Human Resources Management
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Browsing Human Resources Management by Author "Joubert, P. A., Dr."
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Item Employees' perceptions of the effects of retrenchment on job stress and organisational commitment in a mining company(Vaal University of Technology, 2016-11) Seteni, Landiswa Pilvia; Joubert, P. A., Dr.; Dhurup, M., Prof.In the decade before 2005, South African organisations have had to cope with an ever-increasing rate of local and global changes. There have been considerable and ongoing socio-political changes, resulting from new Government regulations. Most organisations have experienced some type of downturn, whether due to external business factors or poor internal performance. A typical response to organisational decline is retrenchment. Retrenchment is attributed to cyclical downturns, market losses or other economic factors, which oblige the employer to reduce the labour force numbers. Though there are so many ways of responding to organisational failure, this study focused only on retrenchment. A number of psychologists and human sciences researchers have studied the results of job loss due to retrenchment. Retrenchment brings loss of skills, loss of morale and commitment, as well as physical and mental health degradation, including stress that results in employees withdrawing physically and emotionally. The main purpose of this study was to outline the employees’ perceptions of the effects of retrenchment on job stress and organisational commitment in a mining company. The research methodology used in this study is a combination of a literature review and an empirical study. The probability sampling technique, which entails using simple random sampling, was used to select the sample of the study. The primary data were collected using a questionnaire. The measuring instrument contained 43 items. The measuring instrument was pilot-tested with 50 respondents three weeks before the main survey; the questionnaire was self-administered to the participants. For the main survey, data from 294 respondents were collected and analysed. Participants in the study involved surface employees, including management, administrators, engineers and artisans. Data were analysed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of the various sections of the measuring instrument were computed to establish construct validity. Content validity was ascertained by pre-testing the questionnaire with the employees in the mine in question. Correlations were used to establish convergent validity of the constructs. Convergent validity was assessed to measure the degree of linear association of variables using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Discriminant validity was achieved by using regression analysis to show items loaded onto different factors in various sections which had more than one factor. Analysis was done using descriptive statistics on the demographic information of respondents. The results were also interpreted through correlation and regression analysis. The results showed that the effects of retrenchment did not have a negative impact on job stress (time stress and anxiety). This may be due to the mine in question planning and consulting with the employees prior to the retrenchment process. The results also showed that job stress (time stress and anxiety) is negatively associated with organisational commitment. Subsequent to these findings, it is recommended that employees (survivors) be updated on their future in the company in question. This could be done through regular workshops and counselling of employees. In order to motivate and engage employees, and thereby contribute to employee commitment, it was also recommended that organisations create open, supportive and fair organisational and team cultures, and ensure jobs are clearly aligned with organisational goals and have appropriate levels of autonomy, support and career development. Given that job satisfaction plays a huge role in organisational commitment, it was further recommended that managers need to actively improve their organisation’s job satisfaction to employees in order to achieve a higher level of organisational commitment. The study concludes by recommending that communication between employees and management should take place on a regular basis which can serve as a fundamental tool to retrenchment in the following manner: Survivors will feel more committed to the organisation when the basis of retrenchment addresses the circumstances in the external environment, rather than the enrichment of shareholders or top management. Communicating a clear vision of how retrenchment will benefit stakeholders, increases commitment since survivors can see a clear future for the organisation. When survivors are treated with dignity and respect, they will feel more committed to the organisation because they feel appreciated.Item Job satisfaction and intention to quit of employees in non-governmental organisations in Swaziland(Vaal University of Technology, 2017) Msibi, Welile Nompumelelo; Janse van Rensburg, C.; Joubert, P. A., Dr.The main purpose of this study was to identify and describe the factors contributing to job satisfaction among employees of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Swaziland and to understand the drivers leading employees to think of quitting. Non-governmental organisations are institutions that provide employment opportunities in addition to the private sector and government institutions. The success of NGOs is determined by the availability and commitment of efficient and effective human resources. However, currently, most NGOs are highly affected by staff turnover and, therefore, the quality of the service they provide to the beneficiaries is affected and the financial and non-financial costs of filling vacant posts is significantly increased. To investigate this, a quantitative study was conducted using a structured questionnaire. A total of 300 employees working in NGOs throughout Swaziland were invited to complete the questionnaire and 197 useable responses were collected. The reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha) and construct validity (factor analysis) of the questionnaire were determined. This questionnaire was found to be reliable and valid. The statistical results obtained in this study showed that both forms of job satisfaction (intrinsic and extrinsic) have an inverse relationship with employees’ intentions to quit and that intrinsic job satisfaction was found to have a stronger influence on intention to quit.Item Virtual expert systems and decision accuracy of non-experts in technology consulting(Vaal University of Technology, 2018-10) Van den Berg, Amelia; Joubert, P. A., Dr.; Kasonkola, K., Dr.This objectivist, experimental study investigated the influence of virtual expert systems (VES) on the decision accuracy of non-expert consultants within a technology consulting contact centre environment. Because of the overwhelming availability of conceptual information, non-expert consultants experience challenges in making accurate decisions, and would benefit from augmented technologies, such as VES. VES hold the ability to capture and scale large volumes of decision variables for consideration by human experts when making decisions. A total of 40 participants were randomly selected from contact centres in the Eastern Cape and Gauteng provinces of South Africa for this study. Human logic was captured and scaled into a technology fault finding virtual expert and administered as an experiment to group participants. The experimental and control group participants were randomly assigned to the respective groups of 20 participants each. The control group was exposed to the paper-based, fault-finding manual. The pre-test and post-test data were collected based on four decision accuracy measures, namely individual performance, average call handling time, first call resolution and customer service. The Clarify performance system of the participating technology consulting company was used as data collection tool to record the findings used for Chapter 5. Statistical data analyses were performed using ANOVA and two-tailed significance tests to test the relationship between VES and decision accuracy in the pre-test and post-test phases of the study. The study found that the participant scores on the decision accuracy measures were only statistically significant on the measure of first call resolution measure (significance score of a p value <.05). On the other (three) measures, the scores obtained from experimental group participants showed more improvement than that of the control group participants. Consequently, the hypothesis that the use of VES enhance decision accuracy amongst non-expert technology consultants was accepted and the alternative hypothesis rejected. Some limitations pertaining to the resultant Hawthorne effect (the effect when some employees work harder and perform better when they are participants in an experiment) was noted amongst participants. This effect resulted from the use of team leaders in monitoring performance during the experiment and the involvement of the technology consulting company in determining the performance norms of the identified measures. Another limitation of the study related to the size of the sample where only two provinces were included. The limitation may affect the generalisation of results to other future settings when such a study is repeated. It was recommended that future studies in this field should make provision for a larger population, inclusive of other provinces to avoid these limitations.