Master’s Thesis, 30 ECTS
The Programme for Master of Science in Psychology, 300 ECTS Spring 2019
Supervisor: Kalyani Vishwanatha
WORKPLACE VALUES,
SUSTAINABLE EMPLOYMENT AND TURNOVER INTENTION:
A GENERATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Olivia Brinck & Hanna Larsson
Acknowledgements
A special thanks to our supervisor Kalyani Vishwanatha for her extensive work and commitment that laid the foundations of our work.
We as authors are ever so grateful for your thoughts and time spent aiding the completion of this master’s thesis.
We extend our immense appreciation to Company X for their cooperation and support, as well as providing the data for this thesis. A special thanks to the company’s head of Human Resources without whom our research would not have been possible.
Abstract
What makes a person willing to leave their job? What makes an employment sustainable?
Research have been conducted to explain employee turnover based on three different aspects;
a person’s intent to leave, company failure to satisfy the employee’s expectations of the work and sustainable employment. This thesis aimed to investigate work values, employee turnover intention and sustainable employment among the Millennial generation at Company X, a Swedish company working with logistics (n = 59). The millennial generation in this study were defined as people born between 1979-1994. The participants were divided into three age groups: under 24 years of age, between 24 and 39 years and over 39 years. The study applied a combined qualitative and quantitative method. The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire II (COPSOQ) was used and analyzed using ANOVA and regression analysis. Four supplementary semi-structured interviews were conducted, and the data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The quantitative results showed no significant difference between age groups and the COPSOQ dimensions except on the scale Health and Wellbeing. Work and Private life predicted sustainable employment and Cooperation and Leadership significantly predicted turnover intention. Results from the qualitative data helped to identify the underlying causes for sustainable employment and turnover intention. Conclusion: The study suggested that individual factors better explain sustainable employment and turnover intention at Company X rather than generational differences.
Keywords: COPSOQ, millennials, workplace, motivation, employees, satisfaction, values, commitment, leadership, sustainability, turnover intention behavior, career advancement
Abstrakt
Vad gör en person villig att säga upp sig? Vad gör en anställning hållbar? Forskning har gjorts för att förklara personalomsättning baserat på tre aspekter; personens avsikt att lämna, arbetsgivarens misslyckade försök att uppfylla anställdas förväntningar av arbetet och hållbar anställning. Den här studien syftade till att undersöka arbetsvärderingar, personalomsättning och hållbar anställning bland millenniegenerationen på Företag X, ett logistikföretag i Sverige (n = 59). Millenniegeneration definieras i som personer födda mellan 1979 - 1994. Deltagarna blev indelade i åldersgrupperna under 24 år, mellan 24 och 39 år, över 39 år. Studien tillämpade en kombinerad kvantitativ och kvalitativ metod. Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire II (COPSOQ) användes och data analyserades genom ANOVA och regressionsanalys. Fyra kompletterande semi-strukturerade intervjuer genomfördes och data analyserades med tematisk analysmetod. Resultaten från de kvantitativa analyserna visade ingen signifikant korrelation mellan åldersgrupper och COPSOQ dimensionerna förutom på skalan Hälsa och Välbefinnande. Arbete och Privatliv var en signifikant prediktor för hållbar anställning och Samarbete och Ledning var en signifikant prediktor för personalomsättning. Resultat från kvalitativa data bidrog till att identifiera de underliggande orsakerna till hållbar anställning och personalomsättning. Slutsats: Studien föreslog att individuella faktorer kan förklara hållbar anställning och personalomsättning hos Företag X bättre än vad generationsskillnader kan.
Nyckelord: COPSOQ, millenniegenerationen, arbetsplats, anställda, tillfredsställelse, engagemang, motivation, hållbarhet, personalomsättningsbeteende, karriärsavancemang, värderingar, ledarskap.
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Work Values, Sustainable Employment and Turnover Intention: A Generational Perspective Introduction
To find a work that you feel committed to, that motivates you and where you feel appreciated by your managers and co-workers is something that a lot of people look for in their career. That strive can be difficult to fulfill leading to lack of motivation when the work gets too menial which can lead to employee turnover. The turnover intention among the Millennial generation is high, but why? And what could be done to prevent this from escalating?
Individual and Organizational factors in employee turnover and sustainable employment There are a lot of different takes on Employee Turnover. Turnover as a concept contained both voluntary resignation as well as involuntary termination of employment. In this thesis the focus and definition of employee turnover were focused solely on the voluntary resignation. Hence there was a need to clarify the different perspective on employee turnover and they are presented as follows. Stahl, Chua, Caligiuri, Cerdin and Taniguchi (2009) found predictors for why a person feels an intent to leave a job. Those were explained as either a person feeling a lower satisfaction with the company support or a prospect of lower career advancement opportunities within the company compared to opportunities available at another workplace.
In discussing employee turnover it’s also important to note what aspects that affects an employee’s inclination to stick with their job for a foreseeable future. This concept is defined in this thesis as Sustainable Employment. A study conducted by van Dam, van Vuuren and Kemps (2017) defined sustainable employment as an employee’s willingness and ability to keep working for the company both currently and in the future. They emphasized the importance of three factors when it comes to sustainable employment. The three factors were Employability, which in this context referred to an individual’s ability to fulfill the work needed in current and future jobs, Work Engagement referred to employees showing high energy and involvement in their work. The third factor was Affective Commitment defined in the study by van Dam et al. (2017) as the emotional attachment an employee has developed towards the organization (p.2452). These three factors seemed to play an important role in providing a healthy growing ground for workers to feel commitment to their job and therefore in their ultimate decision to remain within the organization and not look for employment elsewhere.
From an organizational point of view, aspects of employee turnover can be explained by how the companies fail to satisfy the employees expectations of their work at hand. A study by Tarigan & Wahyu Ariani (2015) found that organizational commitment and satisfaction with their expectations and the reality of the work, are two predictors of turnover intention.
