CHAPTER-1

1.1 INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH DESIGN

Employee engagement is a fundamental concept in the effort to understand and describe, both qualitatively
and quantitatively, the nature of the relationship between an organization and its employees. An "engaged
employee" is defined as one who is fully absorbed by and enthusiastic about their work and so takes positive
action to further the organization's reputation and interests. An engaged employee has a positive attitude
towards the organization and its values.[1] In contrast, a disengaged employee may range from someone doing
the bare minimum at work (aka 'coasting'), up to an employee who is actively damaging the company's work
output and reputation.

Employee engagement first appeared as a concept in management theory in the 1990s,[2] becoming
widespread in management practice in the 2000s, but it remains contested. It stands in an unspecified
relationship to earlier constructs such as morale and job satisfaction. Despite academic critiques, employee
engagement practices are well established in the management of human resources and of internal
communications.

The concept of employee engagement is in existence since 1990, when the term was used for the
first time. The term earned importance from the year 2000 onwards. A great deal of interest has
been shown in Employee Engagement in recent years. Understanding the fact that an organization
can gain competitive advantage through people facilitated the concept to gain popularity.
According to the late management guru, Peter Drucker, the most influential and important five
letter word begins with P, which stands for people. The most potent source of competitive
advantage for an organization is undoubtedly people. Believing in the same, K G Mohan, General
Manager Operations and Location, Wipro, Kolkata argued that, “Employee engagement is about
treating employees as people, not merely as employees”. A number of researchers have claimed
that employee engagement predicts profitability, financial gains, enhanced performance, and
organizational success; whereas Hewitt associates indicate that they, have established a conclusive,
compelling relationship between engagement and profitability through higher productivity, sales,
and customer satisfaction”.

An organization that unlocks the secrets of employee engagement is promised profits beyond its
wildest dreams. Some common statements regarding employee engagement emerge including
employees‟ satisfaction and respect and pride in their employer. Employees‟ go the extra mile and
deliver excellent results in terms of performance when employee engagement is greater. One of the
world’s finest organizations Gallup consulting also comprehends that it is employee engagement
which acts as a force that drives business outcomes. An engaged employee is more productive,
customer focused, profitable and is more likely to stay with the organization. Also, in best
organizations, employee engagement is the way they do business, in such organizations employee
engagement excels a human resources initiative. Engaging employees is the need of the hour but the
biggest challenge today is fully engaging the talented people and capturing their minds at each phase
of their work lives. In today’s competitive environment, employee engagement has emerged as an
important driver of business success and it can be a deciding factor in organizational success.
Engagement is a key link to an organization’s reputation, employee retention, loyalty,
productivity, stakeholder value and ultimately customer satisfaction.

Evolution of the Concept:

The evolution of employee engagement is believed to be embedded in work on employee
Organizational Commitment (OC) and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB). The concept of
organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviour in connection with engagement
is important but engagement is all about aligning an individual’s performance with the goals of an
organization. It is about going the extra mile, putting discretionary effort, and wanting to deliver
results in the favour 3

of his/her organization. Robinson et al. argued that employee engagement has become a widely used
and popular term but its definition sounds like established and well known concepts like
organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and organizational commitment (OC). Also, the
researchers argued that even though employee engagement takes in elements of OC and OCB but
doesn’t go perfectly with either. Furthermore, the concepts do not reflect aspects of engagement
sufficiently including the level to which engaged employees are expected to have awareness of the
business.

Apart from OC and OCB, employee engagement is also linked with job involvement. However, May
et al. argued that engagement is different from job involvement. Job involvement is related to the
need satisfying abilities of the job and is attached to one’s self-image whereas engagement is all
about how employees utilize themselves in the performance of their jobs including dynamic use of
behaviours and emotions in addition to cognitions. Saks also stated that engagement is different from
organizational commitment as it refers to an individual's attitude and bonding with his/her
organization. Engagement on one hand is all about one’s performance formally rather than voluntary
behaviour on the other hand in OCB. It is the extent to which employees are absorbed in performing
their organizational roles. Further Saks commented that, engagement is different from several related
terms especially organizational citizenship behaviour, organizational commitment, and job
involvement rather it is a unique construct mainly associated with individual organizational role
performance.

Definitions of Employee Engagement

1. “An emergent and working condition as a positive cognitive, emotional, and behavioral state directed
toward organizational outcomes.” Michael Shuck and Karen Wallard
2. “A business management concept that describes the level of enthusiasm and dedication a worker feels
toward his/her job. Engaged employees care about their work and about the performance of the
company, and feel that their efforts make a difference.” Investopedia
3. Emotional connection an employee feels toward his or her employment organization, which tends to
influence his or her behaviors and level of effort in work related activities.” Business Dictionary
Levels of Employee Engagement

Engaged

The first category of people are those who are can be identified with words like passion,
alignment and innovation; which means that they are passionate, connected to the company and
are innovative. They contribute new ideas and turn ideas into reality. These employees are positive
in their outlook and they spread positivity. They are proactive; can anticipate the future market
conditions are prepared well in advance. Engaged workers stand apart from their not-engaged and
actively disengaged counterparts because of the discretionary effort they consistently bring to their
roles. These employees willingly go the extra mile, work with passion, and feel a profound
connection to their company. They are the people who will drive innovation and move your
business forward.

