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UIN assessment activity 1 template v 1.1 online

UIN assessment activity 1 template v 1.1 online

UIN assessment activity 1 template

HR research project report

Employee Motivation and Role of HR

1.   Context 

Human resource management is a strategic approach for managing the most important assets of an organisation are the employees. These individuals work collaboratively as well as individually for contributing to accomplish business objectives. The term of human resources and human resource management have replaced the term personnel management, which involved processes for people management (Noe et al., 2017). The department of human resources works for hiring people and development of employee’s skills which are maintained and utilised according to the requirements and needs of the organisation. There are several processes and stages involved in human resource management for achievement of organisational goals and targets. Numerous challenges arise for human resource managers when dealing with employees; one such issue is lack of employee motivation. This research has investigated “Employee Motivation and Role of HR”. For establishing a productive workforce and encouraging and motivating employees to perform their duties actively, an organisation must be able to fulfill financial, physiological and psychological needs of employees by providing rewards. An organisation needs to keep employees motivated by improving factors such as employee welfare, workplace environment, salary packages and job benefits. Behavioral studies have indicated that capital benefits work as one the major motivational factors. Human resource management is responsible for education and skill development of employees which then impacts employee participation, involvement and job satisfaction.  

The issue arises when the workforce is unmotivated to work and manage their daily job responsibilities. The motivation of not only average employees is important, but senior managers must also be paid attention and opportunities for skill development, and education should also be provided to them. Employee motivation becomes a problem when change is being implemented in the organisation (Lăzăroiu, 2015). Demotivated employees may not accept the change easily, and they may resist its implementation. Therefore, an organisation is required to focus on employee motivation by improving efficiency of employee which depends on two factors, willingness of employees to do work and level of ability of employee to do work. The first factor is concerned with motivation building while second factor is related to acquirement of education and training. Employees have several needs and desires; the most felt needs may become motives which keep changing with time and direct employees towards achievement of certain objectives. The process of motivation involves creating inspiration for people for deriving motive which is the power in a person to perform work. Motivation steers a person for driving actions of people towards certain objective and commit their energies for achieving these goals. The process involves stimulating employees for accomplishing organisational objectives which are usually done by managers for acting in a desired manner in order to satisfy desires and needs of employees. Motivation level of employees includes how employee behavior is started, energised, maintained and directed by HR. 

Motivation can be defined as an act of stimulating employees for getting the desired reaction and action. It is a concept in psychology which focuses on motives and direction towards objectives. Human resource may use different techniques for motivating employees such as non-financial, financial, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Motivation is a quite critical factor for determining the effectiveness and efficiency of organisation which helps employee for achieving organisational objectives successfully (Shahzadi et al., 2014). When there are unmotivated employees in an organisation, facilities provided by an organisation may remain useless as employees are not able to utilise these facilities productively. The machines, materials and other production resources provided by the company may be of no use when employees are not able to utilise them properly. Traditionally the human resources of production were treated as non-human resources however growing competition in the business market has established importance of human resources and importance of motivating these resources. When motivation of employees is maintained, there is a high level of performance, good human relations, low absenteeism and employee turnover facilitates change, improves employee morale, right image of an organisation, help in accomplishing organisational goals, easier acceptance towards organisational change and helps in building good relations with employees. 

Lack of employee motivation becomes a concern when employees have no motivation for performing their duties with enthusiasm, and they just want to get through the workday. Such employees are usually distracted by internet and other non-work related activities. Issues arise when such behavior of employees starts affecting productivity levels of organization. Unmotivated employees affect productivity of entire team as they are willing to perform their job duties. Employee motivation is essential when trying to overcome challenges thus when it lacks in employees they become unable to handle problems and not come up with right measures for solving these issues (Ganta, 2014). Motivation is often viewed as the intrinsic value by a motivated employee who gets excited for accepting challenges. This employee may accept the challenge willingly and find right solution for the problem. On the other hand, de-motivated employees lack motivation, enthusiasm and energy for trying out different solution in order to solve problems. Unmotivated employees also don’t care whether they have job or not and they may not apologize when they are late and lack positivism. This employee resists from taking any additional responsibility and shows low productivity. When there are such employees business may get affected easily specially customer service. An unmotivated employee may not make any extra effort for helping customers. 

