Title: A study on job satisfaction levels & motivation of

employees in the context of Restaurants & Café’s in Male’,

Maldives

Contents
Executive Summary..............................................................................................................................................................3
Introduction.......................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Literature Review................................................................................................................................................................. 4
Research Aim........................................................................................................................................................................ 5
Research Objectives.............................................................................................................................................................5
Research Methodology........................................................................................................................................................5
Sampling........................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Population of the study....................................................................................................................................................5
Data Collection & analyzing method................................................................................................................................5
Conceptual framework.....................................................................................................................................................6
.......................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Qualitative Methodology.....................................................................................................................................................7
Results of Quantitative analysis.....................................................................................................................................12
Quantitative Methodology.................................................................................................................................................13
Ethical practice of the study...............................................................................................................................................23
Limitations of the study......................................................................................................................................................25
Recommendations..............................................................................................................................................................25
Reflective Review...............................................................................................................................................................26
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................................... 26
Critical Analysis of learning............................................................................................................................................26
Implications.................................................................................................................................................................... 27
References.......................................................................................................................................................................... 28
Executive Summary

The research report is based on a mixed method research approach to find out the satisfaction levels and the
relations it has on employee motivation in the context of restaurants & Cafés in Male’. The report will highlight
literature review completed for the study topic, aims and objectives, qualitative & quantitative approaches for
data collection. Furthermore the report will also present the finding of the study, its limitation and the
recommendations for further analysis and review of the study topic

Introduction

Job satisfaction of employees have a very vital role on motivation, retention & overall performance of an
organization. It is essential for organizations to understand and know how employee can be retained through
making them satisfied and motivated. In today’s changing global business environment and changing operations
of food & beverage industry, buffered by globalization, social variation and intense competitive environment,
the sources of sustained competitive advantage have lifted from finance concept to technology side and now to
human assets (Paula, 2014). Therefore in order to achieve overall organizational goals, the management need to
identify & understand how to satisfy, motivate and retain their employees in order to compete in the highly
competitive food & beverage market. Inability of accomplishment to motivate & satisfy employees may lead to
leaving employees from the work place resulting both financial & non-financial losses in the organization.

The purpose of this research is to observe and identify the relationship between employee satisfaction on
motivation and identifying the levels of employee satisfaction. In addition the research was targeted to the
employees working at restaurants & Cafés in Male’,Maldives. The research report will include a mixed method
approach of data collection, analysis, feedbacks of the results and recommendation drawn from the findings of
the data that will be helpful for the organizational development.

Key words: Job Satisfaction, Employee Motivation

Literature Review
Job satisfaction is represented as a combination of both positive & negative feelings that employees have
towards their work and the extent to which expectations match with the real rewards & benefit in an
organization, it is also linked to an individual’s motivation & behavior in the workplace (Davis et al.,1985). In
addition job satisfaction is something which is essential that working employees seek and a key element for
employee retention & motivation which is possible only by making the workforce feel comfortable with
physical and psychological part of the work they do (David, 2000).

Today, with the current new trends in inflations seen in the market economy is causing the job market very
competitive and challenging for all organizations, it has caused businesses more difficult to satisfy, motivate &
retain employees as the pool of talent is becoming more diverse and more tapped out (Qadria Alkandari, 2009).
Therefore a good employer should know how to retain and attract employee (Qadria Alkandari, 2009). However
(Qadria, 2009) also states that there are many strategies to keep employees comfortable at the present job,
whereas motivation strategies can boost employees on day to day basis (Qadria Alkandari, 2009).

According to a report on Harward Management update (June,1988) states that nine of ten managers think
employees stay or leave because of monetary benefits. Whereas Kay & Evans (2000) in their study concluded
that monetary benefits, perks & motivation level matters to employees, but employees are interested in
meaningful work and challenges, good physical work environment and opportunities for training and
development leads them to satisfaction of work (Kay & Evans, 2000). The assumption and perspectives that
managers have about the concept of employee satisfaction is more likely to effect on how they are able to
employ it to reward and motivate their employees (Kay & Evans, 2000).

