A Research on Factors Affecting Attitude of Employee, Work Efficiency

and Productivity of TripleA

1. Introduction

The purpose of this research is to identify attitudes of employees towards work and ascertain
the factors that cause negative attitudes towards work and to ascertain the relationship
between employee attitude and productivity and work efficiency of TripleA.

Background

Employees are considered to be a key component in an organization to increase the

productivity and efficiency in the process. No organization could exist without human
resource. They play a vital role in an organization in order bring that organization in to the
next level. Country like the Maldives human resources is a scared resource and effective use
of human resource for the development of the country is highly required. Employees join
organization with certain expectation like security of income and job and better carrier
progress within the organization and satisfaction of social and psychological needs. Therefore
the author believes that is the responsibility of the management to identify and recognize
those basic needs and provide appropriate opportunities and environment to people at work to
fulfill their requirements

Attitude portrayed by the employee can directly or indirectly affect the atmosphere and the
development and the work efficiency of an organization. In order to build a motivated human
resource it is the responsibility of employer to create a professional and conductive work
environment where employees could perform at their best. If such environment is created, the
employees are likely to work hard and to contribute for the success of the organization. An
attitude is a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with
some degree of favor or disfavor (Eagly and Chaiken, 1998). Attitude could be simply
described as the way an employee feels inside about their employer, co-worker, work
environment and his/her position within the organization.
There are types of employee attitudes that which impacts the productivity of a workplace

1. Job satisfaction
2. Employee engagement
3. Work commitment
4. Theft
5. Late arrival to work
6. Absenteeism

According to Valez (1972), job satisfaction has two major components

1. Intrinsic job satisfaction – i.e. employee gets the job satisfaction job itself
2. Extrinsic job satisfaction – i.e. employee gets the job satisfaction within the work
environment

It is considered that the job satisfaction is an immediate reason to inculcate the intention of
leaving the workplace. According to Fogarty (1994) job satisfaction refers to the extent to
which employees gain enjoyment from their efforts in the workplace.

When an employee feels good about his/her work and when he/she feels that he/she is valued
in the organization, he/she will feel positive and perform to the best of his/her ability. On the
other hand when he//she feels not satisfied, he//she will form the negative attitudes towards
the workplace and do not engage in the task assigned and it will impact the productivity of
the organization. Additionally the negative attitude could be identified with their action

1. Poor performance
2. Absenteeism
3. Pilfering
4. Lateness
5. Poor business ethics
6. Non-corporative to the assigned tasks
7. Problem and conflict with other employees and superiors

Organization needs to find ways to manage their employee’s attitude; therefore every
employee in the organization should exhibit positive attitudes in order to increase the
productivity and work efficiency of the organization.
Significant of the Study

1. To understand that job satisfaction is an important factor that improves the positive
attitude of the employees
2. This research will be useful for the management of the organization to know the
reasons for dissatisfaction in the job and to take appropriate measures to improve
those
3. This research will be useful for the management of the organization to understand the
factors that influence the employee’s attitude

Problem Statement

Employee attitudes have a significant impact on productivity of an organization. Employees

attitudes about managers, co-workers, peers, pay, benefits, promotions or anything that leads
to trigger positive or negative reactions. These attitudes reflect or exhibited in the work
environment that may have a positive or negative impact for the growth of organization. The
attitude of employees affects their productive in many ways and often without the
consciousness of the employee. Some of the strong attitudes of the employees are likely to
impact the productivity and growth of the organization and it needs to be identified and
proper measures needs to be taken in order to improve the productivity of the organization.
This research tries to outline that it appears employees attitudes has not been managed
properly in TripleA. This research tries to help the management to put a proper measure over
it.

