Employee Engagement and Intention to Stay in a 120-Employee Auto-Component SME, Peenya Industrial Area (SPSS)

Employee Engagement and Intention to Stay is an MSW dissertation for the Human Resource Management / Labour Welfare specialisation. It studies a (fictional) auto-component manufacturer, Vruksha Precision Components Pvt. Ltd., with about 120 employees in the Peenya Industrial Area, Bengaluru — one of the thousands of small and medium enterprises that supply larger automobile companies and struggle to keep trained machine operators and supervisors.

The project asks: how engaged are the firm's employees, how many are thinking of leaving, and which factors — engagement itself, welfare facilities, supervisor relationship, pay satisfaction, shift pattern — are linked to their intention to stay? It combines two established instruments, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9) and the Turnover Intention Scale (TIS-6), with a short set of items on perceived welfare and supervisor support, and a statutory welfare checklist completed with the HR manager against the facilities required under the Factories Act, 1948 and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020.

Data from around 100 employees (census of all willing employees) are analysed in SPSS: descriptives, reliability, independent-samples t-tests and one-way ANOVA across departments, experience and shifts, Pearson correlation, and multiple regression predicting turnover intention.

The bundle includes the synopsis, questionnaire structure, SPSS steps, ethics and management permission, the BCU CPD-4.5 dissertation format (70 report + 30 viva), a 12-slide presentation and a viva bank. It is a practical study: its output is a retention and welfare action plan the HR manager can actually use.

Abstract

Small and medium manufacturing firms in India face high turnover among skilled and semi-skilled workers, which raises recruitment and training costs and affects quality. This dissertation studies employee engagement and intention to stay among employees of a 120-employee auto-component SME in Peenya Industrial Area, Bengaluru. Using UWES-9, TIS-6, items on welfare and supervisor support, and a statutory welfare checklist, it examines levels of engagement and turnover intention, differences across employee groups, and the predictors of intention to leave. Data are analysed in SPSS with t-tests, ANOVA, correlation and multiple regression. The findings are used to propose a retention and welfare action plan for the firm.

Introduction

Work engagement is a positive, fulfilling state of mind characterised by vigour, dedication and absorption (Schaufeli and Bakker). Engaged employees tend to perform better and stay longer. Turnover intention — a conscious wish to leave the organisation — is one of the strongest predictors of actual turnover. In labour-intensive SMEs, welfare facilities, relationships with supervisors and shift patterns shape everyday experience and may influence both engagement and the decision to stay.

Review gap

Engagement research in India is concentrated in IT, banking and large manufacturing firms. SMEs in industrial estates like Peenya, where workers are often migrants from other districts or states and where HR functions are small, are rarely studied. Few studies combine engagement with an assessment of statutory welfare provision, which is central to the labour welfare perspective of social work.

Hypotheses

• H1: Engagement will correlate negatively with turnover intention.
• H2: Perceived welfare and supervisor support will correlate negatively with turnover intention.
• H3: Engagement will differ across departments and shifts.
• H4: Turnover intention will differ by experience group.
• H5: Engagement, welfare and supervisor support will together predict turnover intention.

Feasibility

Management has agreed to provide access during the block placement. The questionnaire takes about 15 minutes and can be filled during a scheduled break. The firm's size permits a near-census. SPSS is available through the department.

Vruksha Precision Components, like many SMEs in Peenya Industrial Area, loses trained CNC operators, quality inspectors and line supervisors to competing firms and to larger companies in nearby industrial areas. Each exit means weeks of recruitment and training, rework on the shop floor and pressure on remaining workers. The HR manager, who handles recruitment, payroll and compliance single-handedly, has no systematic data on how engaged employees are, who is likely to leave, or which workplace factors matter most to them.

Without such data, retention efforts are reactive — a pay revision after a wave of resignations, or festival bonuses — rather than targeted. This dissertation measures employee engagement and turnover intention in the firm, assesses the availability of statutory welfare facilities, examines how engagement, welfare and supervisor support relate to intention to stay across departments, shifts and experience groups, and proposes a practical retention and welfare plan grounded in the evidence and in labour welfare principles.

In scope

• All permanent and fixed-term employees of one auto-component SME in Peenya Industrial Area willing to participate (target about 100 of 120).
• Measurement of engagement, turnover intention, perceived welfare and supervisor support.
• A statutory welfare checklist completed with the HR manager and verified by observation.
• Quantitative analysis in SPSS and a practical action plan.

Out of scope

• Contract workers supplied by labour contractors (noted as a limitation and suggestion for further study).
• A legal compliance audit — the checklist identifies gaps for discussion, not violations.
• Salary data of individual employees.
• Comparisons with other firms.

Research design

A descriptive and correlational design using a structured questionnaire, with a supplementary welfare facilities checklist.

Universe and sampling

• Universe: about 120 employees across production, quality, maintenance, stores and administration.
• Sampling: census of all willing employees; the target is at least 100 completed questionnaires.

Tools

Procedure

Guide-approved synopsis → written management permission → briefing of supervisors and workers' representatives → pilot with 10 employees → administration in batches during breaks in a training room, with assistance for employees who prefer the questionnaire read out in Kannada, Hindi or Tamil → sealed-box collection → welfare checklist walk-through with the HR manager.

Analysis (SPSS)

Descriptives and Cronbach's alpha; t-test by shift (general vs rotating); one-way ANOVA with Tukey post hoc by department and experience; Pearson correlations; multiple regression with TIS-6 as the dependent variable and engagement, welfare and supervisor support as predictors; content analysis of open responses.

Timeline (16 weeks)