The purpose of this assignment is to go deeper into what it is that creates job engagement.
There are many variables, but it has been chosen to look more closely at social support and
its significance. The framework and the JD-R model are explanatory in the mechanisms that
arise, where social support is in itself a job resource. Job resources in the workplace have a
strong correlation to the experience of job engagement (Schauffeli & Bakker, 2004).
This is a quantitative study and was conducted as a survey. A small Norwegian
municipality has been investigated in connection with this. The questionnaire goes in depth
on theoretically justified basic variables and questions produced against social support.
Furthermore, the well-known (UWES) questionnaire to be able to measure job commitment
has been used (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). This was then discussed against theory around the
topic.
The study may point to a cautious covariation between social support and job
engagement. This with trust from the manager, which is a subscale to social support, proved
to be most important in relation to the experience of job commitment. Employees who were
followed up and actually had employee interviews with their manager pointed out positively
the seniority in the company and the experience of social support and trust from the
manager.
This is an important area to study in more detail in the future. Seeing the importance
of social support in the workplace, what positive effects it has for the individual and the
organization as a whole. Companies that choose to prioritize this will have efficient
employees and financial gains. Employee interviews and follow-up in the public sector will
be important in the future, as greater demands are placed on the municipality of Norway
(NOU 2016: 4).