“The majority of the Swedish workforce is currently disengaged from their job roles, resulting
not only in huge financial losses for companies and organisation, but also results in a less
effective and more detached workforce (Gallup, 2013a). With the competition rising of one
large generation leaving the workplace and a smaller generation joining to the workplace, it is
crucial for organisations to learn how to adapt to and attract ‘generation Y’.
This study aims to find if and how youth between the ages of 18-30 become engaged at work,
as well as looking at what form of leadership they respond well to in terms of workplace
engagement. In order to achieve this, a qualitative study of management and the perception of
managerial behaviour was conducted through seven interviews with respondents who have
been a part of one of the largest student-run organisations in the world, that has a similar
structure to a corporation, but rewards those engaged as volunteers. These interviews were
summarised to consolidate one common perception of the phenomena.Transformational leadership according to Burns (1978) and the two-factor theory (Herzberg,
Mausner & Snyderman, 2010) was applied to answer the question of ‘What affects
engagement in the workplace?’ and ‘In what way may managers or business leaders
encourage workplace engagement?
The main conclusions that can be drawn from this thesis is that workplace engagement is
most affected by the social relations and interactions associated with the workplace as well as the meaningfulness of the work itself. The consistent component of the respondents’
motivation was the people they were working with and had an impact on. This has the
implication that leaders and business managers can and should encourage this type of
engagement by promoting a healthy work environment which focuses on the human
connection in the workplace, in order to become more competitive in regards to workforce
competition as well as increasing the effectiveness of the operations.
