Keeping the 'older' engineer engaged at work
The Dutch technical sector is growing rapidly. However, there are currently not enough young employees to fill all the vacancies. Therefore, companies started to recruit employees aged 50 years and older. Yet, keeping up to date with innovation is difficult for older employees. Employee engagement could all help staying up to date. However, these aspects change when employees age. Professional identity could explain changes in employee engagement. An employee's professional identity consist of two elements: content and strength. The current research investigates the differentiation of employee engagement among highly educated technical employees from different ages. Results show self directed learning and career adaptability decrease with age while organizational commitment increases with age. Furthermore, six profiles of professional identity were identified (nerd, socially oriented, all rounder, comfort seeking, geek and status driven) The distribution of the profiles differs per age cohort. Furthermore, the strength of professional identity differed per age cohort employee engagement proved to be dependent on professional identity. Lastly, a mediation effect of professional identity strength was tested. This effect turned out to be non significant. Thus the current research used professional identity to provide insight in the changing employee engagement of technical employees, to optimize the support of older technical employees.