Work Engagement Investigation of Zakat Management Professional

in East Java

Lohana Juariyah

, A. P. Afwan Hariri

and Syihabudhin

Faculty of Economics, Universitas Negeri Malang, Malang -Indonesia

Keywords: Work Engagement, Vigour, Dedication, Absorption, Zakat Management Professional

Abstract: Employee disengagement was found to cause a decline in organizational productivity and incur a cost of $

300 billion in 2004 in America (Gallup Management Journal, 2005). Therefore, there is an awareness of the

organization to increase employee engagement, especially in profit organization. The studies of employee

engagement are rarely investigated not for profit organization, although this context is interesting to study

since most of its employees are volunteers but they have worked for decades and employees believe that

their work is part of the mandate. Based on that reasons, this study wants to investigate employee

engagement condition of professional zakat management in East Java. By using descriptive data analysis,

the study investigated data from 230 workers that were selected randomly from total 285 professional zakah

population in East Java. This study also used work engagement measurements that consist of vigour,

dedication, and absorption. The result shows that in general work engagement condition of zakah

management professional is in good condition. However, from three indicators, dedication has the highest

value when compared to vigour and absorption. While absorption is found to be the lowest scaled

indicators.

1 INTRODUCTION

Engagement is a new area of concern for academics

and practitioners after Khan, 1990, 1992, introduced

the term. Employee engagement is an important

capital for human resource management because

engaged employees work with passion and have

strong connections with the organization. Employees

who are engaged drive innovation and push the

organization forward (Crabtree 2005). Engaged

employees work with passion and have strong

connections with the organization. Not only that, a

survey conducted by the Gallup Management

Journal in 2005 found a link between employee

engagement and employees' physical and mental

health. 62% of employees who have engagement

with organizations feel that their working lives have

a positive influence on their physical health. Even

this number has skyrocketed as much as 78% when

it is associated with psychological well-being.

Although the survey results show a positive

relationship between employee engagement with

physical health and well-being of employees, the

facts indicate that the health costs incurred by

organizations are skyrocketing nowadays. More than

68% of business owners in America say that health

costs far exceed expensive energy costs and labor

outsourcing. Even globally, the world is

experiencing a crisis of employee engagement. The

average rate of employee engagement is decreasing

and the future trend is also stagnant.

The survey from Gallup Daily Tracking 2015

found that only 13% of employees in the entire

world were engaged (Imperatori 2017: 8). In the

USA less than a third of US employees are engaged

in their jobs and organizations. Whereas in Canada,

only 17% of employees surveyed feel engaged in

their work (Galt in Koyuncu et al. 2006). Even in

Indonesia based on the Gallup survey (Gallup 2014),

only 8% of employees are engaged, 77% are not

Juariyah, L., Hariri, A. and Syihabudhin, .

Work Engagement Investigation of Zakat Management Professional in East Java.

DOI: 10.5220/0009502703810386

In Proceedings of the 1st Unimed International Conference on Economics Education and Social Science (UNICEES 2018), pages 381-386

ISBN: 978-989-758-432-9

381

engaged, and 15% are actively disengaged.

Unfortunately, this employee disengagement caused

a decline in organizational productivity and costed $

300 billion in 2004 in the United States (Gallup

Management Journal, 2005).

The data was shocking, but the report came

from journal practitioners’ literatures and

organizational consulting companies. There is still

little research on engagement from academics (Saks

2006: 600), especially employee engagement

research in not for profit organization. Research in

this area is quite interesting because non-profit

organizations are not profit oriented, but rather serve

the community.

Therefore, this study wants to fill the shortage

of academic literature on the topic of employee

engagement, especially work engagement among the

professionals managing zakat in East Java using

UWES (Utrecht Work Engagement Scale) which is

most widely used in work engagement research

(Koyuncu et al. 2006). The focus of this study is to

know how the level of work engagement of zakat

management professionals in East Java, so that it

could be used as input for both the organization and

academically.

2 THEORICAL FRAMEWORK

The concept of engagement was first introduced by

William Khan in 1990, Kahn (in Imperatori 2017:

24) describes that people who have engagement will

work and express themselves physically, cognitively

and emotionally in their roles in the organization.

Khan added that engagement is an authentic

expression of self that occurs during engagement

that is psychologically beneficial to the individual.

Therefore, engagement definition in here is based on

personal engagement condition. This argument is

conceptualized using the need-satisfaction approach

where engagement meets personal needs (Shuck

2011).

Conversely, 'personal disengagement' refers to

the absence of emotional energy, physical and

psychological energy when doing work. This refers

to 'unemployment' (self unemployment), self

decoupling (separating self) from the job role.

