NATIONAL ECONOMIC UNIVERSITY BUSINESS SCHOOL E-BBA PROGRAM ENHANCING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AT JW MARRIOTT HANOI HOTEL Bachelor of Business Administration in English (E-BBA) Thesis Supervisor : Asof. Le Thi My Linh Student : Tran Thi Dang Ngoc Class : E-BBA 7A HANOI, 2019 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis was conducted as the very last graduation requirement of the Bachelor of Business Administration in English (E-BBA) program, Business School, National Economics University. First and foremost, I would like to thank all members of Management Board of National Economics University and Business School, E-BBA program, who have been organizing one of the most amazing and interesting programs. Moreover, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all lectures of E-BBA program, who have taught me a lot more than just fact and figures but also shown me their professional personal experiences and helpful feedbacks.
It means a lot to me and my future career development. Of equally important, I would like to take this opportunity to express my greatest gratitude and appreciation to my instructor – Asof. Le Thi My Linh. I am deeply indebted for her guidance, support and specialize insightful guidance on conducting and finishing this thesis.
Besides, I am grateful and would like to say thank to all the colleagues, supervisors and managers at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel for their support, guidance and collaboration to help me finish this thesis. Without their encouragement, I could hardly ever complete my internship with considerable advantageous and professional condition for future growth and development. Also, their feedbacks on my work as well as their response to my survey are appreciated as they are necessary for me to complete my thesis. I also appreciate all the participants who willing to spend their precious spare time and efforts to fulfill the survey, providing such valuable information for me to conduct the survey results in the most timely, effectivity and productivity manner.
Last but not least, I would love to express my appreciation for my beloved family and friends who always beside me and support me to complete this thesis. Once again, I truly grateful having all you guys in my life and honestly thank you all. Hanoi, January 2019 Tran Thi Dang Ngoc 2 Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.6 LIST OF TABLES.7 LIST OF FIGURES.17 CHAPTER 2: THEORICAL BACKGROUND ON EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT. Definition of employee engagement.
Role of employee engagement. Key dimensions to analyze employee engagement. Factors affecting employee engagement. Diagram of research model.
Explanation of each independent variable. Measurement of each independent variable.34 CHAPTER 3: CURRENT SITUATION OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AT JW MARRIOTT HANOI HOTEL. Overview about JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel. About Marriott International, Inc.
About JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel:. Services at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel. Organizational structure at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel. Business performance of JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel from 2015 to 2018.
Current situation of employee engagement at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel. Characteristics of survey sample. Evaluation the “Total rewards” factor (RW) affecting employee engagement level at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel. Evaluation the “Management” factor (MA) affecting employee engagement level at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel.
Evaluation the “Job characteristics” factor (JC) affecting employee engagement level at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel. Evaluation the “Working environment” factor (EN) affecting employee engagement level at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel. Comparing differences on employee engagement by characteristics. Exploratory factor analysis – EFA.
Correlation analysis and Hypothesis testing. Regression analysis with independent variables.81 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATION TO ENHANCE THE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AT JW MARRIOTT HANOI HOTEL. Improving working environment. Improving the job characteristics.
Enhancing the management system and process. Increasing the total rewards.88 LIST OF REFERENCES. SPSS Analysis results. Reliability test by Cronbach Alpha.
Exploratory factor analysis – EFA.108 5 ABBREVIATIONS EFA Exploratory Factor Analysis KMO Kaiser – Meyer – Olkin VIF Variance inflation factor SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Sig. Significance RW Reward MA Management JC Job characteristics EN Working environment 6 LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: Five-point Likert scale Table 2.1: Findings on factors affecting the employee engagement of different research Table 2.2: Questionaire design for the study of employee engagement at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel Table 3.1: Detail information about JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel’s employees Table 3.2: Gender distribution of survey sample Table 3.3: Age of the respondents Table 3.4: Working department of respondents Table 3.5: Working level of respondents Table 3.6: Average monthly income of respondents Table 3.7: Working experience measured by working years of respondents Table 3.8: Descriptive Statistics regarding “Total Rewards” factor Table 3.9: Descriptive Statistics regarding “Management” factor Table 3.10: Descriptive Statistics regarding “Job characteristics” factor Table 3.11: Descriptive Statistics regarding “Working environment” factor Table 3.12: Descriptive Statistics regarding “Employee engagement” factor Table 3.13: Summary of testing of homogeneity of variances & ANOVA - Gender Table 3.14: Employee engagement different by gender Table 3.15: Summary of testing of homogeneity of variances & ANOVA – Age group Table 3.16: Employee engagement different by age group Table 3.17: Summary of testing of homogeneity of variances & ANOVA – Working department Table 3.18: Employee engagement different by working department Table 3.19: Summary of testing of homogeneity of variances & ANOVA – Working level 7 Table 3.20: Employee engagement different by working level Table: 3.21: Summary of testing of homogeneity of variances & ANOVA – Average monthly income Table 3.22: Employee engagement different by average monthly income Table 3.23: Summary of testing of homogeneity of variances & ANOVA – Year of working experiences Table 3.24: Employee engagement different by year of working experiences Table 3.25: SPSS - Reliability test for the “Total rewards” factor Table 3.26: SPSS - Reliability test for the “Management” factor Table 3.27: SPSS - Reliability test for the “Job characteristics” factor Table 3.28: SPSS - Reliability test