Employee Engagement – A Pragmatic Study with Reference to Pharmaceutical Industry, Tamil Nadu

 

Dr. V. Vijay Anand¹*, Dr. C. Vijaya Banu¹, Dr. V. Rengarajan¹ , R. S. Sarayu²

¹Faculty Members, School of Management, SASTRA University, Thanajvur – 613 401

²II-MBA Student, School of Management, SASTRA University, Thanajvur – 613 401

 

ABSTRACT:

Employee Engagement is an emerging topic being studied with differing conceptualizations and has become an important issue as employee turnover rises. The purpose of this paper is to find out the level of engagement among the employees of pharmaceutical companies in Cuddalore District. The prime objectives of the study are to find out the factors that are significant to create an engaged workforce. Here, the researchers have taken independent factors upon grouping up various factors of employee engagement and attempted to find the relationship between independent factors and demographic factors. Samples of 138 collected data have been analyzed through the statistical tools such as descriptive analysis, recognition, regression and chi-square test. The results reveal that the factors found that, job, superior; rewards and recognition, opportunities and communication influence the engagement of the employees in the private pharmaceutical industry more.

 

 

 

 

1. INTRODUCTION:

Employee engagement is more than just the current HR ‘buzzword’. It is not just conducting fun activities, outings, celebrating Birthdays and Festive events. It is much more than that. Keeping our employees engaged emotionally is the most crucial part of any organization. An engaged employee is a person who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about, his or her work. Engaged employees care about the future of the company and are willing to invest the discretionary effort – exceeding duty’s call – to see that the organization succeeds. In addition, engaged employees may be more likely to commit to staying with their current organization. This study has brought to fore the variations in the level of engagement based on demographic variables and other chosen factors that are closely related to employee engagement.

 

2. STUDY VARIABLES:

The study variables include demographic variables such as Age, Gender, Income, Years of Experience, Position and Qualification, and the independent factors such as Job, Co-Workers, Superior, Company, Rewards and Recognition, Opportunities, and Communication. To measure the employee engagement, the variables (validated by Gallup) were used which lead to the outcome variables viz., Productivity and Retention.

 

3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

Indian Pharmaceutical industry has been witnessing drastic changes and unparalleled growth since its beginning because of increasing competitions. To have engaged employees has become crucial in the present business scenario where organizations expect their employees to take initiatives, bring innovations and optimum solutions to their current needs of Pharma products in the market. There is certainly no doubt regarding the availability of personnel in pharmaceutical Industry. But how optimally they are utilized? This study makes an attempt to conclude answer for this question.

4. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY:

The study is restricted to employees working in the pharmaceutical industries situated in the Cuddalore District of Tamil Nadu. The results are not generalized in nature. The study is based on 138 samples from some of the selected pharmaceutical companies and the results may vary as per the opinions of various respondents of the different companies

 

5. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:

 

Figure:1 – Conceptual Framework Model for Pharma Industry

 

6. OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH:

·        To study the relationship between demographic factors of respondents and employee engagement of pharmaceutical  companies

·        To understand the variation between the independent factors and employee engagement among the pharmaceutical  companies

·        To study the effect of independent factors on employee engagement

·        To understand the effect of employee engagement on outcome variables

 

7. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

This study is mainly out of the analysis made from the data collected. The data were primary in nature with sample size of 138 collected from private pharmaceutical companies in Cuddalore. Statistical tools used for the analysis are ANOVA, Chi-Square, Multiple regression, and correlation. The researchers have studied different factors as Individual variables and Gallup - 12 Q factors to identify the level and effects of employee engagement in the research. The outcome of the study was intended to be Productivity and Retention. The reliability of the study was found to be 0.930 (93%) – Cronbach’s Alpha Value.

