Balancing work and life in academia: unraveling the employee engagement mystery

Purpose This study aims to further the understanding of employees’ engagement by explaining their organizational commitment through their perception of the availability of work-life benefits in the organization. This study also investigates the mediating role of job satisfaction in this context. Design/methodology/approach The model was tested on the primary data collected in two phases from 270 teaching professionals in higher education institutes in Northern India. Barren and Kenny’s algorithm and hierarchical regression analysis were used to test the hypotheses. Findings The results reveal that employees’ perception of work-life benefits strongly influences their organizational commitment. Also, the results support that employees’ job satisfaction mediates the above-mentioned relationship. Research limitations/implications Self-reported data could be considered as a key limitation of this study and for more accurate results supervisors’ (line managers) perspective could also be included in future studies. Also, in addition to perceived work-life benefits, supervisors’ support could also have an impact on employees’ commitment, thus its inclusion in the model could draw a clearer picture. Originality/value This research has two key contributions: first, it adds to the limited literature examining the employees’ engagement issues in the academic sector. Second, this research is one of, if not the first, to investigate perceived work-life benefits among third-level teaching staff in India to explain employees’ commitment to their organizations.