PRJ6001 Applied Project Report Sample

PRJ6001 Applied Project

Assessment 2: Critical Review of Literature Synthesis of the current literature including comparison of various authors’ views and identification of research gaps, highlighting the critical analysis of previous research.

Assessment 2 Detail

A report outlining the current literature including comparison of various authors’ views and identification of research gaps, highlighting the critical analysis of previous research.

For Assessment Task 2 you need to prepare a report, which Includes synthesis of findings of all key authors in the field with a wide range of references specific to the topic using a structure like shown below:

1. Project Title

2. Abstract: provide a summary of the literature review

3. Critical evaluation of the literature: this section may be divided into several sub-sections   depending on nature of the research

4. Identification of research gaps

5. Conclusion

6. References and Resources: provide references to key research studies, government reports and/or industry reports using Harvard Referencing.

Solution

Topic - The research topic is to analyze the effect of the working conditions on employee satisfaction and turnover rate with respect to Coles Group.

Critical Evaluation of Literature

Impact of working environment on job satisfaction:

The study conducted by Raziq and Maulabakhsh, (2015) states that employee satisfaction is an essential component for their motivation and also the main stimulus behind their performance levels. As per the MBA Assignment Experts overview,  It is an integrated set of physiological, psychological, and environmental factors that encourage employees to assess whether they are happy with their current job or not. Raziq and Maulabakhsh, (2015) also state that companies cannot afford to forcibly retain dissatisfied employees because they will no longer perform up to the expectations or standards of the senior leaders. Therefore it is beneficial for the companies to provide them with flexible working conditions and value their opinions for the collective growth of the firm. Raziq and Maulabakhsh, (2015) classify job environments into two broad dimensions - work and context. Work is characterized by the various tasks that the employees have to carry out and the sense of achievement they should receive upon their completion, whereas context defines the physical and social working conditions that the employees have to undergo.  Raziq and Maulabakhsh, (2015) feel that different factors within the context of an organization, such as working hours, wages, individual autonomy, structure of the organization, and scope of communication allowed between employees and the management greatly affect the satisfaction level of its employees. Employees deserve to be respected, and when organizations fail to maintain that, job dissatisfaction increases.  

Relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention:

As per Alam and Asim, 2019, turnovers in organizations are mostly determined by the attitude of the employees and can have a positive or negative impact on their future success. Increased turnover intentions cause an employee retention crisis and call for immediate changes in the policies and structure of the organization. Besides, newly recruited employees will need time to adjust to the new conditions and hence lower the usual productivity rate of the company. Alam and Asim, 2019 state that the level of understanding between the employees working together as a team and their collective outcome has a positive impact on the level of job satisfaction. Organizational justice and team spirit greatly affect employee satisfaction, and it lacked whenever the employees feel that they are being neglected or there is a lack of clarity in the job. As per Alam and Asim, 2019, the emotional attachment felt by the employees towards their organization greatly influences their turnover intentions, and hence there exists a negative relationship between commitment to an organization and the intention to leave.

Improving job performance through employee engagement:

Arifin, Nirwanto, and Manan, (2019) state that employee performance is the collective sum total of the individual performances of each employee in an organization that collectively contributes to the organizational performance. According to Arifin, Nirwanto, and Manan, 2019, good organizations always try to keep their employees satisfied because satisfied employees do not work under any coercion and are focused on taking the organization to a better place in the future. Employee satisfaction usually determines the level of employee retention as satisfied employees do not think of leaving their jobs and can adjust themselves with ease compared to frustrated employees. There are situations when employees like their work while there are also situations where the employees do not like their workplace. As per Arifin, Nirwanto, and Manan, (2019), employees who feel satisfied in their jobs are eager to participate in various training programs and develop new skills and technologies that would help them in the long run in their professional careers.  

Mediating effect of job happiness on job satisfaction, employee performance and turnover intentions:

According to Al-Ali et al. (2019), employees who are dissatisfied with their present working conditions will not work effectively and may become a barrier to the growth and success of the organization. The human resource management of an organization is responsible for exploring the various ways of improving employee engagement and satisfaction to lead the organization forward. Al-Ali et al. (2019) studied the relationship between turnover rates and employee satisfaction conducted in previous studies and found that they are inversely related to each other. They found that low job satisfaction indicates higher turnover intentions and an increase in absenteeism and lack of commitment. According to Al-Ali et al. (2019), employee job satisfaction is a good indicator for retaining highly experienced and skilled employees in a business. 

Identification of Research Gaps

The limitation in most of the studies was that the gathered data for conducting the research was cross-sectional in nature rather than longitudinal. Most researchers suggested that having longitudinal data would improve the understanding of the research variables and hence future research should be conducted on this topic. 

Another limitation that some researchers stated was the lack of accessibility to organizational data to correctly base their research. The information they could gather was very difficult to acquire, and the respondents had to be stated as anonymous, and their identities had to be concealed to prevent any unnecessary problems at their workplace (Taheri, Miah, and Kamaruzzaman, 2020). The organizations have access to these research papers and hence they can utilize the information and change their future course of action to attain long-term success. 

To conduct extensive research like these taking into account the employee performance levels, working conditions available to the employees, job satisfaction levels, and turnover intentions require a significant amount of time and commitment (Pancasila, Haryono, and Sulistyo, 2020). Lack of time can hamper the prospect of research and reduce the accuracy of the data being collected or the conclusions being drawn. Hence, the researchers have stressed collecting data over a long period to guarantee its viability and accuracy. 

Conclusion

Organizations such as Coles Group need to regularly spend on research and development to increase their effectiveness. Job happiness plays a crucial role in ascertaining the levels of satisfaction among the employees and their turnover intentions within an organization. Employee engagement has been seen as a necessity to maximize job satisfaction and a stimulus to greater job performance. Greater employee engagement signified greater employee performance which is influenced by both the external conditions and internal situation of a company. Turnover intentions are usually preceded by the employee’s organizational commitment, career and job satisfaction, and the prospect of improvement. HRM practices like providing compensation and benefit, performance improvement training, and employee relations enhancement models can sway the turnover intentions of employees to a certain extent and help Coles Group retain skilled employees. However, employees who greatly value their self-worth and want to build a brighter future for themselves will always keep their importance before the organization, which might be holding them back.

References

Al-Ali, W., Ameen, A., Isaac, O., Khalifa, G.S. and Shibami, A.H., 2019. The mediating effect of job happiness on the relationship between job satisfaction and employee performance and turnover intentions: A case study on the oil and gas industry in the United Arab Emirates. Journal of Business and Retail Management Research, 13(4). 

Alam, A. and Asim, M., 2019. Relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention. International Journal of Human Resource Studies, 9(2), pp.163-194.

Arifin, Z., Nirwanto, N. and Manan, A., 2019. Improving the effect of work satisfaction on job performance through employee engagement. International Journal of Multi-Discipline Science (IJ-MDS), 2(1), pp.1-9. 

Pancasila, I., Haryono, S. and Sulistyo, B.A., 2020. Effects of work motivation and leadership toward work satisfaction and employee performance: Evidence from Indonesia. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business, 7(6), pp.387-397.

Raziq, A. and Maulabakhsh, R., 2015. Impact of working environment on job satisfaction. Procedia Economics and Finance, 23, pp.717-725. 

Taheri, R.H., Miah, M.S. and Kamaruzzaman, M., 2020. Impact of working environment on job satisfaction. European Journal of Business and Management Research, 5(6).