Final Research Report

Research Proposal Employee Engagement Survey in Fujian JuShi New Energy Technology Company This file serves as a proposal of a student research program. The research aims to identify the causes to the HR challenge of low employee engagement in Fujian Jushi New Energy Technology Company, China. The introduction of the organization, the identified HR challenge, related theories, research methods, expected outcomes, research schedule and team responsibilities are included in the proposal. Team Future: Yibin Lin 12724771 Shuang Kou 13465683 Lingyun Feng 13681794 Yang Li 13481458 Qin Zhou 13716853 Yang Xu 13400181 Tutorial: 18:00 Wednesday 4/2/2021

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Introduction and Background

Company Overview

The research company is one small sized private organization in China named Fujian Jushi New Energy Technology Company (The Company). The Company has around 50 employees allocated in different departments including Research and Development, Engineering, Sales and Marketing, and General Support. It is dedicated to the development, production, sales, installation, and technical consultation of new energy power and automation products.

A few senior employees were identified by management team as having low engagement and productivity while they cannot be laid off due to nepotism. This issue caused financial lost in the company and damaged the morale among employees.

Chosen of the Topic

The low employee engagement issue has reflected on the low productivity in the chosen organization which could damage the company performance and the work atmosphere. This issue has drawn supervisor’s attention and needs to be addressed urgently. Through the research process, the Company and its employees would reflect themselves properly. Upon the presentation of results and recommendations, the Company would gain financial profit due to the increased productivity as well as to improve company morale and public image.

Besides, our research could be learnt by other similar organizations that have the same issue, for nepotism is a quite common phenomenon in China. As a result, hopefully the research result will help drive the economy as a whole.

Moreover, the results might contribute a bit to the theory of employee engagement and productivity, especially in China.

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Research Objectives and Research Questions

This research aims to assist leaders in the Company to cope with the engagement issue through conducting survey to employees. Specifically, three objectives of this research are:

(1) Successfully measure the engagement level;

(2) Find out the underlying reasons driving the employee engagement level;

(3) Further analyze the survey results to recommend possible solutions.

To address the objectives, research questions could be created as:

- What is the actual employee engagement level in the Company?

- What factors impact employee engagement level in the Company?

- How can employee engagement be improved?

Picture source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanwestwood/2017/10/30/the-secret-to-employee-engagement-isnt-about-your- employees/?sh=6228f751ed42

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Literature review

Theories and Researches

Employee Engagement

Employee engagement was defined by Kahn (1990) as “the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles”; engaged people “employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances” while disengaged ones withdraw themselves for the three aspects. Anitha (2013) also defined employee engagement as the level of employee’s commitment towards its organization.

The Correlation among Engagement, Productivity and Performance

Employee engagement has an impact on the longevity of an organization, which is also an indicator reflects organization’s financial performance (Bersin, 2014), in which productivity is a major part (Tangen, 2005). Higher level engagement reflects on higher productivity, lower employee accidents and lower turnover (Barrick et al., 2014). Harter et al. (2020) concluded in Gallup Meta-Analysis that “the relationship between engagement and performance at the business level is substantial and highly generalizable across organizations”. Employee engagement was proved to be related to performance outcomes including profitability, productivity, turnover rate, safety incidents, absenteeism, and quality and so on.

Drivers to Engagement

The determinants to employee engagement can be supportive co-workers and supervisors, job autonomy, coaching and self-efficacy as presented by Utrecht Work Engagement Scale preliminary manual (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Working environment and co-worker relationship were found to have significant correlation with employee engagement as proved by Anitha (2013).

By summarizing the theories, the factors to impact employee engagement come from three categories as illustrated by Figure 1:

- Organizational drivers including organizational culture or work environment, leadership, training and development, organizational policies, recognition and rewards summarized by Anitha (2013) and job fit (Moreland, 2013);

- Kahn (1990) found that employee engagement can be improved by supportive and trusting relationship between co and subordinates;

- Personal factors such as age Hammoud (2017) summarized based on a series of researches. Self Determination Theory (SDT) motivations such as the satisfaction of psychological needs including competence, autonomy and psychological relatedness contribute engagement. The feeling of satisfaction and enthusiasm can foster employee engagement (Nasomboon

Figure 1: Factors to impact employee engagement.

