Human Resource Management in the Project-Oriented Company - Research Paper Example

Number Quantitative Research Methods work Executive Summary The wellbeing of employees is critical to any organization. An organization’s success can be affected greatly by the wellbeing and performance of its staff. Given such a situation, it is essential to figure out the wellbeing as well as the performance of a company’s staff. This paper happens to be in response to the managers of an international company who want to determine the factors, which affect the wellbeing and performance of staff. The paper also looks at those variables that drive the company’s sales and profits. To achieve success in establishing such factors, data had to be gathered in order to establish a solution to the issues affecting the wellbeing and success of staff. A survey was conducted in its attempt of gathering relevant data and information. Analysis of the data is initiated in this paper as a way of reaching a meaningful solution regarding the policies that the company’s Human Resource Management and Marketing need to adopt in the future. From the survey data and it analysis, feasible actions have been recommended in this paper. By doing so, a number of issues are explored. Within the company’s Human Resource Management, the department manager is interested in aspects like stress, fairness, as well as the impact of training programs on staff performance. Variables such as gender, age, level of anxiety, absence days, starting and current salary, as well as performance before and after the training programs are considered (Burns, 2000). The analysis considered the relationship between various variables like stress and absence from work, salary and age, salary difference between male and female workers, stress differences between male and female workers, salary effect on absence from work, and the impact of training on performance. Regarding marketing and sales, determination of the way and extent in which the different factor influencing sales level is initiated. The analysis in this case also aims at determining whether some key factors are excluded from the surveys as well as the impact of such missing factors (Gillham, 2008). 1.0 Introduction Stress and wellbeing, and related management issues are among the various factors that organizations own to their members of staff. Although such issues are within the overall duty of care, which employers owe to their employees, their considerations extend beyond the duty of care of the employees. Wellbeing of staff members has immense implications for the quality of life of organization’s employees. In the company analyzed in this paper, every member of staff has an obligation of safeguarding and nurturing personal wellbeing while at the workplace (Michie & Williams, 2003). The relationship among employees may have a significant impact on the wellbeing of each member of staff as well as his or her job performance. The ultimate impact of all these aspects is the general performance of the organization, especially when it comes to the organizations quality of products or services, level of output, as well as profitability (Burud & Tumolo, 2004). Typically, organizations and their respective employees stay within a dynamic and changing environment whereby rapid technological development exists. Organizations usually develop projects for their employees to work on. Huemann et al. (2007) asserts that work projects are usually temporary, but they have specific goals that are constrained by aspects like budget limitations, and employee composition. The wellbeing of employees has much impact on organizations. Such impacts include performance of the organizations, employees’ productivity, work turnover, as well as direct cost. Research has shown that employee wellbeing plays a critical role to the performance of organizations in general (Huemann, et al., 2007). Employee wellbeing refers to the state of workers’ happiness, physical health of workers, as well as mental health. The wellbeing of members of staff can be analyzed from different perspectives including psychological perspective, physical perspective, and social perspective. The psychological dimensions of employee wellbeing are characterized by satisfaction, personal growth, and self-respect. Conversely, the physical dimensions include aspects like shelter, nourishment, healthcare, mobility, and clothing, while the social dimension of employee wellbeing include their participation in the community, their acceptance to the public, social actualization and contribution, as well as social coherence and integration (Huemann, et al., 2007). 1.1 Research Questions In any research, research questions are developed to provide a working ground from the entire study process. The research is usually meant to develop solutions to the set research questions. The research questions in this research report are: i. What is the relationship between stress and absence from work? ii. Are there salary differences between male and female members of staff? iii. What is the relationship between salary and age? iv. Are there any stress differences between male and female members of staff? v. What is the effect of salary on absence from work among members of staff? vi. What is the impact of training on performance? vii. How does marketing capability affect the level of sales? viii. What are the characteristics of the company’s sales workforce and how does it affect the profitability of the company? 1.2 Research Objectives In essence, the researcher works towards a set of objective. These objectives are actualized when solutions to the research questions are achieved. The research aims to find the relationship between stress and absence from work, salary and stress differences between males and females, the effect of salary of absence from work, impact of training programs, the company’s marketing capability and its effect on performance, as well as the nature of the company’s sales workforce and how it affects the company’s profitability. 