Lila is studying for an MSc in Human Resource Management. Throughout her undergraduate and postgraduate studies, she has worked for a variety of different organisations to finance her education. In Lila’s experience, most of her past employers offered her little support as a new employee, and their onboarding strategy was deficient. The literature points in the same direction: despite the importance of properly welcoming new employees, organisations struggle to provide them with efficient onboarding programmes (Caldwell and Peters 2018; Snell 2006). For her research project, she had decided to investigate how poor onboarding practices affect employee retention. She now wants to conduct qualitative research with new employees from a selected organisation and answer the research question: ‘To what extent does the quality of onboarding programmes influence employee retention?’

In order to gain access to participants and to relevant material that could inform her research question, Lila contacted multiple managers working for various types of organisations

in her city. She sent out email requests (Figure C6.1) with a detailed information sheet presenting her research project, the benefits associated with taking part, the requirements and general ethical considerations. She did not consult with her project tutor prior to sending out email requests. She felt confident that her email requesting access and the accompanying information sheet (Figure C6.2) were compelling enough to spark managers’ interest. She considered they were clear, concise and very persuasive. Moreover, she was sure her offer of a detailed report of the research findings would constitute a strong incentive for organisations to accept her invitation to participate in her research project.

After weeks of sustained effort to gain access and multiple rounds of email communications, Lila’s requests were left unanswered, simply being ignored. Lila felt defeated. Faced with this predicament of not being able to gain access, she wanted to understand why her attempts failed and why she was struggling to get any responses from the multiple managers she had messaged. After all, without gaining access to an organisation and its employees, she could not collect data as planned. She had to resolve this issue. Lila finally emailed her project tutor to discuss and address this significant problem.
The project tutor was not surprised that Lila had not heard back from the managers she had emailed. Her tutor identified major problems with the way Lila had presented her research project and approached organisations.

Questions
1 What key concerns do you consider Lila’s project tutor will bring to her attention?
2 How might Lila address these concerns?
3 What other approaches to gain access could Lila consider?