My dissertation is based on benefits and rewards to ensure that foreign employees remain motivated towards work and organization in Malta. It is an exciting topic to study because employee morale is vital to the success of every company. It is the level of commitment, motivation, and enthusiasm that workers bring to their work regularly. Without it, firms lose productivity, reduce output volumes, and are more prone to fall shy of vital expectations. Employee motivation is something that workplace leaders must cultivate and track for organizational productivity.
The study by Minnesota State on incentives for employees, especially foreign employees, places a premium on the growth of the workforce industry. It would be receptive to innovative approaches and processes and is invested in its workers’ career and personal development. A new learning analysis would allow a company to understand how it evolves and help the organization remain successful (Diaz-Kope, Miller-Stevens, and Henley, 2018). Additionally, workforce growth will still be a priority: this ensures that it will not be a one-time event but an ongoing operation. Trained human resources provide a company with a strategic advantage by increasing workforce effectiveness, which results in increased efficiency. Productive employees are promoted, which results in reduced recruiting costs. My research analysis will describe the difficulties encountered by foreign employees and the anticipated strategies to alleviate these difficulties.
From the overseas worker’s point of view, the study will cover the employee’s motivational factors in Malta, where most of the employees are foreign nationals and have a diverse culture. Foreign workers decide to work in Malta, keeping aside their families and community in another host country. In return, foreign workers will expect to gain sufficient financial and non-financial incentives from overseas countries. Further, this study will suggest factors that will be implemented in Malta to attract offers for people from other nations to migrate to Malta for work opportunities and better living (Camilleri, 2006). My study will focus on factors needed by the government of Malta to focus on workforce supply and their better future perspective, including motivational factors compared to international standards of employment.
1- Short Literature Review
Motivations
Motivation is an underlying force that shapes an individual’s actions, willingness, and goals. These wants, aspirations, or preferences may be inherited or inherent. They may be influenced by societal, social, or behavioral factors. External causes (extrinsic motivation) or internal factors (intrinsic motivation) can inspire individuals (intrinsic motivation). Nature makes the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic incentives of the action (Schunk and DiBenedetto, 2020). Intrinsic motivation relates to an innate desire to accomplish a mission, while extrinsic motivation refers to performing a task for the sake of receiving a reward. According to theory, intrinsic motivation has a more significant beneficial impact than extrinsic motivation. Motivation has long been viewed as a critical factor in the advancement of humanity. Comprehension of intent reveals many facts regarding the human condition. It explains why we set goals, strive for achievement, and desire power; it explains why we crave psychological connection, explaining why we experience feelings like fear, anger, and compassion (Hattie, Hodis, and Kang, 2020).
Employee motivation
Employee incentive is an innate and internal desire to exert the required commitment and intervention to accomplish work-related tasks (van der Kolk, van Veen-Dirks and ter Bogt, 2018). It has been described as the psychological forces that shape an individual’s actions, degree of commitment, and persistence within an organization. Motivation is described as the urge to expend effort to complete a mission or obtain a reward. At work, employee motivation has been described as the collection of processes that influence job-related behaviors’ urging, direction, and persistence (Reizer, Brender-Ilan, and Sheaffer, 2019).
Foreign Employee motivation, importance, and impact
Nowadays, multinational businesses hire an increasing number of workers from diverse cultures and remain motivated. This research proposal integrates many current empirical findings with real-world market operations. For cross-cultural workers, they elaborated on the motivating forces and process architecture in-depth, including the importance of jobs, the hierarchy of desires, the dichotomy between internal and external factors, and the compensation and penalty mechanism (Galea, 2019). It concludes that the most effective incentive strategies vary according to workers’ cultural context and offer several sources and recommendations for cross-cultural human resource management in multinational corporations.
Foreign employee motivation in Malta
In Malta, Governments and Employers are well concerned about the motivation of foreign employees to work in Malta. Department for Industrial and Employment Relations take care of foreign workers so that future demand for the workforce can be fulfilled by attracting the current foreign workforce. A range of incentives can be offered to foreign employees working in Malta for more than three years (Cole, 2019). The foreign employee could have their expectations and preference over the employee motivating factors. However, the Government of Malta has announced the following motivating factors for foreign skilled works (Cassar, 1999).
- As a general rule, if the following provisions are met, a foreign national who comes from a country with which Malta has a Double Taxation Treaty is not taxable in Malta on emoluments gained for work done in Malta:
- That person is physically present in Malta for not more than 183 days in 12 months; and
- The emoluments are compensated for or on behalf of a non-Maltese employer; and
- The emoluments are not paid by the employer’s permanent institution in Malta.
