HSBC stands for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation which acquired major stake in the midland bank. HSBC Bank plc is the largest clearing bank in United Kingdom in reference to asset holdings. It has a wide variety of businesses ranging from private financing, merchant banking, investment banking and corporate finance. It has over 85000 employees including the subsidiaries and its parent organization is HSBC holdings plc. It is giving nearly 1800 branches in UK itself. With the help of its well established and less risky practices it was not much affected by the recent global meltdown. (hsbc.com)
1.2 Thesis Objectives
The purpose of my research is to study the current appraisal system being followed at HSBC and find the overall satisfaction level of the employees with the appraisal system being followed.
It would be an exploratory analysis with the following objectives:
Understanding the various aspects of appraisal system through literature reviews.
Development of the descriptive model key variables to the appraisal system in an organization.
Understanding the appraisal system followed at HSBC through the analysis of both primary and secondary data.
Comparing the appraisal system of HSBC with that of other organizations and finding out the effectiveness of the appraisal system at HSBC.
Based on the analysis, suggesting changes required in the current appraisal system being followed at HSBC.
These objectives are based on the following questions:
What are the key variables around an effective appraisal system in an organization?
What is the appraisal system followed currently at HSBC?
What is the appraisal system followed currently at other organizations/competitors of HSBC?
What are the impacts of appraisal system in an organization?
How HSBC should manage its current appraisal system more effectively considering the current competitive scenario?
The descriptive nature of the topic would need much more emphasis on setting the context in the form of elaborate Introduction and critical analysis of the text. At the same time term employee satisfaction which is used as the aim of the research will also be discussed to set a benchmark above which we can say that any firm has successfully integrated into appraisal system. Both primary and secondary research will be used to set this benchmark.
1.3 Preliminary Framework
A. Research Strategy and Methods of Data Collection
The Primary research method used for data collection will be a combination of Questionnaires and in-depth interviews. Self administered Questionnaires will contain a mix of close ended and open ended questions. In-depth interview will only have open ended questions.
Questionnaires will be vital to the entire study because it will form the foundation of the research. Close ended questions will make sure that I am getting all the specific information required to draw important conclusions. At the same time Open Ended questions will make sure respondent is able to give his or her insights on the research issues, which is of paramount importance in my research. Findings of Questionnaires will be supplemented with in-depth interviews which again are imperative looking at the descriptive nature of the topic. In-Depth interviews will be conducted for respondents who are higher up in the hierarchy to understanding and learn from their understanding of the whole picture. Their huge experience and vision will help in drawing important conclusions.
B. Sources of Data
Looking at the exploratory nature of the research huge amount of secondary data will be thoroughly studied. It will include studying of white papers and research papers on appraisal system in General and employee satisfaction through appraisal system in specific by various companies and authors. This study would enable me to understand the underlying concepts of appraisal system in an organization. Appraisal system at HSBC will also be analyzed in order to relate with the bigger picture.
At the same time Primary research will be used to further hone the understanding on the entire research topic. It forms the integral part of the whole study.
C. Access and Research Ethics
For secondary research there is a lot of material in public domain on this topic. Big companies like HSBC and GE and big management colleges like Howard and Warwick have white papers and research papers published which are available on the websites. Emerald Insight is a very good source to find more published research papers on this article.
When it comes to the Primary data collection it will be made sure that the topic of research is clearly conveyed to the respondents and their responses and identity will be kept confidential in all regards. In case of questionnaire ample time will be provided to the respondents to fill out the responses. Also option of not answering the question will be kept for some questions seeking some sensitive information. Also, with the help of my contacts in the organization I am sure that I will be able to access suitable people for my research.
D. Techniques for Analyzing and Interpreting Data
Both in depth interviews with open ended questions and Questionnaires with both open and close ended questions will be used to collect data.
The entire Interviews will be tape recorded and will then be converted into a written document. Important details about the respondent like Name, Designation, Major Job Responsibilities, Age, and Location will be recorded for internal use. To make sure information collected is specific questions will be kept specific with a clear aim to achieve desired objective. Coding technique will be used to analyse this qualitative data as it is effective technique of qualitative content analysis.
