Research and Analysis Report on the Identification of Key Factors and Indicators in the Motivation of Employees of Unisys Corporation to Increase Business Profitability 


 


 


1. Research Context for the Chosen Topic


At the turn of the century, human resources managers will have to face new challenges. The economy and markets are different from those of a decade ago. As paradigms have changed, the characteristics affecting human resources management must also be revised such as organizational structure and functions in order to keep up to pace with relevance, latest trends and strategies. In today’s fast and technological modern world, the challenge that the Information Man faces is time’s nature of putting things in order and in place in the best and most effective way. Life has changed since the invention of the computer which dictated man to deal with things in the most efficient way possible. In the world of big international business industries where transactions and other business operations are governed by law, cultural differences and mutual trust, efficiency counts largely as a common entrepreneurial aim.


 


Most of the successful business endeavors depend greatly on good interpersonal communication and relationship between the service or product providers and their clients. Persuading customers on trying the offered services and products is only a start on putting up a successful entrepreneurial activity. Gaining the trust of the clients and maintaining patrons is very important to ideal business transaction flows. But all these will be put to waste if issues and problems brought about by cultural differences between employers and employees arise in an organization functioning to achieve a common goal.


 


This research paper aims to provide investigation regarding the factors and indicators of employee motivation through the critical evaluation of the importance of communication, leadership, team work, training and development, and compensation and benefits putting into context the case of Unisys Corporation. Unisys offices are found in Greater China Cluster including China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The researcher aims to concentrate on the profitability status of the Unisys offices from these three countries. This will be useful in identifying whether similar profitability issues and causative factors are encountered by a single company operating in different locations by focusing on the key factors and indicators of employee motivation through the evaluation of the staff and employees of the business organization.


 


Along with this the research activity will present relevant data and information to achieve the following objectives:


 


1.      To present the company profile of Unisys Corporation


 


2.      To find out the significance and impact of employee motivation through a comprehensive literature review and secondary data evaluation.


 


3.      To provide primary data on the current employee motivation strategies implemented by Unisys Corporation highlighting the aspects of


a.      Communication,


b.      Leadership,


c.      Team work,


d.      Training and development, and


e.      Compensation and benefits.


 


4.      To come up with research-based conclusions and recommendations resulting from completed study.


 


Unisys Corporation provides services that are centered on creating secure business environments for its clients. Specifically, its expertise includes consulting services, outsourcing, infrastructure development, producing enterprise class servers as well as systems integration. Among the major markets serviced by the company include commercial, transportation, media, financial services, and public and communications sectors (www.unisys.com). But despite a strong global presence, the firm has been encountering some strategic issues resulting in major profitability reduction. Since the company is a customer-oriented business organization, it is then important to undertake investigations and studies regarding the human resources of the company as its primary driving force to profitability and success. 


 


For one hundred and thirty years, Unisys has been helping businesses and governments apply information technology to achieve new levels of competitiveness and success. The company’s long history and technical innovation can be illustrated by presenting the infrastructure developments that occurred within the organization for over a century. Unisys Corporation manufactured and sold the very first commercially viable adding and listing machine under the name of American Arithmometer Co. Unisys was also the Remington Typewriter Co. who first introduced the “noiseless” typewriter and the Sperry Gyroscope Co. that manufactured the sell navigational equipment (www.unisys.com).


 


Along came other technological innovations such as the portable adding machine that weighs twenty pounds, the artificial horizon and the aircraft directional gyro, the ENIAC which is world’s first large-scale, general-purpose digital computer developed at the University of Pennsylvania by J. Prosper Eckert and John Archly, the UNIVAC that enabled quick counts of statistical information, the B5000 Series which was the first dual processor and virtual memory computer, the first cache memory disk subsystem, the first mainframe based on complementary metal oxide semiconductor (COMES) technology (2200/500) under the Unisys name, the first Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server’s support for 32-processor scalability, and the Intelligent Processing Solutions Limited (ISLE) that positioned the company as one of the major providers of outsourced financial services in the world (www.unisys.com).


 


Unisys is a worldwide enterprise with clients in more than a hundred countries. Strong alliances with industry-leading companies allow the company to move quickly and confidently across a full range of advanced technologies and services and deliver solutions for secure business operations. The alliances allowed the clients to achieve exceptional performance, control costs, competitive advantage and effective risk management. The company focuses on the alliances with proven success in helping meet the specific needs of organization’s clients. These alliances include Cisco Systems, Dell, EMC2, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, Oracle, and SAP Technology (www.unisys.com).  


