Exploring Employee Motivation at Virgin Company in the United Kingdom - Research Proposal Example

Research Рrороsаl: Ехрlоring Еmрlоyее Моtivаtiоn аt Virgin Соmраny in thе Unitеd Kingdоm Student’s Name Student’s Number Chapter 1: Defining the scope of this study and its rationale 1.0 Introduction and rationale for the study The scope of this study is to explore factors that impacting on employee motivation in the workplace. Essentially, employee motivation is not as a result of a single rationale, but a wide range of varieties and factors determine the effective success of employee motivation. Such factors include business ethics, incentives, rewards, as well as recognition are known to potentially improve or affect the employee motivation (Brooks, 2007: 139). Nevertheless, the key intention of this research is to entirely find out examine the factors that impeach on employees’ motivations within the Virgin Company, and specifically in the United Kingdom. Accordingly, the scope of this research would cover various elements that affect motivation among the employees, and how such elements have been utilized within the organization under case study, which is the Virgin Company. 1.1 Problem Statement In the today’s business environment, business organizations are being operated in an enormously huge competition. Remarkably, due to this huge competition, it is highly essential for business organizations to develop and implement different strategies in order to survive, as well as expand in the long run. Besides the tremendous competition, a substantial range of inner and outer factors significantly affect the business success. Such factors include the political factors, economical factors, environmental factors, as well as the social factors. Thus, operating a business organization with a focus of enhancing its market and financial performance, which is largely enhanced by the employees’ motivation and ultimate productivity, is not just an easy task (Gignac and Palmer, 2011: 85). In this regard, organizations, and in particular the Virgin Company which is the main focus of this study, significantly require developing several effective strategies for survive and long term business growth. In introducing the diverse business strategies, the human resource factor of the Virgin Company is an essential factor that needs to be managed effectively so as to ensure increased employee motivation. Notably, employee motivation is highly significant for the organization success in the long run. As a matter of fact, without the employee motivation, the organization cannot develop dedicated team of employees that can potentially work exceptionally with a key focus of accomplishing organizational goals while at the same time attaining personal objectives (Ryan and Deci, 2000: 71; Hong, et al. 1995: 10). Accordingly, in this paper, more consideration would be given to studying the factors that impeach on employees motivations within the Virgin Company. Worth noting, this research proposal has significantly identified the background of the problem, study justification, limitation and scope, research objectives, research methodology, as well as the study literature review. 1.2 Key Research Aims and objectives a. Examine the factors that impeaching on the employees motivations within the Virgin Company b. Defining motivation for the purpose of the study c. To analyse the situation of employee motivation within the Virgin Company d. To find out the factors affecting the employee motivation within the Virgin Company e. To provide recommendation of increasing employees motivation within Virgin company. 1.2.1 Research Questions The following is a list of questions that this research study will attempt to answer: i. Is money adequate in motivating employees? ii. How effective is the reward system upon the employee motivation? iii. What specifically can potentially motivate employees to enhance their productivity? iv. How effective is the employee recognition upon the employee motivation? v. How does motivation affect the employees’ ultimate productivity? vi. How do the employees respond to various motivation incentives provided by the company? 1.3 Significance of the Study This research proposal is significantly required so as to improve the employee performance and productivity at the workplace, to assist in enhancing employee retention, as well as to help the company establish a suitable corporate image. If the Virgin Company employees fail to acquire substantial motivation, then the company risk losing a large amount of revenue, as well as market share. On the other hand, if the employees within the company are sufficiently motivated and well trained, then the Virgin Company could potentially enjoy high income potential, maintain loyal customers, and also increase its market share in the market. Indeed, thus research will ultimately help not only the management of the Virgin Company, but also the management and business leaders in the entire business world, particularly in identifying the things that they require doing so as to effectively motivate employees to remain highly productive. In addition, the findings and results of this study would help the company managers in understanding the new, suitable strategies that could be executed so as to motivate the organization employees so as to attain the optimal business results. 