Research showed a negative correlation between the two predictors previously mentioned, and a person’s intent to leave. Boyas, Wind and Ruiz (2013) investigated the different aspects of the workplace and the need for certain support depending on the length of employment. They found that employees that worked for a long time (over three years) in the company sought support regarding organizational fairness which minimizes the effect of stress and emotional exhaustion. The less experienced workers showed a tendency to crave more additional supervisory support, greater involvement in the work they’re doing, open and transparent communication which leads to diminished job stress and in extension, prevents burnout and turnover intention.
2 Work Values
The concepts of employee turnover and sustainable employment can be explored by identifying the prevalent values one has towards different aspects of their work. Dose (1997) defined that “Work values are the evaluative standards relating to work or the work environment by which individuals discern what is ‘‘right’’ or assess the importance of preferences” (p. 227-228). Further on, values can be viewed as having impact on a person’s preference for what kind of work one has and in what type of organizational environment one works in. Cherrington (1980) defined three different work values. The first value named The Rewards of Work described rewards as feeling worthwhile, getting respect and feedback from your supervisor and coworkers and for some, getting rewarded with a higher wage. The second named Pride in Craftsmanship can be explained as how one should be proud of one’s accomplishments, always aim to do a good work and enjoy it regardless of the task. The value Moral Importance of Work can be explained as the idea that this is your moral duty and regardless needing money or not, you should work (Cherrington, 1980).
The Millennial generation at work
Work values can vary across generations, depending on what the generation recognize as especially important for their sense of comfort and wellbeing (Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010;
Billups, 2018). The generation Y, hereafter referred to as the Millennial generation, was defined by Cogin (2012) as a group of people born between 1979-1994. Hence it was this definition we referred to throughout the thesis when discussing the Millennial generation.
The Millennial generation were described as a generation who grew up with continual access to internet and the globalization development. They were described as a generation characterized as social multi-taskers who premiere flexibility, seek development at work and have the need of instant gratification. They also premiere working in an organization with whom they share values with and where they feel social support from co-workers. (Thompson, 2011; Cogin, 2012). Research by Billups (2018) concluded that open and continual communication and feedback are of great importance for the Millennial generation to feel satisfied with their workplace.
The research conducted on the Millennial generation over the years have mainly been focused on the specific personality traits of the generation and how that interacted with the workplaces subjected to hire people from the Millennial generation. Studies have shown that the personality traits linked to the Millennial generation describe them as being impatient, self- centered and disloyal. Not all of the perceptions are negative. People from the Millennial generation are also described as flexible, communicative and more open-minded than previous generations. (Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010; Billups, 2018) They are also more used to work in teams and cooperate compared to older generations. Research also focused on the factor of conflict between the clash of generations at a workplace and how to get around it. Some of the research pointed out the underlying need for communication strategies and resourceful positive leadership and encouragement to aid the Millennial generation in their work and engagement.
(Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010; Billups, 2018)
Even though studies have found evidence for people from the Millennial generation’s explicit needs of above-mentioned resources, the Millennial generation is commonly stereotyped and subjected to prejudice. Why is that? Riggio and Saggi (2015) talked about how the inheritance of biases might function as a part of the explanation of why stereotyping generations can be deemed as common practice. According to Riggio and Saggi (2015) the generational stereotypes was set by the generation in power and control and that generation applies an in-group/out-group bias. People in power today mostly belong to the baby boomer’s
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generation. This bias worked to view the younger generations negatively which leads to prejudices such as the Millennial generation being lazy, lacking work ethics, being disloyal and unmotivated. Interestingly, these stereotypes also became prevalent in the targeted generation, and would soon be internalized by the target generation and perceived as truths, even though it completely lacked evidence. With regards to the way humans perceive and process social information, the one-sided evidence for the stereotypes could be found everywhere. In the day to day living, every Millennial who doesn’t turn up to work in time or calls in sick, is acting like living proof for the assumed stereotypes.
Providing new research
Although there was extensive research regarding Millennials at the workplace, research seemed to be lacking with regards to the Millennial perspective on employee turnover and sustainable employment, especially with regards to Swedish standards. The reason why Millennials were of interest was because it is one of the largest upcoming group of employees in the 21st century.
Since the research for this study was done in cooperation with a third party focus was directed towards the employment age group at hand but also to gain insight in what aspects of work values the managers were looking for in an employee and how to help them build a foundation of knowledge that can be useful for both the employees and management going forward.
Aim of the thesis
The aim of this thesis was to investigate what the employees from the Millennial generation and their managers considered to be contributing factors that generated and affected sustainable employment as well as turnover intention. This was done by investigating the values of the employees and management while simultaneously looking at the contributing factors of the work itself. It also sought to understand how those factors could be used to aid the company in helping their employees to a sustainable employment and reduce turnover intention.
What are the values that are prevalent primarily among the Millennial generation?
What aspects of the workplace environment contribute to explain employee turnover intention?
What aspects of the workplace environment contribute to explain sustainable employment?
Method Procedure
The study conducted a combined qualitative and quantitative design. The combination of the both approaches was motivated by the need for information regarding how many of the employees who share certain feelings are as well as getting valuable qualitative information from a limited selection of employees. This was done to aid the understanding of what aspects of the workplace would benefit the company in their pursuit of reliant, efficient workers while also maintaining a broad perspective including both management and employees.
The interviews were based on a semi structured guide with questions designed for each employment position. The interviews took roughly an hour each and was conducted by the two researchers together. The setting was a closed off conference room on site.
4 Sample and selection process
The participants were drawn from a group of employees and managers from a specific company working with logistics, in the capital of Sweden. The company, hereby referred to as Company X has a total of 800 employees spread across Sweden. The site that was subject to this thesis had a staff count of 90 employees, including both consultants from an inhouse recruitment company and employed staff. The participants were recruited by the Company X head of HR in collaboration with the other members of the company’s management. The head of HR emailed the link to the COPSOQ survey and also presented us with four employees subjected for interviews. The interviews were held with two participants from each employment position (all belonging to the Millennial generation) i.e. business manager and warehouse operator with the aim to capture both a management perspective as well as an employee perspective. The participants were selected and booked for interviews by the company’s head of HR. Data was collected from 59 participants.
