Sales Support Job Satisfaction at Etisalat - Research Paper Example

INVESTIGATING SALES SUPPORT JOB SATISFACTION AT ETISALAT RESEARCH OBJECTIVES Job satisfaction is very important in every working environment. Many believed that satisfied employees are most likely to work well or are most likely to give out a quality output. On the other hand, job satisfaction is a very complex issue since it may contain different meaning among individuals. For some, job satisfaction may be defined as something that would only make both ends meet. For others, job satisfaction may be defined as something very satisfying to the extent that one may never ask for more. Thus, because of these different ideas about job satisfaction, it is always been a common thought that job satisfaction is a measure of work quality. Job satisfaction is a very important aspect always monitored by employers. It is in this reason that job satisfaction remains as one of the most important indicators used in order to describe the quality of output given by the employees. This paper tries to investigate the sales support job satisfaction at Etisalat. In general, this research tries "to gauge the strength of the employer branding and its effectiveness at Etisalat Telecom". Specifically, the study is able: To know about the level of job satisfaction that each of the 30 respondents has with their job in the sales support analyst and customer billing. To gauge the effectiveness of the working environment/ working conditions present at Etisalat Telecom and how it contributes to the productivity and satisfaction of the respondents To gauge the satisfaction level of the workers with the working hours that they have at Etisalat Telecom To gauge their attitude towards the level of flexibility that they get in their professional life at Etisalat Telecom To analyze the various career paths that the respondents wish to pursue themselves, irrespective of whether it matches with their current job or not To gauge the effectiveness of the appraisal system which has been in place at Etisalat Telecom, and if it has given the employees their deserved appraisal and place in the organization To gauge the effectiveness of the employee benefits that are being given to these employees Hypotheses Prior to performing the study, the proponent has in mind the following hypotheses which gave way to the actual implementation of the research plan. The salary and benefits are de-motivating for the employees. The working environment helps in increasing job satisfaction. The employees are satisfied with the working hours. The employees believe the appraisal system has given them the deserving raise in career. Etisalat is the perfect place to follow their career paths. Etisalat is effective in communicating with the employees, keeping them involved and aware. HYPOTHESIS TESTING In order to test the above mentioned hypotheses, the proponent primarily employed mean and percentages. Testing of the hypotheses in this case was based on evaluative process employed in the research. Thus, the proponent discusses the nature of information as presented on the trend of data as generalised by the values obtained from mean and percentages. The scale of measurement used was ratio, which is the highest type of scale having absolute zero value (Broto, 2007). This was used considering that the values obtained in the data involved zero. To be able to test the above hypotheses, the bottom line is to compare the responses of respondents on factors affecting their job satisfaction. These factors are the salary, the benefits, the working environment, the working hours, the appraisal system and the communication. These are factors which are important in choosing an employer, factors that need to be improved and factors that respondents like best about their job. As stated in the analysis, the salary, the benefits and working environment do not need improvement according to the respondents. It is therefore of concern now to test whether the responses of respondents on factors they believe important in choosing employer differ to factors they believe best about their job. Proving this will provide further implication in the analysis. Thus, the following are formulated null hypothesis (Ho) and alternative hypothesis (Ha) using t-Test and f-Test. Ho: There is no difference of response of respondents on factors they believe important in choosing employer between those factors they believe best about their current job. Ha: There is a difference of response of respondents on factors they believe important in choosing employer between those factors they believe best about their current job. Level of significance: α = 0.05 or 95% level of confidence. Decision Rule: If the P-value is less than or equal to α = 0.05, then the null hypothesis have to be rejected and accept the alternative hypothesis otherwise. Type I and II errors: Accepting or rejecting hypothesis as opposed to what should have been made is considered an error in the decision making process. SAMPLING PLAN The proponent considered 15 males and 15 females who are part of the sales support analyst and customer billing team