Stress and Work Engagement: Meaningful Work as Mediator

Background: Work engagement is the antecedent of various outcomes, for instance, performance and well-being. Employees can deeply involve when they have an excellent level of work engagement at work. They become more productive that impacts the organization's benefits and has a positive effect on them. Our study tested whether stress relates negatively to work engagement and if a relationship would be mediated by meaningful work. Method: The research design was a cross-sectional study; 203 participants were included, who work as civil servants and private employees with a minimum education at the undergraduate level. They filled out the scales distributed online. The model was tested used a structural equation model. Result: The result shows a direct negative association between perceived stress and work engagement, a direct negative association between perceived stress and meaningful work, meanwhile a direct positive relationship between meaningful work and work engagement. Henceforward, the structural equation model reveals that meaningful work partially mediated a negative association between perceived stress and work engagement. Conclusion: The study has proved that the empirical evidence of how perceived stress can contribute to work engagement, and in this study, the relationship between the two variables can interfere with meaningful work.