 


Moreover, Unisys understands that social responsibility enhances the reputation and strengthens the long-term relationships of the company with clients and partners particularly the communities where it has business operations. The company has earned place in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DOSE) for four consecutive years recognizing Unisys’ proactive policies in responsibly managing the economic, environmental and social aspects of doing business. Unisys believes in conducting business with respect and concern for the environment by promoting recycling programs worldwide and frequently incorporating recycled materials into in to the company’s products in which more than 24.8 million pounds of obsolete products have been collected and processed since 1997 through Unisys parts-recovery facilities and third parties. Unisys supports diversity councils, composed of employees, whose leadership spans gender, ethnicity and cultures to foster diverse and inclusive environment that maximizes the potential of every employee.


 


 


2. Literature Review


Human resource management (HRM) is known and accepted in the broadest sense of the term, as a form of management that includes “all management decisions and actions that affect the nature of the relationship between the organization and the employees – its human resources” (Beer et al., 1984). The tasks of those belonging in HRM can be complex as it involves all issues that encompass employee and firm relationship. Today, it can be said that role of HRM in the organization has been expanded and improved as new ways to handle employees are discovered.


 


Believing that the most important asset of a business is the people in order to achieve sustained business success is the core philosophy of human resource management (HRM). Realizing this leads to a strategic management of people within the organization. Its philosophy is based on the simple belief that human resources are the most important asset in achieving and sustaining business success. Human resource professionals basically deal with such areas as employee recruitment and selection, performance evaluation, compensation and benefits, professional development, safety and health, forecasting, and labor relations (Lippie, 2001).


 


According to Sims (1998) ensuring employee performance requires establishing a level of competence which the employee should be aware of as a target to be achieved. This is the measure to be used by managers in determining compliance with the standard and in identifying problems met by the employees in meeting the standard. In developing a training program to enhance the productivity of employees the manager will look at the competency problems of the employees and fashion the program to enable the employees to reach and even exceed the competency standard established for their work. This requires a great amount of perceptiveness on the part of the manager in determining what method of training will be most effective in improving employee competence. Some of the training includes computer software training, internet-based training and self teaching by encouraging innovativeness in the workplace (Sims, 1998).


 


Importance of employee motivation. Motivation can be assumed as the reason or the force behind why a person does what he or she does. Sometimes, it is also a means to make the person perform better and more efficient. Basically there are three assumptions in human motivation established in research. The first one assumes that motivation is inferred from a systematic analysis of how personal, task and environmental characteristics influence behavior and job performance (Wiley, 1997). The next one infers that motivation is not a fixed trait; but rather it refers to a dynamic internal state resulting from the influence of personal and situational factors (Wiley, 1997). This means that motivation may change with changes in personal, social or other factors (Wiley, 1997). Finally, motivation affects behavior, rather than performance (Nicholson, 1995; Wiley, 1997). Wiley explained: “Initiatives designed to enhance job performance by increasing employee motivation may not be successful if there is a weak link between job performance and an employee’s efforts” (p.263).


 


Definition of motivation varies. Robbins (1998) stated: Motivation – “The willingness to exert high levels of effort toward organizational goals, conditioned by the effort’s ability to satisfy some individual need”. On the other hand, Greenberg and Baron (1997) define the motivation as “the set of processes that arouse, direct and maintain human behavior toward attaining some goal”. This definition contents three key essential aspects: arousal, direction and maintaining. Arousal is to do with the drive/energy behind people’s actions such as their interests to do the things or they do it just want making a good impression on others or to feel successful at what they do. Direction means the choices people make to meet the person’s goal. Maintaining behavior could keep people persisting at attempting to meet their goal hence to satisfy the need that stimulated behavior in the first place.


 


Mullins (1999) defines motivation as ‘the degree to which an individual wants and chooses to engage in certain specified behaviors’. From this theory, Mullins (1999) identifies four common characteristics which underline the above definition of motivation:


 


·        Motivation is typified as an individual phenomenon. Every person is unique and all the major theories of motivation allow for this uniqueness to be demonstrate in one way or another.


·        Motivation is described, usually, as intentional. Motivation is assumed to be under the worker’s control, and behaviors that are influenced by motivation, such as effort expended, are seen as choices of action.


·        Motivation is multifaceted. The two factors of greatest importance are (i) what gets people activated (arousal); and (ii) the force of an individual to engage in desired behavior (direction or choice of behavior).


·        The purpose of motivational theories is to predict behavior. Motivation is not the behavior itself, and it is not performance. Motivation concerns action, and the internal and external forces that influence a person’s choice of action (Mullins, 1999).


 


From the definitions mentioned, it can be analyzed that motivation is necessary for the growth of the employee in the organization. The employee starts his career through learning, basically the culture of the organization and his responsibilities. Motivation is a vital element to learning because if an organization does not possess the ability to motivate its employees, the knowledge within the organization is not practically used to the fullest (Streakier, 1999). Thus, in every successful learning organization, finding the factors that will motivate its employees to partake in continuous learning and to take advantage of this knowledge, accordingly, becomes their aim (Streakier, 1999).