Furthermore, Elton Mayo in his theory of human relations school believed that employees are not just
concerned with monetary benefits but could be better motivated by having their social needs met whilst at work.
The human relations school of thought introduced by Elton Mayo, which focused on employers taking more of
an interest in the employees respecting their opinions and treating them as people who have worthwhile the
knowledge and realized that employees feel comfortable and enjoy interacting together (Ricky & Gregory,
2011)
Rao (2005) in his research study argued that satisfaction at the job act as a motivation to work, suggesting that
motivation has a positive relation towards satisfaction. Furthermore, Khan (2006) also states that motivation
leads people to job satisfaction and also have blends of psychological and environmental effect of people for
their happiness with the work they do (Khan, 2006). In addition, Aswathappa (2013) discussed that wage
payments, monetary, non-monetary rewards, work environment & development as the determinant factors that
leads to employee motivation in an organization (Aswathappa,2013). Furthermore, Horwitz et al (2013) argued
that employees get high satisfaction & motivation from challenging works, work environment and support from
their top management, employees capabilities are utilized if they are competitive(Horwitz, 2013)

Research Aim
The aim of the research is to understand satisfaction levels of employees in food & beverage providers in Male’
and identify the factors that relates to employee satisfaction ,motivation and their relationship

Research Objectives

1. To identify the levels of employee satisfaction in the context of restaurants & Cafés in Male’
2. To determine the factors influencing both employee satisfaction and motivation in the study context
3. To examine the relationship between employees satisfaction and motivation

Research Methodology
The following are the methods and techniques adopted for collection and analysis of data

Sampling

The sample for this study was drawn from 9 restaurants & cafés across Male’ City. The study collected data
from 112 respondents

Population of the study

For this research, population was targeted to those who are working in several restaurants and Café in Male’.
A total of 112 respondents feedbacks were recorded from 9 restaurants and café in Male’

Data Collection & analyzing method

 Quantitative: Online questionnaires were prepared using qualtrics and shared to employees of the
restaurants & Café’s , feedbacks received from questionnaires was extracted from qualtrics and imported
to IBM SPSS to for analyzing and presentation of the findings.
 Qualitative: Interview session was conducted individually with employees & managers of the
businesses, the written scripts from interview was imported to Nvivo for analyzing the data
Conceptual framework

After a thorough analysis of available literatures, theories and results from both qualitative & quantitative data,
the conceptual framework includes 4 aspects of employee satisfaction as an independent variable and employee
motivation as a dependent variable.

The four aspects of employee satisfaction were determined from available literatures, theories related to the
topic & from the results of the respondents.

[Independent Variable] [Dependent Variable]

Employee Satisfaction
 Pay & Allowances Employee
 Work Environment
 Management Policies Motivation
 Personal growth & career
development
Qualitative Methodology
The qualitative research was carried out from an interview session conducted from 3 restaurants, the
respondents for the interview were selected randomly by the availability of the respondent, time and
convenience. The questions in the interview were prepared from a thorough analysis of literatures review,
which includes questions related to employee satisfaction & motivation factors and their impacts to find out the
relations between both the variables.

Interview was conducted at a convenience time for the respondent at their restaurant & café. The response time
for the interview was around 15 minute time and the responses were recorded in scripts. The responses was
recorded in scripts and analysis for the qualitative method was processed on Nvivo software by importing the
scripts made on text format

The analysis was done to find out how employees are satisfied, motivation factors & how job satisfaction relates
to employee motivation. The analysis was done on 3 scripts from 3 respondents and analyzed on Nvivo Version
12.

Descriptive data from Nvivo

Figure: 1.0
Figure 1.0 shows how the data was analyzed, related trends, identified motivational
factors, how job satisfaction leads to motivation

Graphical representation of Nvivo data

1. Job Satisfaction leads to motivation

Figure: 1.1
 Figure: 1.2

2. How employees get satisfaction

Figure: 1.3

Figure: 1.4
Figure: 1.5
 Figure: 1.6

Figure: 1.7

Results of Quantitative analysis

The results of the analysis has found out that the employee satisfaction factors such as work environment, pay
& allowance, management policies, growth and development leads has a positive impact on the motivation.
 Figure: 1.8

Quantitative Methodology
Qualitative data was collected to identify the satisfaction levels of the employees from the 4 areas of satisfaction
identified in the independent variables. The data collection for quantitative analysis was conducted from
questionnaires of total 20 questions from the 4 aspects of satisfaction identified in the independent variables.
The questionnaires were targeted to both full time & part time employees from 9 different restaurants & Café
across Male’, this also involves employees from both frontline and back office staffs who are working at those
organizations. Qualtrics online survey tool was used to prepare the questionnaires & distribute online via
mobile phone, QR code and sharing the link.

