeling of individuals towards their work. Essentially, emotional exhaustion is a consequence of work-family conflicts perceived by individuals. Those two have a positive linear relationship;the higher the work-family conflict, the higher the emotional exhaustion. Therefore, the fourth hypothesis proposed in this study is as follows:

H₄: The higher the work-family conflict, the higher the emotional exhaustion. 

As a psychological syndrome, emotional exhaustion arises when employees are in a work environment that is full of pressure and high job demands with low availability of resources. Work fatigue is a state of the syndrome that a person experiences when carrying out his work at the point where they feel exhausted due to work demands, both physically and mentally. Work fatigue is a serious problem for organizations. Research shows that fatigue and absenteeism lead to decreasing productivity, lack of work effectiveness, decreasing commitment to work, and eventually intention to leave the organization. The theoretical framework of fatigue indicates that fatigue is a key mediator of the relationship between work pressures and various attitudes as well as behaviors. 

The intention of the employee to leave the job is voluntary and according to his own choice; this is the result of behavior. Turnover intention includes the thought of leaving the organization, finding work elsewhere, and the desire to leave the organization. Working women will be likely to get exhausted as they constantly face various problems. Certain management practices in organizations have the potential to reduce employee fatigue and intention to leave the organization, but employees who feel that their emotions have eroded have a greater tendency to withdraw themselves until eventually, they will decide to leave the organization. The fifth hypothesis proposed is as follows:

H₅: The higher the emotional exhaustion, the higher the turnover intention of the company. 

Some researchers conceptualize engagement as the antithesis of work fatigue, those two points are interrelated. However, in the case of a model framework, engagement is often positioned as a result of individual work fatigue. Meanwhile, emotional exhaustion can cause anxiety, depression, decrease self-esteem and increase health problems. Emotional exhaustion is a condition in which an individual lacks emotional energy, not physical energy. A person who is experiencing emotional fatigue is not physically tired from doing heavy work like physical work but emotionally drained from the lack of resources to handle demands and stress. This condition will reduce one's job engagement. Based on the description above, the sixth hypothesis is proposed as follows:

H₆: The higher the emotional exhaustion, the lower the job engagement of employees. 

Experiencing high work-family conflict can reduce the job engagement of employees because the do not have resources in doing their roles, both at work and family. Individuals who experience high work-family conflict can hardly decide their priorities and act professionally. Schaufeli and Bakker along with Mangi and Jalbani have emphasized the important role of job engagement in reducing the employees' intention to leave the company. This opinion is reinforced by the results of research conducted by Rachman and Dewanto. Based on the description above, the seventh hypothesis proposed in this study is as follows:

H₇: The higher the work-family conflict, the higher the turnover intention of employees through job engagement. 

High quantitative and interpersonal work demands decrease resources owned by individuals, especially energy and emotional sources. It is because demands require effort and money, especially in the form of physical, mental, and emotional energy. Furthermore, the imbalance between work and personal life can be a threat to various sources both in the family and work. Work-family conflict means that employees use too many resources in doing their job, which limits the use of these resources at home. If family conditions cannot be managed properly, this will drain their energy and emotional resources. Eventually, turnover intention can be the last effort in protecting resources (energy and emotion) of individuals and preventing further personal losses. If the individuals do not overcome work-family conflicts well (or the higher level of conflict), they will likely get emotionally exhausted. Sooner or later, they will decide to quit their job in order to maintain their personal resources. Therefore, the eighth hypothesis proposed in the study is as follows:

H₈: The higher the work-family conflict, the higher the turnover intention of employees through emotional exhaustion. 

Another engagement model is found in literature about burnout which describes job engagement as a positive antithesis. Employee engagement has a positive impact on the organization. In previous studies, as quoted by Saks and Schaufeli and Bakker, engagement has a negative relationship with 'intention to quit'. Plooy and Roodt described a continuum with extremity poles namely job engagement and work fatigue, and then consider other constructions related to organizational attitudes and behavior and their relationship; the ultimate goal is turnover. The construction is conceptualized together to create a more holistic model related to turnover intention. It can be assumed that emotional exhaustion has an indirect effect on turnover intention through job engagement. This is in line with the result of a study which was conducted by Schaufeli and Baker. Employee engagement is an index to measure the extent to which employees feel connected to the company and the extent to which employees feel connected to the customers. Antecedents are expected to predict engagement, and then engagement increases the outcomes such as performance and turnover intention. Based 

on the description above, the ninth hypothesis proposed in this study is: 

H₉: The higher the emotional exhaustion, the higher the turnover intention of employees through job engagement. 

METHOD

This is quantitative explanatory research by measuring the constructs on the model and analyzing the relationship between one construct and another. This research was conducted at PT. Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) located in Mimika, Papua Province. It took some considerations, including: (1) PTFI is a company that pays more attention to labor and social issues; (2) PTFI has launched an employee empowerment program since 1996; and (3) PTFI has committed to double the number of native Papuan employees holding strategic management positions. 

The target population taken in this study was female Papuan native employees at the pratama level who worked at PT. Freeport Indonesia. Based on the data obtained on the employment fact sheet of PTFI, there were 111 female Papuan native employees at the pratama level participating in this study (sample). The analysis technique used was Partial Least Square (PLS); the data was calculated using Smart PLS application. Hypothesis testing was conducted by determining the significant level or critical value (α) of 5% and comparing the t-statistic value in the bootstrap output of the SmartPLS program with the t-table value.