Enhancing the Performance of Employees by Recognizing Their Roles, Knowledge, Talents, and Skills - Example

TOPIC: CASE STUDY REPORT UNIT NAME: GIVEN NAME: . SURNAME: STUDENT NUMBER: EMAIL: DATE SUBMITTED: Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 1.0: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 2.0: PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS 4 3.0: STATEMENT OF KEY PROBLEMS 6 3.1: Lack of employees’ motivation 6 3.2: Poor management 6 3.3: Poor working environment 6 4.0: GENERATION AND EVALUATION OF RANGE OF ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS 7 4.1: Motivation 7 4.2: Leadership 8 4.3: Working environment 9 5.0: RECOMMENDATIONS 10 5.1: Goal setting 10 5.2: Team Building 10 6.0: IMPLEMENTATION 11 6.1: Utility Value 11 6.2: Team-Efficacy 11 6.3: Communication 12 REFERENCES 12 1.0: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The report sought to establish copious problems that workers go through in workplaces, document solutions and provide recommendations for identified problems. The report was generated from a case study from Allen, Bates and Partners an architecture firm in Melbourne which has inappropriate remuneration tactics that have led to disgruntled employees. Employees’ motivation, leadership and management skills within the organization as well as work environment are some of the issues that the report focused on. The report further sought to address the issue mentioned above to enhance the organization’s performance and improve its efficiency and effectiveness. It documented that organization practices needs to be changed in order to incorporate better management practices that are meant to improve workers’ productivity and reduces the cases of disengagement in working places. The report further sought to provide suggestion on how to improve performance of Allen, Bates and Partners Company in future to ensure that it responds appropriately to the problems identified in the near future. The report also sought to provide further guidelines that will help to improve relationship between the employees and the employer in working places. It recommended goal setting and team building as the most appropriate ways to improve workers’ productivity through motivation, proper communication methods between employers and employees and participatory leadership. The problems, solutions and the recommendations suggested by the report also apply to every other organization that needs to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. 2.0: PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS The report identified a number of issues that affects employees in their workplaces based from Allen, Bates and Partners Company case study. One of the main reasons why people look for employment is compensation benefits, better working conditions as well as higher remunerations as incentives to services offered. These incentives may be in form of bonuses, wages, holidays and adequate salaries. Incentives are based on workers performance whereby hardworking employees are supposed to be highly paid and lesser hardworking lowly paid. Economic incentives are great motivation to employees that drives them to work harder in order to attain their goals thereby achieving organizational goals. Poor pay de-motivates workers thereby reducing their output and may lead to poor business performance (Haynes 2008). The report established that, Allen, Bates and Partners, an architecture firm in Melbourne has inappropriate remuneration tactics that have led to disgruntled employees. The starting salaries, especially for the young employed graduates, are meagre and tend to disengage these graduates from Allen, Bates and associates immediately they acquire skills and experience required to get better paying jobs elsewhere. The firm’s policies do not recognize the need to pay higher remunerations to young graduates to encourage them register as architects, instead they offer meagre pay with promises of increase in the future. Workers are dissatisfied with the firm’s salaries and often criticize the management over the low salary issue. Low salaries have led to low opinion about the management and negative attitude towards work leading to their low output. For instance, Dimitry, after failing to secure higher salary, he lost his respect of his employers, stopped working extra hours in evenings and weekends and developed a negative mentality over his workplace to the point of getting to work late and reducing his output. Negative mentality in workplaces together with disgruntled workers, resulting from insufficient pay, leads to negative business performance (Kellermann 1996). The report identified that workers are no adequately motivated in this Company. Allen, Bates and associate makes promises of increasing employee’s salaries based on their performance but fail to honour their promises even after employee extemporal performance. Dimitry was promised a salary increment after review of his performance progress. He set out to improve his performance though spending much of his time in the firm, working extra hours in evenings and weekend to get the increment. However, this was forthcoming even after confronting Dante who maintained that of all workers’ progress had been reviewed and befitting increments given. This de-motivated Dimitry who acquired a negative mind-set about the firm and significantly reduced his input to contribute only for efforts remunerated. The report also established poor leadership management procedures within the company as workers could not interact freely with their employers. Some employers claim to be so busy, they do not spare some time to share with the employees, and sometimes they are out of office for personal businesses. Similarly, the report also established poor working environment as workers thrive in congested offices and inadequate space for expansion. The company was started since early 1990s, but there has not been any significant growth in terms of infrastructure since then. 3.0: STATEMENT OF KEY PROBLEMS 3.1: Lack of employees’ motivation The report found that workers are not motivated in terms of salaries, wages, bonuses and holidays. Workers are promised pay rises based on their performance but they are not fulfilled by the organization. The report found that in cases where workers are de-motivated, their productivity is usually low and they feel disengaged from the organization (Igalens & Roussel 1999). As witnessed form the case study workers have acquired a negative mind-set about the firm and significantly reduce their input and contribute only for efforts remunerated. 