2.0 Literature Review It is so unfortunate that the issue of employee wellbeing has been neglected and completely ignored by the human resource managements of organizations according to Huemann et al. (2008). The neglect of members of staff within organizations has been found to lead to the creation of immense pressure to the workers (Huemann et al., 2008). The wellbeing being of workers touches their health and safety as well. Taking care of the health of members of staff is an important measure in ensuring the wellbeing of workers in the international company analyzed in this paper. With regard to employees’ wellbeing, aspects of fairness, stress, and the impact of training programs are given the highest priority in this case. Additionally, factors such as age, gender, and level of anxiety are said to have some influence on the performance of employees. Such aspects have creates various relationships between variables as discussed in this paper. For example, the relationship between stress and absence from works could be in such a way that stress leads to the deterioration of the wellbeing of staff members, which may contribute to their absence from work. Stress is a major factor leading to poor performance among members of staff in most organizations (Michie & Williams, 2003). Essentially, absence from work has been a major issue in many organization, with most cases being based on sicknesses or health issues in general. Absence from work has been observed from various perspectives including the indication of health problems, paths to exclusion, as well as a cost to both the company and the society in general. Nevertheless, a number of factors have been attributed to the absence from work among employees. Among such factors are stress and sickness, which constitutes issues in the wellbeing of employees in an organization. Stress, which is seen to contribute to absence from work among members of staff is said to have a significant impact on the productivity of companies. Similarly, salary difference between male and females with all other factors held constant generates the issue of gender inequality or disparity in the workplace (Mastekaasa, 2000). The result of this practice is the lack of equal treatment of the member of staff within an organization, which is further attributed to the lack of employee wellbeing in the workplace. Typically, females may earn lower or higher salaries than their corresponding male workers despite the fact that the two genders have equal job qualifications and hold the same working positions. The difference in salaries between male and female members of staff has been a major issue in many organizations. In most cases, male workers have been identified to hold higher working positions and earning higher salaries than their female equivalents (Mastekaasa & Modesta-Olsen, 1998). This practice settles the question of there being some difference between male workers and female workers in terms of their salary levels. The issue of existing differences among various employees with respect to their respective age levels is a major concern in many organizations. In this case, older employees would mostly appear to earn higher salary levels than their relative young workers. Various factors may be attributed to such a case. One of such factors is the working experience associated with people of higher ages as compared to the young members of staff. Usually, older people have greater experience and better working skills than the young working generations. Besides, the older members of staff may have greater education level as compared to the young members of staff who may not only lack adequate experience, but also cost the organization extra expenses through work training programs (Burud & Tumolo, 2004). The general perspective as far as the age of workers is concerned is that there is some important relationship between the age of members of staff and their salaries. 3.0 Methodology This section is based on the methods and techniques used to collect data, the research design, and the technique used to analyze the data. 3.1 Data Collection Method Method of data collection depends on the type of data to be used in the research. The research focused on primary data in which surveys were conducted to collect primary data. The use of surveys was chosen as the most applicable methods because the study was mainly based on primary data from the company’s prevailing activities. Surveys provided first-hand data that would reflect the organization as it was at the time of collecting the data (Burns, 2000). 3.2 Research Design To find solutions to the research questions, a number of surveys were conducted separately. The study focused on respondents from two departments of the international company. These two departments are different, but they are strongly related and they include the human resource management and the sale and marketing departments. One survey was carried out on the HRM while two surveys were carried out on marketing and sales. The sample size for the HRM survey was 40 respondents. For the marketing and sales, the first survey consisted on a sample size of 195 while the second survey was based on a sample size of 20. To analyze the data, an SPSS computer program was used to run the analysis. The analysis was meant to establish the relationship between the studied variable for a clear interpretation, presentation, and discussion (Babin, et al., 2012). 