Measures
For the purpose of this master thesis, data was collected using demographic inquiries, COPSOQ questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The COPSOQ dimensions were used to explore work values in the thesis.
Demographic data. The demographic data considered were factors of age, gender, work title and level of education.
COPSOQ. The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire II (COPSOQ) Swedish version containing 89 items, was used to measure the psychosocial aspects of the workplace.
It is often used to identify specific workplace problems and is well established internationally (Fernandes & Pereira 2016; Nielsen, Rasmussen, Classcock & Spangenberg, 2008).
A comparison between the English and Swedish version of COPSOQ showed a significant coherence using Cohen’s kappa (.42) in translation of the concepts that the questionnaire aims to measure. (Bertheldsen, Westerlund & Søndergård Kristensen, 2018) A study investigating the reliability of COPSOQ using Cronbach’s alpha, showed an adequate to good reliability (.75 - .85) in seven out of eight scales. The reliability using Green’s test-retest design showed similar results (.72 - .0.81) (Thorsen & Bjorner, 2010).
Dicke, Marsh, Riley, Parker, Guo and Horwood (2018) measured validity of COPSOQ and found strong support for both convergent validity and discriminant validity. They also found that the construct as well as the convergent validity of the different dimensions of COPSOQ were satisfactory and corresponded well with the questions associated with each dimension.
The COPSOQ questionnaire consisted of eight dimensions (see Table 1). Each dimension had specific questions associated to it, ranging from four to twenty-five, depending on the complexity of the dimension. The eight dimensions of the COPSOQ was based on scales (Table 1). The participant was asked to rate their answer to a question on a scale from one to five, given set descriptions of the meaning of each number e.g. 5 represents a low degree and number 1 represents a high degree. A low score on these scales were desirable since that correlated with the question itself when asked in a manner of a claim such as “Do you get behind with your work?”. This is true for every scale in the COPSOQ with exception for the scale Work-family conflict, that only had a rated score between one and four. Some of the scales had reversed answers where high numbers correlated with greater demands (“Poängsättning för COPSOQ II,” n.d.).
5 Table 1.
The eight dimensions of COPSOQ with attached scales
Dimension Scale
Work demands Quantitative demands
Work pace
Emotional demands
Work organization and meaning Influence
Possibilities for development Variations in work
Meaningful work Involvement in work
Cooperation and leadership Predictability
Role clarity Role conflict
Quality of leadership
Social support from supervisor Social support from colleagues Recognition
Social community at work
Work-individual interplay Job Satisfaction
Work and private life Work-family conflict
Values at the workplace Trust Management
Trust Colleagues Justice
Inclusion and social responsibility
Health and wellbeing Perceived health
Burnout Stress Sleep issues Offensive behavior
Semi-structured interviews. Supplementary interviews were conducted to grasp the more complex aspects of job satisfaction that wasn’t covered by the COPSOQ survey. The interview questions aimed to have a more explorative perspective than the questions from COPSOQ, for instance if a question from COPSOQ is phrased “Is your workload unevenly distributed so it piles up?”, the interview’s aim was to have a more explorative standpoint and try to see why and how the workload piled up. Theoretical thematic analysis was the best suited scientific approach since the aim was to explore themes based on the research questions and theoretical background. The data was analyzed with a semantic approach to generate codes that evolved into categories that later evolved into themes. (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
6 Statistical analysis
The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, version 24 (SPSS 24)..
Data from COPSOQ was analyzed using linear regression analysis. The reason for using the eight COPSOQ dimensions (See Table 1.) as predictors for the linear regression analysis was based on the decision to investigate which work values were prevalent for the staff at Company X and how that would affect and contribute to the outcome of sustainable employment and turnover intention. ANOVA was used to investigate potential differences between age groups on work values. The mean of each scale from COPSOQ were analyzed and compared to current available Danish norm groups (Pejtersen, Kristensen, Borg & Bjorner, 2010).
Ethical considerations
Participation in the study was voluntary and no personal data were used or otherwise kept by the researchers. Throughout the project, there has been a formal agreement in writing between the researchers and the participants stating their right to be anonymous, the full disclosure of the findings and the researchers vow of confidentiality. When working with our findings all the data were encoded in SPSS and after that analyzed and presented groupwise to ensure that no data could be linked to an individual.
For the qualitative part of the design, all identifying info like names, statements, circumstances or incidents revealed was not included in the thesis to ensure anonymity.
Participants were informed about the nature of the study and the type of questions before they gave consent. They retained the right to not answer specific questions if they chose not to.
Results Quantitative analysis
The quantitative data was collected from 59 participants (66%). 44 of them identified themselves as men (74.6%) and 15 identified themselves as women (25.4%). The age groups were predefined as “under 24 years of age”, “between 24 and 39 years of age” and “over 39 years of age”. A majority of the participants ranged within the span of 24 to 39 years of age (54.2%). The other age groups as per predefined conditions was reported as 23.7% over 39 years of age and 22% as under 24 years of age. The participants educational level showed a majority of participants completed high school with no further education at 64.4%. 23.7%
reported having a college degree and 10.2% reported only graduation of middle school. One participant did not have an education (1.7%). The work titles ranged from 47 warehouse workers, 7 team leaders, 2 business support, 2 business managers, 1 from facility and 1 site manager. The mean length of employment at Company X was 10.31 months. The variable Sustainable employment had a shortfall of 6 respondents.
