Publication Details
Abstract
This study examined job-related exposures and employee engagement, conceptualised in terms of vigour, dedication and absorption, among staff of oil and gas firms operating within the South-South geo-political region of Nigeria (Rivers, Delta, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Edo States). The oil and gas industry remains central to the Nigerian economy, yet its operational environment routinely exposes employees to physical, chemical, ergonomic and psychosocial hazards arising from hydrocarbon processing, gas flaring, confined-space operations, shift work and volatile organic compound emissions [1]–[3]. While a considerable body of Nigerian scholarship has investigated the health and safety consequences of these exposures, comparatively little empirical attention has been paid to how such exposures relate to the motivational and psychological state of engagement that sustains discretionary effort, retention and productivity. Anchored on the Job Demands-Resources theory [4], [5] and Conservation of Resources theory [6], the study adopted a cross-sectional survey design. The population comprised management and senior staff of registered oil and gas firms in the South-South region, from which a sample of 309 respondents was drawn using the Taro Yamane [7] formula and proportionate stratified random sampling. A structured questionnaire adapted from established job-hazard exposure inventories and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale [8] was validated and pilot-tested, yielding acceptable reliability coefficients. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage) and the Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient, aided by the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 27, in line with the ordinal-scale, non-normally distributed nature of the data. Findings revealed that respondents experienced a moderate-to-high level of job-related exposure (mean = 3.32, SD = 0.67) and moderately high engagement across the three dimensions of vigour (mean = 3.67, SD = 0.58), dedication (mean = 3.60, SD = 0.59) and absorption (mean = 3.56, SD = 0.62). Job-related exposures correlated negatively and significantly with vigour (rho = -0.424, p < .001), dedication (rho = -0.403, p < .001) and absorption (rho = -0.438, p < .001), indicating that as exposure to hazardous job conditions increases, employee engagement along all three dimensions tends to decrease. The study concludes that unmitigated job-related exposures constitute a significant drain on the psychological resources that sustain work engagement in the Nigerian oil and gas sector, consistent with the depletion pathway proposed by the Job Demands-Resources model. It is recommended that oil and gas firms in the South-South region strengthen exposure-control programmes, invest in protective and ergonomic resources, and design job-resource interventions capable of buffering the engagement-eroding effects of hazardous work conditions.