What Type of Incentives Affect Employees Turnover - Qatar Airways - Research Paper Example

What type of incentives affect employees’ turnover? Student Name Student ID E-mail address Supervisor Name Academic Year Semester February 25, 2015 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Literature review 3 Introduction 3 Employee retention 4 Job Satisfaction 5 Training as a Source of Employee Learning and Satisfaction 6 Methodology 7 Results 7 Introduction 7 Sample 8 Statistical test is appropriate for the purpose 10 Conclusion and Recommendations 13 Annotated Bibliography 15 Introduction Qatar Airways is a globally recognised company that is by far one of the fastest growing airlines in the aviation industry to date. The company has received numerous awards over the past couples of years and has thus gained its 5-star reputation in the market place for delivering the highest possible standards of service and excellence. To ensure that the company has and is continuing to grow, a lot time and money is being invested to ensure that all Qatar Airways employees are trained to the highest level. A variety of training courses are on offer, which has thus resulted to one of the biggest overhead expenses for the company. These courses would include aircraft type ratings for pilots, aircraft maintenance engineers training and service training for cabin crew to mention but a few. From a company point of view this investment would be irrelevant if employment turnover was low. Sadly, this is not the case. In Qatar Airways there is a high percentage of employee turnover and a small percentage of employee retention. In view of these statement high turnovers is a result of several factors. Employee dissatisfaction can lead to poor customer service and as a result to the slow decay of this 5-star brand. I wish to prevent this from happening and will research and investigate and present new ways and develop strategies to improve employee retention in Qatar Airways. Literature review Introduction This literature review focuses on employee turnover and employee motivation. Satisfaction is clearly linked to employee turnover which is a key factor in driving employees to give their best performance and increase their productivity or leave. Satisfied employees are also likely to remain loyal, and retention of desirable employees is one of the huge challenges that an organization has to tackle; talented employees are critical in achieving business objectives. Employee retention Employee retention refers to the ability of an organization to keep critical employees from leaving the organization (Arms, 2010). The HR department is charged with the task of implementing optimal strategies that ensure that corporations attract and retain talent. To ensure this objective, the HR manager must identify the needs of these employees and formulate retention initiatives geared towards increasing the organizations' pull factors and decreasing the push factors. This entails a comprehensive understanding of why employees leave or stay in an organization. Although these push and pull factors must be individualized to specific employees, employees may seek to leave an organization because of various generic factors. This includes: lack of trust in upper management, ineffective leadership, poor remuneration, poor employee development opportunities, poor autonomy, structural plateaus, and better market scenarios (Jins, and Radhakrishnan, 2012).). To increase the organizations’ employee retention ability, HR can implement various strategies meant to counter these adverse factors. This may include ensuring: optimal competency and performance development programs, ideal compensation plans, optimal work-life balance, supportive management, increased autonomy, enhanced communication channels, and ideal job-fits (Jins, and Radhakrishnan, 2012). Optimal employee engagement and retention is a key factor that determines the continued sustenance and development of an organization. The HR department is the major stakeholder, charged with the task of implementing relevant policies and practices that attract, recruit, and retain the very best candidates from an extensive pool of human resources (Schubert-Irastorza, and Fabry, 2014). Ensuring this objective requires strategically matching different talents, skills, and personalities to existing opportunities and corporate culture. When these candidates join an organization as employees, the HRM department must also inculcate loyalty, avail the best human resource development avenues, and also ensure that these parties perform their duties with utmost commitment and diligence(Schubert-Irastorza, and Fabry, 2014). Furthermore, it is this department that ensures that all employees are engaged in decision-making processes. This promotes a sense of belonging for employees from all levels. This also ensures optimal policy implementation within the organization. Job Satisfaction The most commonly used definition of job satisfaction is by Locke which is ‘a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences(Schubert-Irastorza and Fabry, 2014). Contained in this definition is the significance of both affect and cognition or feeling and thinking. When people think, they feel something about it. When people have feelings, they think about what they feel. Hence, cognition and affect are connected psychologically and biologically. Evidence shows that there is a shared relationship in the cerebral areas specific for processing emotions and for cognition when performing certain mental