Career insecurity and work engagement among HR professionals: The moderating role of career crafting and perceived organisational support

Abstract

The contemporary world of work is increasingly characterised by rapid technological advancement, globalisation, post-pandemic disruption, and ongoing organisational restructuring, all of which have intensified uncertainty regarding employees' long-term career prospects. Within this context, career insecurity refers to individuals' thoughts and worries that central aspects of their future career may develop in an undesired manner. Work engagement is defined as a positive, fulfilling work-related state characterised by vigour, dedication, and absorption, is widely recognised as a key indicator of motivation, well-being, and sustainable performance. Grounded in the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory, this study conceptualised career insecurity as a career-level demand and examined whether access to personal and organisational resources reduces its potential impact on work engagement. Specifically, the study focused on career crafting, defined as proactive behaviours aimed at optimising person-career fit through reflection and career construction, and perceived organisational support (POS), defined as employees' belief that the organisation values their contributions and cares about their well-being. Drawing on JD-R theory, career crafting was positioned as a bottom-up personal resource, while POS was framed as a top-down organisational resource that may buffer the effects of demanding conditions such as career insecurity. The study focused on HR professionals in South Africa, an occupational group uniquely positioned at the centre of organisational change, yet increasingly exposed to uncertainty due to technological disruption, artificial intelligence adoption, outsourcing, and role redefinition. In the South African context, these challenges are compounded by macroeconomic instability, skills shortages, and ongoing organisational restructuring, making HR professionals particularly vulnerable to concerns about long-term career sustainability. A quantitative, cross-sectional research design was employed. Data was collected from a sample of 212 HR professionals working across public and private sector organisations in South Africa. Validated self-report instruments were used to measure career insecurity, work engagement, career crafting, and POS. Regression-based moderation analysis was conducted to examine direct and conditional relationships among the study variables, consistent with recommendations for testing interaction effects in cross-sectional designs. The findings indicated that career insecurity was negatively associated with work engagement at the correlational level, suggesting that, in this sample, higher levels of career insecurity were linked to lower engagement among HR professionals. This finding aligns with a growing body of research demonstrating that career insecurity functions as a meaningful psychological demand that can undermine motivational outcomes such as work engagement. Empirical studies consistently showed that uncertainty related to future career prospects, employability, and skill relevance was associated with reduced energy, dedication, and absorption at work, particularly when such uncertainty is persistent. Similarly, evidence suggests that under conditions of heightened career uncertainty, employees are more likely to experience diminished engagement due to increased cognitive and emotional strain. In addition, career crafting was positively associated with work engagement, confirming its role as an important motivational resource in this sample; however, career crafting did not reduce the impact of career insecurity on engagement among the participants in this study. This suggested that individual proactive behaviours, although beneficial for engagement generally, might have been insufficient to offset concerns about long-term career sustainability in structurally constrained contexts. In contrast, the findings indicated that POS significantly reduced the strength of the relationship between career insecurity and work engagement in this sample, demonstrating a buffering effect. This finding supported JD-R theory's proposition that organisational resources are particularly influential when demands are salient and persistent. Consistent with prior research, POS appeared to foster psychological safety and reciprocity, thereby protecting motivation and engagement under conditions of uncertainty. Overall, this study highlighted that the relationship between career insecurity and work engagement was context-dependent rather than uniformly negative. By integrating a career-level demand into the JD-R framework, the study contributed to the growing literature on sustainable careers and engagement in uncertain work. Practically, the findings of this study underscored the critical role of organisational-level support in sustaining engagement among HR professionals, particularly in the South African context, where uncertainty related to employment, skills, and organisational change remained pronounced. In this study, the results offered evidence-based guidance for organisations and HR leaders and recommendations for future research and practice were made.