If the above requirements are not met, or the foreign worker is from a non-treaty jurisdiction, any income received from work performed in Malta is taxable Malta. If the worker is present in Malta for more than 183 days in 12 months, he is taxed at the Resident Rate, depending on his status as Single, Married, or Parent. If the foreign worker is in Malta for fewer than 183 days in 12 months, he or she will be taxable in Malta at the Non-Resident Rate of Tax on the emoluments received. Any individual who comes from an EU country to conduct professional services or other self-employed activities is taxable in Malta on the profits received in Malta if they meet the following criteria:
- He maintains a fixed base in Malta daily to carry out his activities; or
- In 12 months, his stay in Malta reaches 183 days.
International Motivation factors that need to be implemented at Malta
There are many economic, social, and physical reasons for individuals to emigrate, and they may generally be divided into push causes and pull ones.
- Influencing factors are those that are connected with the place of origin.
- In this case, the pull factors are those that are connected with the location of the destination.
Pull Factors are those that cause people to want to do something.
- More employment is being created.
- More favorable job opportunities
- Higher wages
- In exchange for the promise of a “better life,”
Factors that push in a specific direction
- Overpopulation
- There are few jobs available.
- Wages that are too low
2- Research Objective
The study’s objective is to provide a better understanding and ideas about different pay and incentive strategies for workers who perform beyond their job descriptions to represent their organization and motivation. This research project would provide a dialogue on a different work environment that will motivate workers to care about the business. My primary goal is to investigate the variables that influence the incentives that keep workers driven to function. These rewards include financial and non-financial incentives. (Jaworski, Ravichandran, Karpinski and Singh, 2018). Financial and non-financial considerations include the job climate, workload, work pressure, corporate culture, succession planning, and financial incentives for workers.
Financial considerations such as the pay design framework have a significant impact on employee motivation. Significant financial incentives improve employees’ satisfaction and motivate them to provide their all, especially when pay is directly linked to job results. My research will ascertain how financial incentives s, which involve foreign employees, affect employers.
My research will also discuss non-financial factors for the employee which affect the employee motivation towards the workplace. Non-monetary incentives also play a significant role in employee motivation and commitment. There are several opportunities to affect employee retention, perhaps more so in a down market and while an organization is struggling with financial constraints. This involves being accorded dignity, balancing work and personal life, job kind, the caliber of coworkers, and leadership capacity. (Kong, Jiang, Chan and Zhou, 2018). When an organization’s level of employee happiness is insufficient, individual employees may leave. Low turnover harms the economic and social institutions of the organization, as I will address in my report. Employee attrition can have a detrimental effect on the overall success of the company and employee productivity.
3- Research Question
How do incentives motivate foreign employees working in Malta for more than three years? This question will further be extended to the categorization of motivation to financial and non-financial incentives. Further, what foreign employees will consider beneficial for them compared to the host country, which enables them to remain motivated to work under the applicable laws of Malta.
4- Research Method
My research approach would be deductive. While doing deductive analysis, it is common, to begin with, a hypothesis (the result of inductive research). Deductive inference involves the examination of particular theories. Without a theory, the deductive inference is complex. Deductive researchers will begin with a compelling social theory and then weigh the evidence supporting its implications. (Hattie and Jaeger, 1998). The deductive analysis is more directly related to analytical inquiry than inductive science. The researcher reviews prior studies, read existing theories regarding the phenomenon being studied, and then explores ideas from these theories. The debate here would focus on contingent variables such as incentives, remuneration, and wages that international workers will expect in exchange for their contributions to the host organization.
Reason for using deductive research
Developing a hypothesis (or hypotheses) based on existing theory and then creating a research plan to test the hypothesis” is what a deductive approach is all about. Deductive reasoning is the process of thinking from the specific to the general. If a causal connection or link seems to be suggested by a specific theory or case example, this may be true in many circumstances (Gilgur and Ramirez-Marquez, 2020). A deductive design might be used to determine whether or not this connection or link is held proper under more general conditions. The deductive method may be described in terms of hypotheses, which can be generated from the theory’s premises and then tested against reality. Alternatively, to put it another way, the deductive method is concerned with the process of deducing conclusions from premises or statements. Unlike induction, the deduction starts with an anticipated pattern evaluated against data, while induction starts with observations and tries to discover a pattern within them.