Disengaged people do not interpret/think about their

role, they only do work, without creativity and

innovation, and without showing what they are

thinking and feeling (Kahn 1990, 1992).

Based on that definition, engagement shows

positive conditions of worker that related with

positive attitudes toward work. Many studies show

that engagement related with extra-role behavior and

performance (Saks 2006; Macey & Schneider 2008;

Bakker & Schaufeli 2008; Schaufeli et al.

2012)(Saks 2006). Moreover, extensive studies show

that behavior is the end result of work engagement

(Christian et al. 2011; Rich et al. 2010; Salanova et

al. 2005) and OCB is a consequence of engagement

(Saks 2006).

Maslach and Leiter in (Schaufeli et al. 2002)

suggest that engagement and burnout are the

opposite end of the continuum. Burnout means

exhaustion or mental fatigue, cynicism or

indifference, lack of professional achievement or

success, in social life and technical scope.

Conversely, engagement is associated with three

dimensions that are opposite to burnout, namely

energy (vs exhaustion), involvement (vs. cynicism)

and efficacy (vs. lack of efficacy). Consistently,

these authors operationalize engagement as the

inverse value of burnout on the Maslach Burnout

(MBI-GS) Inventory scale.

In the same perspective, Schaufeli et al. (2002, p.

74) argue that work engagement is a positive

antipode of burnout, but they have arguments and

show that work engagement is a different concept

than burnout. They define work engagement as a

“positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that

is characterized by vigor, dedication and

absorption”. The researchers also showed that

burnout and engagement had different antecedents

and the final consequences that might be different,

even though both had negative relations (Bakker &

Schaufeli 2008).

However, there are still many different types of

understanding about engagement. Researchers often

use employee engagement, work engagement,

personal engagement, and organizational

engagement, alternately as these terms are the same

concept. There are still inconsistencies in construct

definitions and operational definitions (Macey &

Schneider 2008). But even so, some empirical

research has found and proved that engagement,

especially work engagement is different constructs

from job involvement, organizational commitment,

and job satisfaction (Anitha J. 2014; Hallberg &

Schaufeli in Avery et al. 2007; Bakker & Schaufeli

2008; Christian et al. 2011; Schaufeli et al. 2002).

Furthermore, Rich et al. (2010) explained that

engagement is conceived as a form of overall

individual investment in a role (the investment of

individual's complete self into a role), which is able

to explain its relevance to performance

comprehensively when compared to other

UNICEES 2018 - Unimed International Conference on Economics Education and Social Science

382

management concepts (commitment, involvement,

and job satisfaction) which is more superficial.

Therefore, based on that concept of engagement,

this study wants to investigate work engagement

conditions among zakat management professionals

since majority of them are working for more than 3

years with the institution. It showed that the workers

are comfortable working there. Not only that, they

also showed enthusiasm for work even though the

level of pay they earned was not as much if they

worked in state-owned enterprises, became civil

servants, or private employees. Moreover, zakat

management professionals generally work

voluntarily. They sincerely work to help manage

zakat, as a form of worship, and are not oriented to

payment. Employees in zakat management

institutions in general are also not permanent

employees who impact on the benefits they receive

from the organization.

3 RESEARCH METHOD

This study uses quantitative research method with

descriptive analysis to explore the condition of work

engagement of zakat management professionals in

East Java.

The population of this research is all

professionals/employees of all zakah, infaq,

shodaqoh institutions in Surabaya which are

registered officially and recognized by the

Indonesian Directorate General of Taxes. It means

that the management of zakat in these institutions

are professional. So that employees who work in

these institutions are also professionals managing

zakat, not just voluntarily working.

Based on that list, from 19 zakat management

institutions in East Java, only 3 institutions were

willing to participate in this research and indeed

based in Surabaya. Therefore, this study focused on

the three institutions with a total number of 285

employees as population.

By using the proportionate random sampling

technique, the research sample was taken. with a 5%

error rate, 230 samples of employees were chosen to

represent the population.

Data in this study were obtained in two ways

based on the type of data needed. First, primary data

is obtained by using questionnaires given to research

respondents to be filled. Second, secondary data is

obtained from the zakat management institution's

documents, as well as documents from other

relevant sources.

The measurement instruments of work

engagement are adopted from (Schaufeli et al. 2006)

from Utrecht University which well known by

UWES instrument. It consists of 17 items; 6 items of

Vigor (VI), 5 items of Dedication (DE), and 6 items

of Absorption (AB).

Of the 230 questionnaires distributed based on a

randomly selected list of employees for each zakat

management institution, only 190 questionnaires

returned according to the time give (two weeks since

the questionnaire was given). Of the 190

questionnaires returned, only 169 were feasible to

continue as research data. This

shows a response rate of 73%, which is included

in the medium category (Hair et al. 2014).