What are the values that are prevalent primarily among the Millennial generation? The results from the COPSOQ questionnaire was compared with current available Danish norm groups. The results from the comparison between scales showed an overall better rating of the employees at Company X (Table 2). Some of the scales had a reversed score where the employees at Company X rated higher on the scales Work pace, Sleep issues, Stress, Burnout, and Quantitative demands than the Danish norm groups, when a low score was desirable. On the other hand, the employees at Company X reported higher scores on Inclusion and Social responsibility, Meaningful Work, Recognition, Justice, Influence, Predictability, Quality of leadership, Social Community at Work, Job Satisfaction and Social support from Supervisor and Social Support from Colleagues where a high score was desirable. These results
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showed a trend of high demands and stress but with great support and protective resources that aided the employees to cope with the demands of work. Employees at Company X rated lower on the scales Possibilities for development, Variations in Work, Trust Management, Trust Colleagues, Perceived Health when a high score was preferable. The employees at Company X rated lower than the Danish norms on the scales Emotional Demands, Role conflict, Work Family Conflict, where a low score was preferable. Involvement in Work and Role Clarity were both almost the same as the Danish norms and a high score was preferable.
Table 2.
Comparison of the COPSOQ scales between Company X and Danish norms
Scale Company X norms Danish norms
Quantitative demands 43.3* 40.2
Work pace 61.4* 59.5
Emotional demands 33.3* 40.7
Influence 57.2** 49.8
Possibilities for development 65.9** 66.8
Variations in work 54.7** 60.4
Meaningful work 75.9** 73.8
Involvement in work 60.0** 60.9
Predictability 63.3** 57.7
Role clarity 73.3** 73.5
Role conflict 36.7* 42.0
Quality of leadership 69.2** 55.3
Social support from supervisor 69.5** 61.6
Social support from colleagues 68.9** 57.3
Recognition 74.2** 66.2
Social community at work 80.2** 78.7
Job Satisfaction 70.8** 65.3
Work-family conflict 26.4* 33.5
Trust Management 65.6** 67.0
Trust Colleagues 44.0** 68.6
Justice 68.1** 59.2
Inclusion and social responsibility 88.1** 67.5
Perceived health 64.4** 66.0
Stress 27.5* 26.7
Burnout 35.6* 34.1
Sleep issues 28.4* 21.3
Note. *low score better, **high score better
The results from the ANOVA analysis showed no significant differences in values between the Millennial generation in comparison to the other age groups. The ANOVA analysis did show a significant difference between the age groups on the dimension Health and wellbeing. Employees over the age of 39 rated significantly lower on health and wellbeing
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compared to employees under 24 years of age. That result shows that the employees under 24 years of age rate their health to be better than the age group over 39 years. (table 3).
Table 3.
Results from ANOVA comparison of value “health and wellbeing” between age groups Age group
(I) Age group
(J) Mean diff.
(I-J) df F SE p
Under 24
years of age Over 39
years 13.83* 2, 54 4.004 4.92 .021
Note. *p<.05
What aspects of the workplace environment contribute to explain sustainable employment? The data was analyzed through a linear regression analysis investigating if any of the COPSOQ dimensions were predictors for Sustainable employment. Results showed that Work and private life was a significant predictor for sustainable employment (Table 4). The factor of work and private life explained 32% of the variance in sustainable employment at the workplace. This could be interpreted as the higher you rated on Work and private life, the higher you presumably rated on the length of employment i.e. sustainable employment.
Table 4.
Linear Regression Analysis of COPSOQ II dimensions on Sustainable employment.
Dependent variable n R R Square B beta
Work demands 53 .565 .320 .016 .186
Work organization and meaning
53 .565 .320 .022 .289
Cooperation and
leadership 53 .565 .320 .039 .437
Work individual interplay
53 .565 .320 -.013 -.174
Work and private
life 53 .565 .320 .021* .372
Values at the workplace
53 .565 .320 -.041 -.421
Health and wellbeing
53 .565 .320 .007 .073
Offensive behavior 53 .565 .320 .027 .110
Note. Dependent variable: Sustainable employment *p<.05, **p<.01,
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What aspects of the workplace environment contribute to explain employee turnover intention? The results from the linear regression analysis showed that employee turnover intention was significantly predicted by the variable Cooperation and leadership.
Cooperation and leadership explained 55% of the cause for employee turnover intention at Company X (table 5). The results showed that cooperation and leadership was a negative predictor for explaining employee turnover intention. That could be understood as the lower one rated their sense of cooperation and leadership, the higher one rated their willingness to look for employment elsewhere.
Table 5.
Linear Regression Analysis of COPSOQ II dimensions on Employee turnover intention.
Dependent variable n R R Square B beta
Work demands 53 .742 .550 .317 .166
Work organization
and meaning 53 .742 .550 -.349 -.211
Cooperation and leadership
53 .742 .550 -1.431** -.760
Work individual interplay
53 .742 .550 .045 .027
Work and private
life 53 .742 .550 .164 .156
Values at the workplace
53 .742 .550 .463 .233
Health and
wellbeing 53 .742 .550 -.425 -.214
Offensive behavior 53 .742 .550 -.157 -.028
Note. Dependent variable: Employee turnover intention *p<.05, **p<.01,
Qualitative analysis
The interviews resulted in five major themes, presented as follows; Values, Prejudice, Personal experience, Organization and leadership, Social responsibility and Employment. The account for the themes will be presented under each research question which they answer to.
10 Table 6.
Thematic Analysis
Categories Themes
Joy Loyalty
Openness/ transparency
Values
Laziness
Gender differences Work moral
Work filled with demands and involuntary effort Lack of understanding and life experience Generation gaps
Prejudice
Motivation
Gender differences Initiative
Flexibility Responsibility
Conflict management Visibility of supervisor
Management and leadership style Statistics over accomplishments Improvements and development Social interaction
Community and cohesion Social support
Sociability and pleasantness Helpfulness and cooperation Communication and transparency Feedback
Personal experience
Organization and leadership
Social responsibility
Unpredictable future at the company Variation and rotation
Workload
In-house recruitment
Possibility to career advancement Competence
Work pace
Employment
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What are the values that are prevalent primarily among the Millennial generation? Values. The three major values that was prevalent among all of the four
interviewees were Loyalty, Openness/transparency and Joy (Table 6). These values all played an important role in the feeling of motivation and engagement in one’s work. Loyalty was necessary to build mutual trust between employee and management and thereby increase self- worth and individual responsibility of one’s own productivity. The sense of loyalty towards one’s manager was expressed as an unspoken voluntary reciprocity principle that the
employees lived by and showed not by words but in actions. As one of the interviewees put it [...]...since he (my business manager) is kind and says okay to everything (I ask for), we have to be kind to him too and give a little more. (We) can’t just use him (and his kindness) all the time. So, if I’m supposed to get 300 rows done today, I feel like doing 400 rows, for his sake. The fact that I’m working overtime on a Saturday is for him, not for the money, but for him[...].