at Etisalat. Thus, there were 30 respondents overall. The respondents were all of legal ages ranging from 21 to 40 years old with multi cultural diverse background. All of the staff expats are either from GCC countries, Africa and the Indian Sub-continent. The respondents’ length of service at the company ranges from 2 to 20 years. The target respondents are those who are in the sales support analyst and customer billing team at Etisalat. They comprised the total population of the study. However, not all of these respondents could possibly join in the survey process thus, it was important to consider taking representatives from their whole population. The proponent therefore employed representative sampling in the study. The good thing about representative sampling according to Petersen et al. (2005) is that it will never compromise the correctness of obtained information. Even though respondents were considered representative of the whole population, they were all randomly chosen. The good thing about this random yet representative sampling is to ensure impartiality on the part of the proponent. This type of sampling corresponds to the correct definition of sampling which is taking specific subset of a certain population to represent the characteristics or nature of the entire population in a more accurate way (Lo, 2009). The sample size is more than 10% of the entire population. This provides a good estimate and precision of representativeness of sample from the entire population (Rosen, 1997). There are many available sampling techniques but not all of them can give desirable output at a specific design of study. One of these sampling techniques which is commonly used is the cluster sampling technique. In this study it was practical to use cluster sampling technique in order to capture another specific responses from specific classification of respondents in a practical and useful way (Chaudhuri and Pal, 2003). After all, as mentioned earlier, there were 15 males and 15 females chosen as the sample size of respondents. AREA 1 - RESEARCH DESIGN & DATA COLLECTION AND METHODOLOGY This study employed descriptive research since its nature would be more into conclusive research. This alone separates descriptive research from exploratory research. According to Boyd et al. (1977), exploratory research involves searching of secondary data, survey of knowledgeable person and even case study. This eventually is far from conclusive research which involves descriptive research such as case study and statistical study and finally experimentation. Considering that the data obtained in the study were coming from survey through the distributed questionnaire, the data gathering technique employed was the descriptive research as simplified further by statistical tools. Statistical tools employed were all parts of descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics deals with the collection and presentation of data, as well as describing the characteristics of individual objects or groups of individuals under study (Broto, 2007). AREA 2 - DATA PROCESSING AND RESULTS The data and information collected from the respondents were processed by means of average and percentage technique. For their presentation, graphs and tables were employed. Averages and percentages were necessary and relevant information included in the study to draw conclusion and evaluate the results of the research. Questionnaire Design A cover letter for the questionnaire is a good approach as far as ethical consideration of a survey is concerned. Not only that, the cover letter informs the respondents of what they have to do with the questionnaire and how to use it. As pointed out by Arnetz et al. (2008) a questionnaire is one of the most important tools that can be used to evaluate perception and behaviour of the respondents. Thus, it is important to take into consideration that the design of the questionnaire must be able to gauge or evaluate respondents’ perception and behaviour. Many scales have been used in the formation of the questionnaire. First and foremost, the famous Likert scale has been used, which is the summated ratings method. Moreover, the numerical scale has been used, which uses numbers to identify the strength of the response. For the population that is educated, and the sample selected in this research is an educated one, the numerical scale works very well. In addition to that, the constant sum scale has been used, which allows the organization to see the amount of numbers which have been allocated to each characteristic. This scale also works great for those respondents which have a high education level. (Zikmund, 2002) The category scales have also been used, which indicate the category to which the respondent would like to assign the question. The category scales used have 5 options, which make the question a sensitive judge of the attitude of the respondents. AREA 3 - Analysis of Results In order to analyse the results, the following specific objectives are discussed accordingly. To know about the level of job satisfaction that each of the 30 respondents has with their job in the sales support