How to read space in XML field value using DataWeave

I have a XML input and in one of the field its having space, using dataweve its treating space as null, I want to read the space as character.

XML Input:

<employee>
 <id>123</id>
 <name> </name>
</employee>

DataWeave script:

%dw 2.0
output application/xml
---
"root" : {
  "id" : payload.employee.id, 
  "name" : if (payload.employee.name == " ") "space" else payload.employee.name 
}

The output is coming as below:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<root>
  <id>123</id>
  <name/>
</root>

Try below script :

%dw 2.0
output application/xml 

---
"root" : {
  "id" : payload.employee.id, 
  "name" : if (payload.employee.name is Null) "space" else payload.employee.name 
}