What motivated the employees to do a good job, besides having a sense of loyalty and obligation towards one’s leader, joy played an important role. It was vital for all interviewees to experience joy at work and the underlying understanding was that you have to “enjoy the work you’re doing, otherwise you won’t last for long”.
[...] Joy. When you are out there working, a lot of things happen but the most important thing is that you feel joy for what you do. I have an 80/20 rule. If 80 percent of what I’m doing is joyful and 20 percent not so much, it’s going to be fine[...].
Openness/transparency was largely associated with communication, feedback and a feeling of inclusion in the team. If an employee experienced openness from the management’s point of view, the employee would feel valued and appreciated. Communication as an aspect of transparency also had a function of keeping the work pleasant and it became clear that the staff appreciated all form of contact and social interaction between the different ranks of employment.
Prejudice. The theme of Prejudice (table 6) emerged in the interview material when the interviewees were asked to think out loud about what characteristics they associated with the Millennial generation. All of the interviewees made a disclaimer that these traits were to be found in the Millennial generation, with exception of the interviewee him/herself. Especially interesting was the fact that the interviews were conducted with participants that were all associated to be in the range of the Millennial generation as per previous inclusion criteria. In this theme, it was employees of the Millennial generation that expressed prejudice towards their own generation. As one of the interviewed members of management put it
[...]It’s all about what sense of responsibility you have. If you don’t do what is asked of you and don’t give a damn about your work, that’s a form of immaturity[...].
In the above quote the participant expressed that a challenge with handling staff in the Millennial generation was their general level of lower work morals, laziness and immaturity with regards to their work efforts. It was also mentioned that the Millennial generation sees work as an involuntary necessity to live and that work itself is not fulfilling or fun. The explanation for this was according to the interviewees the lack of understanding how privileged the younger generation is and their lack of understanding of how the world works. The ignorance regarding the reciprocity to society shined through, as well as the lack of interest and the opportunities to further advancement. If an employee, as the interviewees themselves, went beyond the norms and prejudice associated with the Millennial generation, that person was viewed as an exception to the rule.
[...]when I was 19, I loved my job. And today, if you have a look at sick leave and late arrivals, the age group 20-25-year old’s stands out. To develop it further… it’s not fun to work anymore[...].
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What aspects of the workplace environment contribute to explain sustainable employment? Personal experience. The categories Motivation, Gender differences, Initiative, Flexibility and Responsibility (table 6) can be aspects that explain sustainable employment.
The work at Company X required certain aspects of predominant traits that the interviewees valued as important for a successful and sustainable employment. First of all, they mentioned initiative and motivation. Initiative was mentioned by all interviewees as an important factor of the ideal employee.
[...]Just because I find a way that works doesn’t mean I just settle. I will continue to search for an even more efficient and productive way. That is not just important for the company but for me as well[...].
The company appreciated the initiative of employees with regards to bringing new ideas to the table, taking on extra responsibility as well as giving and receiving feedback across the hierarchy of employment positions.
[...]In that, I also value creativity, I like when the staff comes with new ideas that we can implement and see improvements by and lift these people up[...].
Team is defined by the employees as something different from simply being a group.
In this matter it was pointed out that for a team to be successful, the employees need to be flexible in their way of conducting the work and be open for rapid change.
[…] You should feel motivated and feel like” oh my, they’ve got a heavy workload”
and that you act on it and offer to help. If I only do my part in the production, my numbers are going to look great but that doesn’t mean I’m being a good team player. I think we should have more team building activities…so that people see themselves as part of a team (and not individuals in a group), I think that would be a huge improvement for the wellbeing of the staff and also increase production. […]
The personal experience of being at work was also dependent of gender. One interviewee reflected over the way that conflicts at the workplace was handled differently if it involved a female. The experience of being viewed as demanding was prevalent if conflict were to arise.
‘[...]If a woman says anything, she’ll be considered to be a b***h, but if a guy would say it [the exact same thing], it would be like ‘Okay, we’ll think about it’. I don’t think [women]
has been showed a lot of support in conflicts. It’s been more like ‘Just bear with it, it will soon change, he’s going to be removed or you’ll get to do other tasks.’ but it hasn’t been focusing on actually resolving the issue at hand[...].
These types of situations were not isolated incidents and left the female employees with a sense of guilt which forced them to feel a need to excuse their behavior and shy away from confrontation.
What aspects of the workplace environment contribute to explain employee turnover intention? Organization and leadership. The theme Organization and leadership emerged from the categories Conflict management, Visibility of supervisor, Management and leadership style, Statistics over accomplishments and Improvements and development (table 6). Individual accomplishments at Company X were logged on a daily basis in the logging system in use at the site. This method of constant tracking of achievements caused a lot of stress for the employees as well as a contra productive effect on verbal feedback. The feedback was compromised by the fact that all achievements within the accepted range of productivity was overlooked and taken for granted. The social interaction was also compromised by the slim time plan made by business managers based on hours and minutes for each project. With that in mind, the underachievers stood out and employees trying to implement new ideas or change through conversation, was indirectly punished by not meeting their daily targets. Having the constant chase of results entails that the producing of numeric results is viewed as the main
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source of feedback, not focusing on conflict management or social interaction.
[...]Sometimes you do something without the leader’s knowledge, but they can monitor everything through the system. If he (my team leader) wants to know what I’m doing today he can log on to the system and see what I’m up to[...].
