Overview of Area of Interest and Importance of the Topic [Rationale]
Over the years, the workplace has undergone massive transformation to become more dynamic than ever before. At the same time, the needs of employees have increased tremendously as many organizations have been on the forefront to ensure that they make profits and remaining competitive in the market. If at all the workforce is to deliver as expected, it has to operate in an environment that is friendly and one which allows for the development of the employee as well as the organization. This can be achieved through better methods that captivate employees to increase their production. The significance of the current research study is that it will give an outlook on what happens in organizations, what organization management should do, and how this can be done to improve the performance of employees in the modern workplace. The aim of the research projection is to explore the different methods that are used to improve the performance level an index of an employee working in a modern workplace.
Based on past studies, employees are the greatest assets that an organization can ever have and as such, they need to be motivated so that they can increase their work performance. Lindner (1998) observed that employees in the past were just regarded as an input that was applied in the production process. However, studies and publications done by Hawthorne indicated that employees needed to be motivated to perform well. This has been supported by studies carried out by Wright (2003, p2) who notes that the level of motivation of one employee motivates other employees too by making the work more important. The intrinsic nature or reward systems in the modern workplace are a form of appreciating the employees in the workplace.
According to Chapman (2009), employees should be in a position to acknowledge their employees and treat them well through motivation. This implies that employers should put the interest of employees first before their own interests in order to ensure productivity. The working environment plays an integral part in the success of the company. According to the findings of Herzberg's study, employees were more concerned with health and motivators in the workplace (Chapman). Employees studied showed safer working condition alone improved the performance of the employees. This can be applied in the modern working place to determine what employees need to ensure that their performance index is up to the standards.
Project Methodology
Because of the nature of the study where opinions, attitudes, and perceptions will be needed, the research paper will use qualitative research design. A descriptive research study will be used carry out a cross-sectional survey to establish how employee performance is and can be improved in a modern workplace. The research hypothesis will be motivation of employees in the modern workplace improves their performance.
Participants
The study will use 100 participants with 60 of them being men, while 40 of the participants shall be women. The participants will be selected from a computer manufacturing setting. The employees will be required to have a working experience of 5 years and above and of ages 25 and above. They should also need to have been working in the same setting for the at least 2 years.
Procedure
The employees of a computer manufacturing plant will be targeted. Stratified sampling will be applied to come up with the busiest 5 branches of the organization. It will then be applied again on the employees of the identified departments. Before selecting the sample size, the employees consent will be sought. It will also be explained that none of their responses will be used for publication but for academic purposes only. Thereafter, a sample size of 100 employees will be selected that has the specific characteristics. The identified sample will then be explained on what is expected of them. A ten minute section will be planned where participants’ questions will be answered. They will also be taken through the protocol and educated on their ethical rights. Confidentiality and anonymity from a third party will be provided in a form of a signed document. This will act as a motivating factor as employees will be in a position of answering the questions articulated and to the place.
Data collection Instrument
A ten item questionnaire will be designed and emailed to each of the 100 participants. The data collection instruments will be labeled Employee Performance Improvement Questionnaire (EPIQ). Each will be dispatched via the email to the different selected and identified participants. The questionnaires will be allocated two weeks period for the employees to completely fill the questionnaires and return them.
Upon the return of the questionnaire, they will be sorted out to differentiate the well filled ones from the damaged or badly answered.
The drawback of using the emailed questionnaire is that it is subjected to bias. Also, questionnaires in general have a disadvantage of some feedbacks being hard to comprehend what the respondent meant or implied making it hard to analyse.
The advantages of using the emailed questionnaires as instruments of data collections is that they are cost effective, saves time, and give information that can be used for in-depth analysis. Questionnaires are also easy to analyse and interpret the opinions of the people.
Design and Analytical Techniques to Be Used
The collected data will first be sorted out and any responses similar to each other will be grouped together. After grouping, they will be labeled and a weight assigned to each. Computer software like SPSS and Ms Excel will be used to analyse the data. Inferential statistical tests will be carried to identify any difference or relationships between the different variables. Descriptive statistics will be applied to identify any similarity in the data collected. Two parameters measures will be applied that is the central tendency measures and the variability measures. The central tendency measures will use mode, mean, and median. This will be used in describing the distribution of the collected data. Subsequently, measures of variability will be subjected to standard deviation and variance calculation to determine the correlation that exists between the different variables. The data will now be ready for decision so as to make viable conclusion.
Ethical Considerations
Since the research will use human participants, several ethical requirements will be observed. For instance, consent of the employee will be sought and the aspect of confidentiality will be observed. The employees will be told on the significance of the study. The participants will not be exposed to any psychological fear or stress in answering the structured questions in the study that may interfere with their daily operations. The participants will fill their questionnaires based on will power without any coercive force. The participants will be appreciated for their sacrifice and time in necessitating the success of the research.
References
Chapman, A. (2009). Employee motivation principles of improving employee motivation and empowerment. Retrieved from http://www.businessballs .com/employeemotivation.htm
Lindner, J. R. (1998). Understanding employee motivation. Journal of Extension, 36(3)
Wright, B. E. (2003). Toward understanding task, mission and public service motivation: A Conceptual and empirical synthesis of goal theory and public service motivation. Retrieved from http://www.pmranet.org/conferences/ georgetownpapers/Wright.pdf