4.0 Results and Analysis 4.1 Results The study established results for three distinct survey processes, which included one survey for the HRM and two surveys for marketing and sales. In terms of human resource management, variable like gender, age, period of absence from work, annual salary, as well as performance before and after training was considered. Regarding marketing and sales, the first survey investigated the relationship between variable like car park capacity, the area covered by the company, the distance from competitor, number of staff, and company sales. In the last survey, which was also under marketing and sales, variables investigated included the company’s profits in the year 2007, the company’s advertising budget, the number of agents, year of experience, and median house cost with respect to the radius of shop. 4.2 Data Analysis Data analysis was initiated to establish the meaning of the data collected and help in formulating a rich discussion. Both the analysis and discussion would definitely lead to meaningful conclusion regarding the best course of action that the company’s management should take in each of the three survey cases (Burns, 2000). The analysis presents information about anxiety scale (stress) and its effect on the absence of member of staff from work as shown in appendix I. From the coefficients in appendix I, it follows that, No. of days absent = 6.819 + 0.052 anxiety scale (stress). This implies that an increase in stress by one unit scale increases the number of days absent by 5.2%. Regarding salary difference between male and female members of staff, the distribution of gender is as shown in appendix II. From the table, males and females show some difference in the mean for their current annual salaries. This indication depicts that there is a salary difference between males and females in the company. The relationship between salary and age is analyzed as depicted in appendix III. The relationship model is developed from the coefficients as follow: Annual salary = 25.835 + 0.222 age The model implies that the age of a member of staff lead to salary increase by 22.2% per annum. The relationship between salary and age is thus positive. Regarding stress differences between male and female members of staff, the analysis was done as in appendix IV. From the analysis, the two genders show a mean difference of 1.2171. This difference shows that there is a difference in stress between males and females. Another important analysis case is the impact of salary on absence from work among members of staff. This relationship is analyzed as depicted in appendix V. From the coefficient, it turns out that annual salary = 7.155 + 0.015 no. of days in absence. This model implies that an increase in salary by $1000 increase the number of days in absence from work by 1.5%. At the same time, the impact of training on performance is positive as shown in appendix VI. Generally, the mean of performance before training is lower at 25.9125 than the mean of performance after training at 52.9875. The mean difference in this case shows a positive impact of training on performance. Similarly, analysis was done on the data collected on marketing and sales. The first analysis was done on the effect of marketing capability on the level of sales. This was done as Seen in Appendix VII. From the coefficients, it follows that: Sales = -62.319 -0308 car park +0.354 area + 0.186 distance from competitors – 0.371 staff members from this model, it comes out that the company’s sales would decrease when all other factors are held constant. An increase in the car par would also decrease the amount of sales. Again, an increase in the number of staff holding other factors constant would decrease sales. However, an increase in the company’s area and the distance from competitors would definitely increase the company’s sales. Regarding the characteristics of the company’s workforce and its effect on profitability, the workforce is characterized by both years of experience and the number of agents. To show how these characteristics affect the company profits, the analysis was done as shown in appendix VIII. From the coefficients, Profit = 9.401+ 19.845 no. of agents +6.839 years of experience. The model implies that both the increase of the number of agents and year of experience have a positive impact on the company’s profits. 5.0 Discussion and Conclusion Concentration on the stress seen among members of staff settles to the point that gender may not readily influence the stressfulness of workers, but men may have stronger way of handling stress than women are. This concept may contribute to the slight difference between male and female members of staff with regard to stress. Nevertheless, stress has some significant influence on the number of days that a member of staff would be absent from work. With this regard, the level of stress is different between male and female members of staff and this comes in due to the different abilities to handle stress between males and females (Mastekaasa, 2000). As said earlier, stress contributes to the poor wellbeing among members of staff, which further affects their performance due to increased case of absence from work. This behaviour may in return affect their extra earnings thereby freezing their salaries. Salary on the other hand is one of the many ways of motivating workers. This aspect implies that an increase in the level of salary among members of staff may lead to the decrease in their absence from work (Michie & Williams, 2003). At the same time, high salary levels may increase the affordability of leisure among workers. Satisfied workers may choose the leisure provided by the increased salaries over their need to work hard at work thereby leading to increased absence cases from work. Nevertheless, increase in salary is more likely to motivate workers than to decrease their number of days at work (Huemann, et al., 2007). Training programs have a great impact on the performance of members of staff. Training programs usually help in developing the capability of workers by instilling new skills to them and sharpening the skills that they already have. In general, training generates more advantages to the profitability of an organization as compared to the possible costs of making the training programs available to the workers (Burud & Tumolo, 2004). Marketing and sales personnel gain better skills to handle their activities for the benefit of the entire organizations. While these workers have their personal goals as they carry out their tasks, the key benefits go to the organization. From a general perspective, marketing capabilities increase the level of sales within organizations. Similarly, the characteristics seen in the sales workforce may highly determine the level of sales and consequently the amount of profit achieved by the company. The sales workforce need to consist of highly qualified workers with adequate sales and marketing experience if the company need to realize a high profitability level (Burud & Tumolo, 2004). The management should make meaningful decision out of the results of the survey and the analysis section. The number of agents working as sales and marketing personnel would definitely increase the company’s profits due to the enhanced collaborative efforts and diverse working abilities among members of staff. 