The issue organization is facing is related to employee motivation. Issues of employee motivation are of high concern for the organization’s human resource management. This is the reason why this research is being conducted. Another reason for conducting this research is to know how motivational levels of employees effect the organisation. The productivity of an organisation gets affected when there are feelings of demotivation. Such demotivated feelings of employees distract other workers also. HR has the significant responsibility of keeping the motivational levels of employees high (Van De Voorde and Beijer, 2015). They do this by providing different financial and non-financial benefits to employees. This research will investigate different techniques used by HR for employee motivation. 

1.1.  Research Aims 

Research aims have been made for investigating the importance of employee motivation and role of HR in maintaining this motivation. 

• To know the effect of employee motivation on the organisation
• To access the role of HR in employee motivation
• To determine different techniques used for improving employee motivation

2.   Planning 

2.1.  Stakeholder Analysis 

Stakeholders are the people who are involved in a particular project, and they are affected by this project in some way. Stakeholders can be a group, individual or party who have concern and are interested in this project (Jones et al., 2017). The outcomes of project may affect these stakeholders. Usually stakeholders include suppliers, customers, employees, governments, shareholders and communities. Entirely the interest of the stakeholders is different in the project. Three significant stakeholders who might be affected by this study include employees, shareholders and customers.  Employees: The first types of stakeholders who will be interested and effected by this study are employees because the study topic is concerned with investigating importance of employee motivation. Employees are the direct stakeholders in the organisation who earn capital for supporting themselves and earn other financial and non-financial benefits. This study is aimed at finding techniques which can be used by HR of the organisation for improving employee motivation thus this may be of interest to them. Information regarding the primary findings will be presented to them.  Shareholders: These stakeholders look for financial returns. They invest capital in the organisation and expect to receive a good rate of return on capital. They are usually concerned with shareholder value. This study will interest stakeholders because they are interested in excellent financial returns which are only possible when there is high productivity in organisation (Andriof and Waddock, 2017). Productivity levels are high when employees are motivated, and they perform their duties with enthusiasm. Information about improved productivity after increasing employee motivation will be presented to them. 

Customers: As mentioned earlier, that customer service is influenced when employees are unmotivated. Businesses are aimed at providing services to customers. The customers are affected by the quality and service provided by employees of the organisation. This study is interesting for customers because employee motivation affects customer service. Through this research, researcher will find techniques of motivating employees which will improve motivation levels of employees ultimately resulting in better customer services. Information related to motivated employees will be presented to them. 

Limitations of Data in Research 

One of main limitation of data is the inaccurate responses gathered from the participants of the study. This may directly affect reliability of findings and validity of results. Another limitations related to secondary data collection is that data may be outdated and thus may be irrelevant for the current scenario. 

Potential Issues and their Mitigation

Some common issues that are associated with research is relying n self-reported data. The research involving behaviors and opinions of human can give rise to error. This issue can be mitigated by cross-checking the data. Another problem that arises is related to individual level data is difficult to access however uit is important when analyzing certain populations. These risks can managed by using a risk log. It is a document used like a risk management tool. It ensures fulfillment of regulatory compliance for identified risks and consists of information such as risk nature, mitigation measures and reference and owner. There are also costs and resource implications of research. Such as primary data collection requires researcher to put finances in gathering of data. Information need for assessing whether methods were appropriate of not was gained by looking at pros and cons for each data collection method and checking the relevance of method with topic of research. 

2.2.  Proposed methodology

Primary Data Collection Methods 

Primary research refers to a collection of data directly from original sources rather than collection of data from the researches which have been previously. Primary data is obtained through different sources such as via mail or telephonic surveys, face-toface interviews and observation. Yet, primary research needs to eliminate biases in order to obtain correct results for addressing issue under study. Primary data collection methods include survey and interview method. 

Survey Method

The process of gathering data through data collection method of questionnaires is called survey method. It involves particular sampling number of individuals from population. The method of survey involves construction of questionnaire and improving accuracy and number of responses towards the survey (Nardi, 2018). There are certain weakness and strengths of this method.  