For the self administered questionnaire, close ended questions will be analyzed using basic statistical methods. Open ended questions will again be analyzed using coding technique.
“Researchers can develop codes only after some initial exploration of the data has taken place, using an immersion/ crystallisation or editing organising style. A common intermediate approach is when some initial codes are refined and modified during the analysis process.â€
Based on the coding of questionnaire, a descriptive model relating to the key variables in the appraisal system of an organization will be developed. Based on this model, an analysis will be undertaken and tested using data from questionnaire surveys of employees in HSBC. Finally, findings on the analysis will be used for suggesting changes required in the current appraisal system being followed at HSBC.
1.4 Research Questions
The target of our research will be around the following questions in the organization:
How many years you have been working with HSBC?
How many times you have been appraised?
Is the appraisal yearly?
Are you satisfied with the overall appraisal system?
How would you rate this appraisal system on a scale of 5?
What are the loopholes in the current system?
What all changes you need in the current appraisal system?
1.5 Research Design
In an order to achieve successful research project, the research process is required to be constructed in a substantial and a systematic way. The research methodology is divided among 7 parts as following:
1.5.1 Preliminary Study
It includes the study about the related documents involving this research. Data is collected from the study relating to researches, seminars, thesis, surveys, and other statistics reports along with the internet. The documents are collected covering the following two topics:
Role of appraisal system in an organization
Appraisal system at HSBC
1.5.2 Defining Research field
The target area of the research field is HSBC. In the research we will focus on appraisal system at HSBC as per the current development. Further the appraisal system of other companies, mostly the competitions of HSBC will be studied
The sample taken for research of target companies is of 20. These samples are selected by the use of stratified judgemental sampling technique as the population of the research in consisting of one organization. Non Probabilistic sampling is followed for extracting sample out of the population. Sample size is kept around 20. Out of sample size 20, Questionnaire is used for majority of population and in-depth interview will be used for some respondents. The profile of people will vary in order to get a holistic picture.
1.5.3 Data Gathering
For gathering data, there are two stages
1. Questionnaires: As our research is a survey based research, the use of questionnaire is considered instrumental for data collection and analysis. Twenty questionnaires will be distributed to the sample group in HSBC. The questionnaire will be divided into following parts main parts:
Organizational Information
Appraisal Strategies along with directions
Employee Satisfaction
Desired changes in the current appraisal system
2. Interview: In this part of the research, ten five studies will be selected. By selecting five case studies from the company, the purpose of in-depth interview is to get more information relating to our research topic. Semi-structured interviews are conducted at this stage. The interview questions are developed mainly from the results of the survey and focuses on the role of appraisal system in employee satisfaction of an organization. Interview question also comprised of 3 parts:
Current appraisal strategies of the organization
Employee satisfaction
Desired changes in current appraisal system
1.5.4 Pilot Survey
In this research, other companies, mainly companies competing with HSBC in the target group are contacted for helping pilot test of the instrument. Every contact person in participating company is asked for distributing the packets to Human Resource manager in their respective organizations. Respondents are asked for completing the instrument and providing comments regarding the work of different items, especially understanding and lack of ambiguity.
1.5.5 Data Coding
Data codes for the questions in the questionnaire are defined and coded into MS-Excel for analyzing the data
1.5.6 Analyzing Data
The results of the questionnaire will be summed up and analyzed by using MS-Excel 2007. The results are then shown in the form of graphs, tables, context description. After collecting the data from primary as well as secondary sources we will analyze the data with the help of various graphs such as pie charts, bar graphs, line graphs and other such analytical tools so that we can get an overall understanding of the satisfaction level and after the analysis we will be in a much better position to recommend the changes in the current appraisal system being followed.
1.5.7 Documentation
The results obtained above will be studied and then analyzed, concluded and presented along with the recommendation of future development. Research document will be made and inspected.