Objective of the Study

1. To understand the employee’s attitude towards the organization

2. To identify the factors and reasons for employee’s positive attitude
3. To identify the factors influence the negative employee attitude
4. To understand the expectation of the employees from the organization
5. To propose suggestions and measures that which improve the employee’s attitude
towards the management and to the organization
6. To understand the attitude of the employee towards their work
 2. Identification and Discussion on the Appropriate Sampling Design

Research Design

The structure and the design of a study is the end results of an effective decisions made by the
researcher concerning how the research will be conducted (Burns and Grove, 1997). The
designing of the study is closely related with the framework of the research and which will
guides the planning for implementing the research. It provides the proper control over the
research. The current study will adopt the descriptive design since it is easy to apply and also
have the flexibility of generating diverse response from an extensive range of respondents in
the selected study population.

Research Strategy

There are different types of research methods and research strategy but none of the methods
seems superior over the other. However the choice of the method depends on the research
objective of the researcher. There are different types of research methods, those are

1. Qualitative research method

2. Quantitative research method
3. Mixed research method (Qualitative and Quantitative method)

Mixed research method will be used as a research strategy in order to arrive at the appropriate
solution.

The qualitative method will be used during the research for the following reasons

1. To analysis the unstructured information from the interview (“Why” analysis)

2. Data collection from participant observation, content analysis and conversation
analysis

The quantitative method is also equally useful due to the following reasons

1. To form absolute values of certain key issues during the research.

2. To form unbiased opinion
 3. Measurements are taken through instrumentations rather than human judgment
4. Variables can be analyzed and relationship can be established

Quantitative method is mostly used in large samples to carry out generalized conclusion.

The choice of the mixed method approach is due to increase the validity of the findings as the
negative aspect of one method would be compensated by positive aspect of the other method.

Target Population

The population for this research will be comprised staff of TripleA. The population will
consist of both employees and management. The total population will be 150 made up of 100
employees, 20 senior managers and 30 employees who already left the organization. Each
department of the organization will be taken into consideration.

Sample and Sampling Procedures

A sample simply means as a smaller representation of a large population. Sampling is used as

a method in research. Through analyzing the sample data, the research gets some findings
which will be used for arriving at the conclusion.

Methods of Sampling

Methods of sampling can be classified broadly as

1. Random or probability sampling

2. Non-random or non-probability sampling

In random sampling every element of the population gets the equal chance of being selected.
In non-probability sampling, sample are selected on some basis
Under the random sampling the following techniques could be used

1. Simple or unrestricted sampling

a. Lottery Method
b. Random numbers method

2. Restricted Random Sampling

a. Stratified random sampling
b. Systematic random sampling
c. Multistage or Cluster Sampling

Under non-random sampling or non-probability sampling the following techniques are being
used

1. Judgment sampling
2. Convenience sampling
3. Quota sampling

For the purpose of this research stratified sampling and simple random sampling will be used
to select 150 members out of total population of 600 members

Simple random sampling will be used to oversee the questionnaires. The reason behind for
selecting the simple random sampling is that every member in the research population will
get the equal opportunity of being selected for the research. The reason for the stratified
sampling is to ensure the presence of key subgroups within the sample population.

3. Appropriate Instrument for Data Collection

Source of Data

There are numerous methods to collect data for research work; however the selection of the
data gathering methods should be decided based on the context of the research problem. The
frequently used data gathering methods are questionnaire, interview, observation,
participation observation, published books, other research article on the same subjects,
government data, public reports, documentary evidence, audio and video and etc. which falls
either under primary source of data collection or secondary source of data collection.
Primary Data

A primary research will be carried out in TripleA to get the opinions of the employees and
their management to understand the impact on productivity. The data will be collected
through interview and questionnaire. The interview will help the researcher to gather valid
and reliable data which are useful for the research problem and objective. Structured and
semi-structured interview will be used to gather the data from the respondent. However semi-
structure and unstructured interview will be used in order to provide an opportunity for the
respondents to answer certain questions the way they prefer to answer.

The use of questionnaire will complement the data gathered from interview in order to
understand the attitudes and the feeling of the management to the process. Questionnaire will
be formulated in a way it directly addresses the research problem in order to receive the
appropriate response for the respondents. The responses will be collected into a template and
will be analyzed further for the proper validation of the research problem.