Strengths

The method of survey is cost efficient; that is it is an inexpensive method of data collection and one of the most affordable methods to collect quantitative data. The researcher may conduct face-to-face interviews from large number of people which results in collection of massive amounts of data. The survey can get the highest possible response rate for achieving accurate results. Survey method is quite a practical method of data collection. It provides researcher to collect information either by providing multiple choice or asking open-ended questions. It allows collecting large amount of data on issue being studied. Survey method can help in getting quick results by utilising online and other mobile platforms (Drake et al., 2017). The scalability of survey method is also useful as it allows gathering data from large audience. The data collected through survey method is quantifiable and can be compared and contrasted with other research for measuring the change. 

Weaknesses 

Along with benefits, there are weaknesses of survey method. There is high-possibility that respondents may give evasive answers. There is also a risk that respondents may not answer all questions. They may ignore some questions and jump to another question. This can be avoided by making answering the questions necessary. This can also be avoided by making a shorter survey and ask easier questions. This will increase the survey completion rate. In survey method, there is also a risk that respondents may interpret questions wrongly or they may not be able to understand the context of question (Nardi, 2018). Survey method is not able to capture the emotions of respondents completely unless survey is being conducted face to face.  Critically analyzing this method it can said that survey method is an efficient method for data collection as it allows to gather large amount of information from number of participants. However, it can be said that it is not a very cost effective and has potential of collecting inaccurate responses. 

Interview Method 

In this method, data is collected from respondents in a conversational way. This method involves researcher who in the way of conversation with respondents asks different questions related to the issue (Drake et al., 2017). Interviews can be conducted through telephone or face-to-face. 

Strengths

There are various strengths of this kind of primary data collection method. Interview method has a greater capability of yielding higher percentage of returns. There is enhanced opportunity of collecting data from perfect sample of respondents. Interviews can secure more correct information. The researcher is also able to collect information about the personal characteristics of respondents and about his environment, which provides add more value to interpretation of results (Jamshed, 2014). This approach is more flexible and lets researcher to ask new questions. This method lets researcher to use test and scoring devices. Interview method makes sure that there are more significant numbers of results which are usable. 

Weaknesses 

This method takes greater cost, time and energy as compared to survey method. Transportation cost and time requirements make interview method inoperable and uneconomical. The researcher needs to be well-trained for conducting interviews otherwise he might not be able to collect complete and accurate data. There is a risk of bias on part of researcher as he might unconsciously devise questions which confirm his own views (Jamshed, 2014). It is possible that researcher’s presence may over stimulate respondents. Overall it is a complicated method which requires proper selection, training and supervising. 

Critically analyzing interview method it can be said that it allows to collect in-depth information related to issue under study. Although the sample size is small yet there are more chance of accurate data collection as compared to survey method. 

Secondary Data Collection Methods 

Secondary data collection method refers to the collection of data from sources other than original sources such as researches and studies conducted by other researchers. Two significant sources for secondary data collection include books and research articles. Books are a vital source of secondary research as they contain authoritative information. Such information consists of comprehensive accounts of scholarship or research, expert’s views on topics and issues, historical data and overviews. Books can be used researcher when background information is required on a subject which is related to issue under study (Cope, 2014). This helps in studying the topic in depth and gain understanding of issue context. Yet one major weakness of this data collection method is that books are written in years and take time for publishing thus they may not provide most current data for research. The research articles are also an essential source of secondary data. The articles published in scholarly journals are usually peer reviewed. This means they are checked by experts and academics. Thus research article may provide quite reliable data. One advantage of this is that it contains reports, topic-specific information and reviews related current research.

Scholarly journals are used when researcher needs to collect original data on an issue in form of essays or articles written by subject experts. It contains factual documented information and references lists which indicate towards relevant research. Collection of data through scholarly journals takes less time as compared to books, yet the peer review process may take time. One disadvantage of scholarly journal is that it contains academic information; thus they may not provide information on general topics. 

Critically analyzing secondary method of data collection it can be said that it is a cost effective as well as less time consuming method of data collection. Yet there are doubts about collecting current data regarding the problem. 

