The influence of job resources on platinum mineworkers’ work engagement and organisational commitment: An explorative study

Highlights

• Formal and informal job resources influence mineworkers’ work engagement and organisational commitment.

• Employee care had a stronger influence on work engagement and organisational commitment than organisational respect.

• Mining companies can invest in job resources to enhance employees’ emotional attachment to the organisation.

Abstract

Despite various challenges in the platinum mining industry, management has to pursue stringent performance outcomes on an ongoing basis. The achievement thereof requires a motivated, involved and dedicated workforce. This can only be achieved when mineworkers are engaged in their jobs and committed to their organisation. Past research shows that formal and informal job resources can influence employees’ levels of work engagement, as well as their organisational commitment. The purpose of this research was to explore whether mineworkers’ perceptions of their organisation’s job resources have an influence on their work engagement and organisational commitment. The findings show that both organisational respect and employee care have a statistically significant positive influence on work engagement and organisational commitment. However, employee care had a stronger influence on both work engagement and organisational commitment than organisational respect. To increase the work engagement and affective organisational commitment of mineworkers, it is proposed that mining companies invest in workplace practices that enhance employees’ emotional attachment to the organisation.

Introduction

South Africa is the world’s largest producer of platinum (Cairncross and Kisting, 2016), and the country contains 87% of the world’s platinum group metals (Chaskalson, 2016). Hence, it accounts for a large proportion of national foreign exchange earnings, is a major source of employment, and impacts on the socio-economic mobility of South African communities (Federation for a Sustainable Environment, 2018). According to Björnsson (2018), 41% of the 490 000 people who were employed in the South African mining sector in 2015 were employed in the platinum mining industry. Many of these employees are migrants who leave their families behind in rural areas or in neighbouring states (Federation for a Sustainable Environment, 2018).

Many demands are associated with the mining work environment, such as mine closure threats, strikes, adverse working conditions, health and safety risks, excessive production targets, and cultural diversity (Abrahamsson et al., 2014; Masia and Pienaar, 2011; Moraka and Jansen van Rensburg, 2015; Neingo and Tholana, 2016). The North West platinum corridor (Rustenburg, Marikana, Brits), often referred to as the Platinum Belt (Rajak, 2016), is known as the site of the Marakana Massacre. In 2012, 34 mineworkers were shot dead by the South African Police Service during a protest fuelled by poor working and living conditions, as well as a drive to increase wages (Bezuidenhout and Buhlungu, 2015; Capps, 2015). The Marikana Massacre brought to light fatal contradictions in the post-apartheid platinum mining sector. It was clear that the rapid growth in this sector since the first South African democratic election in 1994 did not bring the ‘comparable expected gains’ in living conditions and wages for mineworkers, which Chaskalson (2016, p. 872) attributes to ‘the entry of a BEE elite into the higher echelons of mining capital’. The latter ‘reinforced rather than challenged the state’s direct interest in keeping mines as profitable as possible’ (ibid).

After the Marikana Tragedy, several wildcat strikes followed, affecting the productivity levels of the platinum mines. In 2012 the South African platinum supply fell to its lowest level since 2001 as a result of the decline in grades, increased input costs, rising costs of salaries, transport and electricity, the high cost of underground mining practices (in comparison to open-cast platinum mining practices elsewhere), as well as safety stoppages (Capps, 2015; Genc and Jerome, 2014; PWC, 2017). Although 2019 showed indications of a recovery in profitability in the South African platinum industry – mostly due to a weaker rand (exchange rate), an improved basket price, and the benefits of previous cost restructuring and strategic refocusing of operations – increased costs and weak production are still evident (PWC, 2019).

These circumstances pose additional challenges to the management of the workforce in the Platinum Belt, who, despite these demands, has to pursue stringent performance outcomes on an ongoing basis. The achievement thereof requires a motivated, involved and dedicated workforce. In South Africa, the effective management of the evolving workforce is one of the most important challenges in the mining industry today (KPMG, 2019).