After validating the research instruments, there

were 2 items not valid (Vi4 and Ab2), so those two

items were dropped. The reliability analysis showed

that all instruments were reliable with more than

0.79 value of Cronbach’s Alpha as shown in Table

Table 1: Cronbach’s Alpha

Sources: Processed Primary Data (2017)

Next step is analyzing data by using descriptive

statistic analysis. Descriptive statistics function to

explain the situation, symptoms, or problems. It is

only related to describing or giving information

about a data or situation or phenomenon. Therefore,

conclusions drawn from descriptive statistics (if any)

are only aimed at existing data sets (Hasan in

Nasution 2017) which are shown in graphic and

frequency table.

To make it easier to determine the classification

of conditions for each variable, the calculation of the

interval class length is determined. Based on

Schaufeli et al. (2006: 714) there were seven

criterias, from never (0) to always (6). The

researcher made modification to this range by using

seven Likert scale from 1 (never) to 7 (always).

There will be seven class categories to explain mean

value for each variable as can be seen in Table 2.

Variabel Cronbach’s

Alpha

Meaning

(Vi) 0.859 Reliabel

Dedication (De) 0.866 Reliabel

bsorption (Ab) 0.793 Reliabel

Work Engagement Investigation of Zakat Management Professional in East Java

383

Table 2: Class Categories by Mean

4 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

From 169 eligible data for further processing, the

researcher will provide a description of the

respondents based on Vigor, Dedication, and

Absorption.

4.1 Vigor Condition

Vigor variables are measured using six statements

measured using Likert scale 1 to 7 which states the

intensity of the conditions they feel from each vigor

item (1 = never, 2 = almost never, 3 = rarely, 4 =

sometimes, 5 = often, 6 = very often, to 7 = always /

always). Because the results of the validity test for

the Vi4 item was invalid, the item is aborted. The

results of the respondent's answers to the vigor

variables are shown in Table 2 below.

Table 3: Respondents’ Answer for Vigor Variable

Item Mean

At my work, I feel bursting with

ener

(Vi1)

5.34

At my job, I feel strong and vigorous

(Vi2)

5.41

When I get up in the morning, I feel

oin

to work (Vi3)

4.66

At my job, I am very resilient,

mentall

(Vi5)

5.11

At my work, I always persevere, even

when thin

s do not

o well (Vi6)

5.05

Avera

e 5.11

Sources: Processed Primary Data (2017)

From Table 3, it can be seen that overall, the

average respondents experienced a vigorous

condition (a strong level of energy and mental

endurance while working, and is still diligently

facing difficulties in completing work) which is

quite good. This can be seen from the average score

of vigor variables (5.11) which is in the good class

range.

The item with the highest value was obtained by

the item stating that "at work, I feel bursting with

energy" with value of 5,41 which is indeed in a high

range of class conditions. This data shows that work

as a zakat manager can make workers in this field

feel full of enthusiasm and have mental endurance

while working. This finding further strengthens, that

work as a manager of zakat does indeed have value

and idealism in their work. The professionals who

manage zakat consider that this work is part of

worship, because in Islam the work of managing

zakat (amil zakat) is part of worship.

But even though they worked enthusiastically,

but when given a statement about “when I get up in

the morning, I feel like going to work”, the answer

to the majority of respondents was the lowest for this

item, the average value was only 4.66. It means that

even though majority of zakat professionals are full

with energy and feel enthusiastically doing their

work, but their job as zakat management

professional is not their top priority. It is probably

because they have other duties to do before going to

work.

More than 50% of the research respondents were

married (with and or without children). This shows

if respondents have multiple roles, not only as

workers. They also have roles as husband/wife,

mother/father, and community members. Therefore,

the value of this question item is the lowest in the

vigor variable.

4.2 Dedication Condition

Dedication variable is measured using five

statements measured using interval scale 1 to 7

which states the intensity of the conditions they feel

from each item of dedication. Because the results of

the validity test for the Vi4 item are invalid, the item

is dropped. The results of respondents' answers

about the variable dedication are shown in Table 4.

Table 4: Respondents’ Answer for Dedication

Variable

Item Mean

I find the work I do full of meaning

and purpose (DE1)

5.79

I am enthusiastic about my job

(DE2)

5.56

My job inspires me (DE3) 5.40

I am proud of the work I do (DE4) 5.70

To me, my job is challenging (DE5) 5.25

Results in Table 4 shows that the average value

for this variable is 5.54. This average value indicates

that the dedication experienced by respondents is in

the high class range. Dedication, is the sense of

Interval Keteran

1,00

–

1,86 Ver

Low

1,87

–

2,73 Low

2,74

–

3,59 Less

3,60

–

4,45 Avera

4,46

–

5,31 Goo

5,32

–

6,17 High

6,18

–

7.00 Ver

UNICEES 2018 - Unimed International Conference on Economics Education and Social Science

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importance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride and

challenges that employees feel when carrying out

their duties in their jobs. So, it can be concluded that

the employees in zakat management institutions feel

enthusiasm, sense of importance, and pride and

challenges in their work.

