Mindfulness and Job Performance: How is mindfulness perceived to affect job performance, employee wellbeing, and organisational performance in the engineering sector in South Africa?

Forster, Kai

Mindfulness and Job Performance: How is mindfulness perceived to affect job performance, employee wellbeing, and organisational performance in the engineering sector in South Africa?

Thesis / Dissertation

2023

Abstract

Engineering practice can be demanding and challenging. Recent reports from around the world suggest that there is a global mental health crisis and that many engineers struggle with their well-being, productivity, and job performance, which has the potential to undermine the productivity of engineering organisations. It is important to ensure that engineering employees and organisations deliver high levels of performance to ensure that engineers can continue to contribute value to society. This research study aims to understand mental health in the South African engineering sector, while gaining insights into common sources of stress in the industry, perceptions of mindfulness, and investigating how performance can be enhanced. The research questions for this study aim to investigate how mindfulness could be used to enhance employee well-being, mental health, and individual and organisational performance. The data for this study were collected using a mixed methods approach. Qualitative data were collected through structured interviews and analysed using content analysis, and quantitative data were collected through a survey instrument, and analysed using descriptive statistics and regression analysis. Findings revealed that the South African engineering sector was perceived to be highly productive, but also a high stress environment, characterised by tight deadlines and high workloads. Participants suggested that successful engineers should demonstrate effective time management, attention to detail, and ability to learn. Participants perceived mindfulness to be an effective tool for improving the abovementioned traits, as well as productivity, emotional intelligence, focus, teamwork, communication, stress management, resistance to fatigue and burnout, physiological and mental health, quality of work, awareness, and balance to life. Through an improvement in these characteristics and traits, it was proposed that mindfulness could lead to improved employee well-being, individual job performance, and organisational performance. These findings indicate that mindfulness-based interventions could be introduced in engineering organisations and universities to enhance employee well-being, mental health, and individual and organisational job performance. This would allow engineering employees and organisations to continue to contribute value to society and offer solutions to increasingly complex problems.

Keywords

Mechanical Engineering

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