Employee Engagement and Organisational Productivity: IGA Australia

This report explores the influence of employee engagement on organisational productivity within IGA Supermarkets in Australia. It identifies issues related to employee engagement in the Australian supermarket sector, highlights strategies for improving organisational productivity at IGA, and investigates the correlation between employee engagement and overall productivity. The research employs a mixed-methods approach, utilizing secondary data from scholarly articles, government reports, and IGA's annual reports, alongside primary data collected through interviews with customer service representatives. The study aims to provide recommendations for enhancing employee engagement at IGA Australia to foster improved organisational productivity and address the challenges posed by low employee retention and disengagement in the retail sector.

Topic: RESEARCH IN BUSINESS
Research in Business
Topic: Influence of employee engagement on organisational productivity: The study based on
IGA Supermarket in Australia
Student’s name:
Name of the university:
Author’s note:

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Title:
Influence of employee engagement on organisational productivity: The study based on
IGA Supermarket in Australia
1. Problem statement
Engaged employees are productive as the productivity comes from the motivation and
personal factors. The efficient workforce brings the success to the organisation. As stated by
Katou & Budhwar (2015), the management of the organisation needs human capital in order to
provide customer satisfaction and to run smooth operation process. If the employees within an
organisation disorganised due to lack of motivation, team-bonding, the culture of the
organisation and interest; the productivity of the organisation will decrease automatically. In the
supermarket sector, the employee engagement is low in Australia; the main reason is lower
employee retention rate. According to Sutton, Kamvounias & Taylor (2015), lower engagement
of the employees creates lower absenteeism and higher focus towards motivation. In the
Australian retail sector, 25% of the employees are not engaged and disengaged employees can
drop 18% of the productivity; therefore, it can lead to 56% drop in quality (Abs.gov.au, 2018). In
supermarket sector, lack of employee engagement can cause to poor quality control, customer
relations, innovation absenteeism, poor teamwork and discouraging team building. In
supermarket sector, sales executives play important role in providing customer satisfaction and
negative employee engagement can discourage the employees and inflect the morale.
Independent Grocers of Australia (IGA) sells general products and groceries to the customers.
This supermarket organisation has its stores in South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia.
The employees are not engaged in the organisation as last year employee turnover rate has been

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increased by 5% (Iga.com.au, 2018). The employees are leaving the organisation; therefore, the
organisational productivity is also decreased.
Aim:
The aim of the research is to explore the influence of employee engagement on
organisational productivity. The focus of the study is IGA Australia, an independent
supermarket.
Objectives:
The objectives of the study are:
 To find out the issues of employee engagement in supermarket Australia
 To highlight the strategies of organisational productivity in IGA Australia
 To explore the influence of employee engagement on organisational productivity
 To provide some possible recommendations to improve the employee engagement in
IGA Australia to have better organisational productivity
2. Brief methodology
Literature review:
As stated by Hatherley, Jennings & Cross (2016), a literature review is the main
secondary data collected from scholarly articles of the renowned authors. In the literature review
section, the scholarly articles have been reviewed based on the theoretical framework of
employee engagement and organisational productivity. In the literature review section, the
theories and models of the employee engagement in the Australian supermarket sector will be
reviewed based on the information from articles, government reports and websites. The current

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issues of the employee engagement in the Australian supermarket sector that leads to the lack of
employee engagement will be explained.
Data collection
Secondary data of the literature review will be aligned through the collecting of the
primary data. Primary data are mainly raw data that would be collected through a survey of the
respondents. The researcher will collect the primary data through conducting the interviews with
the customer service representatives. The researcher will prepare 5 open-ended questions to
conduct the interviews. The sample size of the interviews will be 3 and the researcher will
conduct a structured interview to record the data.
3. Sources of secondary data, data presentation and analysis methods
This study will use secondary data mainly from the online articles, websites, online
magazines, Australian government reports and journals. The secondary data sources will provide
the information regarding the employee engagement issues in supermarket sectors. The major
issues of the employee engagement and past statistics will be collected from secondary data
sources. The researcher will review scholarly papers in order to understand the organisational
productivity. The annual report of IGA will also be considered.
Once the data are collected from the secondary data sources, all variables of the data will
be segregated and analysed. As pointed out by Painkas et al., (2015), secondary data are cost-
efficient and time-saving. The secondary data sources will be analysed through using thematic
data analysis. Thematic data analysis is done through examining, pinpointing and reviewing the
secondary data after segmenting the themes of the research. This research will be qualitative

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research as the observation of the customer service representatives and recording patterns of the
secondary data will be analysed.

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Reference List
Hatherley, C., Jennings, N., & Cross, R. (2016). Time to analgesia and pain score documentation
best practice standards for the Emergency Department–A literature review. Australasian
Emergency Nursing Journal, 19(1), 26-36.
IGA Supermarkets | Independent Grocers of Australia. (2018). IGA Supermarkets. Retrieved 3
April 2018, from https://www.iga.com.au
Katou, A. A., & Budhwar, P. (2015). Human resource management and organisational
productivity: a systems approach based empirical analysis. Journal of Organizational
Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(3), 244-266.
Mone, E. M., & London, M. (2018). Employee engagement through effective performance
management: A practical guide for managers. Routledge.
Palinkas, L. A., Horwitz, S. M., Green, C. A., Wisdom, J. P., Duan, N., & Hoagwood, K. (2015).
Purposeful sampling for qualitative data collection and analysis in mixed method
implementation research. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health
Services Research, 42(5), 533-544.
Price, R. (2016). Controlling routine frontline service workers: an Australian retail supermarket
case. Work, employment and society, 30(6), 915-931.
Retail Trade, Australia, Jan 2018. (2018). Abs.gov.au. Retrieved 3 April 2018, from
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/8501.0Explanatory%20Notes1Jan
%202018?OpenDocument

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Sutton-Brady, C., Kamvounias, P., & Taylor, T. (2015). A model of supplier-retailer power
asymmetry in the Australian retail industry. Industrial marketing management, 51, 122-
130.