Abstract:
Organizations desire highly engaged employees for higher productivity. Both personal and organizational factors
drive work engagement. Work engagement in the public sector is low globally. In a survey of 389 managerial
employees in 32 state agencies in Kenya, the study explored whether optimism and demographic factors
influence the level of work engagement.325 returned questionnaires were analyzed to derive descriptive and
inferential statistics using SPSS version 21. The reliability and the validity of the questionnaire items were
checked. Work engagement levels was high (mean 4.14), Optimism was moderate (mean 3.44).Work
engagement positively and significantly correlated with optimism (r=0.257, p< 0.01).Age positively and
significantly correlated with work engagement (r=0.153, p<0.01).Optimism and demographics predicted 6.6%
and 3.5% of work engagement respectively. The study demonstrated evidence that optimism influence work
engagement more than demographic factors. Employees can exhibit high levels of work engagement when they
are psychologically positive about their future.