3.2: Poor management The report found that there is poor relationship between the employers and the employees. Employees are disconnected emotionally from their supervisors as well as their workers. Supervisors are not fully committed to their work and they give empty promises to the employees. They do not have adequate time to interact with the employees and discuss the problems and challenges facing them in their working places. Employees are assigned duties that are below their qualifications and this further disengages them from the organization (Leaman 1995). 3.3: Poor working environment The report established that the company has poor infrastructure and working environment. The company started back in 1990s and since then there has not been significant growth as workers thrive in congested building. Young workers describe the place as ‘morgue’ as the company has poor transition procedures with most of employees being the older generation. 4.0: GENERATION AND EVALUATION OF RANGE OF ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS 4.1: Motivation The report suggested that employees need to be motivated to increase their productivity in working places and ensure that the goals and the objectives of the organization are achieved. Motivation entails activating behaviours that are goal oriented. People are the most important assets in the organization and if they are de-motivated, the organization cannot achieve its goals and objectives. For an organization to meet production as well as service demands, it must depend on the employee’s abilities, commitment as well as skills of its workforce. The report suggested that, the organization must put into consideration the essence of employees engagement, because this forms an important basis for achieving better results with profitability, workplace safety and productivity as well as improved customer services (Haynes 2008). The report established that Job satisfaction is a key phenomenon in maintaining work force engagement. Evidence from the case study indicates most of the workers in Allen, Bates and Partners are not happy with their jobs and some even contemplating leaving the job. The report found that the organization needs to put appropriate measures in place to motivate its employees (Dessler 2005). The organization need to recognize the employees’ efforts by rewarding them accordingly in terms of compensation benefits for it to efficient and effective. The report also suggested a framework that maintains good relationship between employees and employers. Employers should be ready to discuss problems that make employees become disengaged. The report found that was need for this organization to review its remuneration policies and reward workers accordingly to maintain their commitment and engagement in their working places. Higher salaries as well as compensation benefits have been identified as one of great motivations that employees should be given to ensure their productivity. The report found that adequately motivated workers are usually productive in their working places and there is low employee disengagement from the organization. Motivation to employees encourages them to work harder in their working places. Poor pay and unfulfilled promises of salary raise as evidence from the case study de-motivates employees, as they do not feel comfortable in their working places therefore employees productivity is greatly lowered and this affects the organization effectiveness and the efficiency in terms of performance. 4.2: Leadership The report found that for this organization to effective and efficient in its operation it must recognize the importance of good leadership. In this context, good leadership entails the ability to empower others with the goal of creating new management in order to achieve the goals and objectives set within an organization (Cetin & Hacifazlioglu 2004). Similarly, management involves good relationship between employers and employees, where employers discuss issues affecting employees and try to find alternative solutions to them. The report found that there is need for employers in this organization to relate well with their employees. They should be always be there to discuss issues affecting workforce and find adequate solutions to solve them. The report established that there is need for the management to come up with various forums that engage employees in leadership and which will make them feel that they are part of the organization. 4.3: Working environment Similarly, the research established that in order to improve performance and productivity for the employees, there is need for the organization to provide a conducive working environment to its employees. Good working environment facilitates formality, privacy and comfort to the employees. Similarly, proper physical environment can be used as a tool to improve the results of the organization as well as the wellbeing of the employees. The organization needs to ensure that there are adequate facilities in working places; this helps to improve employees’ productivity and commitment as well as improving the outcomes of the organization. Poor working conditions and provision of inadequate equipment can be a major setback in attaining the organization’s goals and objectives (Haynes 2008). The report established the need for proper equipment and enhanced working conditions to improve the outcomes of the organization. From the perspective of safety the organization, need to put into place proper measures meant to guarantee employees of their safety in working places to improve their productivity. Poor safety measures can adversely affect the output of employees as well as commitment in their working places. The organization should also come up with strategies to improve office environment that influences greatly on office productivity. 