An Evaluation of the Empowerment and Engagement of Finance Sector Remote Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Galligan, Eamon (2021) An Evaluation of the Empowerment and Engagement of Finance Sector Remote Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.

Preview

PDF (Master of Arts) Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

The Covid-19 global shutdown forced millions of employees worldwide to adjust to remote working, many for the first time. Remote work has been promoted for years, yet the extra conditions of pandemic remote working has resulted in numerous problems. Human resource practitioners and organisations are concerned about the unfamiliarity of this nature of work, and their influence on employee and organisational performance. Though engaged employees have consistently proven to perform better, there is a dearth on literature on remote working engagement pre- and post-pandemic (Adhitama and Riyanto, 2020).

The purpose of this study is to establish if employee empowerment is correlated with employee engagement in remote working employees in the finance sector. Empowerment has cemented itself as a guaranteed means of engaging employees, with consistent positive relationships in literature (Amor et al., 2021). However, theorists must now detect whether this relationship has endured the massive changes imposed by the pandemic. Finance sector employees were selected as they adopted remote working in greater numbers than most, and are likely to continue remote work, in some capacity, post-pandemic (Gallacher and Hossain, 2020).

The Psychological Empowerment Scale (Spreitzer, 1995) and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (Schaufeli et al., 2002) were administered online, to measure empowerment and engagement respectively. These popularised measures have yet to be validated in pandemic remote working conditions.

After rigorous analyses, Spearman correlations detected significant positive relationships, not just between empowerment and engagement, but also the components these constructs are comprised of. This research proposes that remote working finance employees are feeling empowered and engaged, despite the challenges imposed by COVID-19. The instruments demonstrated suitability in the current environment, and their continued use is advocated, albeit with improvement recommendations, and critical analysis on the future of remote working investigations.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HG Finance H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management > Human Resource Management > Performance Management > Employee Engagement
Divisions:	School of Business > Master of Arts in Human Resource Management
Depositing User:	Clara Chan
Date Deposited:	21 Jan 2022 14:51
Last Modified:	21 Jan 2022 14:51
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/5311

Actions (login required)

View Item