operations (Schubert-Irastorza and Fabry, 2014). In evaluating one’s work as when assessing anything significant, both thinking and feeling are involved. Satisfaction is positively and negatively influenced when expectations for that particular facet are met or not. For instance, if employee A values flexibility and independence and employee B does not, then employee A would be more satisfied in a position that offers greater flexibility and independence and less satisfied if given little flexibility and independence as compared to employee B (Larkin, Brasel and Pines, 2013).. The HR department must be actively involved in implementing actions geared towards reducing the amount of negative outcomes in terms of employee: commitment, production, performance and satisfaction. This is imperative in reducing wastage of corporate resources (Firth, Mellor, Moore and Loquet, 2004). Corporate rules and regulations must create an avenue through which each of these aspects can be addressed with organizational human resource policies being aligned to meet the business strategies while attracting as much involvement from the workers as possible. This is also critical in ensuring that the HRM facet accurately identifies issues arising from existing HR policies and which may affect the retention of workers within the organization. Formulating and implementing relevant evaluative mechanisms is imperative (Danny, Guedri, & Hatt, 2008). Training as a Source of Employee Learning and Satisfaction The increasing trend of making workplaces a high end learning environment has taken many organizations into its folds. The significance of learning is due to the obvious need of adapting to changing environment. Small firms usually donot hold a formal training ssession for its employee due to the lack of resources. However, they do conduct informal training sessions whose significance cannot be undermined. These informal training sessions can help in assessing the employee learning. It is already observed that small firms are less likely to invest in large training session and it is not suited to them rationally. The reason is that it incurs high cost of conduction, the cost associated with the “employees’ time” and expected absence of significance of the training with the job on hand. This is the reason that small firms don’t conduct large training sessions. Methodology Data collection commenced with the recruitment of Qatari national employees between pilots, engineers, and nationalisation department as a result, 1811 participants agreed to participate in the study. This was after an informed consent form was presented to the participants. The aim of this form was to introduce the researcher to the participants and the project instructions. In addition, the form indicated what the participants were to contribute in the data collection process. Data collected in this exercise were entered in the excel spreadsheet for further analysis using the SPSS software. Various statistical analyses were conducted on the data collected. Among these, analysis done on the data included the correlation t-test and independent sample test. The results yielded by the analysis were discussed to test the hypotheses and checking if the questions had been answered. Results Introduction A paired t-test is a statistical tool that compares the means of two groups of observations. An instance of where this might occur is a comparison of two different forms of measurements or two different treatments where the measurements and interventions are applied to the same subjects, as in this quasi-experimental action research. A paired t-test looks at the variation between paired values in two samples, considers the variation of values in each sample, and generates a single number known as the t-value. To test if the difference is values is significant, a risk level (the level or the p-value) is set. In most social research, this is set at .01 which means that one times out of one hundred there is a statistically significant difference between the means. So, the t-test measures how dissimilar two samples are (the t-value) and tells how probable such dissimilarity would appear in two samples from the same group (the p-value). Correlation Analysis- There is a need for correlation analysis by summarizing the strength of the relation between variables. However, the correlation cannot be assumed to mean the causation between the variables. Although several correlation coefficients can be calculated, the “Pearson moment correlation” along with the “Spearman rank correlation" coefficients are the two important ones that are normally used to analyse social sciences research data. Sample The study targeted 1811 persons but only 65% of participants managed to respond to the call. These people underwent a recruitment done online in social media and included close friends. Participants in this study got notifications through e-mail in which they had to qualify as well as volunteer to give the information required in the questionnaire. At the same time, the participants got an informed consent form. Age and gender of the participants was another point of concern. Out of 1811 participants, there were 1183 females and 624 males. Test-Retest-Reliability of the scales scores 0.72, internal consistency – measured using Cronbachs Alpha of 0.81  Gender: The bar graph above shows the distribution of gender in terms of frequency. It shows that male was the largest number in terms of the respondents. AGE: From the bar graph below, it shows that over 546 were aged between 