The Influence of Burnout and Work Stress on Employee Engagement Mediated by Work Motivation among Perumda Tirta Pakuan Employees

Abstract

This study analyzes the effect of burnout and job stress on employee engagement, both directly and indirectly through work motivation as a mediating variable, among customer service employees of PERUMDA Tirta Pakuan, Bogor City, who face a high volume of customer complaints amid a limited number of permanent staff. A quantitative survey method was applied to 210 customer service employees, and data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS. The results show that burnout has a positive and significant effect on work motivation (0.615) and employee engagement (0.275); job stress also has a positive and significant effect on work motivation (0.510) and employee engagement (0.363); work motivation has a positive and significant effect on employee engagement (0.467); and work motivation significantly mediates the effect of burnout (0.287) and job stress (0.238) on employee engagement. These findings indicate that burnout and job stress function as challenge stressors that stimulate motivation and engagement rather than as hindrance stressors. The model explains 76.1% of the variance in employee engagement and 64.5% of the variance in work motivation, implying that management needs to strengthen work motivation as a bridge that converts job pressure into positive engagement.