2.3.  Action plan

Task/Activities	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6	Week 7
Identify the research area
Set research aims
Formulate research strategy, research design and select methods
Collect secondary data
Collect primary data
Conduct data analysis
Conclude and make recommendations

3.   Research Activity and Findings 

3.1.  Research Activity Summary 

The primary method selected for conducting this research is survey method. Survey method has been selected for this study because it will provide a vast amount of information collection. Moreover the method of survey compliments the type of research being conducted. This research is descriptive as sufficient data, and research material was collected on the issue under study. Descriptive research includes aim and objectives, research design and data analysis related to the issue under study (Nassaji, 2015). Such kind of study helps find out the cause and effect of subject. For collection of data through survey, questionnaire was formulated. This questionnaire was provided to employees working at different levels in the organization. Sample size for this research was 30 and random sampling technique was used. This makes 15% of the organization. In random sampling technique there is equal probability of individuals for being selected for research. Such kind of sampling is unbiased representation of total population. Questionnaire was provided to respondents on online platform through emails. Questionnaire method helped in collection of data related to employee motivation. Questionnaire consisted on close-ended questions. 

3.2.  Research Findings 

The level of commitment, energy and creativity that employees of the organisation bring to their jobs is termed as employee motivation. It is one of the significant concerns of HR management to find ways of motivating employees disregarding whether economy is reducing or growing. Employee motivation is important because it allows organization to fulfill objectives of the company (Hauser, 2014). If workplace has de-motivating environment then organization’s position is quite risky. Therefore it becomes essential for human resource department of organization to increase productivity by motivating employee and leading them to achieve improved outputs. Employees who are unmotivated are usually a waste of organization’s resources and time. This research conducted a survey from employees and HR manager of the organization about employee motivation and found following results.

Figure 1: What kind of incentives motivates employees more?

Respondents were asked about what kind of incentives do they think motivates the employees more to work harder. Majority of the respondents said that an appreciation letter is quite motivating for employees. Some respondents were of the view that incentives awards motivate the employees most. Other respondents said that motivations talks, promotion and salary increase are essential for employee motivation. Based on the responses to these questions it can be said that respondents consider appreciation as the most important factor which motivates employees while an increase in wages is also a source of motivation. 

Figure 2: According to you, how important is the role of Human resources in employee motivation?

The human resource department of organization is responsible for recruitment, orientation and development of employees (Albrecht et al., 2015). It is also responsibility of human resource department to think about ways which can motivate employees to work with more efficiency for accomplishing organizational objectives.

This research study is aimed at finding HR’s role in employee motivation thus respondents were asked how important they consider the role of human resource in motivating employees. To this most of the respondents answered that HR has the major responsibility for motivating employees. They were of the view that role of HR is highly important in employee motivation. While only one respondent said that role of HR is not important in employee motivation. Based on these results it can be said that role of HR is considered quite significant in employee motivation. 

3.3.  Conclusion

Employee motivation is a significant aspect of HR’s duty. Human resource is just not responsible for the recruitment process of employees, but it has the significant responsibility of motivating them. The findings of survey indicate that majority of the respondents considered that employee motivation affects the productivity of the organisation. This suggests that motivation improves the enthusiasm levels of employees which ultimately affect employee productivity. Survey findings have also found that benefits whether financial or non-financial influences the performance of employees. It can be concluded that employee’s performance improves when they are given benefits. The training and development programs are also excellent sources of motivation for employees. This is because employees feel supported when the organisation provides them opportunities for developing skills. From the findings of the research it is clear that acknowledgement of employees is significant for employee motivation. When employees are given rewards they become more engaged in their work. It is notable that monetary benefits do not work all the time, simple appreciation letters and rewards that the company provides encourages the employees to work with more dedication. Raises are also quite useful in motivating employees, yet it is usually short-lived. Role of HR has been found to be essential in motivation of employees which answers the research aim of this study. 

3.4.  Recommendations 

Employees are the most significant stakeholder of an organisation. When employees are happy working with the organisation, the business flow becomes more efficient. Yet the organisation needs to take appropriate steps for motivating and engaging employees. Human resource managers are responsible for maintaining positive work culture in organisations. Through the findings of this research, employee motivation was found as a significant aspect thus there are some recommendations which organisation can implement for improving the motivational level of employees. It is recommended to keep communication transparent and open with employees. Open communication in an organisation help in discussing and sharing potential issues. An advantage of this recommendation is that issues in organization will be solved prior to becoming big. To much open communication may give rise to conflict. It is feasible to implement open communication in organization. Success will be gauged through increased interaction among management and employees.  

