The Outcome of Employee Involvement and Participation - Essay Example

The Outcome of Employee Involvement and Participation Nowadays, there is a global recognition of the crucial role played by employees in attaining the goals of an organization as well as responsibility of management to harness the full potential of its workforce. With this recognition, business organisations have been continuously advocating employee involvement and participation in their operations. Employee involvement is the creation of environment where individuals have an impact on decisions and actions that affect their job. Contrary to what is publicly held, employee involvement is not a management tool or system but a participative management philosophy which enables employee to contribute to the company’s success. The utilization of this management philosophy is proved to positively impact a business organization. First, it has been demonstrated that giving employees the chance to participate in the decision making of business organisations directly and significantly contributes to their job satisfaction. As human beings, employees have this innate desire to enhance their self worth. Without their participation and involvement, employees are left with the feeling that they are no more than the equipment that the company uses. With these sentiments, employees began to feel dissatisfied with their job, leading to human resource problems like absenteeism and low labour productivity. Thus, employee involvement and participation is a motivational factor that enhances the satisfaction of employees. Employee satisfaction has positive implication for a firm. For one, employee satisfaction brought about by employee involvement is instrumental in achieving the goals of the company. John Purcell have emphasized that the firm’s human resource should be taken as strategic partners. Employee involvement can be used in order to tap the creativity and skill of the workforce and strategically align according to the goals of business organisation. If the employees are satisfied in their jobs, then doing this will be less tedious. The end result will be higher organisational performance leading to higher profitability. Employee involvement in the decision making of the company gives them the fee ling of belongingness to the organisation. This also makes them able to identify themselves with the company. They feel that their efforts can strongly contribute to the attainment of organisational success. With this, changes in the external environment of the company will be much easier to bear because the employees are now strongly committed in working for the organisation’s benefit as the workforce feel responsible to the survival of the company. This makes the company more insulated to the threat of more intense competition, technological advancement and other external factors. The job satisfaction derived from this participative management philosophy will ripple to the company’s clients. It is irrefutable that more often than not, it is the employees which transact with the customers. Their feelings and sentiment with the business organisation will inevitable affect their dealings with the clients. If they feel satisfied with their job, this is manifested with their eagerness to transmit that satisfaction to customers. It should be noted that the advent of world class manufacturing systems. The Just in Time (JIT) philosophy strongly adheres to employee involvement and participation. Thus, employee involvement becomes a huge factor in successful JIT implementation. Empowerment and motivation of employees is essential as JIT highlights giving each individual workforce to solve problems on their own. Empowerment highly involves employees in the manufacturing system which produces higher quality products and low employee turnover. Q2. How might a disciplinary interview become one involved with counselling an employee? Describe the various stages which might have to be dealt with. Aside from the various management functions carried out by human resources practitioners, they are also tasked to perform disciplinary actions towards employees. In the workplace, employees are often subjected to disciplinary actions due to misconduct which adversely affects the performance and productivity of the business organisation. These include violation of the written and unwritten rules of the workplace such as coming to work on time, obeying rules, protecting company’s property, and others. Disciplinary actions are also deemed necessary when employees lack the knowledge, skill, and ability to perform their respective duties and responsibilities. Counselling has been one of the tools used by companies in order to instil discipline to delinquent employees. The use of counselling as a disciplinary action is seen to be more beneficial than punishing employees physically or cutting financial benefits. Counselling enables both employees to voice out their concerns. Counselling also strongly supports its purpose—not to punish but discipline employees. In order to become effective as a disciplinary tool, counselling should go through proper stages. The counselling should start by checking the facts as presented by a supervisor against an employee. This process should be accomplished as a preparation before the face to face encounter with the employee. During the counselling process, it is important to clearly state the accusations to the employee alleged to have infringed. It will also be useful to mention specific examples of the employee are seen to violate any company rule or regulation. It is also very important to give the employee the chance to reply to the accusation. Employees should be given the chance to provide explanation. During this state, the counsellor should carefully listen and consider what the employee has to say. The presence of a human resource specialist, staff or trade union official should also be considered to support the defendant. The response offered by the dependant at this point will determine the next course of the counselling process. If the accusations are verified to be false and that the dependant is really not at fault, the interview is cancelled. Meanwhile, if the there may be extenuating circumstances excusing the infringement, a counselling interview format is then adapted. However, if there is a case to answer, the disciplinary hearing continues. If the last case happens, the employee is further notified of the infringement. The manager fully explains what the infringement and states what has to be done. Her or she should clearly explain expectations to the employee and review any rules, regulations or policies in the area where the employee is exhibiting problems. The manager is also tasked to provide the employee an opportunity to ask any questions and offer assistance in complying with the manager’s expectations. . If applicable, the manager also develops a plan with the employee directed at helping to improve his/her misconduct. The manager should also set time limits for improvement and be very clear about the consequences. For control purposes, the behavior of the employee is reviewed after a month to see if his behavior is now in line with the company’s standard. Question 3. The business case for resolving grievances at work is aimed to resolve employee dissatisfaction. Discuss examples of factors leading to employee dissatisfaction. At one point, companies need to deal with employee grievances. In a typical business organisation, the presence of grievances at work is a daunting task. Looking at it more closely, it can be seen that employee grievances are directly related to job dissatisfaction. Employee dissatisfaction leads to poor service, poor overall quality, and poor business practices which are detrimental to business organizations. Thus, resolving grievances at the workplace involves eliminating employee dissatisfaction. This, in turn, necessitates the evaluation of the company’s motivational factors in place. One of the essential elements in order for leadership to succeed is to motivate others to do and give out their best. For one, the importance of satisfaction cannot be overstated as losing an employee of the company can cost over $100,000 (i.e., cost for work left undone, publication costs for hiring information, training costs, and so on). In order to fully understand the factors which causes employee dissatisfaction, it is essential to look at the theory set out by Herzberg—The Motivation Hygiene Theory. In this theory, Herzberg identified the factors which cause satisfaction and dissatisfaction in the workplace. According to him, satisfaction is caused by company policy, supervision, relationship with boss, work condition, salary, and relationship with peers. He called these hygiene factors as opposed to motivators which causes satisfaction. Company policies can be a significant source of job dissatisfaction. Since employees are not often included in the establishment of company policies, some of the policies are often detrimental to them. For example, policies which do not give employees to decide on simple things within their work scope can lead them to believe that management distrusts them. Supervision is also considered as dissatisfier. As individuals, employees want to be empowered. Having a supervisor often indicates that employees are not given the full chance of displaying their skill and creativity. These also constrains from them within the discretion of their supervisors. This also leads to the next dissatisfier which is relationship with the boss. Having unpleasant relationship with one’s immediate supervisor hinders productivity. It should be noted that ill-feeling from employee will result to grievances. Monetary factors can be a great motivational tool. Problems often arise when management is not able to use financial benefits efficiently. Salary becomes a dissatisfier if an employee feels undercompensated for his/her performance. This may stimulate feelings of dissatisfaction as they feel that the company does not appreciate their efforts and fail to reward them. As human beings, employees are very much affected by their external environments. The company’s working condition and the employees’ peers are also great contributors to their satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Poor, unsafe and unsanitary working condition will make employees unable to perform their functions. Also, the relationship between their colleagues will greatly impact on their performance. It is irrefutable that the workforce should work as a team in the attainment of the organizational goals. Having disputes among them will hinder them to work efficiently. Worse, it will be a cause of frustration especially if employees keep avoiding each other. Read More