Employee Job Satisfaction in Boohoo.com Warehouse

This project investigates employee job satisfaction in the Boohoo.com warehouse and suggests improvements for workplace culture. Findings indicate that poor communication between employees and management is affecting performance. Recommendations include staff training, equipment maintenance, and reward opportunities.

Running head: BUSINESS ANALYTICS
BUSINESS ANALYTICS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The following project is based on an investigation of employee job satisfaction in the
organization Boohoo.com, which is UK’s famous online fashion clothing brands running its
operation in large market. The organization recently faces a set of issues regarding poor
workplace conditions at the warehouse where employees’ health and performance is affected.
In order to analyse the issues, a primary data analysis has been performed by collecting data
from the members at the warehouse. Findings indicate that due to gap of communication
between employees and senior management, employee performance is being affected. In
order to order to resolve the issues, a set of suggestions about the workplace culture have
been suggested.

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Table of Content
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Overview of the business problems.......................................................................................2
Overview of the literature on the topic......................................................................................2
Importance of employee satisfaction.....................................................................................2
Factors of workplace satisfaction...........................................................................................4
Job Demand Resource model.................................................................................................4
Methods and Results..................................................................................................................6
Findings and analysis.................................................................................................................6
Recommendation and Conclusion..............................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
This research report is a detailed analysis of employee satisfaction at the warehouse of
Boohoo.com, which is an online fashion clothing brand running its operation all over UK.
The major purpose of the report is to identify employee management issues in the
organization with the help of the collection of primary data. It is certain that employee
satisfaction is a significant concern in organization as employee satisfaction is positively
reflected on employee turnover and organizational productivity. Presently, the organisation
observes the issues of slow production and increasing employee turnover rate.
Overview of the business problems
It has been identified that the employees at the warehouse of Boohoo are facing harsh
challenge of meeting their and perform up to the KPIs which is set as picking 160 items on an
average per hour. To increase the overall sales of the organization, employees are guaranteed
37.5 hours per week but this could change on the basis of the demand. According to the case
scenario given in the case study, Boohoo is widely concerned about the issues of warehouse
conditions. Consequently, job satisfaction is relatively low and turnover rate of employees are
increasing. The present scenario at the warehouse is most likely to get worsen and
organization might continue to go losing its key employees. This scenario requires an urgent
attention to resolve the issues to enhance organizational outcome.
Overview of the literature on the topic
Importance of employee satisfaction
Employee satisfaction is one of the greatest concerns because the success of an
organization largely depends on how its employees perform their duties and responsibilities.
According to Alegre, Mas-Machuc and Berbegal-Mirabent (2016), employee satisfaction is
an utmost importance for employees to remain happy and also deliver their level best and the

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satisfied employees are the ones who remain highly loyal to their employer and stick to the
organization even at the worse scenario. On the other side, Vlachos, Panagopoulos and Rapp
(2013) employee satisfaction or the job satisfaction is one of the key goals of all HR
personnel irrespective of what the individuals KKAs are. This means a satisfied employee is
not just a retained employee but an ambassador for the brand both internally and externally.
The individual could help to dispel apprehension of others and it could defend the company
in different fora. It has been identified that majority of the organisation consider job
satisfaction as the most dependent on two elements such as salary and recreational activities.
However, Gounaris and Boukis (2013) argued that while employees do make an impression
on the basis of the parameters, they might not form the basis of employee engagement. Fu
and Deshpande, (2014)argued that employee engagement programs tend to serve as the most
important shot in arm as well as satisfaction level dip soon after.
Thus it is highly important that people perceive the organization in the positive light
in their early days of employment otherwise, it might not take long for them to look for a
change. However, if is considered in a macro level it is more damaging when employee is not
satisfied but it continues to work with the organization because of some other reasons.
Organizational members tend to start to look for some specific reasons to dislike the
organization (Dobre, 2013) gave an example, if an inappropriate appraisal is the core reason
behind her disappointment, the organization could then perceive that there is a state of
preference or favouritism. This means that the organization does not like or consider as the
most valuable asset. It is certain that dissatisfied employees express their negative
perceptions in the external field than the internal ones. This means when an existing
employees could speak ill of the organization and it could reduce the prospect of listeners to
join the organization and the reputation of the organization is strongly influenced.

