Impact of HR Practices on Employee Engagement among Machine Operators in the Large Apparel Industry in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Area of the Study This study is mainly focused on examining the impact of HR practices on employee engagement among machine operators in the large apparel industry in Sri Lanka. Problem of the Study There is an empirical gap of how HR practices affect to employee engagement in the Sri Lankan context. Therefore researchers addressed: How HR practices affect employee engagement among machine operators in the large apparel industry in Sri Lanka? Method of the study The data were collected from a randomly selected sample of 384 machine operators who are employed in top three companies in the large Sri Lankan apparel industry. A structured questionnaire which included Bakar’s (2013) 16 items for measuring HR practices and Bakker, et al.’ (2002) 17 items for measure employee engagement was administered. The data were analyzed using Pearson’sCorrelation and simple regression analysis. Findings of the Study The findings exhibited that there is a positive relationship between HR practices and employee engagement among machine operators in the large apparel industry in Sri Lanka. As well as HR practices of the Sri Lankan large apparel industry companies are at a satisfactory level and employee engagement of machine operatorsare at a high level. Moreover, all dimensions of HR practices are positively and significantly correlated with employee engagement, namely selective staffing, reward system, performance appraisal, comprehensive training and employee participation program. Lastly, the regression analysis between HR practices and employee engagement indicated that 59.8% of total variance of employee engagement was explained by HR practices. Conclusion of the Study It is concluded that there is a positive impact of HR practices on employee engagement among machine operators in the large apparel industry in Sri Lanka. Thus organizations in this sector need to develop proper and well-structured HR practices to attain high employee engagement level among the machine operators. Keywords: HR Practices, Employee Engagement, Machine Operators