An exploratory study of employee engagement in the financial services industry in Ireland

Given the current difficulties experienced within in the financial services industry, the aim of this dissertation is to carry out a study of employee engagement within the financial services industry in Ireland. The researchers aim is to discover the factors that financial institutions associate with employee engagement, the benefits and the implications of it. The researcher adopted an inductive approach and conducted interviews to gather the relevant data. These interviews were conducted within three well-known banks, and one that is globally recognised. The researcher decided to interview two managers from each institution meaning two branches from each financial institution were interviewed. This was to help the researcher get a better insight into engagement from each institution. Due to ethical considerations the names of the participants and the financial institutions will not be named and will be referred to as Company A, B, C, D, and each participant was known as participant 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. In consideration of the sample, the findings convey that the concept of employee engagement was clearly understood. It also outlined what factors financial institutions associate with employee engagement, the benefits they obtained from having employees engaged and the implications faced with employee engaged. The research begins with a brief introduction then discusses the literature associated with the area of study. This is followed by the researcher discussing the methodological approach which was adopted, a discussion of the findings, and the conclusion which includes the researcher’s key findings, the limitations of the study and future research possibilities