Employee Engagement in HRM

Employee engagement is a workplace approach that resulting in the right conditions for all members of an organization to contribute  their best effort each day and committed to achieve organization's goals and values and motivated to contribute for organizational success with an enhanced sense of their own well-being.

When organizations focus on how to improve employee satisfaction, changes won’t necessarily lead to increased performance. Usually the conditions that make employees “satisfied” with their jobs are the same conditions that frustrate high performing employees. Top performers embrace change, search out ways to improve, whereas low performers avoid accountability and resist change.

Employee engagement is based on trust, integrity, two way commitment and communication between an organization and its' employees. It is an approach that increases the chances of business success, contributing to organizational and individual performance, productivity and well-being. Employee engagement can be measured and it varies from poor to great. It can be nurtured and dramatically increase at the same time it can be destroyed and thrown away.

Why employee engagement is so important?

Employee engagement can be considered as the foundation for performance. Engaged employees focus at the entire organization and understand their purpose, where, and how they can fit in. This leads to better decision-making. Organizations with an engaged workforce outperform their competition. Employee engagement is a key differentiator when it comes to organization growth and innovation. Moreover a company that has an effective employee engagement strategy and a highly engaged workforce is more likely to retain top performers as well as attract new talent. Successful organizations are value-driven with employee-centric cultures.

Engaged organizations have strong and authentic values, with clear evidence of trust and fairness based on mutual respect, where two-way promises and commitments between employers and employees are understood and fulfilled.

How employee engagement can be measured?

The best way to find strategies to improve employee engagement is by conducting a survey that has been developed specifically for this purpose. Employee engagement surveys must be statistically validated and bench-marked against other organizations if they are going to provide useful results.

Engagement can be accurately measured with short surveys that contain just a few questions, but such short surveys can only provide an indication of whether employees are engaged. There should also be open ended questions to further diagnose potential engagement problems within the organization. Employees may have a hard time in explaining why they are engaged or dis-engaged because they may not be having sufficient information. Without sufficient information, an organization cannot develop meaningful activities, training programs, strategies, and initiatives to raise levels of engagement.

References

CustomInsight (2018) What is Employee Engagement? What is Employee Engagement? How to improve employee engagement with strategies, activities, and surveys [Online]. available at <https://www.custominsight.com/employee-engagement-survey/what-is-employee-engagement.asp/. >. [Accessed on 25th June 2018]..

EngageForSuccess (2018) What is Employee Engagement?. What is Employee Engagement - Engage for SuccessEngage for Success [Online]. available at <http://engageforsuccess.org/what-is-employee-engagement/. >. [Accessed on 25th June 2018]..

Design of Work in HRM

Design of work aims at outlining and organizing job functions, duties and responsibilities into a single unit of work for the achievement of certain objectives. It also outlines the methods and relationships that are essential for the success of a certain job. In simpler terms it refers to the what, how much, how many and the order of the duties for a job role.

Design of work essentially involves integrating job responsibilities or content and certain qualifications that are required to perform the job role. It outlines the job responsibilities very clearly and also helps in attracting the right candidates to the right job. Further it also makes the job look interesting and specialized.

Steps involved in Design of Work

There are various steps involved in design of work that follow a logical sequence as follows:

1. What tasks are required to be done or what tasks is part of the job?
2. How are the tasks performed?
3. What amount are tasks are required to be done?
4. What is the sequence of performing these tasks?

All these questions are aimed at arriving upon a clear definition of a specific job and thereby make it less risky for the one performing the job. A well defined job encourages feeling of achievement among the employees and a sense of high self esteem.

The whole process of job design is aimed to address various problems within the organizational setup. More specifically the following areas are fine tuned:

• Checking the work overload.
• Checking upon the work under load.
• Ensuring tasks are not repetitive in nature.
• Ensuring that employees don not remain isolated.
• Defining working hours clearly.
• Defining the work processes clearly.

Benefits of Good Design of Work

Following are the benefits of a good job design:

Employee Input: A good job design enables a good job feedback. Employees have the option to vary tasks as per their personal and social needs, habits and circumstances in the workplace.

