Building a culture of full engagement within a firm in Hungary

Horváth Róbert (2020) Building a culture of full engagement within a firm in Hungary. Külkereskedelmi Kar.

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Absztrakt (kivonat)

AbstractIntroductionI decided to write my thesis about employee engagement when I first encountered with this term during my internship. The company that I worked for several months was a start-up shared service center, which was on course of building a successful and engaging company culture. This sort of challenge really caught my attention, and thus I decided to “tackle it myself”, in order to get to know the process of building a culture, which is heavily based on employee engagement. Put simply, my objective was to find out what factors influence the commitment of the employees, what the leadership at a firm can do in order to harmonize performance with engagement, and what the overall culture-building process could look like.Employee engagement is an unofficial, verbal agreement between the employees and their managers, in which the management raise their efforts for the wellbeing and commitment of the employees, in the hopes of unlocking their full potential, and in return the workers will help reach company goals with their full-commitment and admirable performance. With this in mind, I analyzed the issue from the employees’ side and from the leadership’s side.Research methodsFirst, I performed a secondary research, in which I searched for previous studies in the subject of employee engagement, and then studies about the shared services sector. Next, I approached the issue from the employees’ side, where I intended to learn about the profile of the different generations, and the motivational factors that influence the commitment to their companies. Then I approached the issue from the leadership’s point of view, and its role in engagement, by learning about the various leadership styles, talent management, Practical Process Improvement (PPI), and perhaps the most important element in building a culture: crafting a vision.While I was able to personally observe the processes at the company during my internship (and thus getting useful pieces of information on engagement), my primary research was based on a personally-constructed online questionnaire, which was sent out in March, 2020. The idea behind the survey was that I intended to see through the eyes of the respondents, and get a picture about the culture at their companies, specifically focusing on the employees and the leadership.To achieve this goal, I drew up 5 hypotheses focusing on the following factors: the role of money in the employees’ motivation, the firms’ efforts in training and developing the personal and professional skills of their workers, the emergence of the business system called Practical Process Improvement (PPI), the overall relationship between the employees and their respective managers, and the firms’ emphasis on Corporate Social Responsibility.The survey was filled out by 121 respondents, with the large majority, 91,7%, working in Hungary in various sectors, such as Business Services, Finances, Logistics & Transportation, and IT Services. The average age of the respondents was between 20 and 30, with three quarters being at their job for at least a year.FindingsAt the start of the survey, I asked the respondents which inner driver is closest to their motivation, in order the get an overall picture of how they are feeling right know. The large majority chose Achievement as the closest driver, and I was trying to use this mindset while analyzing the results.The first thing that turned out in the research was that financial rewards and benefits are actually so important (or even crucial) for employees, that they can be decisive factors when it comes choosing a place to work for and staying at the company. These financial benefits can come in the forms of salaries, bonuses or even insurance packages.The second hypothesis was based on the frequency and the type of company trainings, with the main goal of improving the skills of the workers. I found out that the leaderships put special emphasis on trainings, because the respondents indicated that they regularly have training sessions, and that E-learning and on-the-job trainings are the most widely used ones. If we consider that most of the respondents strive for achievement, learning useful and performance-boosting skills to reach certain goals is not only of the interest of the leadership but of the employees as well.The third hypothesis focused on the relevance of Practical Process Improvement (PPI), a business system designed to solve complex issues by inviting employees (as team-members) to share their views and come up with solutions together, thus getting involved in the problem-solving process. This method is probably one of the most useful tools, as it harmonizes engagement with performance. I learnt PPI (or at least some forms of it) is indeed present at companies, since managers either often or always ask for the opinions of the employees in certain business matters, and the workers themselves do feel that their inputs are very important to the company.The next thing I intended to learn about was the relationship between the employees and their respective managers. It turned out that in most cases the relationship is either good or very good. There are three reasons (that I also learned from the primary research) behind this result: in the majority of the cases managers fully appreciate the efforts of their employees, pay attention to the problems of their workers, and most employees feel that they have a healthy work-life balance. We could say that all these results point to the same reason: recognition by managers.The fifth and final hypothesis dealt with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and whether companies take it seriously or not. As we know, CSR consists of 4 key elements, namely philanthropic efforts, employee resource groups (for women, LGBTQ+ employees, or people with cultural diversity), volunteer programs, and initiatives for environmental protection. From the research it was obvious that employees consider environmental protection as the most important CSR element, and that these eco initiatives are present at their companies, according to more than 75% of the respondents. However, the other three CSR elements are somewhat neglected, and while it is quite admirable that environmental protection is high on the list of priorities, the other elements should also be taken care of, as they aim at promoting empathy and solving contemporary social issues.Based on the primary and secondary researches we can highlight 4 key words with regards to employee engagement: rewards, training, recognition and involvement. These 4 are the most important for employees, and are crucial in the implementation of any engagement strategy.ConclusionBy the end of research, I was able to find out about the process of building a culture of full engagement within a company. The very first thing the leadership at the company does is crafting a vision, in which the core values and principles are encompassed, and which describes how things are done within a company. Once they get to the point of employee engagement, they create a strategy in which reward, training, recognition and involvement programs are included. Next, they create a value proposition and an employer brand, which are visible for people outside the company, and which create a certain image about the firm, and use them in their recruitment process. I found out, that this is the point where employee engagement can start, since the value propositions and employer brands can “ignite the motivation" of the people to work for the company. Once the engagement strategy is in place, and people are recruited, the leadership regularly measures the level of engagement using engagement surveys, one-on-one interviews, and exit interviews.As a recommendation, I pointed out that companies should put more emphasis on Corporate Social Responsibility, managers should regularly sit down with their employees to know them better and build a fruitful relationship, and that policies regarding engagement should be obvious and easy to understand, in order for employees to be fully aware of the fact that their efforts are indeed valued at the company.

Intézmény

Budapesti Gazdasági Egyetem

Kar

Külkereskedelmi Kar

Tanszék

Nemzetközi Gazdaságtan Tanszék

Tudományterület/tudományág

NEM RÉSZLETEZETT

Szak

Nemzetközi gazdálkodás szak (angol)

Mű típusa:	diplomadolgozat (NEM RÉSZLETEZETT)
Kulcsszavak:	cégvezetés, dolgozói elégedettség, generáció, motiváció, szervezeti kultúra
SWORD Depositor:	Archive User
Felhasználói azonosító szám (ID):	Archive User
Rekord készítés dátuma:	2020. Nov. 29. 19:40
Utolsó módosítás:	2020. Nov. 29. 19:40

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