Actively Disengaged:

This is the second category of people who are unhappy and they spread unhappiness in the
organisation. They are the disease centres in the company and spread the negative word, provoking
and convincing people to leave their jobs. However they are the ones who stay the longest and
removing the perceived people competition is their thought of getting to the top or next level in the
job. The Three Types of Employees Contrast this with actively disengaged employees, who are more
or less out to damage your company. Not only are they unhappy at work, but they are intent on
acting out their unhappiness. They monopolize managers' time and drive away customers.
Whatever engaged employees do -- such as solve problems, innovate, and create new customers --
actively disengaged employees will work to undermine.

Not Engaged:
The third type of employees is the large majority present in organisations almost 50% in number.
These do what is told only and they like only one instruction at a time. They put in time but not
energy and passion. They may be either positive or negative in their outlook and opinion about
the organisation. They are not proactive and fail to anticipate what might be required next or what
the next step is? They wait for instruction from their superiors. Not-engaged employees offer perhaps
the greatest untapped opportunity for businesses to improve their performance and profitability. Not-
engaged workers can be difficult to spot. They are not overtly hostile or disruptive and likely do just
enough to fulfil their job requirements. They sleepwalk through their day, uninspired and lacking
motivation. They have little or no concern about customers, productivity, profitability, safety, or
quality. They are thinking about lunch or their next break and have essentially "checked out."
It is seen that engagement degree varies from highly engaged to disengaged. Employees
fall into three levels based on their engagement. Highly engaged employees are human assets of
the company and has discretionary effort in achieving organizational goals and not only the
organizations but also employees also are advantageous of being engaged like safety, wellbeing etc
,Not engaged employees on the other hand are in the mid way where in, if they are continued with
same level of engagement there is a possibility of being disengaged ,so organization must try to
increase the level of engagement from being not engaged to highly engaged and last category of
employees are those are disengaged who are harmful to the organization, not only they are
disengaged but also spread it to other employees.

Importance of Employee Engagement:

An organisation’s capacity to mange employee engagement is closely related to its ability to
achieve high performance levels and superior business results.
Engaged employees will stay with the company.
Be an advocate to the company and its products and service.
Contribute to bottom line business success.
Engaged employees also normally perform better and are more motivated.
There is a significant link between employee engagement and profitability.
Employee engagement is critical to any organisation that seeks not only to retain valued
employees, but also increase its level of performance.
Ways to Attain Employee Engagement:
Listen to your employee which is a continuous process.
Provide proper communication channels for employees
Insist upon increased engagement at the managerial level and create and deploy a customized
employee satisfaction survey from alpha measure to assess your current level of employee
engagement.
Identify problem areas, make a plan and take action towards improvement.
Organization Initiatives for Employee Engagement:
Most Organization has a range of programs to improve the engagement level of their employees.
Below are the lists of initiatives can be made by the organization, starting right at the selection stage:
Choosing the right fit and giving a realistic job preview
Strong induction and orientation program
Rigorous training and development, from technical to soft skills to leadership development
program
To keep up the morale of people and drive them towards excellent performance, through various
incentives such as recognition letters, profit sharing schemes, long performance awards, ESOPS,
building assets like own home.
 Regular feedback to all people
Communication forums like the in-house magazine, entrepreneurship development and regular
surveys and conferences
To maintain the quality of work-life and a balance between personal/professional lives, there are
recreational activities like festivities, get-together, sports, etc
An open and transparent culture to empower its people and develop entrepreneurs

Benefits to the organisation:

Employee engagement builds passion, commitment and alignment with the organisation’s
strategies and goals
Attracts more people existing employees increase employee’s trust in the organization
Creates a sense of loyalty in a competitive environment
Lowers attrition rate
Increase productivity and improves morale
Provides a high-energy working environment
Improves overall organisational effectiveness
Boosts business growth
Makes the employees effective brand ambassadors for the company

Key drivers of employee engagement

Engaging Health workers to improve performance, productivity, and retention15 has recommended
the six key drivers to predict the engagement level which includes,

Belief in job and organization

Belief in ability to succeed

Relations with my colleagues and my supervisor

Professional Advancement

Support and recognition

Influence in decision making

Hence, by analyzing all the contributions, this study intent to predict the key drivers of engagement,
with the help of USAID Health Care Improvement (HCI) Project’s health worker engagement
instrument to predict the employee engagement.
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
There is a paucity of research in the area of employee engagement and well being of employees in
emerging markets like India. Measurement and its impact of both variables are studied by very few
researchers. This is very important for the successful growth in FMCG sector, the main asset of the
organisation i.e. employees need to be taken care. When they are taken care well, it improves their
well being and satisfaction. These employees will be more productive and loyal and play a vital role
towards fulfilling the goals of organisation.