Employee Training: Training is an integral part of job design. Good job design lays due emphasis on training people so that are well aware of what their job demands and how it is to be done.

Work / Rest Schedules: Job design offers good work and rest schedule by clearly defining the number of hours an individual has to spend in employee's job.

Adjustments: A good job designs allows for adjustments for physically demanding jobs by minimizing the energy spent doing the job and by aligning the manpower requirements to perform job functions.

Design of work is a continuous and evolving process that is aimed at helping employees in making adjustments with the changes in the workplace. The final objective of good job design is reducing dissatisfaction, enhancing motivation and employee engagement at the workplace.

References

Juneja, P. (2018) Job Design - Meaning, Steps and its Benefits . Job Design - Meaning, Steps and its Benefits [Online]. available at <https://www.managementstudyguide.com/job-design.htm/. >. [Accessed on 09th June 2018]..

Employee Relations and its' importance for an organization

Relationships between employees and employer or management create very significant value in any workplace. It is important to understand the ways that human relations could impact the costs, competitiveness and long-term economic sustainability of a organization. This realization would help to highlight the importance of employee relation in the organization.It has been proven that if strong employee relationship are maintained, employees will generally tend to be more productive and more efficient in their routine work.

Why strong employee relations are important for an organization?

Retain loyal employees

Losing an employee to a competitor can be devastating, but unfortunately, employees who do not have an amicable relationship with their employers are more likely to leave. When an employee feels comfortable around their employer, and appreciated, they are far more likely to remain loyal. Companies that encourage positive relationships between employees and management team are generally more successful, and since their employees are more likely to stick around, they don’t spend as much on recruiting, hiring and training new employees.

Reduce workplace conflicts

According to  natural human behavior, when a person enjoys being around their managers and co-workers, they are less likely to seek out conflicts. A peaceful workplace is just one of the many benefits of strong employee-employer relationships. Conflicts reduce productivity levels and increase dissatisfaction.

Motivation and Productivity

Workplace relationships provide a source of employee motivation, which is important to maintaining productivity. Employees who are interested in their work and in the well-being of other employees tend to be more productive than those who are not. This productivity pays obvious financial dividends to the company, as it can get more done in less time with fewer costs.

How to achieve strong employee relations?

Motivate employees

Motivating the employees is the first step towards developing a strong employee relation at workplace. It is important to remember to encourage them and motivate them as much possible. More motivated and encouraged the employees feel, more loyal they are. And such an effort always leads to a better possible work environment and thus create a great working environment.

Define feasible goals


Setting feasible and achievable goals for the employees create good results in terms of the importance of employee relations at the workplace. The management staff should ensure that to define proper goals for the employees that can be easily achieved. Once the employee see a concrete goal in front of them, it can often give them the urge to work more efficiently and thus become more productive.

References

Petryni, M. (2018) The Importance of Human Relations in the Workplace. The Importance of Human Relations in the Workplace|Chron.com [Online]. available at <https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-human-relations-workplace-23061.html/. >. [Accessed on 30th May 2018]..


Majumder, S. (2017) Why Employee Relations are Important in an Organization?. Why Employee Relations are Important in an Organization? [Online]. available at <https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-employee-relations-important-organization-sampurna-majumder/. >. [Accessed on 30th May 2018]..

What is Learning and Development?

Learning and Development aims to improve group and individual performance by increasing skills and knowledge. Learning and development forms part of an organization’s talent management strategy. It is designed to align group and individual goals and performance with the overall vision and goals.

When it comes to practical implementation, individuals responsible for learning and development must identify skills gaps among groups and teams. This can be done often through SMART objectives, one-to-one interviews and performance appraisals and then finding suitable training to fill relevant gaps. (hrzone.com 2013)

How you can create high-impact employee Training?

1. Business Impact Identification:

Design and develop the training to meet the overall goals of the company. Keeping business goals in focus ensures that training and development makes a measurable impact.


