Employee Engagement as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Individual Counselling and Employee Productivity Evidence from a Kenyan Manufacturing Organisation

Abstract

Employee productivity is a critical organisational outcome, particularly in manufacturing settings where work behaviour is closely linked to production efficiency, quality, attendance, and target attainment. Workplace counselling may help employees manage personal and occupational challenges, but the extent to which counselling is associated with employee productivity may depend on employee engagement. This study examined whether employee engagement moderates the relationship between individual counselling and employee productivity at General Plastics Limited, Nairobi, Kenya. A quantitative, quasi-experimental post-test-only control-group design was used. The target population comprised 556 employees, from which 150 respondents (75 counselling-group and 75 control-group participants) were selected using proportionate stratified random sampling. Data were collected using structured questionnaires and verified organisational records. The overall instrument demonstrated high internal consistency (α = .851). Moderation was tested using Hayes' PROCESS macro Model 1 with 5,000 bootstrap resamples. The overall model was statistically significant, F(3, 146) = 21.60, p < .001, R² = .3074, explaining 30.74% of the variance in the coded employee productivity outcome. The counselling × engagement interaction was statistically significant, β = .1777, SE = .0863, t = 2.06, p = .0412, 95% CI [.0071, .3483]. Conditional effects were statistically significant at low, moderate, and high engagement levels: β = .2983, .4168, and .4958, respectively. Because the employee productivity outcome was reverse-coded, with higher coded values representing greater operational deficiency (lower substantive productivity), the positive coefficients should not be interpreted as evidence of increased productivity. Instead, the results indicate that the association between individual counselling and the coded productivity outcome varied significantly across levels of employee engagement. The findings highlight the importance of considering employee engagement when interpreting and evaluating workplace counselling and productivity measures in manufacturing setting.