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Factors of workplace satisfaction
Keeping employees involved as well as satisfied could take more than just handsome
pay and benefits. However, there are some particular factors that are often considered as
factors for employee satisfaction. Abbas et al. (2014) in their study mentioned about some
factors and these factors certainly contribute to development of employee job satisfaction.
Respect: Cullen et al. (2014) mentioned the fact that employees tend to rate
respectful treatment of all employees as the most significant factor in job satisfaction. This
means employees tend to expect respect in the workplace so that they could remain loyal and
enthusiastic about their job responsibilities.
Trust: Karatepe (2013) mentioned that due to workplace culture and leadership
practices, the trust between employees and managers are often fragile which often lead to
poor result of employee performance.
Security: Karatepe (2013) mentioned the fact that among all other factors of
employee job satisfaction, employee job satisfaction is one of the highly important ones, it is
very certain that employees often look for security in their job with respect to their career and
growth. If employee feel that security, they are often demotivated.
Healthy Environment: Work environment is often related to work conditions, this
means employees often look for better work conditions, suitable time, shift, break time and
lunch time. An employer must have to consider employees’ physical conditions.
Job Demand Resource model
Bouckenooghe, Raja and Butt (2013) mentioned the fact that since its inception in the
wake of twenty first century, Job Demand Resource has gained a high popularity among the
scholars. Presently, JD-R model is usually identified as one of the most landing job stress
model. According to the basic principle of this model, employee health and wellbeing could

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result a balance between positive and negative job characteristics. It is certain that JD-R
model do no fell on the fertile ground and the model does not fell on the fertile ground it does
not restrict to some specific job demand or job resource. Shooshtarian, Ameli and Amini
Lari (2013) mentioned the fact that any sort of demand and any sort of resource could affect
employee health and well-being and thus, it can be added that JD-R model is much more
broader than that of their models as it potentially includes all job demands and job resources.
It is certain that broader scope of model could appeal to scholar just because its flexibility is
attractive to the practitioners.
Gouda, Radhika and Akshatha (2013) mentioned that instead of relating well-defined
and specific set of concepts to each other and JD-R model which is heuristic in nature and
represents a particular way of thinking about how job and characteristics could influence
employees health and well-being and motivation. So this fact implies that even if the two
studies above demonstrate no overlap with respect to the study concept, they could be based
and testify the same assumptions of the JD-R model. On the other side, Schaufeli and Taris
(2014) mentioned that heuristic use of JD-R model in combination with its broad scope as
well as flexibility account for its present proliferation in some of the studies.
It has been identified that JD-R model can be used as the conceptual framework for
integrating empirical studies on employees’ propensity to innovate and Gouda, Radhika and
Akshatha, (2013) work related resources could create impact on employee innovativeness as
well as creativity through work engagement. Whereas a particular range of stimulation proves
to be beneficial, a greater level of challenge could turn into a stressor and it could
subsequently lead to burnout and prevent innovativeness. Schaufel and Taris (2014)
mentioned the fact that JD-R model is test and verify a meta-analytics framework of safety at
work. Thus, it can be added that resource has impact on organizational and employee
performance.

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Methods and Results
It is certain that qualitative data analysis refers to the non-numeric information like
interview, transcript video recording, images and text documents. Qualitative data analysis is
little different from quantitative data primarily because qualitative data is particularly made
up of words, observation, images and even symbols. Kumar (2019) mentioned that deriving
absolute data is widely impossible and this form of method is widely used for the exploratory
research. It can also be added that since most qualitative data is just words, the researcher
must have to start by reading the data many time to receive familiar with it and it should start
by looking for basic observation or patterns.
Qualitative data does not include number and digit. Qualitative data could include
behavioural data. Qualitative data can be divided into four different categories such as
content analysis, narrative analysis, discourse analysis, framework analysis, and discourse
analysis. However, in the present study content analysis has been followed because content
analysis allows the technique of categorising verbal or all sort of behavioural data to classify,
summarize and tabulate the data.
For performing the data analysis, data has been collected by performing an interview
among the organizational employees of Boohoo.com. A semi structured interview has been
performed among 5 employees of the firm. Interview was conducted for almost 30 minutes.
Findings and analysis
Question One: Describe the conditions of work in warehouse:
 Theme- Work condition
o Sub theme- Work environment
 Category-Workplace equipment
 Theme –Managerial initiatives