20 and 29 years old while between 30 to 39 years old were 451. The rest of age groups is shown below; The Ethnicity of the participants was as follows; Statistical test is appropriate for the purpose The Pearson’s correlation is calculation and begins by ranking of available data. This is done by setting an order pertaining to valued data and numerically labelling them, starting from one and working your way above. In the event that 2 valued data has the same magnitude, an averaged amount is assigned to them. Hence, it can be said that relevant coefficient used with the method measures the linear relation entailing the arranged dataset. The value of the coefficient will lie in the region of plus and minus one. In a direct relation, the ranked variables would move in the same direction and in an inverse relation, the ranked variables will move in the opposite direction with respect to one another. When the two variables are exactly linear, a coefficient value of either -1 or +1 will appear. From the correlation, analysis carried using SPSS as shown above Pearson correlation for IV1 and IV2 as well as IV3 is 0.034 and 0.159 respectively while the relationship with DV1 and DV2 is 0.085 and 0.237 respectively. The Pearson correlation for IV1 and age is 0.191. Pearson correlation for IV2 and IV3 is 0.155 while the relationship with DV1 and DV2 is 0.804 and 0.27 respectively. The Pearson correlation for IV2 and age is 0.126. Looking at Pearson correlation for IV3 and DV1 and DV2 is 0.282 and 0.627 respectively while the Pearson correlation for IV3 and age is 0.280. For Pearson correlation for DV1 and DV2 is 0.384 while the Pearson correlation for DV1 and age is 0.318.Lastly Pearson correlation for DV2 and age is 0.324 Since 0 > ρ >0, Thus the null hypothesis is rejected; there are positive relationship among them . Therefore, it can be concluded that there is sufficient sample evidence at 1% level of significance to suggest that there is a positive relationship between variables. The strength of the relationship variables varies from weak to strong. The study also conducted a t-test on the variables both in male and female to differentiate how the variables compares. The mean of the variables of gender (SPSS Output) Is there a significant difference of average variables for genders? Step 1: The null and alternate hypothesis , i.e. there is no significant difference of average variable for genders. , i.e. there is a significant difference of average for genders. Step 2: The Significance level, α Selecting 91% significance level, i.e. α = 0.01 Step 3: The value of the Test Statistic Using SPSS(table), the value of test statistic is t =- 7.336 for DV2, t =- 6.746 for DV1, t =4.055 for IV1, t =-5.087 for IV2 and t =6.117 for IV3 Step 4: The P-value P-value = 0.221 for DV2, P-value = 0.911 for DV1, P-value = 0.75 for IV1, P-value = 0.076 for IV2 and P-value = 0.021 for IV3 Step 5: Decision (If P ≤ α, reject; otherwise do not reject) Do not reject, as P-values are greater than the selected significance level (0.01) and conclude. Step 6: The result of the hypothesis test As per our hypothesis test, it has been found that there is no difference in the average variables all genders. This reveals that there were no possibilities that the any gender had higher t-values. Conclusion and Recommendations In conclusion, the human resource (HR) department adds value to a business and has strategic importance especially in regard to organizational retention management practices. This department is therefore critical to the success of an organization. This is especially the case in regard to recruiting, engaging, developing, and retaining employees. Ensuring that these processes are suited to the business environment, the organizational culture, and the specific employee clusters; cuts down on corporate expenditures, motivates employees, and increases organizational performance. The HR department also addresses emerging conflicts, promoting a non-hostile working environment and consequently increasing employee loyalty and retention. From the above results derived from the study, it was clear that in there is disparities between genders when it comes to independent and dependent variables by the participants. This research topic however was inexhaustible by this study as well as previous researches because the results keep on conflicting. Therefore, this study recommends use of different materials and research designs that could reveal more information on this topic. However, researchers should not research on some areas that already confirmed by previous studies. Therefore, the study recommends review of previous studies to locate areas that require more research. Annotated Bibliography Arms, D. (2010). How to Retain Your Employees. Strategic Finance, 92(3), 19-22. The methodology used by the author is quantitative method based in descriptive theory. The aim of this article was to highlight factors that affect employee performance. The findings in this article show that turnover costs are high due to recruiting and training. Focusing more on establishing developmental programs can reduce these costs. Which will encourage employee growth and will lead to employee retention? Campbell, B. A., Ganco, M., Franco, A. M., & Agarwal, R. (2012). Who leaves, where to, and why worry? employee mobility, entrepreneurship and effects on source firm performance. Strategic Management Journal, 33(1), 65-87. doi:10.1002/smj.943 The methodology was used in this study is a quantitative. The aim of this study was to find