Conflict management was criticized by one interviewee who stated that it’s of less importance to work through a conflict than resolving the situation by termination of the employee causing the argument. This way of handling conflicts worked as a deterrent for employees to raise issues including colleagues.
[...]If it hasn’t worked with an employee for some reason… Then they’ve (the management) just terminated that person without asking ‘Why is it like this?’, and taken into consideration that this person actually does a good job but… it’s something more personal and then they’ve just terminated the employee instead of communicate and figure out what’s really going on. I can count at least three times in a fairly short time that this has happened. And then one can feel very insecure, I’ve almost put a lid on myself by fear of being terminated myself.
And on what grounds? You’ll never get to know that; you’ll just be transferred or disappear without knowing the reason behind it. It feels like no one is safe here. Like it doesn’t even matter how much of a good job I’m doing, because if someone doesn’t like me personally, they can make something up or push me to doing something and then they’ll get rid of me. I’ve never experienced this before[...].
The visibility of supervisors out on the floor was another factor that reportedly increased the employee’s motivation, feelings of inclusion and being seen as a person of notion.
It became apparent that different leaders applied different leadership styles that affected their visibility out on the floor and the level of personal connection with their employees. Some of the managers had a more traditional, authoritarian management style while some managers prioritized a more laid-back relational style which had a positive effect on the loyalty and approval from their employees.
[...]They might have a point too; a boss wants to eat with another boss and employees wants to eat with other employees. Maybe that’s how they think. But XX (my team leader) came and had lunch with us from the very first day, and that’s why we like him so much. [...]
The interviewees had different ideas on improvements for the company. One employee gave the suggestion to implement team meetings once a month to work with team building and get to know the ones you work with. Not only to improve the cooperation and one’s wellbeing but also the productivity. One employee expressed how improvements and development were crucial for that person’s interest in staying at the company.
Social responsibility. The categories Social interaction, Community and cohesion, Social support, Sociability and pleasantness, Helpfulness and cooperation, Communication and transparency and Feedback are used to explain the theme Social responsibility (table 6).
Even though there was not much wiggle room for social interaction at the workplace due to the high workload and pace, social interaction was one of the most important aspects for both the employees and management when it came to what impacted their motivation. Different aspects of social interaction were mentioned in the interviews where some of the employees highlighted the importance of having a transparency in the communication so that they all could feel involved in the work and new implementations at Company X. The transparency throughout the hierarchy could have a big impact on the workforce to feel like a team, aiding cooperation and helping each other out. To this day, that is not a given for all of the employees.
A topic from the interviews were improvements in how feedback was given. One of the employees mentioned one situation where individual feedback had been presented in front of the entire team. The employee had felt humiliated and considered to leave the job.
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[...] It was a week where the statistics showed a lot of mistakes in the orders with my name having the most errors. [..]and we had a new team leader that presented the statistics just
*BAM* right in my face and everyone could see that I had the most mistakes [..] But a lot of them could be explained.[...] I’m not a machine, it can happen, but it was how it was presented[...].
When talking about feedback in general, all of the interviewees underlined the importance of feedback to maintain one’s motivation. An employee said that the feedback is not so straight forward and more often presented when you have done something wrong. The management also underlined how important it was with both positive and negative feedback to improve the work but that it must be given one to one and not in front of the entire team. It was an expressed wish to receive more feedback from the employees to reach an openness at the site, regardless of one’s work title.
Employment. The final theme that were coded from the interviews emerged from the categories Unpredictable future at the company, Variation and rotation, Workload, In-house recruitment, Possibility to career advancement, Competence and Work pace (table 6). The personnel employed as warehouse operators underlined the importance of variation in work assignments and rotation. Since the work itself is mundane and monotone, employees emphasized rotation as a way to boost motivation and prevent stagnation.
[...]It’s the same job, same boss, same salary. But you get to do something different.
You feel like you’re doing something new. I think it’s better for everyone if you do it like that (rotate the work) [...].
One employee expressed the rotation as a way to enhance one’s curriculum to ensure employability in the future. It became clear that one factor that contributed to the employees’
sense of sustainability at Company X was the insecurity with regards to the future of the company.
[...]For my sake, it’s not the money that matters. I’m thinking about the future. If I would only work with packing and I for example, wouldn’t like my boss or my colleagues and must search for employment elsewhere, I wouldn’t have a strong CV, if all I’ve done is pack.
Who’s going to hire me? So, I’m thinking that I must learn everything, packing, picking, stocking, I don’t know what. Then I’ll have a strong CV that allows me to work anywhere[...].
The opportunities for development and the use of in-house recruitment for new positions acted as a mediating factor for the insecurities otherwise discussed. The management tried to encourage the employees to apply for an opening, regardless of their work title. Instead they look at a person’s competence, qualities, motivation and ambition.
[...]Now we encourage the employees to apply for openings. We’ve had external recruits before, but those people haven’t lasted very long. For instance, one external couldn’t manage his role and so he got replaced by an intern recruit[...].
Discussion
What are the values that are prevalent primarily among the millennial generation?
By using Dose’s definition (1997) on work values to assess the importance of preferences the results showed that the quality of leadership and social support is highly valued in the Millennial generation and is seen as having an impact on all of the aspects of work. The Millennial generation reported that they viewed the work as unvaried, stressful and high in quantitative demands. On the other hand, they rated higher than the Danish norms on social support, justice, influence and quality of leadership. The interpretation of what this translates to in practice is that the employees at Company X has a generally stressful work with little room for recuperation. However, the social support they feel from colleagues and management
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act like protecting resources to help the employees to cope with the high demands. Those protecting resources were emphasized by Thompson (2011) and Cogin (2012) as important for the Millennial generation at work.
There was only one value that differed between age groups which was the dimension Health and wellbeing, where the employees under 24 years of age rated their health as significantly better than the employees over 39. It seemed as age and length of employment both independently had an impact on work and private life and the quality of health and wellbeing, which is something to take into consideration when delegating work and scheduling overtime.
