Researching Staff Retention and Organisational Culture at NorthStar Consulting

This activity submission focuses on conducting primary research into staff retention and organisational culture issues at NorthStar Consulting. The questions asked are quantitative and qualitative in nature. The research will be conducted by preparing a survey questionnaire and distributing it to the employees. The analysis will be performed with the help of appropriate statistical techniques. The variables considered are employee retention and job satisfaction. The research question is whether the attributes of job satisfaction such as work environment, growth prospect, training and development, and communication and feedback are responsible for job satisfaction.

MODULE 3 UNIT 2
Activity
submission
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Learning outcomes:
LO3: Use appropriate variables to develop a research instrument or question.
LO4: Differentiate between qualitative and quantitative questions.
LO5: Defend the choice of quantitative and qualitative questions.
Name:
1. Instructions and guidelines (Read carefully)
Instructions
1. Insert your name and surname in the space provided above, as well as in the file name.
Save the file as: First name Surname UCT BRA M3 U2 Activity Submission – e.g. Lilly
Smith UCT BRA M3 U2 Activity Submission. NB! Please ensure that you use the name
that appears in your student profile on the Online Campus.
2. Write all your answers in this document. There is an instruction that says, “Start writing
here” under each question. Please type your answer there.
3. Submit your assignment in Microsoft Word only. No other file types will be accepted.
4. Do not delete the plagiarism declaration or the assignment instructions and
guidelines. They must remain on your assignment when you submit.
PLEASE NOTE: Plagiarism cases will be penalised according to the Head Tutor and
GetSmarter's discretion.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please ensure that you have checked your course calendar for the due
date for this assignment. This calendar is available on the Online Campus and has also been
sent to you by your Course Coach.
Guidelines
1. There are five pages and five questions in this assignment.
2. Make sure that you have carefully read and fully understood the questions before
answering them. Answer the questions fully but concisely and as directly as possible.
Follow all specific instructions for individual questions (e. g. “list”, “in point form”).
3. Answer all questions in your own words. Do not copy any text from the notes, readings
or other sources. The assignment must be your own work only.
Plagiarism declaration:
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1. I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and pretend
that it is one’s own.
2. This assignment is my own work.
3. I have not allowed, and will not allow, anyone to copy my work with the intention of
passing it off as his or her own work.
4. I acknowledge that copying someone else’s assignment (or part of it) is wrong, and
declare that my assignments are my own work.
2. Mark allocation
Each question receives a mark allocation. However, you will only receive a final percentage
mark and will not be given individual marks for each question. The mark allocation is there
to show you the weighting and length of each question.
Question 1 8
Question 2 8
Question 3 5
Question 4 4
Question 5 5
TOTAL 30
3. Assignment questions
The questions in this activity submission will be based on the following case study.
Northstar Consulting:
NorthStar Consulting is a boutique consulting firm that focuses on serving large-listed South
African companies that are grappling with IT strategy and system integration challenges. The
company started with 3 people and now has over 90 employees. Malikah Moosa, the HR
Manager, is always on the look out for new talent. Her greatest challenge is that, as fast as
she identifies and hires people, they seem to leave. NorthStar Consulting offers above-
market salaries and all the perks and benefits associated with a company of this size and
type; generous leave, bonuses, and incentives are used to retain top talent. However, this
fails to curb the high turnover. Although Malikah conducts exit interviews with staff
members who leave the firm, their reasons for leaving are not always clear. She also worries
that apart from the loss in capacity for the many consulting projects that the company is
working on, the cost of recruitment and training has become a major concern.
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Malikah discusses these issues with Andrew Gordhon, the founder and CEO of NorthStar
Consulting. He suggests to Malikah that they approach the problem systematically. The CEO
asks Malikah to prepare a presentation for the next executive committee meeting where she
can explain how she will proceed with conducting some primary research into their staff
retention and organisational culture issues. Andrew tells Malikah to imagine this isn’t about
her job, but rather about an intriguing problem that she needs to understand.
