Global Pandemic's Effect on Workplace: Reckitt Benckiser Case Analysis

This research project investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Reckitt Benckiser's workplace management. The study aims to identify challenges faced by the company, explore employee experiences and working environments, assess the role of technology and communication, and evaluate the effectiveness of management strategies. The research employs a positivism philosophy and a descriptive research design, utilizing both primary and secondary data sources, including employee interviews, Reckitt's website, news portals, and academic journals. The research follows an onion approach methodology, with an inductive research approach. Data collection involves a random sample of 36 employees from a total population of 200. The project is structured over a 9-week timeline, encompassing topic selection, literature review, methodology selection, data collection, analysis, and report completion. The research seeks to understand the adoption of work-from-home concepts and strategies implemented to maintain productivity and employee well-being during the pandemic, providing insights into the business challenges and adaptation strategies.

Unit 11: Research Project Business
Title: “Global Pandemic and Workplace Management: A case study on Reckitt
Benckiser company during the Covid-19”
Student Name (print)
Signature
Date
Templates for Evidence Collection
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Project proposal form
Date
College Name
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Tutor _______________________________________
Proposed Title : “Global Pandemic and Workplace Management: A case study on Reckitt Benckiser
company during the Covid-19”
Section One: Title, aims, objectives
Title: “Global Pandemic and Workplace Management: A case study on Reckitt Benckiser
company during the Covid-19”
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Student Details
Student Name Student Number

Research Aim: The research will be done on the management and the working situation of Reckitt
Benckiser company during the covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has affected every business firm either
small or large. The Reckitt Benckiser will also face different problems and situations. The research will
be aimed at finding the problems and strategies to overcome those adopted by Reckitt and its
management and illustration of its working environment.
Hypothesis: Like other firms, Reckitt Benckiser will face a lot of trouble and challenges during the
pandemic. The new epidemic will cause many new challenges and experiences to the workers as well as
the management team. To handle the situation the management authority will implement their plan and
efficient strategies. Their managerial skills and instant decision-making power will help them to keep a
working environment.
Research objectives
 To identify the various challenges and difficulties during the epidemic that will be faced by the Reckitt
Benckiser company.
 To know the employee’s conditions and working experiences during the covid situation and collect
their opinion about the working environment of Reckitt.
 To find out the necessity of technology and the support of modern communications to continue
operations during the pandemic.
 To pick out the most efficient strategies and working procedures to maintain a profitable and worker-
friendly environment in the company.
 To be informed about the worker’s thoughts about the work from home concepts.
Research Questions
1. What kind of challenges does Reckitt face during the Covid-19 pandemic to performing its regular
operations?
2. How are the working experiences of the employees and the working environment at Reckitt?
3. How do the technological and communication supports help Reckitt to continue its operations?
4. What type of ideas and efficient strategies should be followed by the management of Reckitt during this
challenge?
5. What do the workers think about the ‘work from home’ concept?
Section Two: Reasons for choosing this project
Covid-19 is a new type of epidemic that brings massive change and challenges to the world environment
as well as business sectors. Every sector and person facing new and unknown challenges arising from the
Covid-19 epidemic. The business sectors have been affected more or less indiscriminately. They are going
through a very challenging and critical situation that they haven’t faced before. So, the management and
operational team have to find out the best strategies and plan to implement and find out the best way of
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productivity. Besides these, organizations need to ensure a working environment where the worker can
work comfortably and give their best output. During this epidemic, companies create a new working
environment called ‘work from home’. Through this process, the worker can manage their work sitting at
their own home with help of information and modern communication technologies. This working process
and idea are much newer and more innovative in this type of pandemic situation. The Reckitt Benckiser
will also follow organizational strategies to face these challenges. So, from this research, anyone or
organization will be informed or get learned about the different challenges and their effective solutions
through real-time activities and strategies. This will help others in the future to make decisions or plans.
Section Three: Precedents and sources
The covid-19 epidemic has brought a tremendous change in our day-to-day life as well as our working
environment. The epidemic creates a situation where people need to keep physical distance from each
other that’s why the use of modern technologies and communication media getting higher. Firms are
replacing their workers with artificial machinery to create a production-friendly environment and continue
their works as much as possible (Kniffin et al., 2021).