Cherrington’s (1980) definition of the three work values The Rewards of Work, Pride in Craftsmanship and Moral Importance of Work presented in the introduction, will form the basis for discussing work values. The Rewards of Work, as expressed by the employees at Company X is the joy of working in a team and feeling like a part of something greater than oneself. The rewards can also be in form of recurring feedback from one’s leader regarding work efforts and hitting the predefined targets. Something that stood out in the interviews was the employability and career advancement as a form of rewards for good work. Even though the employees had not been offered a new position yet, the possibility of an awaiting opening seemed to increase the motivation and acted as some form of pendant reward. Yet again the transparency in communication and the management’s willingness to use in-house recruitment for new positions functioned to implicitly declare to the employees that good work is not to be overlooked and that employees who shows initiative and ambition will be recognized and rewarded for their effort. Pride in craftsmanship is mostly prevalent when it comes to the variation and rotation of the tasks. The pride lies in the ability to master all the different areas in line of the production. An employee who only excels in one area of the production is seen as presumably lazy and not a good team player. It’s not enough to be content with the sole work at hand, but to strive to excel at all different aspects of the production that is required. The warehouse operators took pride in being highly flexible and a useful resource in all areas as well as being a valued resource to the company. It’s debatable whether moral importance of work is a generational issue or not. The interviewed members of management seemed to have a preconceived opinion that the moral importance that they feel towards working is lacking in the younger generation. They expressed a sense of hopelessness with regards to motivating the younger employees to feel more committed to their work. It was talked about in a sense of looking back on the good old days when work was seen as something exciting and important in life. Now they experience that the younger employees values other aspects of life instead of work, and that work is seen as something that ‘needs to be done’ in order to survive and cover the costs of their other more highly valued interests. Although all interviewees talked about the younger generation as unmotivated and lazy, putting their least possible effort into their work and so forth, all the interviewees belonged to the same generation that was subjected to their prejudice, the Millennial generation.
The theme of prejudice towards their own generation was evident and they all seemed to view themselves as an exception to the rule when it came to their ambitions, motivation and work moral. This could be explained by Riggio and Saggi’s (2015) theory about in/out group bias that claim the stereotypes are constructed and reinforced by the generation currently in power, which in this case are people mostly belonging to the baby boomer’s generation. The stereotypes are then inherited down to the younger generations who later has a preconceived idea of the generation they’re a part of. This could serve as an explanation of why the Millennial generation expresses prejudice towards their own generation and don’t feel like a part of these stereotypes, since the bias is inherited and conceived by the elders and simply upheld by the Millennial generation who sometimes acts accordingly and functions as a confirmation bias.
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What aspects of the workplace environment contribute to explain sustainable employment?
Employees at Company X rated lower than the Danish norms on the scale Work and Family Conflict (table 2) which stands in contrast to the results from the COPSOQ dimension of Work and private life. The employees at Company X may experience lower work and family conflict compared to the mean of the neighboring country, but at the same time rate the conflict of work and private life as the one dimension who predicted sustainable employment the most.
The dimension Work and Private Life significantly predicted the outcome of sustainable employment, which leads to the assumption that the longer you work at Company X, the more you presumably will experience a conflict between work and private life. One reason for this might be that with time, one becomes a more trusted employee that the management can depend on to do overtime without risking fueling the employee’s turnover intention. It might be easier to ask or demand long term employees to pitch in when necessary than it is to put such high demands on a newly employed person. Taking into consideration that a demand of overtime and work not previously agreed upon, might be interpreted negatively and become a deterrent for further employment.
Boyas, Wind and Ruiz (2013) found in their study that employees need different kinds of support and organizational resources, depending on the variations of length of employment.
Newly employed staff reported a greater need for additional supervisory support and clear communication as well as a greater sense of involvement in the work. The long-term employees rather craved organizational transparency such as fairness and appropriate distribution of resources at the workplace. Boyas et al. (2013) mentioned that these factors play an important role for preventing emotional exhaustion and stress which in extension leads to burnout and employee turnover intention. Their findings can be viewed as one possible explanation for why the employees at Company X report a greater conflict between work and private life with length of employment. Since Company X up until now has not focused their leadership or organizational resources on how long an employee has worked for them, it’s not implausible that their “one size fits all”-way of conducting business might not benefit everyone. This might be true if the long-term employees are given the same treatment and being offered the same support as the newly employed without regard to their already broad span of competence and confidence in their work.
In line with the previously mentioned results on Work and private life, the quantitative results showed that Work and private life was a significant predictor for sustainable employment. Another angle of the hypothesis that long-term employees experiences a higher workload is that they’ve found an efficient way of coping with the increase of demands and responsibilities. The employees who learn to deal well with the stress and high demands of work will continue to stay in the company for a longer period of time. The employees who does not find ways of coping with the increased demands will experience a larger conflict between Work and private life and will in extension, tend to leave their employment at Company X. In conclusion one could say that the long-term employees at Company X stay not because there is less conflict of work and private life, but that they learn to deal with the conflict efficiently.
To discuss the qualitative results in how to keep personnel satisfied with their work and improve their willingness to remain within a company for a long time, the theory of three main factors by van Dam et al. (2017) is applied. The first factor is that of employability. The employees at Company X view their own knowledge development and craftsmanship expertise as a way to have a sense of security for the future by being employable and attractive for other careers. By having this sense of security and knowing that the work at hand aids in their development and strengthens their curriculum, the employee is more likely to remain in their
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current position and be loyal towards the company. Results from this study shows that the employees at Company X consider their work to be varied and lets them try out a lot of different roles and tasks, which broadens their competence and work experiences. By working as a team and helping out wherever necessary, the warehouse operators gets a broad foundation of knowledge and becomes more qualified for all types of warehouse work, not just the one they’re assigned to do. The variation and rotation of work is a great way for the company to keep their employees interested and motivated, by fairly simple means and without any additional costs. In the long run the rotation and broadening of employee’s knowledge and expertise serves as a prevention of situations where the company might experience a lack of personnel. If the entire workforce has knowledge on how to conduct every aspect of the production, the workload can be easily distributed across the titles and positions to fill in the void of i.e. lack of staff due to sick leave or simply an extensive employee turnover.
