HR Strategies for Employees Commitment and Engagement - Essay Example

?Running Head: HR Strategies for Employees’ Commitment and Engagement Human Resource Strategies for Employees’ Commitment and Engagement Name] [Institute’s Name] Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 INTRODUCTION 3 Engagement and Commitment 3 DISCUSSION 4 Goal-setting 4 Recruitment and Selection 5 Training and Development 5 Performance Appraisal and Management 6 Reward Management 6 Motivation and Motivational Theories 7 CONCLUSION 8 REFERENCES 8 INTRODUCTION For many years, there have been rapid advancements in the field of information and technology that has resulted in creation of a highly competitive global environment where organisations are now endeavoring to acquire competitive advantage in the market. In this quest, it has been an observation that besides external factors such as market environment, social and cultural influences etc, human resource management (Brewster, 2003, pp. 16-27) has become an imperative tool for employers to ensure their survival and more importantly, their organisational success in the market. In this regard, human resource managers are now having a greater responsibility of ensuring higher productivity and better performance of employees in the organisation. Moreover, a huge number of researchers and experts have carried out studies to understand the role and impact of HR management and strategies on employees’ productivity and performance. Such studies have indicated that various factors play a crucial role in increasing productivity and enhancing performance of the workers, and particularly, employees’ commitment and engagement dominate the list of factors. As the result, recent developments (Brewster, 2003, pp. 16-27) in the field of HRM are now looking towards different human resource strategies that can facilitate organisations in gaining commitment and engagement of their employees. Engagement and Commitment Particularly, employee engagement revolves around psychological state of employees and it is one of the determining factors for enhanced performance of employees in an organisation. In other words, employee engagement (Robinson & Hayday, 2003, pp. 1-11) plays a crucial role in building emotional construct of a worker that subsequently determines presence or absence of an individual during a given task. On the other hand, employee commitment also falls in the psychological state of an individual; however, the level of commitment determines connection (Guirdham, 2002, pp. 339-345) of the worker with a particular job/task besides his/her presence during it. Experts (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2002, pp. 192-199) have indicated that besides engagement, commitment provides a psychological environment to the employees to acquire an identity in relation to the organisation without which the engagement remains temporary and does not transform into commitment that is essential for organisational success. The paper will now include discussion on various strategies that the human resource managers can employ to ensure both engagement and commitment of employees in their organisation. DISCUSSION Goal-setting It is an observation that organisations always expect maximum performance from the employees; however, they overlook the importance of goal setting and alignment in this process. Experts (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997, pp. 29-35) have shown that it becomes very challenging for individuals to ensure their engagement to a task if they are unable to match their skills with the task. In this regard, the foremost HR strategy should be identification of an achievable and unambiguous goal since HR departments often forget to focus on these two characteristics of a job, which results in anxiety and subsequently, lack of motivation and engagement with the task. Beliefs and values play a significant role in every society, and therefore, during the setting and alignment of a goal, it is imperative for HR department to ensure sharing of beliefs and values of the organisation with the job task. HR managers often perform this step after selection of the employees; however, analysis of the literature (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997, pp. 29-35) has indicated that it is important for organisations to recognize their beliefs and values as it facilitates potential employees to align them personally before attempting to become a member of the organisation. In this regard, a clear mission and specific values of the organisation will help both employers, as well as employees in ensuring and gaining commitment and engagement of each other that is fundamental for organisational survival and success. Recruitment and Selection Besides goal setting and alignment, recruitment and selection is another important responsibility of the human resource department in terms of employees’ engagement and commitment since this phase involves selecting the right people for the right job at the right time (Marchington & Wilkinson, 2005, pp. 74-75). Any failure during this process may not allow the organisation to gain commitment of the employees afterward. Particularly, successful recruitment and selection enables the organisation to acquire the best-fit lot for its different requirements. Unfortunately, due to competitive nature of business, HR managers have become equipped with so many things that they only follow standard procedures during recruitment and selection, which often results in neglecting of qualified and highly motivated individuals (Marchington & Wilkinson, 2005, pp. 71-78). In this regard, it is imperative that human resource departments should employ a non-standardized strategy for the recruitment and selection procedure, which may allow them to identify and select individuals that might have been ignored otherwise. Training and Development Another way of engaging and gaining commitment of employees at work is training and development. Usually, HR departments put efforts in training individuals that they feel are motivated and engaged (Pulakos, 2009, pp. 251-253). However, it is essential for HR managers to focus on other lot as well, especially the new employees since training and development initiatives enable newly recruited employees to interact with colleagues and seniors, which results in enhancement of their motivation level and subsequently their engagement and commitment with the organisation. Moreover, research (Marchington & Wilkinson, 2005, pp. 67-79) has indicated that besides knowledge-based training, personality-development and attitudinal training plays an influential