Impact of Enhanced Reward Practices on
Employee Engagement during COVID-19:
A case study on Coral Paints Ghana

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted businesses globally leaving a huge challenge for HR practitioners to battle declining employee engagement. Many studies, based in Western countries, proved that an effective total reward system can boost employee engagement. However, there is limited related literature (1) focused on Ghana and (2) during the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of Ghana. Thus, this research paper sought to understand the impact of enhanced reward practices on employee engagement during the pandemic through a case study analysis of Coral Paints Ghana. A simple mixed-method research design was utilized to determine the levels of employee engagement before and after the implementation of enhanced reward practices; as well as, to identify enhanced extrinsic and intrinsic reward (total rewards) practices implemented from January 2020 to December 2021. The researcher determined the enhanced reward practices through a collection of qualitative data through a pre-survey questionnaire and interviews, as well as, from secondary sources (company HR records and databases). The levels of employee engagement were obtained through quantitative surveys. Thematic data analysis was relied on to understand the data collected in the interviews, whilst a descriptive statistical analysis was used to evaluate the levels of employee engagement before and after the implementation of enhanced reward practices. Descriptive statistics were performed on the data to determine three data sets: across the company, among different roles, and among different departments. The means and standard deviations were computed for each question in the quantitative survey, across the entire company. In addition, an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was performed to determine the effect of employee roles and departments on Enhanced Reward Difference. The findings revealed that there is a positive correlation between enhanced reward practices and employee engagement. From a total reward approach, the company was able to mitigate challenges to maintain employee engagement levels. The results of this dissertation have significant implications for the academic world, Ghanaian SME businesses, and human resource practitioners. As a result of these findings, recommendations were made to HR practitioners, particularly in Ghana, as well as to other businesses.

Keywords: Employee Engagement, Covid 19 Reward, Employee Performance