Sampling Method
I will use the systematic sampling procedure. In this method, sample foreign employees from a wider group are chosen according to a random beginning point, but with a defined, periodic interval, systematic sampling is considered a probability sampling technique (Räty et al., 2020). It is determined by dividing the population size by the required sample size to arrive at this interval, known as the sampling interval. However, even though the sample population has been chosen in advance, systematic sampling is still considered random if a random beginning point is used and the periodic interval is set beforehand.
Area of Research
Below is the discussion over areas of research. Employee incentives (also known as bonus incentives, perquisites, or perks) are non-wage bonuses given to employees in addition to their regular employment or salaries. Salary wrapping or salary swap arrangements describe situations in which an individual trades pay for some compensation. In the majority of organizations, employment compensation is payable to any extent. These incentives include housing rent, furnished or unfurnished, with or without free utilities, group insurance (health, dental, life, etc. disability income protection, retirement incentives, daycare, tuition reimbursement, sick leave, vacation (paid and unpaid), social security, profit sharing, employer contributions to student loan repayment and extended service.
Calculating the “appropriate payout may be challenging. Money is a touchy subject, but numerous factors go into determining fair and competitive compensation rates. The more expertise and qualifications an applicant has, the more often they can get a higher salary. Workers with comparable, if not identical, job titles will demand significantly different salaries based on the sector in which they work.
The cost of living is a significant factor in determining compensation, is highly location-specific, and, more specifically, housing costs. This explains why wages in major metropolitan centers are generally higher than salaries in more remote regions for comparable jobs. For assessing pay, critical abilities could be the more objective criterion to use than work description.
5- Research of Hypotheses
Based on the different factors on which compensation remuneration and incentives depend, some factors remained focused for all foreign employees while providing their services to employers and their host country. So, the provided incentives significantly impact foreign employee motivation, job environment, empowerment, recognition, and employee performance (Hagemeister, 2019). The foreign employee considers these factors to incentives analysis compared to other geographies and employers. The majority of foreign employees focused on the financial incentives that they obtain from employers. The thinking behind such a financial factor is that these workers come from other countries below poverty. Therefore, they remained focused on financial earning and remitted to their loved ones to support their family.
My study will emphasize the critical need to improve motivation, which influences the value of pay and incentives based on the foreign employee’s motivation factors implemented by the big nation to retain the employee and attract new workforce to their nation. These factors, which we will extract from the research, shall be implemented in Malta to reduce the switching of workforce from Malta to other nations. These foreign employees will be asked a series of questions regarding the reasons the influence their motivation. Compensation and rewards and job advancement, progress, and opportunities are among the contemplations and questions to consider. Workers and staff would be required to rate how important this aspect is to their working experience and ability to succeed professionally. The results of this study point the way forward in terms of gaining expertise in evaluating foreign employees’ willingness to be motivated through financial and non-financial means and increasing and reinforcing understanding regarding variables influencing foreign employee motivation.
6- Data Gathering Methods
To define the target foreign employee, several data collection approaches may be used. The primary research entails distributing 100 survey questionnaires to employees working in Malta for more than three years. This approach will be used for foreign employees, and experts from various organizations motivated to complete survey questionnaires. A questionnaire, which consists of many queries, is a tool for eliciting information about a respondent’s payout (Lietz, 2010).
Reasons for using Questionnaire.
There are many incentives of questionnaires related to the motivation of foreign employees. For me, it is a cost-effective method of acquiring critical knowledge from foreign employees. As foreign employees are dispersed in almost every field, it is more practical than interviewing or observing. The Questionnaire enables foreign employees to communicate with many foreign employees that would not be met otherwise (Pozzo, Borgobello, and Pierella, 2018). Further, it is capable of covering tremendous foreign employees simultaneously. After skillfully built, the individual conducting the analysis will appoint someone to prescribe on his behalf. When used to extract claims of evidence, it is usually accepted as reliable. Since foreign employees, responses are private, it is often easier to access personal information through questionnaires. It alleviates the subject’s rapid reaction pressure (McWilliam, Casey, and Sims, 2009). It may be a primary tool for a more in-depth analysis to be conducted later using another approach.
There are a few disadvantages to questionnaires that you should be aware of. It lacks credibility and trustworthiness. There are instances when primary data is not accessible but secondary data from workers is available. Many workers may or may not know how to respond. He or she generates an out-of-control sample. Unanswered questions remain a cause of controversy. There is no way to guarantee that the questionnaire workers represent a representative sample of the whole group. One or more of the group’s more powerful members may choose to remain quiet. To collect data on complex emotional problems, a questionnaire is useless. It’s possible that some workers are reluctant to voice their views in writing on controversial issues. Attitudes, actions, replies, claims, and emotions of the employee are not seen. The study’s logic and purpose must be fully understood by certain workers before they may provide any information. A questionnaire does not allow the researcher to develop a relationship with the sample group.