 


Streakier (1999) said that although there are many motivational theories constructed to find these motivational factors, the values of the employees in the specific organization are seldom included in the theories; thus, there is a risk for validity problems in the measuring instrument, since a suitable combination of motivational factors can only be created through an understanding of the values in the measured object (in this case, the employees). To respond to this need, Streakier (1999) constructed a model, the dynamic triangle of motivation, for the application of existing motivational theories based on needs. In the dynamic triangle motivation, different variables such as society, organizational culture and the personality of employees were taken into account (Streakier, 1999). Accordingly, by accepting the participation of employees in the motivational process and fostering a dialogue between the examiner and the examined, the values in the organization are allowed to influence the whole motivational process (Streakier, 1999, p. 77).


 


Impact of employee motivation. (2000) discussed: “Employee loyalty is the underpinning of customer satisfaction with the organization. An enthusiastic and loyal employee will nurture productive working relationships with customers. Consequently, it is better for an organization to keep experienced and productive employees to hire new ones. However, to get and keep loyal workers, the organization must have a long run time horizon. It must invest in its employees through training programs and value them through strong organizational vision. In the face of eroding loyalty, attracting and keeping good people is the key to strategic staffing in all industries and sectors” (p. 333).


 


The rotation of workers around the labor market, may it be between firms, jobs and occupations, or between the states of employment or unemployment, is called as turnover (Burgess, 1998). Accordingly, turnover is one of the most significant causes of declining productivity and sagging morale in both the public and private sectors (2000, p. 333). Excessive turnover may lead to jeopardy of the organization’s objectives and may negatively affect innovation and cause major delays in the delivery of services and introduction of new programs. It may also lead to loss of key employees, which, in turn may have negative impact on the quality and innovation of services delivered, which in turn, may negatively affect the satisfaction of customers of some departments or government agencies. For some government agencies or departments, customers include not only those people who consume services, but also the employees working in their offices (2000).


 


Retention of skilled employees is obviously important. They function well and stand out among the others. Furthermore, retentions save the company additional expenses. A company loses approximately million with every 10 managerial and professional employees who leave the organization (1997). A company also loses critical knowledge necessary for better performance when a skilled employee decides to resign. Skilled employees are badly needed because they rarely come. If the training was provided by the organization, the turnover of skilled employees would just put the training expenses into waste. Furthermore, the mobility of the company is affected greatly because every turnover puts tasks left behind by the employee into a halt. Even if there would be a temporary substitute before a new employee is hired, it is unsure if the substitute would perform the task faster and efficiently. Then, the hiring process also wastes a considerable amount of time. It also brings additional costs in advertising.


 


Snell and Dean (1992) stated that skills, knowledge and experience represent capital due to the reason that they enhance productivity. Companies invest in skills training and development to be competitive, but the failure to manage the person trained could be considered a great setback. Employee retention is basically essential in grasping a complete return on investment. Based on the human capital theory, it is imperative that companies invest in skills training and development, but they should also align the compensations and benefits of the person with his or her achievements. In the case of our company, there is obviously a lack in recognizing the achievements of skilled employees. Without recognition and growth, there is no reason for the employee to carry on his good performance, or worse, to continue his service to the organization (Snell & Dean, 1992).


 


 


3. Procedures and Methodologies


For this study, primary research and secondary research will be used. Primary research will be conducted using questionnaire surveys that will be sent to the employees of the Marketing Division, Customer Relationship Department, and Quality Management Department, if one exists. If there is no department that specifically handles quality management issues, questionnaires will be sent instead to the Human Relations Management (HRM). Furthermore, the top-management will also be surveyed as well as the several employees in the accounting division. Through this questionnaire survey, the researcher will hopefully get to know the performance level of all the departments mentioned. The researcher will also be conducting interview with certain respondents, particularly in the top-management and the management teams in the three departments, as well as in the HRM.


 


The questionnaires will be used to collect quantitative data and the interviews will be used to provide qualitative insights into the data collected. The survey will be carried out to identify the possible factors that led to the decline of the company’s profit. The interview on the other hand, will be conducted in order to gain information that the survey cannot provide. These would include data collection and analysis for specific issues faced by the company. The management group and the employees from the company’s strategic and marketing divisions are the target respondents for these processes. As this focus on the Greater China Cluster, Unisys offices in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan will be used. To analyze the findings of the survey, the researcher will make use of the Liker rating scale along with computation of the weighted mean of each survey item. Responses from the interview as well as information from secondary resources will be used to support the calculated values.