The highest score obtained in this variable is in

item DE1, which states that "I find the work I do full

of meaning and purpose" with an average value of

5.79 items, and a statement about "I am proud of the

work I do (DE4)" that has value average of 5.70.

These results further reinforce the notion that zakat

management professionals in East Java have

deliberately chosen this job and they have idealism

when choosing this job.

This once again shows and reinforces that the

work as a zakat management professional is a work

that has purpose and meaning, just as the YDSF

senior worker said in the donor management section,

who acknowledged that the work as a zakat manager

is a noble work that is worthy of worship. Because

of this ideology and the value of worship they hold,

they feel pride, and enthusiasm for doing their work.

This statement is reinforced by the descriptive data

of the second highest indicator item value dedication

which states that the professionals managing zakat

feel proud of the work they are doing.

4.3 Absorption Condition

Absorption variable is measured by using 6 items.

However, based on validity test, item AB1, AB2,

dan AB3 were not valid. Therefore, these items were

dropped.

Absorption explain the conditions when

employees feel full concentration, flowing in the

work, which is characterized by focused attention, a

clear mind, concentration of effort to not realize the

situation around and forget the time, and enjoy the

job. The results of respondents' answers to the

absorption variables are shown in Table 5.

Table 5: Respondents’ Answer for Absorption

Variable

Item Mean

I am immersed in my work (AB4) 4.47

I get carried away when I am

workin

(AB5)

4.66

It is difficult to detach myself from

ob (AB6)

4.73

Avera

e 4.62

The result shows that in general the absorption

conditions of zakat professional were in a fairly

good range of classes, with an average value of 4.62.

If seen from the highest value obtained in this

variable, the item statement states about "it feels

difficult to break away from my current job" is an

item that gets the highest score, with an average

value of 4.73.

These results further corroborate the descriptive

findings of the two previous variables, namely vigor

and dedication, that professional zakat managers are

indeed very tied to their work, feel enthusiastic, full

of enthusiasm, and even find it difficult to get away

from their current job. However, in general, this

variable has the lowest score compared to the other

two research variables.

The thing that the respondents reported made

them most absorbed in their work was because they

found it difficult to get away from their current job.

This finding also shows that the longer the

professional zakat managers work in this field, the

workers feel increasingly bound and difficult to get

out of work as zakat managers. This is most likely

because naturally the work as a zakat manager

indeed makes people have to know their jobs well,

because this work is based on the trust of the zakat

giver (muzaqqi) and infaq and shodaqoh donors,

who entrust their zakat and shodaqoh to zakat

managers, to continue to recipients of zakat

(mustahiq) who are entitled. The zakat payers will

also regularly give their zakat and infaq to zakat

management institutions, if they already trust the

institution. Therefore, the longer these zakat

professionals working in this job, they feel more

difficult to detach themselves from the job.

5 CONCLUSIONS

Based on the results of research and discussion

about the analysis of the work engagement factor of

zakat management professionals in East Java using

the Utrecht work engagement measurement scale

(UWES), the researchers concluded the following

points:

a. Professionals of zakat management in East Java

feel the condition of vigor (energy levels and

strong mental endurance at work, and still

diligently facing difficulties in completing

work) which is quite good. The majority of

respondents reported that they felt strong and

full of enthusiasm while working, so they

worked enthusiastically. This is because the

zakat management professionals have idealism

for the work they consider to be worship. But

there is one vigor indicator that was aborted,

namely Vi4. This result shows the inconsistency

of the Vigor indicator measurement.

Work Engagement Investigation of Zakat Management Professional in East Java

385

b. The dedication construct was found to have the

highest value among the three dimensions of

work engagement measurement for zakat

management professionals. The thing that most

strengthens the dedication of workers is feeling

proud of the work they do, and the feeling that

the work they do is meaningful and has a

purpose. The variable dedication is also found

to be the most stable between the two

dimensions of measuring other work

engagement, because the value of the

consistency of this variable is highest and no

indicator is dropped.

c. Constructs that are found to be less stable and

have the lowest value between the two

dimensions measuring work engagement, is

absorption. There are three indicators in this

construct that were aborted, namely Ab1, Ab2,

Ab3, because they did not meet the standards of

convergent validity and internal consistency of

item reliability.

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