Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and employee engagement in a leading South African car rental company
- Authors: Mtati, Yanela
- Date: 2014-12
- Subjects: Port Elizabeth (South Africa) , Eastern Cape (South Africa) , South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/53330 , vital:45134
- Description: The car rental industry in South Africa is a highly competitive sector. The industry’s players are constantly faced with the challenge of finding ways in which to enhance their competitiveness. One of the most important challenges for organisations operating in this industry is to deliver the best service to their customers, hence ensuring they retain customer loyalty, growth and securing future profitability. While a number of competitors may rely on various competitive strategies such as lower prices, it could become increasingly challenging for others to adopt similar approaches without comprising profitability. To overcome this challenge, together with Barloworld, Avis has implemented various employment engagement strategies with the aim of attracting, empowering, and retaining an engaged workforce. Research has shown that employees provide organisations with sustainable competitive advantage. More specifically, it has shown that engaged employees outperform disengaged employees. The differentiating factor for organisations in the pursuit of competitive advantage would therefore be an engaged workforce. In order to remain competitive, Avis realised that their employees area source of competitive advantage. In the year 2013, Avis packaged and introduced EVP as a human resources strategy towards winning an engaged workforce. Some of the objectives for taking on this strategy were to increase job satisfaction and motivation amongst employees and thus result in higher job performance. The main purpose of this study was to measure the impact that the introduction of EVP had on employee engagement at Avis. Introducing a structured EVP plan within this organisation was aimed to increase employee engagement and thus, this study aimed to measure the impact of this intervention. A literature review was conducted to expand on the various definitions of EVP, employee engagement and the elements that influence and impact these variables. This research revealed that engaged employees make positive contributions to key business outcomes such as financial performance, productivity and customer satisfaction. An empirical study was conducted by means of a survey with a questionnaire as data collecting tool. The purpose of the structured questionnaire was to validate the findings obtained from the theoretical overview and to assess employees’ perceptions of the EVP elements, engagement factors and the impact of engagement on the organisational success. The population comprised of 142employeesand 65% a response rate was obtained. The key findings of the study indicated that in general employees are engaged and committed to the vision of the organisation. It also indicated that the introduction of EVP improved the manner in which employees’ viewed their leaders and created a leadership culture that was conducive to the success of the organisation. Furthermore, the study validated the existence of a strong positive relationship between EVP, employee motivation, leadership culture, employee retention, compensation and employee engagement. This study provided direction and feedback in the organisation’s attempt to improve engagement levels and ultimately in the pursuit of competitive advantage. , Thesis (MBA) -- Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences, NMMU Business School, 2014.
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- Date Issued: 2014-12
The use of a rapid incineration field test for determining soil organic carbon in the Southern Cape Region
- Authors: Ackhurst, Albert Arthur
- Date: 2014-12
- Subjects: Port Elizabeth (South Africa) , Eastern Cape (South Africa) , South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/53336 , vital:45135
- Description: Knowledge of soil organic carbon levels is important both for agricultural effectiveness and soil carbon sequestration accounting, especially against the backdrop of increased climate change impacts and pressure on food production landscapes. However, current methods for soil carbon determination are expensive, energy intensive, time consuming and potentially hazardous leading to a call for alternative methods, which should be cheap, fast, simple, accurate, safe and usable where resources and soil analysis laboratories are limited. To this end the student invented a novel rapid incineration field test (RIFT) for determining soil organic carbon and tested its validity in this study. This method incorporates principles found in dry combustion as well as loss-on-ignition and quantifying organic carbon through gravimetric analysis. In order to illustrate effectiveness and accuracy it was necessary to correlate RIFT with a reference method, in this instance dry combustion with a Leco device as well as another commonly used indirect method namely the Walkley-Black wet chemical oxidation method. Samples from eleven soil forms were collected from the Southern Cape region and they were subjected to the three testing methods. It was found that RIFT is indeed as effective and in 72% of the soil forms even more effective than Walkley-Black. Furthermore, it was ascertained whether the accuracy of RIFT can be improved by correcting for clay content. The correlation of RIFT with clay % was not very significant and clay % as a variable was therefore not used in this study to obtain further refinement of RIFT predictions. Another finding was also that RIFT illustrated less variability than both the Leco and Walkley-Black methods. Lastly it was ascertained that the RIFT device and methodology is indeed cost effective, energy efficient, fast and safe in terms of the need to use potentially hazardous chemicals. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Science, School of Natural Resource Management, 2021
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- Date Issued: 2014-12
Possible futures for the African built environment towards 2050
- Authors: Adendorff, Gillian Lorraine
- Date: 2014-04
- Subjects: Port Elizabeth (South Africa) , Eastern Cape (South Africa) , South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Master's/Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/53325 , vital:45136
- Description: Purpose –The purpose of this thesis is to develop four scenarios for Africa’s built environment over the nextfortyyears: The ”Angel” or “Good Governance”Scenario,in which positive elements become a realisation for Africa’s built environment and are conjointly favourable; The “Dwarf” or “Uneven African Development”Scenario, in which key driving forces unfold inan uneven pattern, or have a differentiated impact on Africa’s built environment; The “Elf” or Bad Governance Scenario,in which less good governance prevails, but where a fortunate built environment and securemanagement allowsAfrica to become competitive and benefit from satisfactory economic growth;and The “Hobgoblin” or “Business and Governance as usual” Scenario,in which negative regional drivers of change corrode positive policies and initiatives in a manner which compounds the pre-existing threats of Africa’s built environment development.Design/Methodology/Approach –The goal of this thesis is not only to affirm what is already known and knowable regardingwhat is happening right now at the intersections of Africa and its built environment development, but also to explore the many ways in which environmental scanning and built environment development could co-involve,both push and inhibit each other,in the future. Thereafter, this thesis beginsto examine what possible paths may be implicatedfor Africa’s poor and vulnerable built environment. Scenario planning is a methodology designed to help researchers, organisations and even nations alike through this creative process. This thesis begins to identifydriversof change, and then combines these driversin different ways to create a set of scenarios regardinghow the future built environment of Africa could evolve.Practical implications –This thesis provides a useful insight regardingdrivers for change for Africa’s built environment,and how to anticipate these changes in the mostcurrentScenario planning.Originality/Value –This thesis addressesthe future of Africa’s built environment from a decision maker’s point of view over the next 40 years. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Engineering, the Built Environment and Technology, School of the Built Environment and Civil Engineering, 2021
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- Date Issued: 2014-04