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TABLE 1: PROFILE OF RESPONDENTS BY BUSINESS AREA Business Area
Number of organisations
Greater North Auckland Manukau
Waitakere City Total
6
10 4 1
21
Percentage of organisations
28.57% 47.62% 19.05% 4.76%
100.00%
Although the results of Statistics New Zealand (2008) revealed that 86.8% of businesses in New Zealand generally have 5 and less employees in service with only 3.6% of businesses in New Zealand having 20 or more employees in service, the amount of employees in the organisations in our research project give a different picture. The number of employees employed by the organisations varies from a minimum of six employees to a maximum of 110, as reflected in Table 2 below.
TABLE 2: PROFILE OF RESPONDENTS BY ORGANISATION SIZE
Number of employees
6-29 30-49
50-110 Total
8 8 5
21
Number of organisations
Percentage of organisations
38.10% 38.10% 23.80% 100.00%
From the 21 organisations 90.48% are from the private sector while 9.52% are from the public sector. A total of 89.47% of the private sector organisations are from industry.
RESULTS Discussion
In the empirical study it was found that only 19.05% of the organisations claimed to have a formal suggestion system, meaning they have an official policy, certain structures and procedures in place. It is interesting to note that none of the organisations, whether formal or informal, have an exclusive name for their system. It could therefore be concluded that managers will refer to “the suggestion system or suggestion scheme”. Not one of the respondents believes that the name of the system will contribute to the success on the system. Buchanan and Badham (2008) go one step further in saying that employees must have a conceptual understanding of the system and a name linked to it.
There was consensus among all the participating organisations that the evaluation of suggestions is completed in less than 90 days after it was submitted. This is an indication that the management is open for suggestions and that they value the ideas of employees. The fact, however, that 71.43% of the respondents either disagree or do not know whether suggestors are getting feedback on a regular basis during the evaluation period places a question mark on the commitment of management. The flow chart (Figure 1 below) explains the flow of feedback.
SUGGESTION SYSTEM AS AN HRM TOOL TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN ORGANISATIONS: SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE IN NEW ZEALAND 561