Other data like attendance record, time record, productivity reports, and appraisal report of
the employees will be reviewed

Secondary Data

Secondary data will be collected from internet, textbooks and other reference books which
are designed or created for the purpose of research problem. Those data will be collected
accordingly and store appropriate in order to use and compare with the actual data where it
necessary. This will help the researcher to form an opinion or to design the questionnaire or
the interview in an appropriate way.

Data Collection Instruments

Questionnaire

Comprehensive questionnaire will be designed and will be tested before the commencement
of the actual exercise. The questionnaire for this research will be developed based on the
prior discussion the researcher had with the management and with the employees. The
research questions will be developed after reviewing some scholar articles and after
reviewing the some journals which are relevant for the research question. This research
question will be administered to all 150 respondents. All these questions will be edited and
vigilantly selected keeping the research problem in the mind. The questionnaire mainly
consists with questions which are directly addressing the research problem.

The first few questions will be focused to gather information on demographics information of
the respondent. Next few questions will be aimed at gather information on employee
involvement at TripleA and its benefits to other departments. Next few questions will seek
the information regarding organizational commitment and next few questions will be focused
on job satisfaction. Subsequent questions in the questionnaire will address on negative
employee attitude. The remaining questions will shed light on the causes of employee
attitudes and the relationship between employee attitudes and productivity. The questionnaire
will significantly help the researcher to identify the cause of the research problem.

Interview

Few resigned employees will be interviewed in order to get the idea for the reason why they
have resigned the organization and what was the motive to resign the place in order to for the
basic idea about the work environment and the management process. The management will
be also interviewed by the researcher to gather their viewpoints regarding employees’ attitude
towards the work. Structured, semi-structured and unstructured interview will be carried out
as appropriate with the management, senior employees and junior employees in order to
gather their viewpoints on the employees’ attitude towards the work. All the questions will be
structured and focused on the research problem. Interviews either will be recorded with the
permission of the employees or will be documented for analysis. Confidence will be
provided that all the information shared with the researchers will be kept in strict
confidential.

Review of Other Documents

Employee attendance record and time card will be reviewed in order to understand the
problem keeping the reach question in mind. Appraisal documents and view of employee and
employer regarding the appraisal meeting will be reviewed in order to understand the causes
of the negative employee attitudes. Salary range of the particular position will be analyzed to
identify any irregularity exists in the salary range for the same position. Any significant event
that was recorded about the negative employee behavior will be reviewed in order to get the
better idea about the research problem.

Data Analysis

Data collect through questionnaire, interview, and other documents and collected through
secondary data will be fed into analytical tool in order to analysis the information and to
derive at the meaning information which will help the management to identify the issue and
to adopt appropriate measures to poster positive work attitude in order to improve the
productivity of the organization.

4. Identification and Discussion on the Appropriate Survey Method

Literature Survey

Literature survey is fast and economic way for a researcher to develop a better understanding
of a problem area of which they have very limited understanding. In this instance the research
could go through company profile and corporate profile and company structure of TripleA in
order to get the better view of the culture of the organization. In addition the researcher could
review the newspaper articles and press release of TripleA in order to gather information
about the public opinion about the company.

Experience Survey

In this method, the person who has the expertise knowledge and ideas about research subject
may be subject to question. Therefore the researcher could reach out the senior staff of
TripleA, sales managers, suppliers of TripleA and customers of TripleA to get the basic
information about the employees, attitude on the work and their experience about the
employees of TripleA. This survey would provide some valid finding for the management,
how the outside of people think about their organization.
Telephone Survey

The researcher could prepare a list of customers, suppliers or ex-employees of TripleA and
can ask some structured and unstructured questions keeping the research problem in the mind
in order to get the information on the attitude of employee at TripleA. Telephone survey is a
very convenient and easy access to the respondent in order to collect the information about
the employee attitude.

