Optimizing Employee Engagement Strategies for Competitive Advantage: A Case of Safaricom Limited

A Project Report Submitted to the Chandaria School of Business in Partial fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Masters in Business Administration (MBA)The general objective of the study was to examine key employee engagement strategies employed by Safaricom Limited and their influence on the company’s competitive advantage. The study sought to investigate the effect of employee-well-being on the attainment of competitive advantage in Safaricom, the effect of HR policies and practices on competitive advantage in Safaricom and to establish the effect of effective organizational communication on the attainment of competitive advantage in Safaricom. This study was a case of Safaricom Limited. The research design adopted was a descriptive research design. The target population comprised of 160 staff in different managerial levels at Safaricom. Stratified proportionate random sampling technique was used to select the sample. From each stratum the study took a 30% sample to get a sample size of 48 respondents who included top management officers, senior management officers and low level officers within Safaricom Limited Company. The study collected primary data using a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire collected qualitative and quantitative data. Before the actual data collection, the researcher performed a pilot test to determine validity and reliability of the questionnaire. Both descriptive and inferential analysis was employed. Descriptive statistics was used to summarize the data in form of distribution percentages while Pearson’s Correlation analysis was adapted to measure strength and form of the relationship between variables. The analysis was conducted with the aid of SPSS software. The analyzed data was presented in tables and figures for ease of understanding the results. The study found that Safaricom had enhanced and promoted employees’ good health and ensuring employees wellness. The employees were also satisfied with the organization’s policy on work-life balance to employees. There was a statistically significant relationship between the organization’s competitive advantage and work fulfilment, facilitation of good health; employees’ wellness; creating an environment to promote employees growth; organization’s policy on work-life balance. It was found that human resource programs such as short-term incentives/bonus programs, long-term incentives or bonus, the basic salary level, benefits program and base-salary increase highly enhanced employees’ engagement. The company provided continuous skill development programs and promoted training for employees to be able to perform multiple jobs. There was a statistically significant relationship between the organization’s competitive advantage and support of employee training needs; provision of continuous skills development programs; promoting training for employees to perform multiple jobs; alignment of employees personal objectives to organisational objectives. It was also found that communication practices enhanced employees’ performance to a great extent. It was also found out that there was a statistically significant relationship between competitive advantage and information sharing meetings; use of circulars on key issues of the company such as performance and strategy; cross functional teams to promote staff interactions and collaborations; formation of staff associations and thenuse of two way communication channels. The study concluded that Safaricom had created an environment to promote employees’ good health and ensuring employees wellness. It was also concluded that there was a significant relationship between the human resource policies and competitive advantage of Safaricom. Communication in the organization was very essential as it established a platform under which the employees and the management share information on the company’s goals, targets other activities. The study recommends that the organization should ensure that employees have the freedom to make their work exciting and an environment that would make their work life comfortable and fulfilling. Moreover, the human resource department should continue to come up with more policies to enhance employees’ engagement and enhance an open door policy to facilitate an effective two- way communication channel among employees at all levels