Work engagement and individual job performance of provincial directorates of national education research and development unit (R&D) employees in the context of teamwork

In general, teachers are employed in the R&D units in the Provincial Directorates of National Education. On account of the intense workload, challenging workload, continuous projects, grants, and organizations in these units, such situations as stress, burnout or intention to leave the job may occur for teachers, which can affect job engagement and individual job performance. In this paper, the effect of teamwork on the work engagement and individual job performance of teachers working in R&D units have been studied. The study was planned in the Phenomenology model, which is one of the qualitative research types. Ten teachers working in the R&D unit participated in the research. The data were obtained by means of face-to-face interview and semi-structured interview form. The data were analyzed with descriptive content analysis. As a result of the research, it has been concluded that teamwork positively affects both work engagement and individual performance. It has been revealed that unity in the team, collaborative working strategies, synergy, team leader, rewards, concentration,, struggle against difficulties of time management are vital in individual work performance and work engagement. On the other hand, it has been revealed that team members' having different working strategies, low knowledge, skills, motivation, concentration and team commitment have negative effects on other members of the team. The quality of the work done, the number of people who make up the team, the attitudes and moods of the team members, the received-feedback, and the level of received-success affect the work engagement and individual job performances of the employees.