An Investigation into The Impact Performance Management Techniques Have on Employee Motivation in The Call Centre Industry in Ireland

The purpose of this research dissertation is to investigate how performance management techniques impact employee motivation in the call centre industry in Ireland. Previous studies involving the topic of performance management and employee motivation have focused on different sectors including the healthcare sector, the public sector, and the food and beverage sector. The researcher decided to carry out this study as currently there is very little research around this topic focused specifically on the call centre industry based in Ireland. The research uses both primary and secondary data to explore and analyse the topic further. Throughout the secondary research the areas of performance management, the benefits and limitations, performance management techniques, motivation in the workplace, and motivational theories are examined to provide a base for the primary data to explore further and identified the gap between the topics in the workplace in comparison to applying them to the call centre industry in Ireland. The researcher adopted a quantitative research approach to carry out the primary research. This was carried out by conducting an online survey with 70 respondents who are currently working in the call centre industry. The findings revealed the overall there was high levels of positivity in relation to the requirement and understanding of performance management in the workplace. There were mixed opinions found in relation to the impact specific performance management techniques had on their motivation levels. The key finding is the supportive techniques (continuous feedback and coaching) have a slight advantage over the two monitoring techniques (performance appraisals, monitoring key performance indicators) tested by positively impacting employee motivation. The research also established that the employees involved in the primary research were highly extrinsically motivated. The main recommendations suggested that organisations should focus on supportive performance management techniques which develop employees’ skills and strengths while also improving their individual performance and organisational performance. This would require the implementation of new performance management techniques, line manager training, and employee onboarding. The research was limited by the relatively small sample size as a much larger sample size would have potentially provided a broader set of findings and increase the research reliability. To conclude, the study successfully identified that performance management techniques positively impact employee motivation in the call centre industry in Ireland