JD-R Model for understanding Employee Engagement

The Job Demands-Resources (JDR) model, by Arnold Bakker and Evangelia Demerouti in 2006, is one of theories in organizational psychology that deals with employee well being.

Let's start with the analogy of mountain climbing. When we set out to climb a mountain, we are required to do some thing (climb a mountain) and we will require some other things (tools) to do the other thing (climb a mountain).

Key Constructs:

Job Demands: Job Demands are the physical / emotional stressors in your role. Things in your job that require a consistent physical or psychological effort, like a heavy workload, emotionally challenging roles, unclear goals, role ambiguity, uncomfortable work culture or tight deadlines. These are the stressors.

Job Resources:? Resources are the things that help you get the job done and ease the impact of those demands, such as support from your colleagues, opportunities to develop your skills, and the freedom to make decisions (Job Autonomy). The are also called the positives.

While it is all about finding that balance between job demands and job resources and understanding how they influence the well-being and performance of employees, this ‘common sensical’ theory points our 4 types of imbalance that can occur in various combinations of key concepts. To keep the post short, I am not reproducing those here, instead refer the grid below.

Like I mentioned in the context setter post here, in most case, no one theory is going to help in understand / analyze the root cause of engagement issues as every case will be as unique as the human factor in action. An understanding of various theories will give you a perspective of where to start looking or a direction when you get stuck so that you can come up with your own customised engagement strategy.

Now lets see how this model and types of imbalances help you in improving employee engagement.

1. Like it is detailed in the picture, every type of imbalance will have a different consequence and hence demands unique approach when it comes to designing initiatives that can bring the balance and foster employee engagement.

2. It makes you conscious of the relationship between the job demands and resource allocation. So next time, before screaming at the person or their HOD for a dip in engagement index, you can take an objective look at things from this POV.

3. With all risk of burnout lingering in the air, High Demand - High Resource combination is the most optimal. - An ACTIVE job.

How to use JD – R model as intervention tool for Employee Engagement.

1. Assessment Phase:

Job Demands ad Resources: Begin by identifying and mapping Job Demands and Resources. Job demands can be factors like workload, time pressure, or emotional demands. Job resources include social support, opportunities for skill development, autonomy, and clear feedback

Employee Surveys and Questionnaires: Create and administer surveys or questionnaires that measure the level of job demands and resources as perceived by employees. Standardized surveys such as the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), Demands-Resources Questionnaire (DRQ) and Job Demands-Resources Questionnaire (JD-RQ) can be used for this purpose. For an internal understanding a well thought out questionnaire covering relevant factors will work just fine.

Identify engagement levels: Analyse the data from the surveys, questionnaires, SGD’s and categorize employees into different engagement levels, such as actively engaged, engaged, disengaged, and actively disengaged, based on their responses.

2. Improvement Phase:

Address Imbalances: Once you identify the imbalances and engagement status, the next logical step is addressing those imbalances.

Developing interventions: To address these imbalances, based on the type of imbalance for each function or organization and other supplementing data of engagement surveys, SGD’s, develop interventions that can help bridge the gap.

Some examples are:

• Providing additional resources, such as training or support programs or additional talent in the team to divide the workload.
• Offering more opportunities for skill development and growth.
• Regular constructive feedback
• Implementing workload management strategies to reduce excessive demands.
• Promoting social support and teamwork to enhance job resources.
• Encouraging to log off at the end of shift and not to stay back.
• Offer flexible login / log off time
• Mentor program
• Employee counselling and the like.

Implementation and Evaluation: Implement the interventions chosen with involvement and participation of the team members. Collect frequent feedbacks and measure changes in engagement levels from time to time.

3. Repeating Phase: Repeat the cycle

I will be back with another post in this series soon, and I would love to hear your thoughts and questions about the model/series in the meantime in the comments or DMs.