Methods to improve morale in state owned entities' technical departments

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Physical asset management entails the optimal utilisation of assets to meet a company's goals. Substantial studies have been conducted into most aspects of asset management. However, what is seldom discussed is the effectiveness and productivity of the tradesmen maintaining assets, and the impact of this on employee morale. The morale, teamwork ability and skills of maintenance teams will determine whether the organisation can practice effective asset management. This problem is escalated in South African State-Owned Entities (SOE), as these organisations are under pressure to reduce cost and increase performance. In addition to this, SOEs are often discussed and criticised in the media.In existing literature, there is very little evidence of studies performed in a technical department, and none that focus on SOEs within South Africa, though similar studies have been conducted in other industries within developed countries. From the literature review, it is evident that monetary methods of morale improvement have not been effective in improving employee morale in a sustainable way. The literature review identified numerous morale improvement methods that have been successfully implemented. The goal of this study is to determine which of these methods are relevant to South African SOEs.An exploratory, sequential, mixed-method research approach is followed with a pragmatic worldview. The first phase of this project entails the use of qualitative research through the means of a literature review. The second phase entails the quantitative data collection and analysis, using the survey questionnaire. The third phase entails the development and qualitative review using interviews of a quantitative Decision Support System (DSS).Three SOEs participated in the study. Survey questionnaires, developed as part of this study, are utilised to identify and measure the factors affecting employee morale. Using regression analysis, it is found that no one model represents the relationship between employee morale and the factors affecting morale for the three organisations. A DSS is developed to be utilised to identify the significant morale affecting factors per organisation. The DSS is then validated, first using face validation, subsystem verification, and validation, and finally user assessment. The user assessment is conducted using interviews.The morale improvement DSS entails a questionnaire that can be completed by employees at a predetermined interval. The completed questionnaires are then captured in the DSS and the analysis is initiated. The output of the DSS is a report that provides the morale score, morale affecting factors in orders of significance, score per morale effecting factor, and morale score per demographic group. The validation process finds the morale improvement DSS to be valid, and that it assists in resolving an existing industry problem.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University