 

8. HYPOTHESIS STATEMENTS:

1.      There is no association between the demographic factors and employee engagement.

2.      Individual factor do not vary with the demographic characteristics of the respondents.

3.      There is no significant effect of individual factors on employee engagement.

4.      There is no relationship between employee engagement and outcome variables.

 

9. LITERATURE REVIEW:

Anaza and Rutherford (2012) the impact of employee customer identification on job engagement in organizational level is discussed in this paper. The customer orientation is viewed as consequences of that identification along with the antecedent. The result finds that employee customer identification to be an important factor contributing job engagement and customer orientation.[1]

 

Bill (2014) this paper tries to bring out ways for the human resource leaders and the organization to use the concept of storytelling to engage and align the employees in their strategic plans. This concept is very common in communication with each other as social human beings. Hence the findings of the study suggest that the human resource leaders can use this timeless craft of humanity in their strategic plan that in turn engage and align employees.[2]

 

Farndale and Murrer (2015) this paper explored the effect of country on the job resources and employee engagement relationship. Regression analysis was done on the data collected from 19,260 employees of financial services in Mexico. Certain job resources that are taken as the factors such as team climate, financial rewards and participation in decision making has positive association with that of employee engagement.[3]

 

Gill (2009) the aim of this paper was to investigate the dynamics of organizational change and defining lasting way of approaching the change by behavioral psychology to attain employee engagement in the change. The earlier techniques of investing time in the process of change management were highlighted to create awareness among the individuals in order to embed quick and effective behavioral change for retaining them in the organization for a long period.[4]

 

Gupta and Kumar (2013) the researchers have done this study with perceptions about the company and conceptualizations of engagement. The study was split up into two parts namely, perceptions with one dimensional conceptualization of engagement and three dimensional conceptualization of engagement. The findings of the study suggest that there is a positive association between perceptions, justices and employee engagement.[5]

 

Hazelton (2014) the researcher has intended to discover the power of positive emotions in building the success of an individual and the organization as well. The step wise approach of the study first tried to explore the meaning of positive emotions, ways to promote and the end benefits gained by the organization and employees. The end benefits that are found from the study are mental well-being, physical health, ability to flourish, etc.[6]

 

Khan, Stanton, and Rahman (2013) the researchers took the employees of the Australian firms that are linked in sports sponsorship activity. The purpose of the study was to find the relation of the employee’s attitude towards the sponsorship activity of their respective employers and the extent to which their attitude influences their behavior in the organization. The result showed that the employees are to be involved in the sponsorship activities and the general benefits are to be reassessed.[7]

 

Merry (2013) researchers have tried to figure out the trends and drivers of employee engagement that would help the managers to focus on the issues that influences the employee motivation in an organization. The study was done based on the database that had the details of Best Employer company’s financial performance, CEO interviews, employee engagement scores and HR practices. The result of the study had revealed that, in the overall analysis it was seen that out of ten employees, four are still not engaged in the global level and necessary steps are to be taken by the organizations.[8]

 

Popli and Rizvi (2015) this study explores the relationship between employee engagement, leadership and service orientation specifically to private sector concerns in India. Sample size of the research was 106 managers of private service sector firms in India. Strong correlation is seen between service orientation and employee engagement. The strong predictor of employee engagement is found to be service orientation.[9]

 

Robertson and Cooper (2010) this study discussing full engagement provides a novel perspective of well-being, interpersonal relationship among peers and commitment based engagement into a single construct. The result revealed the substantial benefits out of the two perspectives towards the individual and the organization as well. It is concluded that when the employee well-being is high, employee engagement would also be higher. [10]

 

Sambrook, Jones, and Doloriert (2014) this research was conducted in both academic and consultancy perspective. The researchers have tried to study employee engagement in ethnographic angle, also auto ethnography that connects the experience of the researcher and the participants to define this phenomenon. The result substantiates that AE is the most suitable method for this perspective.[11]

 

Timms, Brough, and Graham (2012) the researchers have attempted to study the similarity among the group of school employees in burnout and engagement measures which is resulted from their similar experiences such as ambivalence or distress and empowerment in the work environments. The study also identified six areas of work life namely reward, control, community, workload, values and fairness.[12]

 

Xu and Thomas (2011) this paper attempts to create a link as an evidence for proving that leadership and employee engagement have direct relation that influences each other. The research was conducted at a large level organization. Three factors were mainly taken for analyses namely, perform effectively, display integrity and supports team. The results of correlation and regression revealed supports team as the important and the strongest predictor of employee engagement.[13]

 

10. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

Table No:1Demographic profile of the respondents

Source: Primary Data

The table-1 depicts that 27.54% of respondents were in the age group of 20-25 years.  The table also shows that 86.23 % of respondents were male and the rest of respondents were female. 41.30% of respondents are drawing a monthly income group of Rs.10,000 to Rs. 20,000.