out who is more likely to move or leave their jobs and the impact it has on that particular company. What was found is that employees earning higher salaries are more likely to stay than employees earning lower salaries. Higher earners prefer to, if they decide to leave, start their own businesses rather than joining other competitors. Jins, J. P., & Radhakrishnan, R. (2012). Changing Jobs: Influencing Factors. SCMS Journal Of Indian Management, 9(1), 59-68. The methodology the authors used in this study is quantitative from five different industries by collecting sample to analyse. The purpose of this study was to show the motives, inclinations and factors that influence job retention and resignation. Findings from this research suggest that employees are more likely to move from one company to another due to two factors namely, company and personal factors. Wright, T. A., & Huang, C. (2012). The many benefits of employee well-being in organizational research. Journal Of Organizational Behavior, 33(8), 1188-1192. doi:10.1002/job.1828 This was a quantitative study based on objectives, and empirical research data for over a decade. The aim of this study was to explore the many advantages of having happy and satisfied employees within an organisation. The findings of this article showed that if a healthy work relationship is maintained between the workplace and employees, work performance is high, employee retention is also higher and a healthier lifestyle is maintained for employees within that organisation. Schubert-Irastorza, C., & Fabry, D. L. (2014). Job Satisfaction, Burnout and Work Engagement in Higher Education: A Survey of Research and Best Practices. Publication of National University, 37. The author used quantitative method by distributing survey and analyzes the data. This study investigates the development of exploration on employment fulfillment, burnout, and work engagement, principally in the helping callings, with particular concentrate on personnel in advanced education. Opinions right now compare over the presence of a direct connection between job satisfaction and firms’ gained benefits. Nonetheless, different studies have asserted that satisfied employees are having better life style and less likely to change jobs. Firth, L., Mellor, D. J., Moore, K. A., & Loquet, C. (2004). How can managers reduce employee intention to quit?. Journal Of Managerial Psychology, 19(2), 170-187. doi:10.1108/02683940410526127 Distributing a questionnaire to a 173 salespeople. This was a quantitative study in which after the data was collected and analyzed. The purpose of this study was to look at the part manager’s play when it comes to employees deciding to quit and influencing factors around their decisions to leave. What was found is that stress, work overload and bad relationships between managers and employees are the key factors that lead to high turnover. These issues needs to be dealt with in order to gain job satisfaction and employee retention. Larkin, J. E., Brasel, A. M., & Pines, H. A. (2013). Cross-disciplinary applications of I/O psychology concepts: Predicting student retention and employee turnover. Review of General Psychology, 17(1), 82. A study made using questionnaire on two surveys over two years. Which indicate a quantitative methodology. The aim of this article was to highlight what they found after a two-year case study on students using more than one branch of psychological concepts to determine the factors that influence student retention and withdrawal. They found that they were able to accurately predict certain trends in students and that these findings can transcend boundaries and apply to other disciplines as well. Aircraft Pilots and Flight Engineers. (2008). Occupational Outlook Handbook, 1-4. The author used a qualitative method of describe Nature of the Work 
and the work environment. The aim of this article was to highlight certain working trends for aircraft pilots and flight engineers. They found that pilots and engineers generally start working at low-cost airlines firstly to gain experience and secondly because with larger airlines there is more competition. Many pilots only have military experience and no proper qualifications. They also commented on how pilots are amongst the highest earners in society. Rahman, W., & Nas, Z. (2013). Employee development and turnover intention: theory validation. European Journal Of Training & Development, 37(6), 564-579. doi:10.1108/EJTD-MAY-2012-0015 The author on this study is a quantitative questionnaire, based on data collected from over 300 samples from 16 universities in a province with about 3500 populations. The aim of this study was to inspect the trend of turnover intention in developing countries with regards to employee’s attitude and behaviour. The study found that employee development perceptions has a direct affect on turnover and validates the development-attitude-behaviour relationship theory. Katherine Broughton, J. S. (2013). Strategies to increase employee Wellness and civility. Ashburn, VA: Parks & Recreation . The author used a qualitative method of describing what is burnout and what are the causes of the staff burnout. The aim of this article was to define characteristics of employee burnout within the workplace and how to eliminate them. The study found that burnout could be combated by introducing wellness programs to encouraging employees to report for duty irrelevant if they are ill or under stress also by increasing civility to boost the overall morale in the workplace. Read More