for the “Working environment” factor Table 3.29: SPSS - Reliability test for the “Employee engagement” factor Table 3.30: KMO and Bartlett's Test – Independent variables Table 3.31: Rotated Component Matrixa Table 3.32: Total Variance Explained Table 3.33: KMO and Bartlett's Test – Dependent variable Table 3.34: Total Variance Explained Table 3.35: Correlation analysis Table 3.36: Model Summary Table 3.38: Coefficientsa 8 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Research process Figure 2.1: Research model of Employee Engagement at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel Figure 3.1: Organizational structure of JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel Figure 3.2: Income distribution (%) of JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel from 2015 up to date Figure 3.3: Hotel occupancy of JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel over the year Figure 3.4: TripAdvisor Ranking of JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel and its food and beverage outlets Figure 3.5: Gender distribution of the survey sample (%) Figure 3.6: Age of the respondents (%) Figure 3.7: Working department of respondents (%) Figure 3.8: Working level of respondents (%) Figure 3.9: Average monthly income of respondents (%) Figure 3.10: Working experience measured by working years of respondents (%) 9 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In this globalization and modernization world, employees could, more or less, being considered as one of the most important parts that have the strong impact on the overall success of the firm. Employees should be valued and respected as one of the priceless assets of any organization, and the employers, therefore, should manage to maintain all the good people with the company, for the sake of the stable development of it in the year ahead. There are various studies, both locally and globally regarding this issue in order to evaluate the factors affecting the employee engagement and the significance of these factors on the level of employee engagement.
However, these conducted studies have been lacking of knowledge as regards to the different context of different industries, different companies and so forth. Plus, there is no research regarding the employee engagement at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel previously, hence, the author proposed to study more about this issue to investigate the current situation of the employee engagement at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel and furthermore, suggest some feasible solutions to improve it in the near future. By using the quantitative research method with questionnaire survey, the research aims to have a deep insight view about the employees currently working at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel and their perception of engagement to the hotel. By analysing and reviewing from previous researches of different researchers around the world, the author proposed to use the model comprise of four independent variables that strongly affect the level of employee engagement at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel, given carefully consideration about the hotel namely: (1) Total rewards (including intrinsic and extrinsic rewards), (2) Management, (3) Job characteristics, (4) Working environment.
The questionnaires designed consist of two parts, with 33 questions using the five-point Likert scale. The survey forms were distributed to the employees randomly at the cafeteria for associate of the hotel during lunch break time under their permissions. The total acceptable responses after eliminating all the inappropriate answers and not suitable form of responses is 159. All the collected data were then coded and used for further analysis using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 20 (SPSS).
Below is the summary of the research findings: About the current situation of employee engagement at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel: Generally, the employees at JW Marriot Hanoi Hotel are relatively loyal and have the high level of engagement to the hotel in the few years 10 ahead, despite some existing problems that have negative effects and needed to deal with as soon as possible. According to the employees, “Management” and “Working environment” are the two factors that they considered important when it comes to measure the effect on their engagement intention and satisfied them the most. By contrast, “Rewards” and “Job characteristics” have lower mean value, suggesting that these two factors are not appealing to the employees’engagement level. The study also investigated the differences in the perception and the level of engagement of employees given different gender, age group, job title, working department, average monthly income and years of experience.
It can be seen from the findings that the engagement level is equally represented between two genders, however, when it comes to other demographic such as age group, job title, working department and average monthly income, the engagement level witnessed a slight difference. Out of four mentioned independent variables, “Working environment” proven to have the strongest effect on the employee engagement at JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel. “Job characteristics” followed closely at the slightly lower level, making it the second most factor affecting the engagement of employee in JW Marriott Hanoi Hotel. These two factors, “Management” and “Rewards” are the least significant factors.
Hence, the author proposed some applicable and relatable solutions to boost up the employee engagement to the hotel in the few years ahead. As the “Working environment” affect the level of engagement the most, the author proposed some applicable solution to improve the working environment such as improving the physical working condition, focusing more on the cultural, core value of the hotel and paying more respect to improve the internal relationship within the hotel. Besides, the author also suggested to increase the task variety and task identity to improve the “Job characteristics” factor, focus on the friendliness and openness in the relationship between manager and employees to improve “Management” factor, and practice both intrinsic and extrinsic reward in the most timely manner to improve the “Reward” factor. Despite the fact that this study faced various limitation and challenges throughout the overall process, however, all in all, it still has some positive contribution to both the organization and the employees of the hotel, regarding the deeper understanding about the employee engagement issue and its effect.
Rationale There is no disputing the fact that in this globalization and modernization world nowadays, competitiveness among the market place could be seen from many different perspectives, such as the differentiation of the products, the improvement of the quality and the service, the betterment in management or the innovation in technology, for instance.