A new process has been innovated during this Covid-19 pandemic to continue organizational activities
called ‘work from the home’. At the very beginning of the covid-19, business firms got off due to the
rapid spreading of the virus and workers were getting affected. At that time, business firms intended to use
the help of telecommunication and the workers started their work from home. They were performing their
job as much as possible from their home (Cirrincione et al., 2020). The rate of this process was small at
the very beginning of 2020. But later, every business firm and organization tried to implement the virtual
office environment and the rate got increased gradually. From a giant multinational to a small enterprise,
all tried their level best and the business firms have been able to increase their productivity and
profitability than the previous year by adopting these instant ideas.
The pandemic also brings a tremendous change in people’s lifestyles as well as their mental condition. The
people affected both mentally and physically as well as their economic condition getting lower due to the
pandemic situation. In this situation, the working ability and productivity get decrease (Giorgi et al.,
2020). The general workers as well as the management bodies are very sensible to get a safe and sound
environment to continue their works. The firms have to take various decisions and implement efficient
strategies to overcome these problems. The management authorities of organizations on both productivity
and satisfaction of the employees to achieve sustainable growth and productivity.
Though covid-19 brought a massive change and challenges to the business firms, firms moved forward
again gradually. The correlation of humans and technology brings a new way of productivity and business
environment. The organizational structures have been more experienced by facing such unwanted
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challenges and environments (Lucas et al., 2021). In the midst of 2021, the employees and firms become
more used to in this environment and continue their operation with their strategies and experiences
gathered from last year.
Section Four: Activities and timescales
Activities
Week
-1
Week
-2
Week
-3
Week
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Week
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Week
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Week
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Week
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Week-
9
Research topic
selection
Research aim,
objectives, and
relevant
questions
making
Illustration of
the literature
review
The research
methodology
selection
Collection of
data
Collected data
evaluation
Mark out the
key findings and
recommendation
s
The research
project
completion
The Research
project
9
week
s
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Submission
Gantt Chart of Activities listed above -
Task name Start date Duration (Days) End date
Research topic selection 11/12/2021 5 15/12/2021
Research aim, objectives,
and relevant questions
making
16/12/2021 7 22/12/2021
Illustration of the literature
review
23/12/2021 9 31/12/2021
Research methodology
selection
01/01/2022 3 03/01/2022
Collection of data 04/01/2022 10 13/01/2022
Collected data evaluation 14/01/2022 9 22/01/2022
Mark out the key findings
and recommendations
23/01/2022 8 30/01/2022
The research project
completion
31/01/2022 6 05/02/2022
The Research project
Submission
06/02/2022 6 11/02/2022
Milestone one: Several tasks will be done under the first milestone. The research topic selection, research
aim, objectives, and relevant questions made according to the research topic, Illustration of the literature
review, and research methodology selection will be carried out from 11th December 2021 to 3rd January
2022.
Target date (set by a tutor):
Milestone two: After the finishing of 1st milestone, the second one will begin. Under this one, the other
steps will be conducted. These are collecting the data, collecting data evaluation, marking out the key
findings and recommendations, the research project completion, and research project Submission. This
milestone will be completed between 4th January to 11th February 2022.
Target date (set by the tutor):
Section Five: Research approach and methodologies
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To complete successful research, a researcher needs to follow some research methods which help them to
make the research effective and fruitful. There are several methods and techniques for different researches.
The researchers follow these from data collection to data analysis or research publishing. The researchers
collect data from various sources (primary and secondary) directly or indirectly and analyze the data to find
out the expected result. The essential data of this research will be collected from the primary sources at first.
Then the secondary source’s data will be taken for completing this research analysis. After collection of
data, the data will be evaluated by implementation of a conventional research methodology. Here a familiar
research methodology will be implemented called onion approach. Saunders has developed this research
approach in 2007. This methodology is like a frame where the research processes are done like some layer
of an onion one after one (Sahay, 2016). This methodology can be divided according to various research
approaches, strategies and other processes. The method has been illustrated through a diagram below-
Figure 01: Onion Diagram
Source: (Sahay, 2016)
Research philosophy: This term refers to the process of collection, accumulation, and analysis of data. It
deals with the process of gathering knowledge and helps the researchers to assume the truth and philosophy.
The researchers need to collect data from various sources and they have to grant data in some beliefs and
thoughts (Holden et al., 2018). These beliefs are divided into four terms. These are positivism, interpretivism,
realism, and pragmatism. The researchers choose any of these philosophical beliefs to complete their
research. In this research, the positivism philosophy will be implemented. This approach will help to collect
data scientifically and quantitively analyze collected data.