analyst and customer billing. To gauge the effectiveness of the working environment/ working conditions present at Etisalat Telecom and how it contributes to the productivity and satisfaction of the respondents To gauge the satisfaction level of the workers with the working hours that they have at Etisalat Telecom To gauge their attitude towards the level of flexibility that they get in their professional life at Etisalat Telecom To analyze the various career paths that the respondents wish to pursue themselves, irrespective of whether it matches with their current job or not To gauge the effectiveness of the appraisal system which has been in place at Etisalat Telecom, and if it has given the employees their deserved appraisal and place in the organization To gauge the effectiveness of the employee benefits that are being given to these employees To discuss these objectives, this section is subdivided in two parts. The first part is the inferential statistics using t-test and f-test and the second part is the deeper understanding on the level of satisfaction of employees through descriptive statistics. A. Inferential Statistics Table 1. t-Test on the responses of respondents on factors they believe best in choosing employer and factors they believe best about their job recently. Paired Samples Test Paired Differences t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper Pair 1 Factor1 - Factor2 .00000 1.78885 .73030 -1.87729 1.87729 .000 5 1.000 Factor 1: Responses on factors important in choosing employers Factor 2: Responses on factors believed by the respondents as the best about their job recently. Table 2. f-Test on the responses of respondents on factors they believe best in choosing employer and factors they believe best about their job recently. ANOVA Factor1 Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups 239.500 4 59.875 119.750 .068 Within Groups .500 1 .500 Total 240.000 5 Factor 1: Responses on factors important in choosing employers Factor 2: Responses on factors believed by the respondents as best about their job recently. The P-value, two-tailed (Sig (2-tailed)) from t-Test is 1.000 and the P-value from f-Test is 0.068. From the decision rule, the null hypothesis needs to be rejected when P-value is less than or equal to 0.05. This means that the null hypothesis have to be accepted. This is to conclude that there is no significant difference of response of respondents on factors they believe important in choosing employer between those factors they believe best about their current job. More implications of this result are discussed in detail in the next section. B. Descriptive Statistics Respondents were asked to rate their level of job satisfaction in the company from 1 to 7. The latter stands as the highest for extremely satisfied and the former as extremely dissatisfied. The result is shown in Graph 1. Graph 1. The level of job satisfaction among employees. Graph 2. Factors chosen as important when choosing an employer. Also, employees were asked to choose which factors are important when choosing an employer. Most of them responded that salary is the most important factor when choosing an employer. This information is supported by the data presented in Graph 4. Majority of the respondents were also able to point out that the appraisal system needs improvement at Etisalat Telecom, followed by the communication and then finally the working hours. Graph 3. Aspects that need to be improved at Etisalat Telecom Graph 4. What the employees like about their job. Summing up the results from Graph 1 to Graph 4, it is clear that salary and benefits are aspects that can motivate well the employees. A big number of respondents were satisfied with their salary as shown in Graph 4. As also noticed, it seems all the primary motivating factors for the respondents are monetary and then followed by the working environment and appraisal system. Even though there is a need to improve on appraisal system, communication and working hours at Etisalat, still majority of respondents (64%) were satisfied with their job knowing that 70% of them answered that salary is what they like about their job followed by the benefits, working environment and working hours. This is to say that not all of those aspects in Graph 3 have strong influence over the factors motivating employees. In fact, in Graph 5, 93% of respondents responded that they find their working hours satisfying even though it needs improvement. In general, respondents do not find any need to improve salary and benefit and find them motivating factors for their job satisfaction. This implies that they are satisfied with their job with the monetary reward they have at present. This is also supported by the fact that those factors they believe important in choosing for employers have the same level of response to those factors they like about their job. This means that they were able to meet their needs which further imply specific level of satisfaction that is two notches below of the extremely satisfied level as shown in Graph 1. Graph 5. Are the respondents satisfied with their working hours? Graph 6. The