According to Hoole and Bonneman (2015), an engaged workforce can increase the required competitive advantage of companies to survive in the present economic landscape. As positive emotions, motivational energy and mental resilience are encapsulated in high levels of work engagement, engaged employees display behaviour that relates to specific positive outcomes. It enhances individuals’ capability to invest their efforts in work activities that yield an increase in performance over time. Therefore, engaged employees’ performance is superior to the performance of non-engaged employees (Allesandri et al., 2018). Those who are actively engaged in their work tend to cope better with excessive demands in their work environment, adapt more readily to organisational change, and inclined to overcome workplace challenges in creative ways (Bakker and Demerouti, 2008; Geldenhuys et al., 2014; Othman and Nasurdin, 2012; Parent and Lovelace, 2015; Paul and Maiti, 2007; Sorenson, 2013; Vokić and Hernaus, 2015; Youssef and Luthans, 2007).

Employees’ affective attitudes also influence their commitment to their organisations. Employees who have positive perceptions and experiences of their organisation, have enhanced levels of affective organisational commitment, and are subsequently more prepared to invest in and contribute to the organisation. They also tend to stay longer with the organisation. Past studies showed that employees’ organisational commitment plays a paramount role in the success and profitability of the organisation (Casper et al., 2002; Mercurio, 2015) as it enhances organisational performance (Bandula and Jayatilake, 2016; Rashid et al., 2003; Singh and Karki, 2015).

Since both work engagement and organisational commitment enhance organisational performance (Cheche et al., 2017; Singh, 2019; Singh and Karki, 2015), the challenge for managers in mining companies is to counteract the negative implications of the challenging job demands and work environment by positively influencing employees to keep them engaged in their work and committed to the organisation. The job demands-resources (JD-R) model (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007) proposes that occupational stresses and strains are caused by job demands and mitigated by job resources. Job demands can be physical, psychological, social or organisational in nature. In the mining industry, typical job demands are safety hazards, excessive production targets, job insecurity, and working in remote and socially isolated areas. These demands have physical or psychological costs and require sustained physical or psychological effort. On the other hand, job resources refer to those aspects of the job that reduce the job demands, as well as the related psychological and physiological costs thereof. They can be derived from the organisation, from the task itself, or from social relations at work, such as co-worker support, job security, autonomy, and developmental and advancement opportunities. Job resources may be formal or informal. For instance, organisations can provide formal support by means of organisational practices or policies (e.g., health and safety policies, well-being programmes), and informal support by means of managerial and supervisor support. Employees see supportive job resources as resources they can use to buffer job demands, and motivate them intrinsically or extrinsically (Bakker et al., 2011; Bakker and Demerouti, 2008; Hammer et al., 2009; Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002).

In comparison to job demands, job resources are more strongly associated with positive outcomes, such as work engagement and organisational commitment (Allen and Shanock, 2013; Hakanen et al., 2005). When employees’ perceive their organisations’ practices as supportive, respectful and caring towards them, it enhances their desire to deal with their work demands effectively, and it positively influences their affective attitudes towards their work and organisation (Mphahlele et al., 2018; Sonnentag, 2017). Past studies in the mining industry showed statistically significant relationships between work engagement and job resources, such as social support, autonomy (Mostert and Rathbone, 2001), and leadership style (Bezuidenhout and Schultz, 2013). With regard to organisational commitment, a study in the gold mining industry in Ghana (Amponsah-Tawiah and Mensah, 2016) showed that employees’ perceptions of health and safety management practices influence their organisational commitment, while a South African study in a mine in Mpumalanga indicated a statistically significant relationship between managers’ leadership styles and organisational commitment (Mclaggan et al., 2013).

Due to the crucial role that employees’ affective attitudes play, Mercurio (2015) stresses the importance of identifying and researching those job resources that are able to enhance the emotional attachment of employees to their organisations specifically. To date, few empirical studies have investigated the role of job resources in the work engagement and organisational commitment of employees in the platinum mining sector. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to fill this gap by exploring the influence of job resources on platinum mineworkers’ work engagement and organisational commitment.