2. Analyze Skill Gaps:

By finding out what the gaps are between employees’ current and expected skills, it will help to pinpoint what are the specific learning objectives should be. Categorize the learning objectives into these three groups as Motivation, Skills Mastery and Critical Thinking and define activities in the training plan that target all three groups.


3. Layer Training Methods:

The most effective training programs use layered, sustainable learning activities to create performance improvement over time. A layered approach makes sure the program targets the essential employee, customer, and business needs while training the right people at the right time in the right way. A layered approach is the best of all worlds because it blends learning experiences and training methods that maximize the benefits of the invested time.

4. Evaluate Effectiveness and Sustain Gains:

The continued support is required to ensure that initial training complies with the objectives. Measurable learning objectives are the foundation for evaluating the impact of the training. (Hartsfield, 2015)

References

Hartsfield, Emma. (2015) WHAT IS EMPLOYEE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT?. WHAT IS EMPLOYEE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT?|AllenComm [Online]. available at <https://www.allencomm.com/what-is-employee-training-development/. >. [Accessed on 14th May 2018]..

hrzone.com (2013) What is Learning and Development?. What is Learning and Development?|HRZone [Online]. available at <https://www.hrzone.com/hr-glossary/what-is-learning-and-development/. >. [Accessed on 14th May 2018].. 

1. Why Strategic Employee Resourcing and Talent Management are important for the organizations in today’s global context?

Introduction

When considering available resources in an organization, People or Human resource can be considered as the most important and utmost special for the existence of the organization in today’s competitive business world. The organizations should adopt special processes in searching of the best human resources and nurturing the selected best talents within the organization is vital important for growth of the company. So the importance of Strategic Employee Resourcing and Talent Management notions in searching of talented human resources for the organizations is discussed in this article.

What is Strategic Human Resource Management and why employee resourcing should be “Strategic”?

Have you ever wondered why the term “strategic” is coming as a part and parcel with the term “Human Resource Management”? The fundamental reason would be, managing human resources has a broader spectrum to address than employee selection and conducting recruitments in an organization.

Following definition would help to keep the focus on Strategic Human Resource Management through a more formal perspective;

“An approach to the development and implementation of HR strategies that are integrated with business strategies and supports their achievement”

Figure 1 - SHRM Model

(Armstrong, 2014)

In-line with above definition, following are the five propositions on which Strategic Human Resource Management has been founded.

• HRM plays a strategic role in the organization’s success
• HR’s strategies should be integrated with those of the business
• It is people who ‘implement the business strategy’
• People are a source of ‘competitive advantage’ as defined by the Resource Based View of        the firm (Wernerfelt, 1984 and developed by Barney, 1995)
•  A ‘systematic approach’ should be applied to developing HR strategies. (Armstrong, 2011)

In order to further understand the vast scope of SHRM, the Resource Based View (RBV) concept would help to clarify the SHRM focus with respect of organizational resources. In a more formal approach, “The resource-based view of the firm  represents a paradigm shift in SHRM thinking by focusing on the internal resources of the organization, rather than analyzing performance in terms of the external context” (Wisdom Jobs, 2018)

                             

Figure 2 - Resource Based View

Why employee resourcing should be strategic?

When considering the employee resourcing process, why an organization should adopt a ‘strategic’ process for their selections? Many arguments can be provided in favour of this context for sure, but following main areas can be mainly pointed out on why employee resourcing decision should be strategic.

•  A diverse workforce – more talent but need for equality and for legal compliance 
•  Increasing the need for more highly educated and trained employees
•  The need for a close relationship between HRM strategy and corporate strategy
•  Organizations are now more likely to use sophisticated techniques for recruitment and selection for all employees

In conclusion, for organizations which are having multi-talented workforce who consist with highly educated and trained employees, most likely to use sophisticated techniques for their employee selection and recruitment processes.  While keeping these objectives in focus, adopting a strategic process on their employee resourcing decision would help for the continuous growth of the organizations in a more effective manner.

What is Talent Management and why Talent Management is so important for the development of the organizations?