importance of working environment among respondents. Shown in Graph 5 and Graph 6, most of the respondents were satisfied with their working hours and find that working environment is very important. As stated earlier in Graph 3, around 13% of the respondents believed that the working hour needs to be improved though majority of them were satisfied about it. Graph 7. Frequency of overtime among respondents. The level of involvement of the respondents with their job can be shown in Graph 7. Most of them have the frequency of overtime ranging from 2 to 4 times in a week. This is a significant implication that most of them have higher strong level of involvement at work. This would also imply that most of the respondents love what they are doing after all, around 73% of them find Etisalat Telecom a perfect organisation for their career path. This information is shown in Graph 8. Graph 8. Etisalat as a perfect organisation for career path. Table 3. Measure of central tendency: The mode of respondents’ response on the five statements. Sr. # Statement Strongly Agree (5) Agree (4) Neither Agree nor Disagree (3) Disagree (2) Strongly Disagree (1) 1 Events (such as Annual Functions, Employee Appreciation Days etc.) organized by Etisalat for employees are highly motivating.  4  20 2  2 0  2 Communication with employees regarding various corporate happenings via different medium like posters, standees and emails through Etisalat are very effective.  0  6 21  3  0 3 Posters, standees and mails via Etisalat are floated very slowly, after long intervals.   0  7  18  5  0 4 The corporate culture at Etisalat is one of its kinds in the entire job market.  0  9  21  0  0 5 Apart from the events and communications, other employee benefits and compensation is equally taken care of by Etisalat.  4  7 19  0  0 Graph 9. Mode of respondents’ response on the first statement. In Table 3, the general response of respondents on their level of acceptance on the given statements in the questionnaire is summarised. The discussion of the response receive from each statement is discussed in detail below. In statement 1, most of the respondents agree that annual functions and employee appreciation days and etc for instance are highly motivating activities. The mode of response on statement 1 falls under “agree”. This gives the management a hint that the company should continue giving its employees highly motivating activities. Graph 10. Mode of respondents’ response on the second statement. The mode of response on statement 2 falls under “neither agree nor disagree”. In statement 2, it seems it shows that there is something wrong with the communication at Etisalat. In fact, as shown in Graph 3, communication is one of the factors that need to be improved at Etisalat Telecom. Graph 11. Mode of respondents’ response on the third statement. The mode of response on statement 3 falls under “neither agree nor disagree”. Statement 3 is a specific proof which corresponds to the level of response on Statement 2. Graph 12. Mode of respondents’ response on the fourth statement. The mode of response on statement 4 falls under “neither agree nor disagree”. The response on statement 4 shows that corporate culture at Etisalat is most likely the same with those other competing companies. Graph 13. Mode of respondents’ response on the fifth statement. Finally, since the response mode on Statement 5 goes to “neither agree nor disagree”, Etisalat needs to clearly emphasise its employee benefits and compensation. Perhaps, even though respondents were satisfied with the monetary benefits they are receiving; it might be that still many of them want the company to give it some special attention. There are various comments received from the respondents. 1)appraisal system needs revision by HR for 2010 – is unfair to the lower grade staff as all staff below grade 16 lack many benefits like annual bonus scheme and extra pay during overtime. Bonus has been slashed from 90% from last year to 30% for staff scoring “good” performance 2)working hours need to be more flexible and overtime payable 3) communication is still lacking in some areas or between staff and manager while there is a dispute that requires a memo to be raised to finance to waive charges. – staff are asked to pay from their pocket 4) overloading of work sometimes is an issue 5) There is limited no of staff in our billing and sales support team and more staff are reqd. 6) Some temp staff are not getting confirmation even after 1 and a half year of temporary contractual service. Staff loose faith and motivation to continue. Temporary staff are left behind in gaining permanency and starting career path. However good hourly pay offered 7) Lack of canteen facilities but kitchen is available with kettles,coffee makers, microwaves and fridges for storing or heating food items 8) No access in other region etisalat buildings for work during weekends. Need regional ID cards to come for overtime for those staying outside the main office 9) Best employee in terms of market share and revenue, global presence and working environment and friendliness of staff at work 10) Best salary package + overall benefits for staff in the market boasts a multi cultural and diverse staff employeed As can be noticed, the general theme of these comments is actually those already mentioned factors that need improvement. These only show consistency on what has already been quantitatively analysed earlier. For more quantitative reference of the result, these comments are reliable information that will give the bird’s eye view of employees satisfaction level at Etisalat Telecom. SCOPE OF RESEARCH Since this study relied solely on the respondent’s participation, the quality of analysed data is dependent on the quality of information given by the participants in the survey. Thus, the level of participation and understanding of respondents in the survey was outside the sole control of the proponent. This remains a challenge to the proponent and shall be considered as limitation of the study. The quality or accuracy of data collected relies heavily on the participation of respondents. Conclusions and Summary To wit, this study captures the following objectives: The level of job satisfaction that each of the 30 respondents has with their job in the sales support analyst and customer billing was known. The effectiveness of the working environment/ working conditions present at Etisalat Telecom and how it contributes to the productivity and satisfaction of the respondents was gauged. The satisfaction level of the workers with the working hours that they have at Etisalat Telecom was gauged. Respondents’ attitude towards the level of flexibility that they get in their professional life at Etisalat Telecom was gauged. The career path that the respondents wish to pursue themselves, irrespective of whether it matches with their current job or not was analysed. The effectiveness of the appraisal system which has been in place at Etisalat Telecom, and if it has given the employees their deserved appraisal and place in the organization was gauged. The effectiveness of the employee benefits that are being given to these employees was gauged. In general, it was found out that respondents working at Etisalat Telecom were generally motivated by monetary reward and so far they are satisfied with their job. This implies further that Etisalat particularly at its sales support team was motivating almost all individual employees in it. The implication of this is that Etisalat is really aiming forward for more sales in the future considering that there is a higher rate of job satisfaction among its employees at the sales team. Recommendations In ten-week period, a good sampling strategy needs to be implemented regarding this study. Respondents need to be clearly introduced on how to properly answer the questionnaire. In fact, questions on the questionnaire needs remarkable enhancement so as to make use of quantitative information in a much more detailed way. Data obtained from this study especially on the quantitative part are all descriptive in nature making it hard for the proponent to come up with many meaningful evaluations of quantitative data using an inferential statistics. After the questionnaire will be well formulated, the following research plan needs to be implemented. Tasks Weeks 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Research on Internet for journals and library for books                     Take notes on articles and books, work on how to format research data                     Start writing the Literature Review & ask for teacher's feedback                     Final Modification for the Literature Review                     Actual Submission "Literature Review Report"                   Make questions for questionnaires and interview                     Get the teacher's feedback on the questions                     Submit Final Form of questionnaires and Interview questions                   Distribute questionnaires among the selected people                     Conduct the Interview if needed                     Collect the questionnaires and put together statistical results for analysis                     Analyze results using a statistical software                     Writing final draft of study and seek the teacher's comments                     Perform all editing and complete the "Final Chapter of Research Project"                   Bibliography Arnetz, J. E., Hoglund, T., Arnetz, B. B. and Winblad, U. (2008) “Development and evaluation of a questionnaire for measureing patient views of involvement in myorcardial infarction care.” European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, Vol. 7(3): 229-238. Boyd, H. W. Jr., Westall, R. and Stasch, S. F. (1977) “Marketing research: Text and cases.” 4th ed. Illinois: Irwin Broto, A. S. (2007) “Simplified Approach to Inferential Statistics.” Quezon: ECC Graphics. Chaudhuri, A. and Pal, S. (2003) “On a version of cluster sampling and its practical use.” Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, Vol. 113(1): 25-34. Lo, L. (2009) “Sampling.” International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 1-10. Petersen, L., Minkkinen, P. and Esbensen, K. H. (2005) “Representative sampling for reliable data analysis: Theory of Sampling.” Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems, Vol. 77(1-2): 261-277. Rosen, B. (1997) “On sampling with probability proportional to size.” Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, Vol. 62(2): 159-191. Zikmund, W. (2002) Business research methods. Harvard Business School. Annexures I will attach the questionnaire results responses received for this project here (sales support analyst and customer billing team). It is the corrected version of the original one you made. Total sample this time is increased to 30 staff for PROJECT requirements. 15 males 15 females. Age between 21 to 40. Multi cultural diverse background. All Staff Expats either from GCC countries,Africa and the Indian Sub-continent. Experience in company varies from 2 to 20 yrs. This pre test project earlier was regarding how satisfied staff are with their working environment and compensation/working conditions, working hours, flexibility, facilities, compensation packages, career path, appraisal system,….and so forth.Pls Questionnaire Responses Sample – 30 - 15 x Male staff sales support analysts   - 15 x female staff sales support analysts Age: 21 - 40    Sex : _50% male 50% female Please tick either one of the following: Strongly agree, Agree, Neither agree nor disagree, Disagree or Strongly disagree for each of the questions. Sr. # Statement Strongly Agree (5) Agree (4) Neither Agree nor Disagree (3) Disagree (2) Strongly Disagree (1) 1 Events (such as Annual Functions, Employee Appreciation Days etc.) organized by Etisalat for employees are highly motivating.  4  20 2  2   2 Communication with employees regarding various corporate happenings via different medium like posters, standees and emails through Etisalat are very effective.    6 21  3   3 Posters, standees and mails via Etisalat are floated very slowly, after long intervals.     7  18  5   4 The corporate culture at Etisalat is one of its kinds in the entire job market.    9  21     5 Apart from the events and communications, other employee benefits and compensation is equally taken care of by Etisalat.  4  7 19     6. How important do you think the working environment is for the employees?  Very Important     16  Important     11  Indifferent    3  Unimportant      Highly Unimportant 7. Are you satisfied with the working hours at Etisalat Telecom?  Yes(28)  No(2) 8. How frequently did you work over-time at Etisalat Telecom? Every day  5-6 times a week 2-4 times a week(20) Once a week(6)  Less than once a week(4)  Never 9. According to you, how important each of the below when choosing an employer? The salary - 18 The benefits - 7 The working environment- 4 The working hours The appraisal system - 1 The communication 10. Please check which of the following aspects of Etisalat Telecom need to be improved. The salary The benefits The working environment The working hours - 4 The appraisal system - 19 The communication- 7 11. What do you like best about your job? The salary - 21 The benefits - 5 The working environment - 3 The working hours 1 The appraisal system The communication The nature of work 12. I feel Etisalat Telecom is the perfect organization for taking the career path that I have planned to pursue.  Agree - 22  Disagree - 8 13. Overall, how satisfied are you with Etisalat Telecom, as an employee? Extremely Satisfied 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Extremely Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4(7) 5(23) 6 Do you have any comments or suggestions about Etisalat Telecom? These are various comments received from team 1)appraisal system needs revision by HR for 2010 – is unfair to the lower grade staff as all staff below grade 16 lack many benefits like annual bonus scheme and extra pay during overtime. Bonus has been slashed from 90% from last year to 30% for staff scoring “good” perfomance 2)working hours need to be more flexible and overtime payable 3) communication is still lacking in some areas or between staff and manager while there is a dispute that requires a memo to be raised to finance to waive charges. – staff are asked to pay from their pocket 4) overloading of work sometimes is an issue 5) There is limited no of staff in our billing and sales support team and more staff are reqd. 6) Some temp staff are not getting confirmation even after 1 and a half year of temporary contractual service. Staff loose faith and motivation to continue. Temporary staff are left behind in gaining permanency and starting career path. However good hourly pay offered 7) Lack of canteen facilities but kitchen is available with kettles,coffee makers, microwaves and fridges for storing or heating food items 8) No access in other region etisalat buildings for work during weekends. Need regional ID cards to come for overtime for those staying outside the main office 9) Best employee in terms of market share and revenue, global presence and working environment and friendliness of staff at work 10) Best salary package + overall benefits for staff in the market boasts a multi cultural and diverse staff employeed _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Read More