Employee engagement in a pharmaceutical manufacturing company : a case study of Actavis (Malta) Ltd.

Abstract

This study aimed at assessing the level and character of employees’ engagement in a manufacturing, pharmaceutical plant of a global company, operating from Malta. In order to identify a number of individual and organisational characteristics affecting engagement, a triangulation approach was adopted. A quantitative self-completed questionnaire consisting of the nine-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9), and including four open-ended questions was used to assess the degree of engagement at operator level. Additionally, qualitative data was collected at managerial level through in-depth structured interviews. Ethical issues were considered during every phase of the study. In total, 213 completed hard-copy questionnaires were collected, which gave a 53% response rate. The close-ended questions were analysed using the appropriate statistical tests. The mean UWES-9 score achieved was 3.93 (SD = 1.11). Pearson’s correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple regression were used to investigate the relationship between engagement level and a number of personal variables: age, gender, supervisory role, years of employment, number of positions held within the organisation and shift pattern. The impact of shift pattern and age together predicted 8.6% of the engagement score, whilst none of the other variables emerged as significant predictors of engagement. A positive Kruskal-Wallis H-test implied engagement was departmental dependant, whilst the Mann-Whitney U-test revealed a significant difference between the packaging and tableting departments. The open-ended questions were analysed using content analysis. Findings revealed that 30% of the employees at shop floor level knew the meaning of the concept ‘employee engagement’. Employees identified communication, teamwork, trust, motivation, equal treatment and work environment as the top six factors which drove engagement. In their view, leadership, recognition, communication, teamwork, development and work conditions would help to increase their level of engagement. Data from the four interviews with senior management revealed that for this category of employees, personal resources were the most important contributors leading to engagement. Contrastingly, for the shop floor employees the job resources played this critical role. A number of limitations were identified and several recommendations were put forward, both to the case-study organisation and to other entities that operate within similar parameters.