Research design: A design helps a researcher to complete the research systematically. A design is needed to
perform the research tasks and approaches efficiently and suitably. It’s a kind of blueprint of the process of
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data collection, data analysis, and other activities (Durrheim, 2016). This design can be either quantitative,
qualitative, or mixed types. Here the design will help to make a framework before the actual research that
reduced time consumption and will help to avoid irrelevant activities during this research. The descriptive
research method will describe the characteristics of different variables under the research. The questions will
be mainly created with what and why types.
Research approach: The research approach refers to the plan and process of accumulating data and various
methods of data analysis. There are three sub-categories (deductive, inductive, and abductive) of research
approach (Amaratunga et al., 2019). By implementing the inductive approach here, the researcher will test the
unknown hypotheses with a known result. This approach will create a theoretical and qualitative framework
to complete the research by a researcher. The researcher will set several questions and will collect the data
from the population to analyze further in the inductive approach.
Data collection: The essential data of this research will be accumulated from the primary as well as the
secondary sources. The employees and management team of the Reckitt Benckiser company will be
considered as the primary sources of data. Before starting the research survey, the permission of Reckitt’s
authority will be taken. Next, the interview of employees will be conducted with some precise relevant
questions (Bachiochi et al., 2019). The data will also be collected from secondary sources. Here the
secondary sources will be, Reckitt’s website, various news portals and international journals as well as
various research papers. Both primary and secondary sources will play an important role to get a complete
collection of data.
Sampling: Sampling is the process of choosing some units of data from the large collection of ungrouped
data. In research, the researcher accumulates different data from different sources and places. Analysis of all
collected data is unnecessary and inefficient for a fruitful research. The researchers take a unit from the same
type of group and analyze that to measure the result for that group. In these cases, the researcher has to focus
on avoiding the error as much as possible (Armesto et al., 2019). In this research, the sample will be taken
randomly. The whole population of this survey will be 200 and the random sample size will be 36. The data
of 36 random populations will be analyzed to get the overall result.
Comments and agreement from project proposal reviewer (if applicable)
Comments:
I confirm that the project does not work that has been or will be submitted for another qualification and is
appropriate:
Agreed: (name) (date)
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References
Amaratunga, D., Baldry, D., Sarshar, M. and Newton, R., 2019. Quantitative and qualitative
research in the built environment: application of “mixed” research approach. Work-study.
Armesto, M.T., Hernández‐Murillo, R., Owyang, M.T. and Piger, J., 2019. Measuring the
information content of the beige book: A mixed data sampling approach. Journal of Money,
Credit and Banking, 41(1), pp.35-55.
Bachiochi, P.D. and Weiner, S.P., 2019. Qualitative data collection and analysis. Handbook of
research methods in industrial and organizational psychology, pp.161-183.
Cirrincione, L., Plescia, F., Ledda, C., Rapisarda, V., Martorana, D., Moldovan, R.E.,
Theodoridou, K. and Cannizzaro, E., 2020. COVID-19 pandemic: Prevention and protection
measures to be adopted at the workplace. Sustainability, 12(9), p.3603.
de Lucas Ancillo, A., del Val Núñez, M.T. and Gavrila, S.G., 2021. Workplace change within the
COVID-19 context: a grounded theory approach. Economic Research-Ekonomska
Istraživanja, 34(1), pp.2297-2316.
Durrheim, K., 2016. Research design. Research in practice: Applied methods for the social
sciences, 2, pp.33-59.
Giorgi, G., Lecca, L.I., Alessio, F., Finstad, G.L., Bondanini, G., Lulli, L.G., Arcangeli, G. and
Mucci, N., 2020. COVID-19-related mental health effects in the workplace: a narrative
review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(21), p.7857.
Holden, M.T. and Lynch, P., 2018. Choosing the appropriate methodology: Understanding
research philosophy. The marketing review, 4(4), pp.397-409.
Kniffin, K.M., Narayanan, J., Anseel, F., Antonakis, J., Ashford, S.P., Bakker, A.B., Bamberger,
P., Bapuji, H., Bhave, D.P., Choi, V.K. and Creary, S.J., 2021. COVID-19 and the workplace:
Implications, issues, and insights for future research and action. American Psychologist, 76(1),
p.63.
Sahay, A., 2016. Peeling Saunder's research onion. Research Gate, Art, pp.1-5.
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Research ethics approval form
Section One: Basic details
Section Two: Project summary
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Section Three: Participants
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Section Four: Data storage and security
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Section Five: Ethical issues
Section Six: Declaration
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