As the concept may sounds like, can Talent Management be described as the set of activities involved in grooming and retaining the best talented resources within the organization? Wrong, and this is only a partial elaboration of one activity that is involved in the Talent Management process. So let’s try to understand the broader meaning of the Talent Management concept from HRM perspective.
     

‘The systematic attraction, deployment and development of individuals who are of particular value to the organization, either because they fulfil critical roles or they possess high future potential’

CIPD (2015) 

                  

According to “Nextgen People” (Nextgen People, 2018) the Talent Management Life Cycle has been described as follows.

Figure 3 - Talent Management Life Cycle

The interconnected activities of the Talent Management Life Cycle are;

Workforce Planning à Talent Acquisition à Onboarding & Engagement à Development à Performance Management à Succession Planning

A report published by CIPD has identified two approaches as “Exclusive” and “Inclusive” for Talent Management.

Exclusive Approach for Talent Management

Collings and Mellahi (2009) focus on ‘the development of a talent pool of high potential and high performing incumbents’ who can fill the key positions in the organization and help to deliver ‘sustainable competitive advantage’

Inclusive Approach for Talent Management

Mckinsey and Co. invented the phrase ‘war for talent’ (1997) and perceives value in talent at all levels.

The two strategies separately planned in an organization for Employee Resourcing and Talent Management can be considered as in a broader sense together as “bundling” processes. These two strategies can be hold together and mutually strengthen each other in an organizational situation. Armstrong proposes the following elements in “bundling” processes;

1. Workforce planning
2. Employee value proposition
3. Resourcing plans which are integrated with a sense of practicality of recruiting the capabilities externally, the degree to which internal staff can be developed and a clear view of the shortfall
4. Retention strategy.

After understanding the concept of Talent Management, let’s try to focus on why it’s so important to invest in Talent Management for the development of an organization.

1. Employee Motivation

Investing in the areas of Talent Management would help to increase the motivation of employees and increase the efficiency of employees.

     2. Attract top talents towards the organization

Investing in Talent Management would help to attract top talents available in the job market towards the organization.

3        3. Retain top talents within the organization

One of the major problems of modern business organizations are facing is the difficulties in retaining the top talents within the organization. Investing in the various facets of talent management would help for an organization to successfully overcome this problem and retain top talents within the organization.

So in conclusion, adopting a strategic process for human resourcing and investing in the many facets of Talent Management would help for the continuous growth of an organization in today’s competitive business world.

References

Armstrong. (2014) People and Organisations: Principles and Practice in Global Contexts. Lecture 1: Introduction to Human Resource Management [Online] Available at <http://lms.esoft.lk/course/view.php?id=240/>.[Accessed on 03 April 2018].

Armstrong. (2014) People and Organisations: Principles and Practice in Global Contexts. Lecture 1: Introduction to Human Resource Management [Online] Available at <http://lms.esoft.lk/course/view.php?id=240/>.[Accessed on 03 April 2018].

CIPD. (2015) People and Organisations: Principles and Practice in Global Contexts. Lecture 2: Strategic Employee Resourcing and Talent Management [Online] Available at <http://lms.esoft.lk/course/view.php?id=240/>.[Accessed on 16 April 2018].

CIPD. (2007) People and Organisations: Principles and Practice in Global Contexts. Lecture 2: Strategic Employee Resourcing and Talent Management [Online] Available at <http://lms.esoft.lk/course/view.php?id=240/>.[Accessed on 16 April 2018].

CIPD. (2007) People and Organisations: Principles and Practice in Global Contexts. Lecture 2: Strategic Employee Resourcing and Talent Management [Online] Available at <http://lms.esoft.lk/course/view.php?id=240/>.[Accessed on 16 April 2018].

Nextgen People. (2018). Talent Management. [Online] Available at: https://www.nextgenpeople.com/talent-management/ [Accessed 16 Apr. 2018].

Wisdom Jobs. (2018). The resource-based view of SHRM - The resource-based view of SHRM HR Management (8741) | Wisdom Jobs. [Online] Available at: https://www.wisdomjobs.com/e-university/hr-management-tutorial-69/the-resource-based-view-of-shrm-8741.html [Accessed on 3 Apr. 2018].