1.4 The Scope and Limitations of this Study Essentially, motivation among employee is not as a result of a single rationale, but a broad range of varieties significantly determine the effective accomplishment of employee motivation. For instance, business ethics, incentives, rewards, as well as recognition are some of the factors that can potentially improve or affect the employee motivation. Nonetheless, the key intention of this research is to entirely find out examine the factors that impeach on employees’ motivations within the Virgin Company, and specifically in the United Kingdom. Accordingly, the scope of this research would cover various elements that affect motivation among the employees, and how such elements have been utilized within the organization under case study, which is the Virgin Company. However, although this study, definitely, finds out the factors that affect the employee motivation within the Virgin Company, the study is also associated with various limitations too. The main limitation is that this research solely focuses only on one specific company, an attribute that makes it to be less suitable or effective for use by other organizations, both from within and outside the industry. Chapter 2: Literature Review 2.0 Introduction The scope of this chapter significantly covers the analysis of the reliable literature relating the topic under study. More specifically, the concepts that would be covered in this chapter include defining the employee motivation, reviewing the main motivation theories, as well as discussing the conceptual framework. Essentially, there have been numerous research studies that have been conducted on the employee motivation by many scholars, for instance (Burton, et al., 2006: 759; Wilson and Madsen, 2008: 58; Dysvik and Kuvaas, 2010: 634; Nandanwar, Surnis and Nandanwar, 2010: 9). However, no research has ever been done on the group of employees and managers in testing their motives and also establishing the incentive program that can, possibly, suit the majority of employees, within the Virgin Company in particular. Remarkably, from the review of the available literature, one can conspicuously find out that there is a dire need for more research, in which this research study would endeavour to accomplish. This is to help the company management to find out the essentials the employees require for enhancing their motivation. 2.1 Defining employee motivation Motivation can be defined as the act of inspiring the employees so as to get a preferred direction of action. It is an inner state of mind that directs behaviour towards the accomplishment of a predetermined goal (Kamery, 2004: 139). Actually, every individual has got their own states of mind in regard to what they desire to accomplish. Worth noting, the motivators used by an organization should clearly identify the needs of the individual employees and act accordingly to their needs (Umashankar & Kulkarni, 2002, 46). Motivation has been found to be the only tool that is available to make employees to enhance their performance and productivity in the long term (Carr and Thomas, 2005: 161). 2.2 A review of the main motivation theories The research conducted in both business literature and psychology over the past years has indicated that motivation differs as a function of various factors in the work place environment. Such various factors include evaluation expectations, actual performance feedback, autonomy, reward, as well as the nature of the work itself (Milyavskaya and Richard, 2011: 390). In addition, both empirical research and theory have stipulated that human motivation towards work could be categorized into 2 types, which include intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. In this regard, the intrinsic motivation is the one that come from the intrinsic value of the work amongst the individuals, while the extrinsic motivation it the one that come out of the desire of obtaining some outcomes that are separate from the work itself (Ryan and Deci, 2000: 76; Dysvik and Kuvaas, 2010: 634). Essentially, when employees are allowed high autonomy, receive feedback concerning their performance, as well as they do have an identifiable and important job task to perform that require skill variety, then, they can easily experience a feeling of happiness, and thus intrinsic motivation to continue performing well (Burton, et al., 2006: 759). According to the theory of Herzberg, which is known as the motivation hygiene theory of employees’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction, it has been established that the hygiene factors like wages, fringe benefits, as well as workplace conditions significantly prevent dissatisfaction. However, they hardly motivate the employees. The same theory stipulate that the motivators like achievement, responsibility, recognition, as well as advancement does increase employee satisfaction from work and also motivate the employee towards greater performance and efforts (Hong, et al. 1995: 10). Worth noting, this theory was significantly derived from the theory of Abraham Maslow that analyzed the satisfaction the human being seek in their lives, which ultimately developed the hierarchy of needs concept. More specifically, this hierarchy of needs concept includes the following in the ascending order: The physiological needs such as, shelter, water, food, and sex Safety needs such as protection Social needs such as acceptance and sense of belonging Ego needs like appreciation, status, and achievement Self-actualization needs like the need of realizing one’s potential (Wilson and Madsen, 2008: 58). Noteworthy, the first 3 needs are considered as basic needs, and upon their satisfaction, the ego and self-actualization needs are subsequently pursued. Of high essentiality, the Virgin Company management has done a great job of satisfying the basic job of their employees, but much is seemingly left in regard to satisfying the ego, as well as self-actualization needs (Chen and Chen, 2010: 203). Nevertheless, among the many theories of employee motivation, the Herzberg theory is seemingly the most influential among organizations in the recent decades (Hansen, Smith and Hansen, 2002: 70). Essentially, this theory has divided the motivating factors into 2 categories, including the motivator factors that have something to do with the work itself, and the hygiene factors that have something to with the external surrounding context. In specifics, the motivator factor entails such things like independence in doing a task, responsible work, as well as satisfaction arising from the accomplishment of a certain task. On the other hand, the hygiene factors consist of security, pay, as well as the general working conditions. Based on this theory, the hygiene factors act fundamentally as de-motivator when they are