The investigation of how reward and recognition impact on the levels of employee engagement of professional services staff at University of KwaZulu-Natal.
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Date
2020
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Abstract
In today’s high-paced and boundary-less organisations, businesses world-wide are competing for
high quality talent. Human resources practitioners are faced with having to provide responsive
business solutions like ensuring that once talent is employed in the organisation, they are fully
engaged in order to drive and achieve business results. Employee engagement entails the extent
to which employees are committed and involved with the organisation and its values. Literature
has indicated a direct link between employee engagement and performance, which in turn ensures
that organisational goals are achieved. This study investigated on the Professional Services sector
employees of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, to determine their level of engagement, how do
reward and recognition influence different demographic groups and work-life variables in
Professional Services, as well as to determine the impact of reward and recognition on employee
engagement. The mixed method approach was used to collect data for this study. The study
revealed that there is a strong relationship between reward and recognition and employee
engagement, irrespective of the employees’ demographic cluster. It was also showed that these
two factors are not the only important factors that drive employee engagement. Other factors
related to recognition, as determined in the study, also impact on engagement: working on an
interesting assignment, participating in professional development activities, performance bonus
pay, as well as being nominated for a monetary performance award. Given these findings, this
therefore calls for holistic employee engagement strategies that will seek to maximise the
engagement of employees by addressing all these factors to the employees’ satisfaction.
Based on these findings, several recommendations were made, among them, the fact that the
University of KwaZulu-Natal investigates more cost-effective benefit packages which will allow
for more net pay in the staff members’ accounts. While the study revealed that benefits are
important for all categories of staff, irrespective of age, race etc., it also came out strongly that
the staff needs the flexibility and choices that will balance both needs for healthy benefit structure
and enough cash in the pocket to make ends meet.
Description
Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.