Organizational Factors •Work environment or

culture •Leadership •Training and development •Recognition and rewards •Policies •Job fit

(1990) found that employee engagement can be improved by supportive and trusting relationship between co-workers as well as between supervisors

Personal factors such as age relates to employee engagement, as Osborne &

(2017) summarized based on a series of researches. Self Determination Theory (SDT) (Deci & Ryan, 1985) found that intrinsic motivations such as the satisfaction of psychological needs including competence, autonomy and psychological relatedness contribute

The feeling of satisfaction and enthusiasm can foster employee engagement (Nasomboon, 2014).

Figure 1: Factors to impact employee engagement.

Employee Engagement

Training and development

Relational Factors •With managers •With co-workers

Personal Factors •Demographics •Satisfaction

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(1990) found that employee engagement can be improved by supportive workers as well as between supervisors

relates to employee engagement, as Osborne & (2017) summarized based on a series of researches. Self-

rinsic motivations such as the satisfaction of psychological needs including competence, autonomy and psychological relatedness contribute to

The feeling of satisfaction and enthusiasm can foster employee

Business Practice Gap

Through reviewing relevant literatures, perspectives that we did not expect before. Although important determinants for engagement, level of engagement and the drivers the management team of the Company, o

To investigate the key issues that are most hypotheses have been drawn u illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Hypothesis.

Hypothesis one

• The individual employee engagement level in the Company is low

Hypothesis two

• Organizational drivers have positive impact to employee engagement level(Recognition and rewards, job fit)

Hypothesis three

• Relationship related issues have positive impact to employee engagement (relationship with co

Hypothesis four

• Personal factors have positive impact to employee engagement (age, gender, position, health condition)

Through reviewing relevant literatures, our research team obtained insightful perspectives that we did not expect before. Although literatures mentioned

engagement, currently we are still not clear about drivers to it in the research company. Also as identified by

the management team of the Company, other reasons might exit such as nepotism

the key issues that are most possibly existed in the Company, f have been drawn upon the consideration of above mentioned factors

he individual employee engagement level in the Company is

Organizational drivers have positive impact to employee engagement level(Recognition and rewards, job fit)

Relationship related issues have positive impact to employee engagement (relationship with co-workers,nepotism)

Personal factors have positive impact to employee engagement (age, gender, position, health condition)

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our research team obtained insightful literatures mentioned some

are still not clear about the exact s identified by nepotism.

Company, four above mentioned factors as

he individual employee engagement level in the Company is

Organizational drivers have positive impact to employee

Relationship related issues have positive impact to employee

Personal factors have positive impact to employee engagement

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Research Design

As there are already rich theories on employee engagement, our research will adopt a deductive approach applying quantitative analysis method. A deductive approach towards the analysis of documents would make use of an established theory or framework of practice and consider the extent to which the organizational evidence indicates that this theory is occurring in practice (Anderson et al., 2019). The best way to analyze and verify theory is to use survey questionnaire to collect quantitative data. In many cases, it is appropriate to use both qualitative and quantitative methods (Anderson et al., 2019). However, considering the situation in the Company might not support interview, we intend to list open questions in the end of questionnaire.

Questionnaire

Survey questionnaire that covers above mentioned hypotheses will be designed and distribute to research employees. The questionnaire will be split to three sections as displayed in Table 1.

Table 1: Questionnaire Sections.

Section 1 Lists of demographic information including age, gender, position, years of service.

Section 2 Utrecht Work Engagement Scale aiming to get engagement level.

Section 3 Part 1: Questionnaire designed to find out the drivers to impact employee engagement specifically related to work stability (euphemism for nepotism), relationship with co-workers, job fit, recognition and rewards and health conditions.

Part 2: Open questions. E.g., would you like to identify any other factors that not mentioned by this questionnaire?

With employee engagement as a dependent variable and the three levels of drivers as independent variables, by analyzing the answers to survey questions to understand correlation between the dependent and independent variables, the hypothesis will be confirmed or denied.

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Survey Tools

The survey will be delivered by Google Forms due to its easy access and basic analysis functionality. If the internet firewall prevents users to access Google Forms, other domestically produced tools will be adopted. IBM SPSS Statistics will be used as an analysis tool if needed.

Sampling Strategy

According to the recommended sample size to ensure the statistical accuracy by Hart (2013, in Anderson et al., 2019), as population in the Company is small (less than 50), all employee will be asked to conduct the survey.

Ethical Considerations

A written consent form will be delivered to the company management team and survey participants. In the consent form, the purpose of the survey, actions to be taken by the participants, expected time consuming, data storage and disposal strategies will be explained.

Though the low engagement only exists in “some” employees, all employees will be covered as survey participants. The questionnaire will be carefully designed so that no one would feel targeted.

