Impact of Rewards on Employee Engagement of Millennials: A Study of an Apparel Company in Sri Lanka

Abstract

As older generation retires, workforce is being replaced with a new generation of employees with different skills, attitudes, and work expectations. Compared to predecessors, millennials - the younger cohorts, is a breed of different characteristics, creating challenges to engage and retain to harness their full potential where rewards are seen as a major contributor. Thus, the objective of this study is to explore influence of total rewards - extrinsic, intrinsic rewards on employee engagement and to identify most effective reward types for millennials in the apparel industry which plays dominant role in Sri Lankan economy. Deductive approach was used to develop four hypotheses and a quantitative study on survey method was conducted with a randomly selected sample of 280 millennial employees in an apparel company located in Katunayake using a structured questionnaire. The type of investigation was correlational and was cross-sectional in time horizon. Findings disclosed that there is a significant impact of rewards on employee engagement of millennials indicating a strong positive relationship. Interestingly, intrinsic rewards were seen to have the higher level of influence on employee engagement of millennials. Based on analysis, this paper provides further insight to managers, the perceptions on rewards and best suited types to elevate organizational performance.