Table 1 also depicts that 50% of the respondents were qualified with a PG Degree. 16.67% of respondents were having 6-10 years of experience. 78.26% of the respondents were in the middle level of employment position.

 

 

Table No: 2 Chi-Square Test between Demographic factors and Employee Engagement

(^*= H_o accepted at 5% significance level)

 

Hypothesis (H₀):

There is no association between demographic factors of respondents and the employee engagement.

 

From the above table it was found that null hypothesis is rejected (p<0.05) and it was concluded that there is association between the demographic factors viz., age, years of experience, position and qualification of the respondents with the  employee engagement. The researcher also concluded that there is no association between gender and income of the respondents with that of the employee engagement, since the null hypothesis is accepted (p>0.05).

 

Hypothesis (H₀):

There is no significant difference between position and independent factors of employee engagement.

 

From the table, the researcher found that there is no significant difference between position of the respondents and independent factors of employee engagement such as job, superior, company, and rewards and recognition at 5% significance level (p>0.05). Researcher has also found that there is significant difference between position of the respondents and some independent factors like co-worker, opportunities and communication.

 

Table No:3 Independent Factors and the Position of the respondents – One way ANOVA

(*=H₀ accepted at 5% significance level)

Table No: 4 Unstandardized Coefficients of Regression Model–Independent factors and Employee engagement

* = significance at 5%level

 

Hypothesis (H₀):

There is no significant effect of independent factors on employee engagement.

 

The above result of regression shows that the independent factors viz., job, superior, rewards and recognition, opportunities and communication (p<0.05) are statistically significant towards employee engagement. The regression results also show that the variables such as co-worker and company are not statistically significant (p>0.05), since the p value is greater than 0.05. The R value represents the simple correlation and is 0.880, which indicated a high degree of correlation between the independent factors and employee engagement. The R² value indicated that 77.5 % (0.775) of variance in dependent variable “employee engagement”, is explained by the independent factors. The significant individual factors with predictors’ values towards employee engagement are shown in the figure:1

 

 

Figure: 2 - Regression Model - Individual Factors and Employee Engagement

 

 

Table: 5 Chi-Square Test between Employee Engagement and Outcomes -- (Discretionary Efforts and Retention)

(* = Ho accepted at 5% significance level)

 

Hypothesis (H₀):

There is no significant relationship between the employee engagement and outcome factors.

 

The table 5 shows that significance of the chi-square values are less than 0.05, hence the null hypothesis is rejected and it is inferred that there is a significant relationship between employee engagement and outcomes – productivity and retention.

 

Table No:6 Unstandardized Coefficients of Regression Model – Employee engagement And outcomes (Productivity and Retention)

 

 

Hypothesis (H₀):

There is no significant effect of employee engagement on the outcome factors.

 

The above table shows that the R value which represents the simple correlation and is 0.749 which indicated a high degree of correlation between the outcome factors and employee engagement. The R² value indicated that 56 % (0.560) of variance in dependent variables “Productivity and Retention” is explained by the independent variable viz., employee engagement. From the table, it can be inferred that there is (p<0.05) statistical significant effect of employee engagement on the outcome factors viz. Productivity and Retention.

11.  MAJOR FINDINGS:

Researchers found that 86.23% of respondents are male and 13.77 % of respondents are female. The table also showed that 30.43% of the respondents fall in the age group of 26-30 and the percentage of respondents in the age group of 41 and above is 5.8% which is the least among all. The respondents who earn below 10000 are up to 10% are least in numbers. Analysis also depicts that 68.12% of the employees have less experience of 0-5 years; experienced employees in the set of 16-20 years are only 1.45% and also 42% and 50% of the employees have done UG and PG degrees respectively and only 8% have completed diploma. From the analysis of the researchers, null hypothesis is rejected and it was concluded that there is association between the demographic factors viz., age, years of experience, position and qualification of the respondents with the employee engagement. The researcher also concluded that there is no association between gender and income of the respondents with that of the employee engagement, since the null hypothesis is accepted.