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o Sub-theme
 Category- Lack of communication
Summary table (for results section of the report)
Theme Sub-theme (categories) Direct quote
Work Condition Work environment
 Workplace
equipment
“I guess it’s okay. Like the
staff break room is pretty
good”
Managerial initiatives
 Gap of
communication with
the management
“When I told management
that I was stressed they
didn’t seem to really care.
My team leader didn’t really
care either, unless the KPI
is low. Then the shift
managers don’t really seem
to know where the team
leaders are and they kind of
micro-manage you if you
start asking questions about
the scanners not working”
Question Two: Are you happy in your job:
Coding legend:
 Theme –Employee job Satisfaction

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o Sub-theme- Workplace culture
 Workplace facilities
 Communication with management
Theme- Employee turnover
 Sub-theme
Category – Retention strategies
Category- High organizational expectation
Theme Sub-theme (categories) Direct quote
Job satisfaction Employee Satisfaction
 Workplace Culture
 Communication with
the management
“I’m happy, would be
happier for more hours or a
more permanent role.
Knowing your hours exactly
for the week would be good
too”
“But I can’t do that here the
expectations are too high,
people leave all the time, so
the team is always
changing, and I just don’t
agree with the work ethic”
Employee turnover Employee Turnover
 Poor
retention
strategies
“I have been thinking about
applying for other jobs,
maybe somewhere else in

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the company, moving away
from Logistics UK and
working for Boohoo
directly? I’m not too sure”
Recommendation and Conclusion
On the basis of the findings, it can be added that warehouse Boohoo.com is not
effective enough to receive a significant amount of return from employees. Even though the
equipment are installed but employees are not properly trained about the use of the system. In
addition to this, there is a persistent gap of communication between worker and managers, as
the findings indicate that some employees have positive view about the workplace, while
others dislike the workplace. Environment of the workplace is relatively effective for
warehouse tasks but the work conditions given such as the target is becoming too difficult for
employees. On the basis of this result the following recommendation has been provide to the
organization.
Staff training: It can be added that probably the most influential way organization
can achieve less injuries and increased workplace safety through more training and
development programs for their employees.
Provide maintenance on all machines and equipment:
The organization also need to properly run machine, tools and equipment is a recipe
for success. If the organization do not keep up with regular maintenance, the equipment
might fail to work intended. This could enhance or speed up the work process and enhance
production.

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Reward opportunity:
When the employees are given a proper target, once meeting the target, employee
should be given appropriate rewards. Employees should be provided with both monetary and
non-monetary rewards for meeting their target.

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References
Abbas, M., Raja, U., Darr, W., & Bouckenooghe, D. (2014). Combined effects of perceived
politics and psychological capital on job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and
performance. Journal of Management, 40(7), 1813-1830.
Alegre, I., Mas-Machuca, M., & Berbegal-Mirabent, J. (2016). Antecedents of employee job
satisfaction: do they matter?. Journal of Business Research, 69(4), 1390-1395.
Bouckenooghe, D., Raja, U., & Butt, A. N. (2013). Combined effects of positive and negative
affectivity and job satisfaction on job performance and turnover intentions. The
Journal of psychology, 147(2), 105-123.
Cullen, K. L., Edwards, B. D., Casper, W. C., & Gue, K. R. (2014). Employees’ adaptability
and perceptions of change-related uncertainty: Implications for perceived
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Gounaris, S., & Boukis, A. (2013). The role of employee job satisfaction in strengthening
customer repurchase intentions. Journal of Services Marketing, 27(4), 322-333.

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Hameed, A., Ramzan, M., & Zubair, H. M. K. (2014). Impact of compensation on employee
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