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Sakrawathi, Muthuletchumi Lin (2020) Understanding the effect of job resources and moderating role of self-efficacy and high workload on employee engagement: a study of Gen-Y employees in the Malaysian financial sector. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.

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Abstract

By 2025, the advent of Generation Y would have constituted 75% of the total workforce in the world. The Gen Y are described as "difficult", demanding and impatient with an attitude of leaving a job if their needs are unsatisfied. Hence, a high turnover among the Gen Y employees continuously becomes a battle for a human resource team to sustain the retention level, due to the fact that their engagement is relatively low. This study analyzes employee engagement which has emerged as a critical driver of business success in promoting retention, fostering customer loyalty and improving organizational performance. It is evident that the importance of employee engagement for Gen Y largely contributes towards organisation’s performance and productivity. Therefore, employee engagement among the Gen Y employees is an essential topic to be studied as they are more prone to job hopping and tendency to change jobs frequently, which lead to lower retention and engagement levels.

The purpose of this thesis is to address the factors that lead to employee engagement among the Malaysian Gen Y employees or also known as “millennials”, in the Malaysian financial sector. To achieve this objective, the study has adopted both qualitative and quantitative methods to understand the phenomenon of employee engagement in three different studies. The study also has adapted the concept of JD-R model as a fundamental theoretical framework to investigate the chosen variables in impacting employee engagement and the outcome of it.

The first study (qualitative) examines the meaning of employee engagement and the driving factors from the perspective of Gen Y employees by conducting semi-structured interviews with 10 respondents from financial institutions such as insurance companies and banks. The study identifies various enablers found to be the important requisites to engage better. The data from Study 1 reveals that millennials find that good working environment and workplace communication are highly acknowledged as source of engagement. The second quantitative study with 232 Gen Y respondents explores the impact of job resources on employee engagement and the role of moderators in influencing engagement level. The findings from Study 2 shows that autonomy emerges as the strongest predictor of employee engagement, while reward and recognition were least endorsed in predicting engagement. Moreover, there was partial support for moderating effects of self-efficacy and high workload between the predictors and employee engagement.

Lastly, the third study investigates the impact of employee engagement on intention to quit. The result reveals that employee engagement negatively impacts the employees' decision to quit from the company. The existing literature on employee engagement, and a fundamental conceptual framework presented at the beginning of this research discusses the implications of these findings which may shape the direction for future research in the area of engagement and generational differences.

Item Type:	Thesis (University of Nottingham only) (PhD)
Supervisors:	Ramos, Hazel Melanie Santos, Angeli
Keywords:	job resources, employee engagement, human resources, generation Y, Malaysian financial sector, millennials
Subjects:	H Social sciences > HF Commerce
Faculties/Schools:	University of Nottingham, Malaysia > Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences > Division of Organisational and Applied Psychology
Item ID:	57309
Depositing User:	SAKRAWATHI, MUTHULETCHUMI LIN
Date Deposited:	22 Feb 2020 04:40
Last Modified:	15 Nov 2023 08:25
URI:	https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/57309

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