The 4 areas to find the satisfaction levels were

 Pay & allowances

 Work environment
 Management policies
 Personal growth & career development
(From each area, 4 different questions were asked)

Multiple choice questions were asked where each question can only be able to select one option as a response.
From each questions the employees were asked to select the appropriate options as below

 Extremely satisfied
 Somewhat satisfied
 Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
 Somewhat dissatisfied
 Extremely dissatisfied

The qualitative data was collected from a total of 112 respondents over a period of 1 month time.

After the collection of data, the responses were exported to SPSS version 25.0.0.0 for quantitative statistical
analysis. Graphical charts were the prepared after the analysis to show the levels of employee satisfaction
measured in percentages.

Graphical Representation of the data

 Figure: 1.9

Figure 1.9, shows that the most respondents were from age group between 21 to 29 years, whereas the least
were between 30 to 50 years

Figure: 2.0

Figure 2.0, shows that most respondents were Males 68% and females at 44%

Results for the satisfaction levels of organizations pay & allowances

Figure: 2.1

Figure: 2.2
 Figure: 2.3

Figure: 2.4

Results for the satisfaction levels of work environment

Figure: 2.5
Figure: 2.6

Figure: 2.7
 Figure: 2.8

Results for the satisfaction levels of Management Policies

Figure: 2.9
Figure: 3.0

Figure: 3.1

Figure: 3.2
Results for the satisfaction levels of personal growth & career development

Figure: 3.3

Figure: 3.4
Figure: 3.5

Figure: 3.6
Ethical practice of the study
The ethical issues associated with the research were mostly related to the confidentiality of the respondent’s
data, their identity, job position, salary and other confidential details related to employees work environment. In
order to secure employees confidentiality, their names, job positions and salary were not recorded in the data.
Employees and the organizations were informed regarding the research project, its aims and objectives of the
study. Furthermore the organizations & employees approval and permission to conduct the research was taken
prior to 2 months before the actual data collection period, the employees and management were assured that
employee confidentiality will be respected, protected & followed all the ethical practices during the research by
summiting the signed ethics form.
Limitations of the study
There are very few researches done on employee satisfaction & motivation in the Maldivian context, especially
in food & beverage sector which includes cafés and restaurants. Therefore, further researches can be conducted
to investigate the factors effecting the relationship between employee satisfaction & motivation and the levels
of employee satisfaction. In addition to the structured questionnaires and interviews were very limited to around
9 restaurants and café were included in the research due to unavailability of sufficient time and respondents for
the research , further research is recommended with more respondents from different organization within F&B
sector. The reliability and validity of the research could be more improved with regression and correlation
analysis to better understand the relationship between employee satisfaction and employee motivation

Recommendations
The results of the study shows that employee satisfaction factors are highly related to the motivation of
employees within the study context. In addition the result of the study shows that employees working in
restaurants & cafés are mostly dissatisfied with the lacking of employee welfare and the opportunities for
training and development for them. Therefore the organization should consider to maintain continuous
employee training and development in order to satisfy its employees. it is important for the organizations
involved in restaurant & Café operations to identify their employee satisfaction levels and motivations in order
to retain them within the organization that could benefit the overall growth for the organization, it is also
important for these organization to implement different management policies that could satisfy employees and
at the same time motivate them in order to compete the highly competitive market.
Reflective Review
Introduction
As an undergraduate student I have learned many new skills with the use of new technologically advanced
software’s and features through the study hours of this module. The module introduction to research methods
requires to prepare an actual mixed method research report based on the research proposal that i have worked as
a group in semester one under the module “Research methods for marketing & events”, the current module
provides a detailed ideas & concepts of how to conduct a mixed method research that I have studied in the
semester one. This involves collecting data, analyzing, interpreting and justifying our findings in a research
report.