 


Key Activities


Time Scale


Duration


Resources Required


Browse on Related Literature


visit the library, check online resources,


3 weeks


Books, Journals, company documents


  


consult Unisys for documents


  


  


Preparation of the proposal


identification of the strategic problem,


4 weeks


Secondary Resources,


  


development of research objectives,


 


Research-writing books


  


selection of methodology


  


  


Development of data-gathering tools


designing of the questionnaire,


1 week


Related previous researches,


  


development of interview schedule


  


paper, photocopier, word pad program


Conduction of research proper


selection of respondents, conduction of


3 weeks


Interview and survey assistants,


  


interview and survey


  


tape recorder, paper, pens


Data Analysis


computation of survey result, encoding


3 weeks


Mescal program, word pad program,


  


interview responses, interpretation of findings,


 


research assistants, related literature


  


integration of relevant secondary resources


  


  


Preparation of the Final Dissertation


formulation of conclusions and


2 weeks


Mescal program, word pad program,


  


recommendations, editing and formatting,


 


research assistants, paper, printer


  


printing


  


  


 


 


 


Dissertation Essential Elements


To achieve this, you are required to produce a Project Dissertation of between 15,000 and 20,000 words


 


you must address the following key areas:


            • How your recommendations could be implemented given the studies that you have undertaken and your prior experience of the organisation or business sector. You will also be expected to include within your recommendations an outline plan detailing the timescales, management interventions and resources that would be need to be available to implement the recommendations.


             


            • A reflection upon the development of your skills and competences derived from the experience of undertaking the project.


 


 


Course Learning Outcomes


Upon successful completion of this module, students will be able to:


            • Identify specific substantive problems/issues/tasks within organizational/business sector placing them in a strategic context in their investigations.


             


            • Formulate a related research question via a review of the activities and operations of the organisation/business sector and the environment within which it operates.


            • Demonstrate a clear understanding of different research methodologies and their limitations, and be able to explain when one might be more appropriate than another in the context of the chosen research project.


 


            • Apply appropriate qualitative and quantitative research methods including action research as necessary to analyse organizational/business sector strategic problems.


 


            Critically review your own personal development as a manager and set actionable objectives.


             


            • Demonstrate appropriate skills in recording, interpreting and analyzing qualitative and quantitative data relating to the research topic.


 


            • Demonstrate that the project findings have been logically derived and that conclusions, solutions/recommendations are fully supported by evidence.


 


            • Derive strategic recommendations for changes in an organization’s or business sector’s activities and strategies and articulate these in a concise and coherent manner for implementation by management.


 


 


This module is designed to work in close harmony with the Research Methods module and you will be expected to draw upon ideas and concepts presented to formulate your research and carry out the dissertation. In addition, you are also required to take note of the following elements, which are essential to the success and assessment of your project:


 


                        1. Setting a Context for the Chosen Topic


 


You must provide an insight into the context underpinning the project, e.g. you may need to give a review of what is currently happening within a specific organisation or particular business sector and to review some key themes relating to the strategic problems you are investigating. Setting an appropriate context will help the reader to appreciate why you have chosen the topic and why the topic is significant.


 


                        2. Undertake a Literature Review


 


You must carry out a comprehensive review of the published work from secondary sources, which is of specific interest to the central themes of your intended investigation. When doing this, you need to:


            Identify the leading authors and practitioners and reflect upon the implications of their contribution to the central themes of the topic area.


            • Clearly state the aims and objectives of the review and provide a logical presentation of the research done


            • State the specific research question’s) supported where applicable with specific research hypotheses.


             


3. Developing Valid Methodologies


You must provide substantive evidence of why you have used particular research methods and techniques to take your investigations forward.


When doing so, you will need to:


            • Explain why such techniques and methods are appropriate.


            • Indicate that you are aware of the scope and limitations of the methods adopted.


            • Discuss the theories, concepts and models used, their rationale and how


 


They have been applied.


 


4. Review Your Personal Develop Plan


As you commence the project you must reflect upon the personal development objectives that you wish to achieve in conducting and completing your project. As such, you must include a short commentary discussing the extent to which your personal development objectives have been achieved and the skills that you refined or acquired in achieving those objectives.


 


5. Findings


You need to critical evaluate the factors/issues/problems relating to your chosen topic area. You must recognize that there are different perspectives on problems/issues and on the solutions to those problems/issues. Therefore you need to generate balanced arguments and use illustrative examples to justify your findings.


 


6. Conclusions/Solutions/Recommendations


You must summaries the results of your investigation and emphasize the significance of the results. When doing so, you will need to:


            • State solutions to problems.


 


            • Make future recommendations for future action and future research.


            • Include time scales relating to the review of your recommendations and


 


their potential implementation together with the resources and management actions likely to be required to support the measures that need to be taken.


 


7. Referencing


All sources of information will need to be appropriately acknowledged and referenced as per the Harvard Convention (Refer to the Student Handbook).



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