Background

EcoHero1 is a local small-medium enterprise that is focused on developing sustainable disposable food packaging products. EcoHero has grown from a startup founded on October 1, 2011, with just 2 partners Kane Lim and Kelly Li, to a company with over 350 employees across South East Asia. EcoHero’s vision is to be the architects of a sustainable future.

EcoHero’s is to advance and promote zero-waste systems and enable customers to be better advocates of the environment. EcoHero’s business growth was aided by the increasing consumer awareness of environmental sustainability and the increasing growth of the Food and Beverage industry within the region led by fine dining restaurants and young food entrepreneurs. Many of which demanded higher quality and sustainable products that were offered by EcoHero.

The disposable food packaging industry is not without its challenges. Many bigger competitors were offering similar products made from recycled and biodegradable materials which were produced at cheaper costs but with inconsistent quality. Most of the competitors focus on obtaining these products from suppliers from other countries such as the US and China.

Few companies have explored using recycled and biodegradable materials that are sourced within the region such as the use of palm press fibre from Malaysia and biodegradable plastics from cassava roots from Indonesia.

Most companies focus on individual materials for their products and there isn’t any research and development done to integrate materials sourced from various countries.

Seeing that the disposable food packaging industry is set to grow and more sustainable solutions will be demanded, EcoHero founded a Sustainable Products Institute in 2018 to research and develop better sustainable products that use regionally sourced materials. This institute is also supported by a substantial government grant.

In recent years, EcoHero has been facing several issues in their workforce fondly called EcoWarriors. EcoHero has been seeing an increase in voluntary turnovers, especially in their research and development (R&D) department and production department. Exit interviews suggested that better offers and better career pathways were some of the key reasons for exEcoWarriors.

An annual EcoWarriors Work Experience (EWWE) survey conducted in 2020, also showed that engagement was not consistently high. A recent town hall was organised to share the results of the annual EWWE survey with Eco Warriors. Several questions were raised on the employee value proposition and also how rewards and promotions were determined. However, only generic answers were given by the founders which left the EcoWarriors more unsatisfied.

In their focus on growing the business and developing more unique products, Kane and Kelly realised that they have not placed enough emphasis on building the people aspects of EcoHero. Concerned with the trend of increasing turnovers and lower engagement, they have tasked the Human Resource (HR) department to analyse the EWWE survey and provide more data-driven insights and potential solutions to improve the work experience of Eco Warriors.

Tasks

You are required to produce a report to your HR director with the following:

1. Generate insights by analysing the data provided using appropriate statistical analyses (See Appendix 1 for more details on the data). Your insights should describe the steps in your analysis including relevant justifications for the statistical analyses used and report significant results (including the descriptive statistics).

Based on your analyses, your insights should identify ONE (1) vulnerable department and recommend TWO (2) areas of improvement (i.e., factors) for the department that may help improve engagement. (Hint: You are advised to first analyse the general patterns in the data before identifying the vulnerable department). Examine TWO (2) key limitations in using the company’s method of data collection and your associated statistical analyses to recommend areas of improvement.

2. Discuss the link between human capital to business using Fitz-Enz’s Human Capital-to-Enterprise pathway for the selected departments. For the human capital management level, determine the relevant focus areas in the human capital management level that best match the recommended areas of improvement (i.e., factors) obtained in your analysis with explanations.

3. With the selected relevant focus areas in the human capital management level, design measurements for the selected department based on the HR scorecard (Exclude business output and include only relevant HR Scorecard dimensions and metrics) with explanations. Provide evidence from credible sources to support the linkages between the measurements. (Note: You are required to perform some research from reputable journals, books and/or book chapters, and periodicals. Please provide the citations and references).

EcoWarriors Work Experience (EWWE) Survey

The annual EWWE survey was conducted in July 2020. All regular and fixed-term employees that were in service before March 2020 were eligible to participate in the survey. Participation is voluntary but highly encouraged. The participation rate for the 2020 EWWE survey was 95%. The EWWE survey in 2020 captures eight factors and was all self-rated.

All of the items are rated on a 5-point Likert Scale (1 – Strongly Disagree to 5- Strongly Agree) unless otherwise stated. However, only aggregated data from three departments are only listed in the HRM318-2021-Jul-EcoWarrior.csv file. The description of the eight factors is highlighted below.

Career Development (CarDev)

Career development measures employees’ perceptions of the training and development opportunities that are available to them in EcoHero. There are five items on this measurement scale. These items are: “I have the opportunity for personal development and growth in EcoHero; There are sufficient opportunities for me to receive training to increase my eligibility for a better role or position; There are sufficient opportunities for me to receive training to improve my skills in my current job; I have a reasonably good idea of my possible career paths in EcoHero; The training I have received has adequately prepared me for the work I do”.

Engagement (Eng)

Engagement measures employees’ perceptions of their purpose and enthusiasm at work. There are seven items in this measurement scale. These items are: “My work gives me a sense of personal accomplishment; I am able to sustain the level of energy I need throughout my workday; I am doing something I consider really worthwhile in my job; I am willing to work beyond what is required in my job in order to help EcoHero succeed; I feel positive at work most of the time; EcoHero energises me to go the extra mile; I am satisfied with what I do at work.”

Performance Management (PM)

Performance management measures the employees’ perceptions of their performance review process. There are two items on this measurement scale. These items are: “My recent performance review helped me to improve my performance at work; My recent review helped me in my career development and planning.”