7- Methods of Assessment
I will work on 100 questionnaires from a variety of foreign employees. They would be consolidated. The Questionnaire must contain a disclaimer, which the submitter of the Questionnaire must sign. This disclaimer shall contain the consent of the individual who is voluntarily submitting the question. At the same time, individuals who are unwilling to share their views in the form of Questionnaire may share their negative consent and may not participate in this questionnaire exercise. The survey would also include any readiness to advance in planning. After receiving all questionnaires in coded form, they will be consolidated and tested on the software.
The focus would be on motivational variables, and compensation principles include interview questions focused on multiple-choice questions. (1996, Gable). The collection of review topics will provide concerns about respondent choice about motivational variables. The questions will also cover the financial and non-financial factors-based questions through which foreign employees’ preferences related to the motivations will be judged.
Additionally, the Questionnaire would provide information about recent actions taken by the Maltese government in job pay and incentives. These fundamental questions and feedback shall be transferred from physical form to mild form and uploaded to software for statistical analysis, where the answers will be consolidated based on questions, responses, ages, demographics of foreign employees, and employers. Additionally, the following responses would be shown with diagrams and charts in addition to an excel table. This segmentation enables identifying distinct life scenarios and experiences through which workers replied to questionnaires about their motivation.
Here statistical analysis tool will also be used. Statistical (or predictive research) methods collect and analyze data to detect patterns and trends. It is a technique for excluding stigma from knowledge analysis by employing numbers. Additionally, it can be seen as a scientific instrument capable of informing decision-making. Descriptive statistics use summary charts and tables to explain a large body of evidence but do not draw assumptions regarding the population from which the survey was drawn. Since maps, graphs, and tables are essential elements, descriptive statistics aids in comprehending and visualizing raw data.
Given the various variables I have defined, such as age, gender, and organization, I will employ probability sampling based on probability theory. To be considered a sample, I will choose an answer from each group of variables at random. The probability of selecting a sample represents the general characteristics of the population. Sampling is accomplished by arbitrarily selecting a subset of the current group (the sample) and then analyzing their answers to predict the current location (Care, Csaji, Campi, and Weyer, 2018). A random sampling procedure will be used to conduct the survey. A sampling procedure would be used to select 100 participants.
To finish, I will work on foreign employee reviews, emphasizing comments from the younger group, ages 26 to 34, experienced and youthful team members. Additionally, answers by ethnicity and industry/occupation are reviewed and inferred. These foreign employees are assisting others in developing a more favorable behavioral outlook regarding pay and incentives. To determine the most suitable incentive and compensation problem, I will review questionnaire responses from both the younger and seasoned professionals. The questionnaire information shall remain anonymous and non-traceable to anyone who reviews the Questionnaire submitted by individuals. Therefore Questionnaire will be consisting of 2 pages. Page 1 will consist of customer consents voluntarily submitting the proposal and shall have no liability towards participants. The 2nd page will contain the questionnaire information without tracing or the submitter’s name. These two pages will be detached from each other and submitted to 2 different individuals who will gather the data. Such exercise will not enable a review to identify the status of the person who had submitted these questionnaires. Weighting would be applied to the highly trained and seasoned personnel’s comments to consolidate the final response. The data relating to analysis must be stored and get access to authorized personals and senior members of this exercise. In such a way, the confidentiality of data and personal responses shall be maintained. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018 instructs primary law regulating how companies protect EU citizens’ data until two years after which the data can be disposed of subject to certain conditions that same shall not be required to be submitted to the court of law.
8- Potential Research Outcomes
Finally, by consolidating results, I would attempt to ascertain foreign employees’ primary motivational challenges and guidelines, focusing on financial incentives and salaries to maintain morale while also considering the workplace atmosphere, corporate culture, human resource policies, and career growth. In addition to this, family reunification issues are faced by third-country national’s employees working in Malta for more than three years due to their limited income threshold. Based on the data and questionnaire closed-ended questions, it is concluded that foreign employee motivation factors consist of financial and non-financial factors. However, the majority of overseas foreign employees prefer financial rewards and compensation. The primary reason behind such preference is their need to support themselves and their dependent family members in their origin country. Further, if foreign employees are well satisfied with the financial need, their next preference will be to focus on non-financial factors. These factors include workplace environment, employer treatments, and atmosphere at the workplace.