6.0 Bibliography Babin, B. J., Carr, J. C., Griffin, M. & Zikmund, W. G., 2012. Business research methods (9th Ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning. Burns, R. B., 2000. Introduction to research methods. London: SAGE. Burud, S. & Tumolo, M., 2004. Leveraging the new human capital. Palo Alto, CA: Davies- Black Publishing. Gillham, B., 2008. Small-scale social survey methods: Real world research. London: Continuum International Pub. Group. Huemann, M., Keegan, A. & Turner, J., 2007. Human resource management in the project oriented company: a critical review. International Journal of project management, 25(3), pp. 312-320. Mastekaasa, A., 2000. Parenthood, gender and sickness absence. Social Science & Medicine , Volume 50, pp. 1827-1842. Mastekaasa, A. & Modesta-Olsen, K., 1998. Gender, Absenteeism and Work Characteristics. A Fixed Effects Approach. Work and Occupations, Volume 25, pp. 195-228. Michie, S. & Williams, S., 2003. Reducing work related psychological ill health and sickness absence: a systematic literary review. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Volume 60, pp. 3-9. 7.0 APPENDICES Appendix 1 Anxiety Scale (Stress) and its Effect on the Absence of Member of Staff from Work Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate 1 .040a .002 -.025 7.81865 a. Predictors: (Constant), anxiety scale ANOVA Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. 1 Regression 3.786 1 3.786 .062 .805a Residual 2322.989 38 61.131 Total 2326.775 39 a. Predictors: (Constant), anxiety scale b. Dependent Variable: no. of days absent in 2013 Coefficients Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients t Sig. B Std. Error Beta 1 (Constant) 6.819 4.612 1.479 .147 anxiety scale .052 .209 .040 .249 .805 a. Dependent Variable: no. of days absent in 2013 Appendix II Salary Difference between Male and Female Members of Staff Centroid annual current salary in £1000s Mean Std. Deviation Cluster 1 51.7273 14.67889 2 52.9722 14.47967 Combined 52.2875 14.41549 Appendix III Relationship between Salary and Age Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate 1 .354a .125 .102 8.58391 a. Predictors: (Constant), annual current salary in £1000s ANOVA Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. 1 Regression 399.925 1 399.925 5.428 .025a Residual 2799.975 38 73.684 Total 3199.900 39 a. Predictors: (Constant), annual current salary in £1000s b. Dependent Variable: age Coefficients Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients t Sig. B Std. Error Beta 1 (Constant) 25.835 5.167 5.000 .000 annual current salary in £1000s .222 .095 .354 2.330 .025 a. Dependent Variable: age Appendix IV Stress Differences between Male and Female Members of Staff Centroids anxiety scale Mean Std. Deviation Cluster 1 21.7727 6.34659 2 20.5556 5.60695 Combined 21.2250 5.98068 Appendix V Impact of Salary on Absence from Work among Members of Staff Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate 1 .027a .001 -.026 7.82206 a. Predictors: (Constant), annual current salary in £1000s ANOVA Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. 1 Regression 1.758 1 1.758 .029 .866a Residual 2325.017 38 61.185 Total 2326.775 39 a. Predictors: (Constant), annual current salary in £1000s b. Dependent Variable: no. of days absent in 2013 Coefficients Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients t Sig. B Std. Error Beta 1 (Constant) 7.155 4.708 1.520 .137 annual current salary in £1000s .015 .087 .027 .170 .866 a. Dependent Variable: no. of days absent in 2013 Appendix VI The Impact of Training on Performance Centroids Performance before training Performance after training Mean Std. Deviation Mean Std. Deviation Cluster 1 21.0682 4.04232 42.4091 7.08727 2 31.8333 7.42413 65.9167 10.83465 Combined 25.9125 7.88937 52.9875 14.78152 Appendix VII Effect of Marketing Capability on the Level of Sales Variables Entered/Removed Model Variables Entered Variables Removed Method 1 staff number, distance from competitor km , area in sqm, Car park capacity . Enter a. All requested variables entered. b. Dependent Variable: sales in £ 000 Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate 1 .719a .517 .507 12.181 a. Predictors: (Constant), staff number, distance from competitor km , area in sqm, Car park capacity Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate 1 .719a .517 .507 12.181 a. Predictors: (Constant), staff number, distance from competitor km , area in sqm, Car park capacity Coefficients Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients t Sig. B Std. Error Beta 1 (Constant) -62.319 11.077 -5.626 .000 Car park capacity -.308 .097 -.262 -3.183 .002 area in sqm .354 .030 .885 11.926 .000 distance from competitor km .186 .310 .041 .602 .548 staff number -.371 .367 -.064 -1.013 .312 a. Dependent Variable: sales in £ 000 Appendix VIII Characteristics of the Company’s Workforce and its Effect on Profitability Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate 1 .828a .685 .648 49.840 a. Predictors: (Constant), years of experience, no of agents ANOVA Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. 1 Regression 91827.035 2 45913.517 18.484 .000a Residual 42227.965 17 2483.998 Total 134055.000 19 a. Predictors: (Constant), years of experience, no of agents b. Dependent Variable: profit in 2007in $k Coefficients Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients t Sig. B Std. Error Beta 1 (Constant) 9.401 54.926 .171 .866 no of agents 19.845 5.128 .782 3.870 .001 years of experience 1.839 6.110 .061 .301 .767 a. Dependent Variable: profit in 2007in $k Read More