Factors affecting young women’s levels of engagement in the workplace in South Africa
Date
2012-10-04
Authors
Hammond, Morgyn Emma
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Abstract
Employee engagement is not a new concept and over the years a number of research studies have been conducted on the topic. However, little is known specifically about the factors that young women perceive to affect their levels of engagement, either positively or negatively, in the workplace. As a result, organisations are unaware of the specific areas they should leverage in order to build and improve engagement by young women employees going forward.
This research report aimed to identify the factors that affect young women’s levels of engagement in the workplace in South Africa.
A themed content analysis was conducted on the responses and information (individually captured interview notes) gathered from the in-depth structured interview process involving twelve respondents as young women currently working in consulting organisations. The themes and common factors identified across responses from all respondents led to a deep understanding of these issues and resulted in a list of 19 factors that young women felt affected their own engagement levels in the workplace in South Africa.
The research findings indicated that in addition to the 14 factors specifically identified through the literature review, there were another 5 factors that the respondents brought up continually during the interviews, indicating that these also played a large role in determining levels of engagement in the workplace in South Africa. The top 3 factors include: Challenging and meaningful work with opportunities for career growth, receiving constant recognition from leadership as well as people-orientated management / management effectiveness. All 19 factors are discussed in detail in the study.
The key message from this research study is that consulting firms should review and focus on the list of 19 factors affecting young women’s engagement in the workplace by ensuring that workplace practices and retention strategies are geared towards addressing these factors in order to develop, enhance and sustain young woman’s positive levels of engagement in the workplace
Description
MBA thesis - WBS
Keywords
Employee engagement, Women in the workplace