Work-life balance and work engagement of medical technologists in a government hospital in Iloilo City

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the level of work-life balance and work engagement of medical technologists in tertiary government hospitals in Iloilo. Specifically, this study aimed to describe the personal characteristics of medical technologists in terms of age, sex, civil status, educational attainment, length of service, income and job status; determine the medical technologists’ degree of work-life balance in terms of work-family conflict and family-work conflict; determine the level of work engagement of medical technologists in terms of vigor, dedication and absorption; determine if there is a significant relationship between the medical technologists’ personal characteristics and their degree of work-life balance; determine if there is a significant relationship between the medical technologists’ personal characteristics and their level of work engagement; and determine if there is a significant relationship between the medical technologists’ degree of work-life balance and their level of work engagement. This is a descriptive- correlational study that employed a one-shot survey design. The non-experimental design was used to describe the degree of work-life balance and level of work engagement of medical technologists in a public hospital in Iloilo city and to explain whether a relationship exists between these variables. The study revealed that majority of the respondents were female, most were single, big majority with no Masters degree, forty three point six (43.6%) percent were on permanent status and mostly earned three hundred thousand (300,000) pesos annually. Ninety percent of the medical technologists had fairly good balanced work and life and time spent for work was not a conflict with family responsibilities or interfere with home or family life. Big majority showed a high level of work engagement, thus often times to almost always they were bursting with energy at work, felt so strong, vigorous, and intensely challenging tasks made them feel happy. Civil status and job status showed significantly related with work life balance in terms of work – family conflicts, single medical technologists had fair to good work life balance while married ones showed fair work life balance, moreover the results showed that work life balance in terms of family – work conflicts had nothing to do with the personal characteristics of the respondents. There were no significant relationships between vigor and dedication to either the personal characteristics of the respondents. A high level of work engagement showed to those with bachelor’s degree holder while average level showed among those who started enrolling their Masters degree. The degree of family – work conflict was significantly related with work engagement while the degree of work- family conflict was not significantly related to work engagement. The level of work engagement in terms of vigor revealed a significant relationship with work life balance in terms of work – family conflict. Neither work – family conflict nor family- work conflict were significantly related with work engagement in terms of dedication. There was no enough evidence to reject the null hypotheses on the relationships between work engagement in terms of absorption and work life balance in terms of work- family conflict and family-work conflict.