5.0: RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1: Goal setting The report recommended goal setting as one of the recommendations to improve the efficiency of Allen, Bates and Partners. Setting of goals is a salient tool of maintaining the employees’ motivation. The essence of goal setting is to guide the individuals’ behaviours within an organization as well as motivating them to improve their performance and effectiveness. The organization should therefore set goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. Specific goals ensure effectiveness and efficiency in the organization as compared to generalized goals that are difficult to achieve within a specified period. The firm should have a relevant feedback for setting effective goals (Bockerman & Ilmakunnas 2006). Goals that are within the time bound are more likely to improve the individual behaviours and motivate them towards achieving those goals. Pressure in working places due setting of goals that are not measurable may tend to de-motivate employees. The report thereby recommended better goal setting methods to improve the performance of the organization as well the productivity of the employees. 5.2: Team Building The report recommended that there was need to create a team- like atmosphere in the organization to improve the quality of leadership within the organization. Managers who adopt the teamwork skills have better outcomes in their leadership as well as improving the performance of the organization. Skills in team building are important as they engage everyone in the organization to participate in the decision process, which may enhance the effectiveness and the efficiency of the firm. Through team building, managers are able to involve others in participative management thereby giving others a chance to express their ideas and views on how the organization should be managed. Working as a team aims at empowering others, encouraging cohesion in decision-making, identifying potential members within an organization and encourage openness. Effective leaders are flexible and innovative and therefore the report recommended strong team-building practices within the organization (Haynes 2008). 6.0: IMPLEMENTATION 6.1: Utility Value Money and gifts can be important incentives to encourage workers to improve their productivity in working places and the organization should strive to offer such incentives to the employees. Utility value increases when extra remunerations as well as other incentives are offered to employees to compensate them for additional commitment (Sarif et al 2004). Gifts and money plays an important role in achieving organizational goals and objectives as employees are always motivated to work towards the success of the organization. Where the organizational goals are less interesting to the employees money and gifts acts as utility value for enhanced commitment. 6.2: Team-Efficacy Organizations that have adopted teamwork have been found to very effective and efficient in their operation. However, when individuals work as a group it is difficult to estimate each individual’s contribution to the success of the organization. Therefore, the organization should offer incentives based on the performance of each group in an organization. In this context, the team members will not only be confined to their own efficacy but also to the whole group. This will rate the competency level of the group in relation to the assigned task. Lower performance can directly be linked with lesser levels of team-efficacy. Individuals whose performance is below the organization’s expectation would perform better in groups, as they are able to hide their shortcomings and benefit from skills of high performers from the group (Erez et al 1985). 6.3: Communication In organizations where communication channels are efficient there is increased productivity of employees as well as better results to the organization in terms of performance. Managers demonstrate a sense of care towards the employees and concentrate on what can improve the effectiveness and the efficient of the organization. Managers can enhance the performance of employees by recognizing their roles, knowledge, talents and skills they bring to their organization. Managers who devote some of their time to discuss on employees’ strengths and weaknesses build a more solid relationship and connection with the employees (Dessler 2005). To ensure employees’ engagement there should be clear communication from the manager, provision of more opportunities by the management to enhance employees learning and growth. REFERENCES Bockerman, P., and Ilmakunnas, P 2006. Do Job Disamenities raise wages or ruin job dissatisfaction? International Journal of Manpower, 27(3), 290-302 . Cetin, M. O. & Hacifazlioglu, O 2004 . Conflict management styles: A comparative study of university academics and high school teachers. New York: J. Am. Acad. Business. Dessler, G 2005. Human Resource Management.10th ed. Prentice-Hall, pp. 390 Erez, M., Earley, P. C. and Hulin, C. L 1985. The impact of participation on goal acceptance and performance: A two step model. Academy of Management Journal, 28, 50-66 Haynes. B. P 2008. An Evaluation of the Impact of the Office Environment on Productivity. Journal of Facilities, 26 (5/6), pp. 178-19. Igalens, J. & Roussel, P 1999. A study of relationships between compensation package, work motivation and job satisfaction. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 20, pp. 1009 Kellermann, P.F 1996. Interpersonal Conflict Management in Group Psychotherapy: An Integrative perspective. Group analysis, 1996 29: 257 Leaman, A 1995. Dissatisfaction and office productivity. Journal of Facilities Management , 13(2), 3-19. Lussier, R.N. &Achua, C.F 2007.Effective Leadership. 3rd ed. Thomson Learninig EMEA Ltd, pp. 74-96. Sekar,C 2011. Workplace Environment and its impact on organizational performance in public sector organizations , International Journal of Enterprise Computing and Business System International Systems, Vol. 1 Issue 1 January 2011 Sarif, S., Noordin, K. & Che Abdullah, A. S 2004. Managing organizational conflict from Islamic perspective. Journal Syariah, 12 (2), 107-12 Read More