Business Research Proposal: Remote Work Motivation at Barclays

This research proposal outlines a qualitative study investigating the impact of organizational policies on the motivation of remotely working employees at Barclays. The study aims to understand how these policies facilitate or complicate remote work, affecting employee motivation. The research will employ interviews with five Barclays employees working remotely, utilizing a simple random sampling method to gather detailed insights. The proposal defines key concepts such as remote working, motivation, and organizational policies, and it also reviews relevant academic theories and the positive and negative aspects of remote work. The research seeks to identify recommendations for enhancing the motivation of remote employees within the organization, addressing how policies can be improved to support and encourage remote work effectively.

Business Research
(Proposal)

Table of Contents
Possible sources for research question............................................................................................3
Research Question...........................................................................................................................3
Arisen of Problem............................................................................................................................3
Aims of the research study..............................................................................................................3
Qualitative Study.............................................................................................................................4
Academic theme..............................................................................................................................5
Academic Theory underpinning research questions........................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

Possible sources for research question
Sources of research include personal experience and individual interest in remote
working. Interest in knowing motivation of remotely working and future career intention
collectively is the source behind this research question.
Research Question
How organisational policies impact on motivation of remotely working employees. A
case of Barclays.
Arisen of Problem
Remote working is a type of working in which individuals and employees work outside
traditional office working. In other words, professionals and employees when work from home
or at any other place except office and remain connected through technology, it is known as
remote working. Recent increase in remote working has arisen this problem and concerned with
Barclays it is one of the organisation where employees work remotely. Barclays is a British
multinational investment bank and financial service company. It was founded in 1896 and is
headquartered at London, UK.
Aims of the research study
Title: An investigation about impact of organizational policies on motivation of remotely
working employees. A case study of Barclays.
Aim: Aim of this study is to investigate how organisational policies impact motivation of
remotely working employees.
Research Question:
How organisational policies affect motivation of remotely working employees in
Barclays?
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Qualitative Study
This research will be qualitative research, in qualitative research data is collected and
analysed in a non-numerical way. This is done to understand concepts, opinions and experiences.
Qualitative data is collected through words, and expression (Peterson, 2019). In order to collect
qualitative data interviews and observation are considered as research methods. Such methods
allow to gain detailed insights about data and information about a topic and theme of research.
Analysis of qualitative research involves identifying and interpreting words and their meaning to
understand responses of respondents.
Data Collection- Data collection for the purpose of this research will be primary data collection.
In this data collection, researcher undertakes research for the first time and collects data from the
source rather than from published or unpublished papers, journals or books (Barrett and
Twycross, 2018). Primary data for this research will be collected through Interview. Interview
will allow collecting detailed information from the respondents.
Sampling- Sampling for this research will be done simple random sampling to avoid any kind of
potential bias in selection of sample. For the purpose of this research 5 remotely working
employees of Barclays will be selected and will be interviewed to gain information and insights
about remote working (Bhardwaj, 2019). Selection of remotely working employees will be done
so that they can provide more reliable and valid information on the basis of their individual
experience. Through the interview of remotely working employees of Barclays research will aim
at getting answer to following questions.
In this research supporting questions of the study are-
 What is the concept of remote working?
 What are positive and negative aspects of remote working?
 How policies of organisation facilitate and complicate remote working for employees to
motivate them?
 What are possible recommendations for increasing motivation of remotely working
employees?
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Academic theme
Remote Working: Remote working is a practice in which employees work at their home in