As Employee engagement and well-being have become one of the key challenge/activity which
needs to be managed to achieve organisation goal, there is a need to map and measure these and
also establish the link between these with organization performance.
1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

To measure the Employee Engagement level in TVS Sundram Fasteners Limited.

To find the various factors leading to employee’s engagement in the

organization.
To know the association between employee engagement level and drivers of
the engagement.

To suggests the organization to improve the employee engagement

SCOPE OF THE STUDY:
The FMCG industries have now realized the importance of employee engagement.
However, the study focus on identifying the present engagement process and aims at providing
suggestions and recommendations for the organisations to improve its engagement strategy.
The study not only focuses on employee engagement but also helps to identify employees overall
satisfaction by taking accounts the factors such as work nature, pay, relationship and coordination.
The research helps to identify how the employee engagement strategy paves the way for the
growth of a company.
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The study is based on employee’s side only. It does not explore the pros and corns on the side of
employers.
Inconvenience in meeting all the associates and collect data in their busy work time.
The study is based upon small sample size
The study has been done mainly for academic purpose and duration of the data collection period is
a major constraint.
1.6 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH – MEANING:
Research is an art of scientific investigation. “according to redman and mory defines research as a
systematic effort to gain knowledge”. Research methodology is way to systematically solve the
research problem. It is a plan of action for a research project and explains in detail how data are
collected and analysed.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:
The procedure using, which researchers go about their work of describing, explaining and predicting
phenomena, is called methodology. Methods compromise the procedures used for generating,
collecting, and evaluating data.
RESEARCH DESIGN:
A research design is a plan that specifies the objectives of the study, method to be adopted in the data
collection, tools in data analysis and hypothesis to be framed. A research design is an arrangement of
condition for collection and analysis of data in a manner that aims to combine relevance to research
purpose with economy in procedure.
DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH DESIGN:

Descriptive research is used to describe characteristics of a population or phenomenon being

studied. It does not answer questions about how / when / why the characteristics occurred. Rather
it addresses the “what” question (what are the characteristics of the population or situation being
studied?) The characteristics used to describe the situation or population is usually some kind of
categorical scheme also known as descriptive categories.

Research Population:
The population or universe can be defined as aggregate of items possessing a common trait. In the
study, population is finite which includes all the employees working at Kaleesuwari Refinery Private
Limited. i.e., 233

Sampling technique
Sampling design:

o POPULATION SIZE: 233

o SAMPLE SIZE:100

o SAMPLING TECHNIQUE: CONVENIENCE METHOD

DATA TYPES & SOURCES
a) PRIMARY DATA:

Primary data is the information collected for the first time, there are several methods in which the
data is complied. In this project data was obtained by means of questionnaires. Questionnaire was
prepared and distributed to the employees.
b) SECONDARY DATA:

Secondary data needed for conducting research work were collected from company websites,
company profiles, magazines, articles were used wi dely as a support to primary data.
c) DATA SOURCES:

The data collected for the study is mainly through the distribution of questionnaire, to be precise the
data collected for study was both primary and secondary.
TOOLS FOR ANALYSIS:
For the analysis of data and its interpretations, various tools of research were used.
The researcher uses SPSS software for analysis and interpretation purpose with regard to this
project.

STATISTICAL TOOLS USED:

To analyze and interpret collected data the following statistical tools were used.
1. Percentage analysis
2. Correlation analysis
3. Regression analysis
4. Level analysis.

1. PERCENTAGE METHOD:
In this project percentage method test and used. The percentage method is used to know the accurate
percentages of the data we took, it is easy to graph out through the percentages. The following is the
formula.

PERCENTAGE OF RESPONDENT = NO. OF RESPONDENT

________________________ X 100
TOTAL NO. OF RESPONDENT

From the above formula, we can get percentages of the data given by the respondents.

2. CORRELATION ANALYSIS:
Correlation analysis is a statistical technique used to measure the magnitude of linear relationship
between two variables. Correlation analysis is not used in isolation to describe the relationship
between variables. To analyse the relation between two variables, two prominent correlation
coefficient are used, “The pearson product correlation coefficient and spearman’s rank correlation
coefficient. This is also known as simple correlation coefficient and is denoted by “r”. The “r” value
ranges from -1, through 0, to +1.

It is calculated using the formula,

(N Σdx dy) - (Σ dx Σ dy)

r= _________________________

√N Σ dx2 – (Σ dx)2 * √N Σ dy2 – (Σ dy)2

3. REGRESSION ANALYSIS:
Regression analysis is a set of statistical processes for estimating the relationships among variables. It
includes many techniques for modelling and analysing several variables, when the focus is on the
relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables (or 'predictors').
More specifically, regression analysis helps one understand how the typical value of the dependent
variable (or 'criterion variable') changes when any one of the independent variables is varied, while
the other independent variables are held fixed.

Linear regression attempts to model the relationship between two variables by fitting a linear
equation to observed data. ... A linear regression line has an equation of the form
Y = a + bX
where X is the explanatory variable and Y is the dependent variable.

where a is the Y intercept and b is the slope of the line.