Showing recognition of employee in the workplace also makes employees feel motivated. Another recommendation is that organisation’s HR find the perfect balance between personal lives and jobs. HR manager is required to find a way which lets employees to live a happy life at the same time they give their best at jobs. An advantage of this recommendation is that employee will be able to creat a balance which would enhance productivity as well as motivation. Disadvantage of this can be witnessed in when employees are allowed to work from home as they remain distracted. Work-life balance is a good motivator and feasible to implement. Success of this will be undertood when productivity of employees will increase due to work life balance and they will feel motivated. Findings suugest that employee motivation can also be improved by HR manager by involving employee in decision making process. It is possible that employees of organisation were able to see spots which upper management was not able to thus involving them in decision making process can be a great motivator. When employee sense that organisation is involving them in critical processes they feel more valued. 

From the findings it is clear that providing employees the opportunity to grow can motivate employees a lot. Commitment for career development of employees and improved job environment helps employees to invest time and efforts in the organisation. Friendly competition can be encouraged which gives rise to productive environment. Learning and career development opportunities have many benefits such as they can increase motivation of employees and they will gain skills for being more productive. Disadvantage of this recommendation is that it is not flexible as a single program may not meet needs of all employees. Feasibility of career development programs depends on ability of organization to identify the needs of employees. success criteria for this recommendation revolves around acquirement of skills by employees. It is recommended that employees must be encouraged for participating and accepting challenges related to their jobs. Encouraging friendly competition results in employee engagement and improved motivation. 

References 

Albrecht, S.L., Bakker, A.B., Gruman, J.A., Macey, W.H. and Saks, A.M., 2015. Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(1), pp.7-35.

Andriof, J. and Waddock, S., 2017. Unfolding stakeholder engagement. In Unfolding stakeholder thinking (pp. 19-42). Routledge.

Cope, D.G., 2014, January. Methods and meanings: credibility and trustworthiness of qualitative research. In Oncology nursing forum (Vol. 41, No. 1).

Drake, B.F., Rancilio, D.M. and Stafford, J.D., 2017. Research methods. In Public

Health Research Methods for Partnerships and Practice (pp. 174-187). Routledge. Ganta, V.C., 2014. Motivation in the workplace to improve the employee performance. International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and

Applied Sciences, 2(6), pp.221-230.

Hauser, L., 2014. Work motivation in organisational behavior. Economics,

Management, and Financial Markets, 9(4), pp.239-246. Jamshed, S., 2014. Qualitative research method-interviewing and observation. Journal of basic and clinical pharmacy, 5(4), p.87.

Jones, T.M., Wicks, A.C. and Freeman, R.E., 2017. Stakeholder theory: The state of the art. The Blackwell guide to business ethics, pp.17-37.

Lăzăroiu, G., 2015. Employee motivation and job performance. Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations, (14), pp.97-102.

Nardi, P.M., 2018. Doing survey research: A guide to quantitative methods.

Routledge.

Nassaji, H., 2015. Qualitative and descriptive research: Data type versus data analysis. Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M., 2017. Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

Shahzadi, I., Javed, A., Pirzada, S.S., Nasreen, S. and Khanam, F., 2014. Impact of employee motivation on employee performance. European Journal of Business and

Management, 6(23), pp.159-166.

Van De Voorde, K. and Beijer, S., 2015. The role of employee HR attributions in the relationship between highperformance work systems and employee outcomes. Human Resource Management Journal, 25(1), pp.62-78.

Appendices 

1. Do you think employee motivation affects the productivity of the organisation? a. Yes,

b. No 

2. What kind of incentives motivates employees more?

1. Promotion
2. Salary increase
3. Appreciation letters
4. Incentive Awards
5. Motivational talks

3. Do you think financial and non-financial benefits influence the performance of employees?

1. Yes,
2. No

4. Do you think employee training and development programs motivate employees?

1. Yes,
2. No

5. According to you, how important is the role of Human resources in employee motivation?

1. Highly important
2. Important
3. Averagely important
4. Not so important

UIN assessment activity 1 template v 1.1 online