Introduction
This Employee Confidence Survey is a follow up to the survey carried out by Industrial Psychology Consultants for the first quarter of 2012 (Q1, 2012). The Employee Confidence Survey is conducted to gauge employee confidence in the economic environment obtained at any given time during the course of the year. Employees are asked questions related to their employment and the general economic climate. Data for this Survey was collected from September to December 2012 and represents the Employee Confidence levels for the last quarter of 2012 (Q4, 2012).
As reported in this survey, the country continues to face threats to the macro-economic gains attained since dollarisation. Numerous factors (amongst them, a murky political outlook, a poor agricultural season, and unreliable electricity supply) continue to threaten these positive economic gains in the short to medium term. Resultantly, Zimbabwean employees are skeptical about their prospects moving forward.
Employee Confidence Defined
Employee Confidence is defined as the extent to which employees perceive their organisation as being effectively managed and competitively positioned. It also refers to whether or not employees believe they have a promising future with their organisation; that is if there is job security given the current performance of their organisation as well as the macro-economic performance of the country. It is important to note that employee confidence greatly influences individual behaviour and therefore holds implications for organisational and economic performance.
Employee Confidence Index Dimensions
The overall Employee Confidence Index is made out of four Indices namely:
- Macroeconomic Confidence Index: Is the economy improving or it has stabilised?
- Job Security Index: Do I feel secure in my current job?
- Employer Confidence Index: Does the future of my current employer look bright?
- Job Transition Index: Am I confident about finding a new job?
Methodology
A questionnaire with 9 questions was emailed to employees to various organisations on our email mailing list. The same questionnaire was simultaneously uploaded onto Survey Monkey and employees with access to the internet were asked to complete the questionnaire on-line. A total of 352 individuals of various age groups, education levels, gender and employment positions responded. This shows a decrease of 61.11% in the number of participants from the April 2012 survey. As mentioned above, the employee engagement Index is calculated based on employees’ responses to four questions. These four Indices have equal weight in the final Employee Confidence Index.
- Is the economy improving or has it stabilised?
- Do I feel secure in my current job?
- Does the future of my current employer look bright?
- Am I confident about finding a new job?
All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate. Amongst them, error associated with non-response, sampling error and error associated with question wording. Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd therefore avoids the words ‘margin of error’ as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100.00% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls have come close to this ideal. Respondents of the Employee Confidence Survey were selected from those that agreed to participate in the survey.
Participant Profile
The minimum age of eligible participants was 22 years. 64.8% of the respondents were male while 34.10% were female. 1.10% didn’t say whether they were male or female. 57.40% of the respondents are managerial employees and 40.60% are non-managerial employees. 67.60% of the respondents are married, 23.60% are single and have never married before, and 6.20% are single and were married before.
23.60% of the respondents hold a post graduate qualification; 43.50% have first degrees; 28.40% have diplomas; 1.70% have a Certificate; 0.30% have an Advanced Level certificate; and, 0.90% have an Ordinary Level certificate. As compared to the Survey in April 2012, there was no major change in composition in terms of education levels. Of the participants, 90.10% are employed while 8.80% are unemployed. 1.10% didn’t state employment status.
The average age of participants is 32 years. The survey sample has been segmented into four age categories. The table below shows the age segments and the percentage of employees in each segment.
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