some other place that is place of organisations’ business. In this working technology is used by
employees to connect and collaborate with other employees of the organisation.
Motivation: Motivation is defined as process of instigating and sustaining goal directed activity
of individual. Motivation of employees is a process through which employees are motivated to
achieve their individual work and performance related objectives or contribute to achievement of
organisation objectives (Buck, 2019).
Organisation Policies: Policies of organisation are general statement of how organisation wants
to behave and procedure that outlines how a task is performed. Organisational policies also guide
behaviour of employees when they are working and how they are expected to and required to
carry out their work related activities (Liu and et.al., 2019).
Academic Theory underpinning research questions
Concept of remote working
According to Donnelly and Johns, (2020) remote working is defined as being detached
from fixed traditional workplaces including premises of employer. This involves enabling
employees to choose when and where they want to work. This is done to provide employees
flexibility and feasibility for working according to their choice and requirement. This has been
possible because of advanced technology and their application in working and undertaking
different organisational activities. In words of Crowley and Doran, (2020) digital communication
technology and advanced communication technology have also facilitated remote working in
which employees can connect and contact like being in a workplace. Digital and advanced
technology also enables individuals to maintain continuous coordination and collaborate without
any difficulty. Remote working also enables organisation to hire employees from other places
from where employees cannot come and join workplace but can work for organisation.
Positive and negative aspects of remote working
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As states by Gottlieb, Grobovsek and Poschke, (2020) remotely is a new concept and
have been facilitated and increased by advanced technology. Remote working has both positive
and negative sides and positive sides include higher productivity, because people working
remotely tend to have higher productivity. Healthier lifestyle, because maintaining a healthy
lifestyle while being most of the time at workplace is difficult. Better work-life balance, this is
also a positive impact on remote working that individuals are able to create better work life
balance. As per the view of Agostoni, (2020) negative sides of remote working are also there
including communication gap, in communication gap employees become unable to communicate
with each other and this is why it can affect quality of work. Challenges of management are also
associated with remote working.
How policies of organisation facilitate and complicate remote working for employees to
motivate them?
According to Nakhod, S and et.al., (2020) organisational policies have a very important
impact on motivation of remotely working employees. This is because they either facilitate or
complicate remote working for employees. Complicating working remotely through organisation
policies can reduce and negatively affect motivation of employees. On the other hand,
organisational policies facilitating remote working can enhance their motivation. Dryselius and
Pettersson, (2021) says that remote working trust of organisation and management on employees
play very important role in motivating employees. Trust in employees also facilitates working for
them.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Agostoni, L., 2020. Remote Working: Advices to Reduce Risks and Boost Productivity.
Barrett, D. and Twycross, A., 2018. Data collection in qualitative research.
Bhardwaj, P., 2019. Types of sampling in research. Journal of the Practice of Cardiovascular
Sciences. 5(3). p.157.4
Buck, R., 2019. Motivation, emotion, cognition, and communication: Definitions and notes
toward a grand theory. In Advances in Motivation Science (Vol. 6, pp. 27-69). Elsevier.
Crowley, F. and Doran, J., 2020. COVID‐19, occupational social distancing and remote working
potential: An occupation, sector and regional perspective. Regional Science Policy &
Practice. 12(6). pp.1211-1234.
Donnelly, R. and Johns, J., 2020. Recontextualising remote working and its HRM in the digital
economy: An integrated framework for theory and practice. The International Journal
of Human Resource Management. pp.1-22.
Dryselius, A. and Pettersson, J., 2021. Motivation in the Remote Workplace: Understanding the
Threats and Opportunities to Motivation During Enforced Remote Work.
Gottlieb, C., Grobovsek, J. and Poschke, M., 2020. Working from home across countries. Covid
Economics.
Liu, Z and et.al., 2019. A comprehensive analysis on definitions, development, and policies of
nearly zero energy buildings in China. Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Reviews. 114. p.109314.
Nakhod, S and et.al., 2020. THE BASIC QUESTIONS OF MOTIVATION OF EMPLOYEES
WORKING IN A REMOTE MODE. Journal of Critical Reviews. 7(11). pp.1657-1660.
Peterson, J.S., 2019. Presenting a qualitative study: A reviewer’s perspective. Gifted Child
Quarterly. 63(3). pp.147-158.
Online
Remote working. 2021. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/remote-working>.
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