- High employee turnover at Captain Cook Cruises company.
- Low motivation of employees at Captain Cook Cruises company.
Problem Space
Captain Cook Cruises company is experiencing high employee turnover than expected by the management of the company. The company is incurring loses as the process of hiring and training new employees is a costly affair as well as time consuming. The management of the company is concerned with this trend and will like to address it objectively to reverse the trend to within acceptable level by the company.
The company is also experiencing low employees motivation leading to poor or low quality customer service / experience. The clients are exerting pressure to employees and by extension the company to deliver acceptable services to them. Captain Cook Cruises is the preferred sail line along the Sydney harbor as well as its small cruise small ship cruises on the Murray River, the Great Reef and Fiji Islands. This cloud explain why the clients are demanding better services has the company has been known to offer such top notch customer experience.
- Employees in service industries are expected to deliver high customer service to impact clients/tourist
- Employee personality
- The area in under researched
From the secondary data it is established that employees of the service industries like Cruise ship services are expected to deliver high level of customer experiences/quality services. One main reason for this is that most clients in this industry are for leisure and therefore if the services are not memorable then the clients are likely not to see value for their money. For this industry repeat clients is the most important business driver as it ensures sustained business for the company and growth. It is therefore imperative that the companies keep employees motivated and feel empowered for the tasks. (Allen and Helms, 2001)
The employee personality affects organizational performance. The employees who take time to be personally affected by unpleasant experience at work tend to show longer period of commitment at work after encountering such unpleasant experience than those who tend to react swiftly. This can be delay in promotion or company paying less bonus than expected.
However there is limited research in organizational and staff performance on cruise ships. This is the reason this research was undertaken to attempt fill the gap in the knowledge area by examining factors that influence employee motivation as well as factors that contribute to high employee turnover in Cruise ships service industry. (McLynn, 2011)
- What factors influence the organizational performance of Captain Cook Cruise?
- What is the inter-relationship between employee motivation and the organizational performance?
- What actions could be taken by Captain Cook Cruise to enhance the performance in the fierce and volatile environment?
The first question is relevant because it will give insights on what the employees consider as the best performance motivation to them. The management can then make corresponding adjustments to best accommodate the employees wishes within reasonable standards
Literature Review
The second research question will help in understanding what sort of programs Captain Cook Cruises have put in place to motivate its employees. This will lift and eye on how the company is handling its employees and this will assist in drawing conclusions that can be used by the company to boost employee performance.
The third question will assist the research in drawing proper and reasonable conclusions while advising the company on what it can implement to promote performance and retention rate of the employees. (Hau-siu Chow et al., 2006)
The Research Plan
The research design will employ a plan that will adequately provide answers to the research questions
This research will take qualitative approach because it seeks to understand general trends in employee- employer relationship that affects employee performance and retention rate.
- Data will be obtained from employees and management of Captain Cook Cruises.
- We will collect data from 200 employees of 400 total number of employees at the company.
- Considerations when approaching research sample
- Potential bias.
The research will obtain data from the employees of Captain Cook Cruises ranging from those in casual terms to permanent terms. This will ensure the correct information is picked should there be a chance that a section of employees are not proportionately remunerated compared to a different group. The sample will also take into account gender and demographic composition of the employees so that any disparity along those lines are captured by the research. A section of the management will also be part of the sample so that the research can obtain insights on what the management of Captain Crook Cruises thinks about the employees under them in terms of level of production and motivation.
50% of the employees of Captain Crook will be involved in the survey. This sample size will adequately give clearer picture on the issues or factors at play regarding employee motivation and performance at the company. Of same 50 %, the number of participants in managerial positions shall be equal to half the total number of management workforce.
Consideration shall be given to identity of those who will participate in the survey. This will ensure that the participants will give as honest information as possible without fearing to be victimized for giving his or her opinion.
The sample size will be as uniform as possible with no bias has it will cut across the age, gender and position in the company. The views obtained here will be best representative of the collective views of the company. (COMBS et al., 2006)
- Questionnaires
- Direct observation
- Interview
The research will utilize the use of questionnaires which can be administered directly to the participants or sent to them through email where they can fill the form and emailed it back for results capturing. The email bit can be used to obtained results from those respondents who may not wish to have one on one sessions.
Research Aims/Questions
The researchers will also employ direct observation method of employees of Captain Crook Cruises while at work and see if they can note a certain trend in the way employees serve clients or are friendly at work to each other and the customers.
Interviews will also be used where the researcher can ask a random question based on the answer provided on the preceding question. This can assist the researcher to note down any important scenario that could have been missed when questionnaires were being developed or when the researcher was making own direct observation.
Considerable precautions will be taken to ensure that all the questions that will be asked by the researcher will not be leading questions that leads the interviewee to give certain answer. This will ensure that the results obtained from the sample is the true reflection of the entire workforce at Captain Cook Cruises.
All the questions that will be contained in the questionnaire or asked during one on one interview will be geared towards answering the research questions.
- Management verses non management responses.
- Non verbal communication analysis
During the analysis of responses great attention should be given to discrepancies that could be noted between responses from those in managerial positions verses those in non managerial positions. This will paint a picture about whether all Captain Cook Cruises employees think they are viewed through the same lenses by the company. If there is no notable difference in the answers provided by those in management and those not in managerial positions then the company employees most likely thinks there is no inordinate special treatment at the company. On the other hand if there is notable difference on the answers to the same question along certain section of employees then there is high chance that employees at the company are experiencing inordinate preferential treatment. The a trend can be drawn from this scenario.
Attention will be accorded to non verbal communication aspect of the responses from the participants. If for example a participant looks disinterested during an interview then that could likely mean that that particular participant’s responses could not be true reflection of the real issues being sought after by the research. It is advisable that such responses should not be included when drawing final conclusion of the research.
For an aspect or a trend to be considered as a general conclusion then majority of the responds on that particular issue should be of similar observation. This will ensure that general conclusions that will be drawn from the research are as inclusive as possible. If there are varied observation on the same issue then that likely indicates that a general conclusion can not be drawn in that case and thus the issue in question may not be the major factor affecting employees motivation and retention at Captain Cook Cruises.
The research conclusions should be based on a popular responds from the sample as this indicate that the conclusion drawn are implemented majority of the workforce at Captain Cook Cruises are likely to identify or agree with the changes effected as a result of the research
What impacts could this research have on the stakeholders involved in the process? Discuss
For the employees of Captain Cook Cruises this research could lead to them receiving better terms of remuneration from the company and improvement on their working conditions.
For the company this research will likely lead to improved or boosted employee moral at work and improved/increased employee retention rate thus saving the company on time for recruitment and finances involved in training new employees.
References
Allen, R. and Helms, M. (2001). Reward Practices and Organizational Performance. Compensation & Benefits Review, 33(4), pp.74-80.
Combs, j., Liu, y., Hall, a. And Ketchen, d. (2006). How Much Do High-Performance Work Practices Matter? a Meta-Analysis Of Their Effects On Organizational Performance. Personnel Psychology, 59(3), Pp.501-528.
Hau-siu Chow, I., Wing-chun Lo, T., Sha, Z. and Hong, J. (2006). The impact of developmental experience, empowerment, and organizational support on catering service staff performance. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 25(3), pp.478-495.
McLynn, F. (2011). Captain Cook. 1st ed. New Haven: Yale University Press
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