The second factor, Work engagement, was underlined as of great importance for a person’s intent to stick with the company and their current job (van Dam et al., 2017). Work engagement is in this thesis defined as putting in a lot of energy and feeling involved in the work. The results showed that the employees at Company X recognized the engagement and involvement at the workplace as dependent on transparency in communication between management and staff. Since the work itself is mundane and focusing on production of a service that might not be interesting enough for the employees to feel engaged it’s important that every implementation is being informed to the employee’s before it’s implemented. This transparent communication style promotes a feeling of involvement and ultimately, engagement to one’s work because it gives the employees a chance to speak their mind, feeling like their input matters and giving them a sense of accomplishment and importance. This is something that the management of Company X should be wise to take into consideration when implementing new ideas, causing change. As of now, it seems to vary across the company, solely depending on the personal leadership style applied by each manager.
The third aspect of sustainable employment is the affective commitment one feels towards their job (van Dam et al., 2017). In the interviews it became clear that the work itself did not contribute to the employee’s affective commitment but rather the personal connection with one’s team leader or business manager. Since the affective commitment primarily is dependent on the match of personal qualities of the employee and his/her appointed leader, the sense of affective commitment varies across the teams and individuals at the workplace. From the interviews with the warehouse operators, it seems like they are generally very pleased with the team leader and business manager assigned to them. Hence these two subjects displayed willingness to work even harder than what was expected of them as well as remain with the company for a foreseeable future. Something noteworthy is that this factor was the by far most important for the employees feeling of motivation and productivity. One could speculate if the leaders were to be replaced, the outcome might be an increase in turnover intention as well as in loss of efficiency with regards to the production.
What aspects of the workplace environment contribute to explain employee turnover intention?
From the quantitative analysis, results showed that Cooperation and leadership was a negative predictor for turnover intention. That implies that if one experience the cooperation and leadership as inadequate, the higher is the possibility that one will leave their work. That result goes in line with both previous research by Tarigan & Wahyu Ariani (2015) when discussing organizational commitment and how the Millennial generation rate cooperation as of great importance for feeling satisfied with their work (Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010; Billups, 2018). The results that showed a negative prediction with regards to cooperation and leadership
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and employee turnover intention is perhaps the most important finding and could serve as a base of understanding when discussing implementations and organizational change. Previous research by Stahl et al. (2009) showed that a person’s level of satisfaction with the Company support was one of the two predictors for turnover intention. As previous discussion about work values, the comparison between the employees at Company X and Danish norm groups showed that the employees at Company X rated higher than the Danish norm groups on social support from both supervisor and colleagues. Hence this finding can be interpreted as the employees are getting enough support from the management which functions to diminish the employee’s turnover intention. This is a resource that should be highly valued by the team leaders and business managers at Company X since they have the closest interaction with the warehouse operators.
The second aspect of employee turnover intention as discussed by Stahl et al. (2009) is the possibility of career advancement within the company. From the interviews it became clear that both employees and management staff saw great possibilities to climb the hierarchical ladder and that this was now encouraged by the management. Through in-house recruitment of personnel to new openings the management showed a willingness to hire already established personnel in new positions which lead to the staff feeling appreciated and valued. The company preferred to let employees develop and take on new positions rather than take on an outsider which meant that previous work experience and loyalty towards the company served as qualifications and merits when applying for a new position. Overall, Company X fulfilled the requirements that previous studies concluded as important factors to keep personnel from looking for employment elsewhere.
Conclusions
Since the findings in this thesis showed a non-significant difference between generations regarding sustainable employment and employee turnover intention, it could act as a complement to the previous research by contemplating individual factors such as motivation, social interaction and ambition. The thesis offers an important insight in the daily life of the employees at Company X and what could be done to enforce sustainable employment, motivating staff and cultivate a common ground of support and mutual care. As a final word, we wish to use a quote from one of the interviewees that sums up the findings when it comes to focusing on the importance of social interaction, sustainable employment, thriving employees and the goals of leadership; “We started as a group, now we’re a team”.
Limitations
Limitations of this study could be the fact that the Millennial generation as defined in this thesis, has too many internal variations. The definition used covered a too broad age span, which was pointed out by the interviewees. The results might have been different if the Millennial generation had slimmer inclusion criterions with regards to age. The interviewees seemed to make a cut off at 25 years and below and a distinction between that group and the people belonging to the group defined by the ages of 25 to 30. The broad age range posed issues and hindered the exploration of the Millennial generation at work as a coherent group. Findings would perhaps have benefited from a tighter age span of five years at a time.
Since this study was restricted to research within one specific company, the data on the Millennial generation might not be up for generalization to the group as a whole. The sample pool was contained by only 59 respondents and there was a low sample size in the regression analysis on sustainable employment due to insufficient data. The COPSOQ questionnaire was
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sent out to 90 employees at Company X but lack of data from about 32% of the employees limits the ability to generalize the results of this thesis.
The four employees interviewed was handpicked by the management of Company X and booked by the head of HR. This posed a possible skewness of the data collected by the interviews since the employees might have been generally more positive inclined towards the company and more engaged at work than their colleagues who was not represented in the study.
The interviews were semi structured and conducted by two researchers. Even though both researchers were present during all interviews, a turn taking rotation of head interviewer was applied. This way of conducting interviews possibly affected the outcome since it was accepted to deviate from the interview guide when necessary. This led to the interviewees getting asked slightly different follow up questions, incoherent with the interview guide.
With previous conducted research about generational differences in mind, future research should now focus more on individual factors of what makes an employment sustainable and what makes individuals in a specific line of work feel committed. This thesis can challenge the previous research regarding the conclusion that the Millennial generation can be generalized to the point it has been before. The generation might develop as the years pass and they get older. Are prejudice always set in stone? It might pose more issues having a generational perspective than it provides new and helpful information.
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