The effect of work engagement on the social life of employees: A research on attorneys

The concept of work engagement,, which was introduced firstly by Kahn, is defined as the individual's physical, cognitive and emotional participation in work during role performance, and, it is a contagious concept that can spread among organizational members according to the Kahn. Work engagement is a concept that can affect an individual positively or negatively by reflecting from her work life to her family or social life, or from her family or social life to her work life. Accordingly, an individual's work and family life are interact with social life constantly, and since each individual is connected to each other within the social system, it is thought that a change in one will affect the other. For this reason, the integration of the individual with his social life will be achieved by maintaining balance in both areas, because when the imbalance in one area affects another area, the first area the individual will give up in order to maintain balance or meet the demands will be his social life. It is aimed to measure the knowledge and awareness levels of attorneys regarding the concept of work engagement and to reveal the effect of work engagement on the social life of attorneys. In the theoretical part of the study, the concept of work engagement was examined in a detailed way and in the application part, a questionnaire was conducted with attorneys registered to the Adana, Antalya, Mersin and Hatay Bar Association. These questionnaires were delivered to the attorneys by the Bar Associations they are affiliated with and the researcher. 312 attorneys answered questionnaires voluntarily and 15 questionnaires were excluded from the evaluation because they were filled out incompletely. In this context, 297 questionnaires were analyzed. As a result of the analyses, it was determined that most of the attormeys were satisfied with their job and the efforts they made towards their job. Additionally, attorneys stated that they are aware that they are too focused on their work, so they take care to make time for their family and social lives during non-workhours.