To ensure all participants speaking the truth so that the quality of the survey is guaranteed, the survey is anonymous. Any personal information that is irrelevant to the survey will not be asked. A non-disclosure agreement will be signed by all team members and be delivered to the Company.

The company and employee data will be used only for this survey. Anyone except for the team members and the subject teacher will not receive the data. Upon the end of the research, all files containing employee data will be deleted by the team members.

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Expected Outcomes Through the progress of the research project, our team will reach real organizations and understand their operations and challenges, and accumulate valuable experiences on HR research methods. With real engagement level and drivers to engagement revealing by the survey, it will benefit both the organization and their employees.

The Employer

- Knowing: The Company would understand employees’ perspective to work, the co-workers and the organization, and the expectation gap between employees and employer.

- Acting: The survey result will guide the organization’s management priorities in the future such as designing formal HR policy and procedures and taking corrective actions.

- Achieving: The organization would obtain both direct profit (increased revenue due to high productivity) and indirect cost saving (higher morale and lower grievance) and eventually improved organizational performance (Tangen, 2005).

The Employees

- The employees will reflect themselves throughout the survey process. By doing so, they will realize their strengths and weaknesses and improve themselves in the future.

Picture source: https://www.yourmotivationguru.com/employee-engagement-quotes/

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Research Plan Timetable

Important Tasks

- The research started from the 8th of March 2021 with the first group meeting to discuss organization and its main HR challenge, and will be completed on the 30th of May 2021 marking by the final report submission.

- As the above timetable shows, information of the Company has been received and literature reviews have been conducted for the preparation of the research.

- After the proposal submitting on the 2nd of April, team members will work out consent form and non-disclosure agreement and send to the Company as the start of the survey.

- Meanwhile, the design of the questionnaire will be kicked off. - The questionnaire will be delivered to participants in the middle of April. - Survey results will be collected at the end of April and analysis will begin at early

May so that team members will have sufficient time to draft separate report.

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Roles and Responsibilities

Organization liaison: Yibin Lin (Helen), contact person to the research organization, company information collection.

Survey coordinator 1: Lingyun Feng, quantitative research focal point (survey tools selection, data analysis).

Survey coordinator 2: Shuang Kou (Amelia), assist in survey tools testing and data analysis, forms creation (consent form, non-disclosure agreement, etc.).

Meeting manager: Yang Li (Leo), meeting arrangement and meeting notes taking.

Project facilitator: Qin Zhou, project scheduling, timetable management, research proposal consolidation.

Administrator: Yang Xu (Ivy), documents management, team member contact.

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References

Anderson, V., Fontinha, R., & Robson, F. (2019) Research Methods in Human Resource Management : Investigating a Business Issue (4th ed.). Kogan Page, UK.

Anitha, J. (2013). Determinants of employee engagement and their impact on employee performance. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 6(3), 308–323.

Barrick, M. R., Thurgood, G. R., Smith, T. A., & Courtright, S. H. (2014). Collective organizational engagement: Linking motivational antecedents, strategic implementation, and firm performance. Academy of Management Journal, 58, 111–135.

Bersin, J. (2014, March 15). Why companies fail to engage today’s workforce: The overwhelmed employee. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2014/03/15/whycompanies-fail-to- engage-todays-workforce-the-overwhelmed-employee/#34880e894726.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York, NY: Plenum.

Harter, J. K., Schmidt, F. L., Agrawal, S., Blue, A., Plowman, S. K., Josh, P., & Asplund, J. (2020).The Relationship Between Engagement at Work and Organization Outcomes. Gallup.

Kahn, W.A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33 (4), 692-724.

Moreland, J. (2013). Improving Job Fit Can Improve Employee Engagement and Productivity. Employment Relations Today, 40(1), 57-62. https://doi- org.ezproxy.lib.uts.edu.au/10.1002/ert.21400

Nasomboon, B. (2014). The relationship among leadership commitment organizational performance and employee engagement. International Business Research, 7, 77– 90.

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Osborne, S., & Hammoud, M. S. (2017). Effective Employee Engagement in the Workplace. International Journal of Applied Management and Technology, 16(1), 50-67. DOI:10.5590/IJAMT.2017.16.1.04

Schaufeli, W., & Bakker, A. (2004). Utrecht Work Engagement Scale Preliminary Manual. https://www.wilmarschaufeli.nl/downloads/

Tangen, S. (2005). Demystifying productivity and performance. International Journal of

Productivity and Performance Management, 54(1), 34-46. DOI 10.1108/17410400510571437