 

Analysis by the researcher revealed that there is no significant difference between position of the respondents and independent factors of employee engagement such as job, superior, company, and rewards and recognition. Researcher has also found that there is significant difference between position of the respondents and some independent factors like co-worker, opportunities and communication. The result of regression shows that the independent factors viz., job, superior, rewards and recognition, opportunities and communication (p<0.05) are statistically significant towards employee engagement. The regression results also show that the variables such as co-worker and company are not statistically significant (p>0.05), since the p value is greater than 0.05. The R value represents the simple correlation and is 0.880, which indicated a high degree of correlation between the independent factors and employee engagement. The R² value indicated that 77.5 % (0.775) of variance in dependent variable “employee engagement” is explained by the independent factors. The significance of the chi-square values inferred that there is a significant relationship between employee engagement and outcomes – productivity and retention. Also R value which represents the simple correlation and is 0.749 which indicated a high degree of correlation between the outcome factors and employee engagement. The R² value indicated that 56 % (0.560) of variance in dependent variables “Productivity and Retention” is explained by the independent variable viz., employee engagement.

 

12. RECOMMENDATIONS:

From the results of the regression analysis, it is explored that the independent factors viz., job, superior, rewards and recognition, opportunities and communication influence the engagement of the employees in the pharmaceutical industry. Hence the researcher suggests the organization to implement certain strategy that triggers the above factors further which effects in a good employee engagement. As per the study of the researchers, those factors also strongly influence the outcomes of the study viz., Productivity and retention.

 

13. CONCLUSION:

In the current scenario, organizations are supposed to do something unique to beat the competition in the market and to sustain their customers. Employee Engagement is an important factor that contributes increase in productivity of an organization. An organization having engaged employees has many advantages over their competitors as there exits good customer experience, resulting in increased productivity, in turn increasing the revenue and therefore creating a good bond between management, employees and customers.

 

14. REFERENCES:

1.       Anaza, N. A., and Rutherford, B. (2012). "How organizational and employee‐customer identification, and customer orientation affect job engagement". Journal of Service Management, Vol. 23(Iss: 5), pp.616 - 639.

2.       Bill, B. (2014). "Use storytelling to engage and align employees around your strategic plans". Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 46(Iss: 1), pp.25 - 28.

3.       Farndale, E., and Murrer, I. (2015). "Job resources and employee engagement: a cross-national study". Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 30(Iss: 5), pp.610 - 626.

4.       Gill, A. (2009). "Employee engagement in a change environment". Strategic HR Review, Vol. 8(Iss: 2), pp.19 - 24.

5.       Gupta, V., and Kumar, S. (2013). "Impact of performance appraisal justice on employee engagement: a study of Indian professionals". Employee Relations, Vol. 35(Iss: 1), pp.61 - 78.

6.       Hazelton, S. (2014). "Positive emotions boost employee engagement: Making work fun brings individual and organizational success". Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 22(Iss: 1), pp.34 - 37.

7.       Khan, A., Stanton, J., and Rahman, S. (2013). "Employees' attitudes towards the sponsorship activity of their employer and links to their organisational citizenship behaviours". International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship, Vol. 14(Iss: 4), pp.20 - 41.

8.       Merry, J. (2013). "Aon Hewitt's 2013 trends in global engagement: where do organizations need to focus attention?". Strategic HR Review, Vol. 13(Iss: 1), pp.24 - 31.

9.       Popli, S., and Rizvi, I. A. (2015). "Exploring the relationship between service orientation, employee engagement and perceived leadership style: a study of managers in the private service sector organizations in India". Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 29(Iss: 1), pp.59 - 70.

10.     Robertson, I. T., and Cooper, C. L. (2010). "Full engagement: the integration of employee engagement and psychological well‐being". Leadership and Organization Development Journal, Vol. 31(Iss: 4), pp.324 - 336.

11.     Sambrook, S. A., Jones, N., and Doloriert, C. (2014). "Employee engagement and autoethnography: being and studying self". Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 26(Iss: 3/4), pp.172 - 187.

12.     Timms, C., Brough, P., and Graham, D. (2012). "Burnt‐out but engaged: the co‐existence of psychological burnout and engagement". Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 50(Iss: 3), pp.327 - 345.

13.     Xu, J., and Thomas, H. C. (2011). "How can leaders achieve high employee engagement?". Leadership and Organization Development Journal, Vol. 32(Iss: 4), pp.399 - 416.

 

 

 

 

Accepted on 27.04.2017        © RJPT All right reserved