Employee Engagement and Organizational Performance: A Study on the Pharmaceutical Industry in Bangladesh

Abstract

The Pharmaceutical industry is one of the most technologically developed and knowledgebased manufacturing sectors in Bangladesh that has been struggling to enrich its contribution

to the overall economic development of the country since the early 80s.

The evolution of this sector has started just after the endorsement of Drug (Control) Ordinance - 1982, while the domestic medicine manufacturing companies have taken the opportunity to expand their business and shown up their presence in the industry.

Customer satisfaction, employee retention and product innovation are considered as key success factors of the industry. Thus, the prime focus of all organizations within the industry is on the employee development and employee engagement. To survive in the present dynamic and hypercompetitive business environment, organizations are in tremendous pressure to use different engagement building tools and techniques in order to stay growing in the business and also improve overall performance. Employee engagement has appeared as a popular human resource management concept in recent years which implies the level of commitment and involvement an employee conserves towards their organization and its values.

An intensive review of the literature revealed that the meaning of employee engagement, the level of engagement and also its impact on the business performance still require further research attention in the area of Bangladesh pharmaceutical business sector. This research, therefore, aims to explore the definition of the employee engagement, examine the relationship between employee engagement and organizational performance and also identify the key factors or determinants that drive employee engagement at the pharmaceutical industry of Bangladesh.

The study utilized a quantitative research design to collect information from 100 employees working in different levels of the organizations in Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Industry through using purposive or judgmental sampling technique where response rate was 71.43%. Selfadministered

structured questionnaires were developed through addressing all necessary components of the constructs for collecting feedback of the respondents. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the characteristics of the variables using aggregate mean score and standard deviation. The hypotheses were tested using multiple regressions. Adjusted R was used to measure the amount of variation in the dependent variable that was attributed to change in the independent variables. The result indicates that employee engagement significantly influences the performance of pharmaceutical company of Bangladesh which is found to be moderated by organizational age and organizational size. The employees of the industry are found engaged towards their job and organization.

Hence, the study concluded that the employers should take into account establishing employee engagement culture as a continuous effort of integrated approach rather than considering it as a one-time exercise. Implications of the research for managers and leaders in context of strategic human resource practices have also been discussed. Limitations of the study and guidelines for future research using different approaches are also provided.