not adequate. More too, it is stipulated that the employees are highly satisfied and highly productive during when their jobs are mostly attributed to the motivator factor. In addition, in order to enhance a job to become more interesting, such can be accomplished through job enrichment (Nandanwar, Surnis and Nandanwar, 2010: 9). In essence, job enrichment entails ensuring that a job is significantly associated with the following: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, as well as effective feedback. The concept of job enrichment has considerably been appraised as a great key of employee motivation (Gagn and Edward, 2005: 354). In this regard, there are various aspects that require being institutionalized so as to effectively actualize job enrichment in order to ultimately embrace employee motivation for increased productivity. The first one entails removing non essential controls upon the employees, as well as increasing their personal responsibility or accountability for their own work. The second one entails providing employees with complete units of tasks where possible. Thirdly, the employees should be given additional freedom and authority in their work. The fourth one entails providing production reports on a regular basis openly to the employees as opposed to their supervisors. The fifth one entails encouraging employees to take on some new and more challenging tasks. Lastly, the organization management should highly assign specialized tasks so that employees can become an expert in specific operations and tasks (Ramlall, 2012: 197). Furthermore, there has been a motivation trait that has been labelled as the need for achievement, whereby the high achievers mainly value the extrinsic rewards like money as only a method of keeping score, and that the satisfaction of achievement and the real reward significantly stimulated their performance (Kamery, 2004: 141). Essentially, there are 3 major characteristics of high need achievement individuals. They include persons with high need of achievement mainly favour a working situation on which they are allowed personal responsibility of solving problems. The other attribute is that they have a tendency of taking calculated risks and setting moderate achievement goals. Lastly, they must also have definite and continuous feedback concerning their progress (Ahmad, Wasay and Malik, 2012: 537). In a nut shell, if they never receive any recognition of any kind in their work, they consequently may not be aware of how well they do perform. 2.3 Conceptual framework In this study, the intrinsic motivation and the extrinsic motivation will be of high significance with a focus of establishing how the company has been actualizing them to its employees. Essentially, if the employees are allowed high independence, receive effective feedback regarding their performance, as well as they do have an identifiable and important job task to perform that require skill variety, subsequently, they can easily experience a feeling of increased motivation, which is intrinsic motivation for improved performance. Furthermore, the job performance appraisal process has been found to have limited positive effect on the organization, as well as the employee motivation (Carr and Thomas, 2005: 163). Most importantly, it has been stipulated that organizations requires looking beyond reward as a motivation tool, and significantly provide examples of how recognition and reward can be enhanced to become an effective motivation tool. Indeed, recognition and reward can potentially make feel great, look great, and do great things (Brooks, 2007: 139). In addition, it is of high essentiality to query individual employees how they would like to be rewarded and recognized so as to accomplish ultimate motivation for increased performance. This is because of the verity that clear determination of motivation among individuals mainly depends on the individual’s expressed level of interests and needs for enjoyment. Worth noting, it has already been established that employee motivation is a key factor of enhancing organization success in the long run. In addition, each and every individual has got a unique motivation enhancer so as to work efficiently and effectively (Umashankar and Kulkarni, 2002: 51). Chapter 3: Research Methodology There are various methodological approaches available of gathering data applicable for this study. In order to find valid and reliable data, this research study would significantly use both primary and secondary data sources (Khan, 2011: 34). In regard to the primary data sources, questionnaires method of data collection would be used through designing effective and sufficiently tested questionnaires so as to ultimately accomplish the research objectives. Essentially, questionnaires would be highly essential for exploring the motivation situation in the Virgin Company and confidentiality will be highly embraced. In addition, the questions to be involved in the questionnaires would be open ended questions, as opposed to the simple no or yes questions. Also, the study will ultimately provide possible recommendations, which would be withdrawn from the research findings and conclusion. Essentially, this research study is planned to take a period of three months, which would involve the entire research activities, including data collection, analysis, as well as compiling of the final report. References Ahmad, MB, Wasay, E and Malik, SU. “Impact of employee motivation on customer satisfaction: Study of airline industry”. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 4.6(2012): 531-539.  Brooks, AM. “It's all about the motivation: Factors that influence employee motivation in organizations”. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. (2007):139-n/a. Burton, Kimberly D et al. “The differential effects of intrinsic and identified motivation on well-being and performance: prospective, experimental, and implicit approaches to self-determination theory.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91.4 (2006): 750-762. 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