Critical Analysis of learning

The research topic is related to the employee satisfaction, motivation, & retention related to restaurants & Cafés
in Male’, which was very challenging for me and my team, because there were only few organization who were
willing to provide the data. However during semester one, I was involved in preparing data collection methods
& designing research methods for the research proposal in the context of restaurants & Cafés in Male’. The first
semester only provided us with all the basic aspects of conducting a research and provided us with the ideas and
concepts that could help us to develop an actual research in the upcoming modules, this involved learning the
basics of SPSS & Nvivo, methods of data collection & enquiry process. Furthermore the feedbacks I received
from my research proposal has helped me on how to proceed with the report writing in the current semester.

During the study months of the introductory research project, me and my team members reformed our group
and started to familiarize with proposal, made group contract, ethical considerations and planned the tasks to
carry out on completing the report. In order to complete data collection & analyzing the data each 2 member of
my team had to work together. I was assigned to collect more data for the qualitative method as an interviewer
and analyzing the scripts in Nvivo with the help of my team member. Analyzing the qualitative data was very
challenging, before importing scripts for analysis, I recalled and learned from manual and on videos how to use
Nvivo version 12, the most time consuming part of my work was organizing & analyzing the script data’s in
Nvivo and this has enabled me to gain experience of technical skills such as word skills, analyzing techniques &
group handling techniques. Despite of all the challenges I have faced myself and as a team, I was able to collect
and analyse data from 3 respondents for qualitative data and around 112 respondents for the quantitative data
collection with the help of my team members.

As a new researcher I have learned how to negotiate and communicate in a survey with the respondents,
applying the principles of both quantitative & quantitative data, such as collection technique, analysis methods
& interpretation of data. In addition i have gained lot of confidence and experience on how to conduct an
interview, communicating properly in an interview session and the experience to meet many senior clients from
different organizations sharing their experiences regarding our research topic. Some of the few organizations
has offered my team the chance to see their actual work environment during my teams visit to their offices, this
provided me the experience of how they manage & value both work & ethical environment of their business.

Implications
Learning this module has gained both experience and knowledge to improve many ways on how I could do a
research project for further studies and in the working field. The research was also very challenging for me due
to a topic related to employees, permissions from the management and college had to be taken along with
ethical considerations in order for us to complete the project. The validity & reliability of the research report
could be improved with much better methods used for data collection, different techniques, sample selection,
sample size and the design of research tools for my research topic in this module. The research techniques,
knowledge and experiences that I have learned throughout the module has motivated me and gained more
confidence that could help me to complete my final year project in the upcoming semester.
References

Paula, S (2014) Linking Employee Satisfaction to Business Results, Studies on Industrial Productivity: Selected
Works. illustrated ed. Illinois: Routledge.

Davis, K. and Nestrom, J.W. (1985) Human Behavior at Work:. Organizational Behavior,McGraw Hill, New
York [online]. 7 edition, p. p.109. [Accessed 25 July 2019].

David Farnham, (2000) Employee Relations in Context. Second Edition ed. UK: CIPD Publishing.

Qadria Alkandari, and , (2009) Employees Retention in Private Sector. An Exploratory Study in the State of
Kuwait [online]. 1, pp. 1-64. [Accessed 25 July 2019].

Kay, Beverly and Jordan, Evans (2000) Retaining employees. Getting good people to stay [online]. 1, p. 220.
[Accessed 28 July 2019].

Ricky, W and Gregory Moorhead, (2011) Organizational Behavior, Managing people & Organizations. 10th
Edition ed. United States: Cengage Learning.

Rao Subba, P (2005) Essential of Hrm & Industrial Relationships,. 1st ed. Uk: Excel Books.

Khan, N.V (2006) Personal management. Pg (132 to 134) 1st ed. USA: Vermont.

Aswathappa, K (2013) Human Recourse & Management: Text & Cases. 7th ed. India: Tata McGraw-Hill
Education.

Horwitz, M. F., Heng, T.C., & Quazi, A.H. (2003). Finders, Keepers? Attracting, motivating and retaining
Knowledge workers. Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 13 No 4, 2003, Pages 23-44