role in transforming behavior, attitude, and practices of individuals in the organisation. Performance Appraisal and Management Human resource managers only perform the half job until they begin the process of performance appraisal and management. Besides selecting right people, it is HRD’s responsibility to ensure quality and quantity of service and that becomes possible by efficient performance management (Cardy & Leonard, 2011, p. 19-26). Harold Green once said, “It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises—but only performance is reality” (Marchington & Wilkinson, 2005, pp. 74-75). One of the issues identified in the literature (Wagner & Hollenbeck, 2009, pp. 456-457) is lack of continuity and follow-up that results in inefficacy of the appraisal procedure. Therefore, it is very important for managers to ensure a continuous performance appraisal, as well as feedback process to promote engagement and commitment of workers in the organisation. Reward Management Undoubtedly, “employees work for any organisation, not for the sake of it, but for mutual benefit and growth, which serves as an important motivator (Cardy & Leonard, 2011, p. 19-26). Certainly, the biggest indicator of motivation is of the monetary nature. In other words, financial reward plays a powerful role in motivating workers and influencing their commitment and engagement in the organisation, especially in current decade of recession where everyone is confronting financial-related issues (Smither, 2009, pp. 311-319). Here, it is very important for human resource managers to design reward management policies in such a way that they may consider sensitivity of employees related to equity. It is an observation that employers often pay good remuneration to workers; however, this does not transform into employees’ engagement and commitment. In this regard, an efficient strategy will be to consider both external and internal factors that may affect workers adversely. For instance, employees often judge value of financial rewards by comparing them with their colleagues, and sometimes, they perceive the rewards based on their observations outside the organisation in the market (David, 2009, pp. 123-124). In other words, it is inappropriate to design the strategy in isolation and thus, HR departments should always endeavor to look at different perspectives from a bird’s eye view that will be helpful in engaging employees on long-term basis, which has become one of the major issues of organisations globally. Another efficient strategy is combination of financial and non-financial rewards that has become a general practice in majority of successful organisations. One of the major reasons of depending on non-financial rewards is the possibility of back firing that always exists in an organisation. Financial rewards may engage individuals for a short-term basis; however, it is unlikely that it may result in long-term commitment of the workers (Pulakos, 2009, pp. 251-253). Motivation and Motivational Theories The Expectancy Theory of Motivation by Victor Vroom (Mathis & Jackson, 2008, pp. 102-109) supports earlier discussion regarding combination of financial and non-financial rewards. Vroom (1964) emphasised that such combination may play a significant role in changing behaviors and attitudes of employees, and that such combination can act as an active factor in motivating employees in an organisation. The theorist (Vroom, 1964) has identified three indicators of expectancy, instrumentality, and valence that are directly in proportional to motivation of the employees, which is essential for engagement and commitment of the employees. Particularly, expectancy refers to “the perceived relationship between efforts and performance” (Rao & Krishna, 2009, pg. 586), whereas instrumentality refers to “the perceived relationship between performance and reward” (Rao & Krishna, 2009, pg. 586), and valence refers to “the desirability of rewards” (Rao & Krishna, 2009, pg. 586). In this regard, Vroom has argued that an employee will only be motivated if all the three factors will indicate higher levels (Cardy & Leonard, 2011, p. 22-23). Therefore, HR managers can design an efficient strategy by considering all three factors that will result in greater motivation and subsequently, maximum engagement, and commitment of the employees. CONCLUSION Conclusively, the paper included discussion on some of the significant aspects of human resource department that is its responsibility of strategizing for employees’ engagement and commitment in the organisation. From goal setting to ongoing motivation of employees, human resource department plays a crucial role in enabling organisation to survive in this competitive arena. Various factors affect employees’ engagement and commitment directly and indirectly, and a successful HR manager will have the skills and knowledge to consider all the external and internal factors that may result in an impact on employees’ psychological state. . REFERENCES Brewster, C., Carey, L., Dowling, P., Grobler, P., Holland, P., & Warnich, S. 2003. “Contemporary Issues in Human Resources Management.” Gaining a Competitive Advantage. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Cardy, R. L., & Leonard, B. 2011. Performance Management: Concepts, Skills, and Exercises. New York: M.E. Sharpe. Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1997. Finding Flow. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc. David, L. 2009. Human Resource Management. New Delhi: Pearson Education India. Guirdham, M. 2002. “Interactive Behaviour at Work.” Financial Times. New York: Prentice Hall. Kreitner, R., & Kinicki A. 2002. Organisational Behaviour. New York: Irwin McGraw Hill. Marchington, M., & Wilkinson, A. 2005. Human Resource Management at Work: people management and development. London: CIPD Publishing Mathis, R. L., & Jackson, J. H. 2008. Human Resource Management. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Pulakos, E. D. 2009. Performance Management: A New Approach for Driving Business Results. London: John Wiley & Sons. Rao, V. S. P., Krishna, V Hari. 2009. Management. New Delhi: Excel Books India. Robinson, D., & Hayday, S. 2003. “Employee Engagement.” Institute for Employment Studies. Retrieved on May 06, 2013: www.employment-studies.co.uk/news/129theme.php Smither, J. W. 2009. Performance Management: Putting Research into Action. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Vroom, V. H. 1964. Work and motivation. New York: Wiley. Wagner, J. A., & Hollenbeck, J. R. 2009. Organisational Behavior: Securing Competitive Advantage. London: Taylor & Francis. Read More