5. Discussion on the Selected Types of Data Analysis

Data is analyzed using statistics. Statistics can be classified in two ways

1. Describe data
2. Compare data

Describe Data

Describe data describes the particular data value and the number of occurrence and it
provides the meaning full information to the researcher. For example, number of people
dislikes their job roles out of total number of respondent and what is the percentage of
respondent do not like their job. This descriptive information helps the researcher to
understand the current situation of the organization

Compare Data

It allows comparing one data with another in order to get the meaningful information about
the research problem. For example, researcher can collect the market salary scale for a certain
position and can compare with the TripleA employees salary scale in order to get the better
idea about the pay irregularity within TripleA.

Data Analysis through Classification

Classification of data means grouping the data on the basis of some common characteristics.
Classified data can be used for specified purpose. Further classification provides clarity over
the data and it brings consistency over collect data which help the researcher to analysis the
collect data confidently.
In this research the data could be classified as

1. Demographic characteristics and company profile

a. Gender of respondents
b. Age group of respondent
c. Education level
d. Length of work in the company
e. Employment status

2. Effects of employee attitude on productivity

a. Employee attitude towards work
b. Positive attitude and employee engagement
c. Job satisfaction

This classification will help the researcher to analysis the data properly.

Tabulation

Tabulation is the arrangement of classified data in an orderly manner. It is a method of

presenting the summarized data. When presenting the data in tabulation format

1. It reduces the need of explanation

2. Computation of data becomes easier
3. Computation of data becomes simple
4. Easy to understand and provides clear view on data analysis

Use of Computers

Use of computers to collect, record and store data become very convenient. Use of computer
base application for data analysis provides accurate analysis from the collect data. Use of data
analysis application eliminates or reduces the human errors when performing data analysis
and could perform complex data analysis in order to provide meaningful information to the
management.
Word Processing: Data could be presented in the form of report though word processing.

Data Processing: It is a simple software and work can be done easily in a short period of
time.

Data Base Management System: Data base management system helps the researcher to solve
the complex data analysis problem and helps the researcher to draw a conclusion with the
support of various data modeling

6. Summary

No organization in today’s highly competitive business environment can perform at its best
without the employee commitment to achieve its objectives and strategic goals. Today’s
business faced with more challenges in the market, one of the key components of
organizational survival is maintaining the positive attitude of employee and increase
organizational commitment and job satisfaction in order to achieve its goal.

In order to conduct the research, the researcher adopted descriptive design since it provides
the flexibility of recording the respondent response according to the situation. It helps the
researcher to control and implement the research design to achieve the intended result. As a
research methodology, the researcher decided to implement mixed methods (Quantitative and
qualitative method) in order to collect the data from the respondents. In order to collect the
data and to select the respondents from the population, the researcher will use simple random
sampling which will ensure that everyone in the population gets the equal opportunity to
participate in the research. Further the researcher will use the stratified sampling is to ensure
the presence of key subgroups within the sample population.

Primary and secondary data collection method will be used to collect the data from the
respondents. As a primary data collection method the researcher will use questionnaire and
interview and as a secondary data collection method the researcher will use related
documents and data for comparison purpose.

Literature survey, experience survey and telephone survey will be conducted in order to
collect more valuable data in order to support the data collected through questionnaires and
interviews. Researcher will use computer based application in order to analysis the data and
present it to the management.
7. Reference List
1. Bums, N and Grove, SK (1997): The practice of nursing research. Conduct critique
and utilization; 2nd edition, Philadelphia : WB Saunders

2. Cascio, W. (1987). Costing human resources: The financial impact of behaviour in

Organizations (2nd edn.). Boston: Kent.

3. Eagly, Alice H., and Shelly Chaiken. (1998). ―Attitude Structure and Function.‖ In
Handbook of Social Psychology, ed. D.T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fisk, and G. Lindsey,
New York: McGowan Hill

4. Judge, T. A., & Church, A. H. (2000). Job satisfaction: Research and practice. In C. L.
Cooper & E. A. Locke (Eds.), Industrial and organizational psychology: Linking
theory with practice. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

5. Valez, G. V. (1972). A study of faculty satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the

intrinsic and extrinsic job factors in Columbia University. Dissertation Abstracts
International.