As a basic guideline, Andrew suggests that Malikah address the following issues:
 The type of questions that should be asked
 Data type
 How the research will be conducted
Imagine you are working in partnership with Malikah during this research initiative. Answer
the following questions.
Question 1
What questions should Malikah ask (and whom should she ask) in order to understand why
certain staff members are staying at NorthStar Consulting and why others are leaving? Using
the template below, suggest at least four questions and provide a short justification (1-2
sentences) for each.
Question Justification Addressed to
1. Is the work environment
satisfactory for the employees
to work?
The work environment is
important to be satisfactory to
the employees as only in a
satisfactory work environment it
is possible to work.
Employees
2. Is the prospect of growth of
the employees satisfactory?
All employees work for a
company expecting a career
growth. If the employees do not
receive the proper career growth
from working here, they will be
interested to leave the company.
Employees
3. Is proper training and
development provided for the
job to be performed?
It is important to provide proper
training as per the requirement
of the company to the
employees. Without that the
employees will not be able to
perform properly and hence will
be questioned by their seniors.
This might be another reason for
the employees to leave the
Employees
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company.
4. Are the employees satisfied
with the communication they
are allowed to have with the
managers?
It is extremely important for the
employees to communicate with
the managers at the time of any
need or grievances. The
feedback about the company is
important to be collected from
the employees so that the
problem can be clearly
understood.
Employees
Question 2
Should Malikah gather quantitative or qualitative data? Why? Provide at least four reasons
in your answer. You may list your points in bullet format. (Max. 100-150 words)
Start writing here: Malikah will be gathering both qualitative and quantitative data. The
questions asked by Malikah are quantitative. The main reasons for which quantitative
analysis are listed as follows:
 Quantitative analysis is usually used when the client needs a feedback from a lot of
people. In this case, the CEO needs feedback from the employees. Thus, the two
cases are analogous to each other.
 Quantitative research is more empirical in nature. Conclusion can be drawn based
on the purpose of the research with the help of this type of analysis.
 Quantitative analysis attempts to quantify the problem that is faced and gives an
idea about the nature of the problem by predicting the situation with respect to a
larger population.
 With the help of this technique, specific research questions can be answered and
hypotheses based on the research questions can be tested. All these patterns can
be uncovered with the help of quantitative analysis with the use of appropriate
metrics.
Question 3
How should Malikah proceed with conducting the research? What should her next step be?
Include any possible decisions that she would need to make at this next step. Justify your
answer. (Max. 150-200 words)
Start writing here: The next step to this problem would be to conduct this research. In order
to conduct a quantitative research, the most important thing that will be necessary is data.
This data will be collected on the pre specified questions from the employees of the
company. A survey questionnaire will be prepared and then distributed to the employees.
All the employees will be recording the requirements to the questionnaire. Based on the
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responses of the respondents, the analysis of the data will be conducted. The analysis will be
performed with the help of appropriate statistical techniques. All these analyses will be
helpful in predicting the causes that is leading the employees to leave the job.
Question 4
What variables need to be considered when selecting a research question in this study?
Provide two variables, one independent and one dependent, and give a one-sentence
justification for each.
Start writing here: The variables that can be considered while selecting a research question
to this study are “employee retention” and “job satisfaction”. Job satisfaction can be a
combination of multiple attributes such as work environment, growth prospect, training and
development and communication and feedback.
Here, employee retention can be the dependent variable and job satisfaction can be
the independent variable. Employee retention will be the dependent variable as the study is
mainly aimed at understanding the factors that are responsible for employee retention of
the company. On the other hand, job satisfaction will be the dependent variable as the
variable job satisfaction is composed of attributes that are supposed to affect the employee
retention of the company.
Question 5
Using the variables that you identified in Question 4, write out a research question that the
study will address. Include at least two variables in the question. (Note: You should consider
the type of question asked in your answer.)
Start writing here: The research question that can be considered for this study is stated as
follows:
 Are the attributes of job satisfaction such as work environment, growth prospect,
training and development and communication and feedback responsible for job
satisfaction?
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