Employee motivation during the covid 19 Pandemic in FMCG Industry

 

Background 

Corona Virus was initially discovered in 2019 November. Its rapid proliferation over the world has a negative impact on all enterprises. People are being ordered to stay in quarantine and avoid any social gatherings. As a precaution, people were required to remain inside their homes. ( Ahmad,2020) The corona virus spreads quickly, causing all organizations and enterprises to be shut down. Every day, more than two hundred thousand instances are reported. Things have returned to normal, which is excellent for organizations' existence but bad for people's health. Organizations are compelled to employ digital technology to begin working from home. (Ince F,2020) Organizations faced a significant problem in caring for their employees' health and maintaining a healthy work environment. Employees will be able to perform better in an environment that encourages them to do so. (Carnevale and colleagues, 2020) In this critical situation, Employees in industries such as banking, manufacturing, and customer service work under this condition. They must nevertheless carry out their responsibilities physically.( C. Wang et al., 2020).

Due to rapid spread of Covid-19 pandemic most of the organizations are affected greatly. China Enterprise Reform & Development Society reported that private sector organizations are largely affected. People in private enterprises have less satisfaction to their jobs resulting in low job engagement and increased employee turnover. (China Enterprise Reform and development society, 2020).

According to Robbins (2016), motivation is defined as a process that explains the strength (intensity), direction, and persistence of a person to achieve goals. Motivation is a process where needs encourage a person to carry out a series of activities that lead to achieving a goal (Schunk & DiBenedetto, 2020). Changgriawan (2017) states that measuring and identifying a person’s work motivation can use self-determination theory. Self-determination theory provides a multidimensional view of motivation and determines different types of motivation. Bauman et al. (2020) defines motivation as a series of attitudes and values that influence individuals to achieve specific tasks in accordance with individual goals. These attitudes and values are invisible, which provide the strength to encourage individuals to behave in achieving their goals (Haryono et al., 2020).

How does it happen?

I am currently employed at Maliban Biscuit Manufactories (pvt)ltd, a leading FMCG firm in Sri Lanka and the information below explains how the company acted during the pandemic.

When Covid-19 broke out in March 2020, everyone had to deal with uncertainty at an unprecedented scale. Many would have panicked, not knowing how the unfolding pandemic would impact lives, livelihoods, businesses, and the economy. However, the Chairman, Board of Directors at Maliban and the senior management team had a different mindset. We knew country-wide lockdowns and curfews would come, but they would be out of our control, so there was no point fretting about them. We decided to take control and devote our energies towards what we could control as a company and anticipated challenges in two fundamental areas: production and sales. To achieve that we focused on three things during the initial stages of the pandemic. (ECHLON August 2021).

First, we took every precaution to safeguard our staff and their families; this was our number one priority, and by extension, we also contributed towards keeping our stakeholders and communities safe. And we strongly motivated employees to have a positive mindset to handle high-pressure situations. . (ECHLON August 2021).

Second, when the lockdowns came, around 40% of the 2,000-strong factory staff had already left for their hometowns, so we had to get special approvals, and collaborate with healthcare and law enforcement officials to get them back to work. Everyone at Maliban pulled through those difficult days as a tightly-knit team. So, I would certainly say we got off to a surprisingly good start in dealing with the pandemic-related challenges that were unfolding(ECHLON August 2021).

Third, we made a conscious decision not to exploit the new opportunities that emerged for food companies with lockdowns. Instead of focusing on commercial gains, our main priority was to make our products available for people to consume, immaterial of the cost of operation. Servicing the community was our prime objective, (ECHLON August 2021).

Focusing on these three aspects helped the company sail through the most challenging economic period this generation has experienced globally. We as a team are humbly proud to convey that despite Covid-19, Maliban reported the best results in its 70-year history during the last financial year ending March 31, 2021. While many contemporary businesses were in reverse gear, we had the distinction of reporting the best top-line and bottom-line results in our history due to visionary leadership from the Chairman, Board of Directors and the supreme dedication of all employees at Maliban. It's truly a team effort, (ECHLON August 2021).

Reference

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Belias, D., & Koustelios, A. (2014). Organizational culture and job satisfaction: A review. International Review of Management and Marketing, 4(2), 132.

Carnevale ,  B. & Hatak , I, (2020).Employee adjustment and well-being in the era of covid-19, Implication for human resource management Journal of Business Research, Volume 116, Issue May, pages 183-187.

Herzberg, F., Mausner, B. and Snyderman, B.B. (1959), The Motivation to Work, John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY.

Heryanto, H. (2019). The effect of work motivation and work environment on performance with satisfaction as intervening variables education personnel rektorate Andalas University. Archives of Business Research, 7(2), 103-120.

Tabasum, S & Siddiqui ,H , Idrees, S & Alwi, k,Mangrio,I( 2021) WORK-RELATED ENVIRONMENT AND JOB SATISFACTION DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A CASE STUDY OF FMCG SECTOR OF KARACHI, International Journal of Management (IJM), Volume 12, Issue 3, March 2021, pp.1034-1048, Article ID: IJM_12_03_095.