Abstract
Effective management has always been thought to be the key to success in organizations. However, there are some issues that managers should put into consideration to ensure they have a positive influence on their companies. The case of Utiliscan is not unique and represents other many organizations that experience growth in terms of increased production, but fail to satisfy the needs of their employees. Paul knows that something must be done to ensure the 15-20% rate of growth is sustained or even improved. However, the company is reluctant to invest money in ensuring the welfare of employees is improved.
The management should ensure employees are satisfied with their working conditions and are assigned reasonable workloads. Occupational hazards should be eliminated to avoid exposing employees to health risks. Lack of opportunities for growth and promotions kills the morale of employees, and this should be addressed to ensure there is a close relationship between their performance and pay. Lastly, the benefits of employees should be improved to the standard levels.
Introduction
Managers have a huge responsibility of ensuring that their organizations achieve their objectives. It is not easy to influence employees and ensure they follow company policies, and this means that the role of all senior employees is to face serious challenges. Sometimes having qualified employees is not a guarantee that a company will perform well. Therefore, managers and other senior employees must know how to lead workers and ensure everybody puts his best foot forward and improves the performance and image of their organizations (White 2012).
Managers should know that there is a huge difference between qualification and performance. Most of them believe that qualified employees have a guarantee of performing well, but this has been proved wrong by various outcomes in organizations. This essay uses a case study to evaluate the effectiveness of various plans that can be adopted to ensure the performance of a company and the welfare of employees are improved.
Background
Utiliscan is a company that has recently registered a growth rate of 12-15% and this trend seems to be improving. However, the welfare of employees is not properly taken care of and thus Paul requested an audit of their issues to be conducted. The results obtained informed him of the need to make immediate changes and ensure employees enjoy their work. These issues range from employees’ safety, salaries, allowances, workloads, job satisfaction, promotions, growth, and fairness. These issues should be addressed immediately to ensure the company’s growth rate is sustained and improved. Failure to address these issues may plunge the company into poor performance and injure its reputation.
Draft of the Plan
Equality
The least expensive issues are fairness and equality that should be addressed to boost the morale of employees. However, this company seems to be biased when it comes to treating its employees, and that is why some of them think that there is no fairness and equity in the process of allocating duties to workers (Osterwalder, 2010). There are high chances that issues like gender, experience, academic qualification, and performance of workers are not considered when promoting them. Therefore, Paul must ensure that this company reviews its policies to enable workers to get promotions, salary increments, and job allocations depending on their qualifications and abilities.
The mission and vision of the company should be implemented properly to ensure there is fairness and equality in the company (Mathis & Jackson, 2012). Paul should know that companies must treat all their employees equally to ensure they are happy and work hard to improve their performance. Therefore, he should advise his colleagues in the management team to ensure that they avoid discriminating workers because this will promote divisions among them.
Opportunities for Growth and Promotions
Another issue of immediate concern, which is not expensive is the need to create growth opportunities and ensure employees are promoted (Tyler, 2013). All employees desire to earn income and acquire new skills and knowledge. However, this company is offering experience only as an asset to its employees. Most employees believe that the company does not offer any growth opportunities for them, and there is the need for it to introduce refresher courses that should be conducted with its staff. Paul needs to inform his colleagues that employees may start seeking employment in other companies that offer growth opportunities because they think that this company is misusing their abilities (Marciano, 2010).
In addition, they may start seeking vacancies in rival companies that may offer promotions to them. There is a need to motivate employees through promoting and letting them know that their efforts are recognized and appreciated. Paul should advise the departments concerned to evaluate the performance and abilities of workers to ensure they are helped to become more productive and successful.
Work Loads and Salaries
Thirdly, Paul should note that most employees do not like working except when their salaries are proportional to their jobs. This company seems to have forgotten that its employees are the greatest driving force that translates its mission into actions. Therefore, it has ignored the need to reward its efforts despite registering a growth rate of 12-15%. Paul would have advised his colleagues to ensure that they increase the salaries of all employees as the company grows. However, there is fear that the company focuses on expanding and is not ready to embrace any initiative that involves additional expenses.
This company should understand that there is no way it can continue to register positive growth yet its workers are paid peanuts. Employees should be paid well, and it hurts a lot to understand that the company is reluctant to increase their salaries through its workers know that it is expanding due to the huge profits it generates (Osterwalder, 2010). The growth of this company is attributed to the efforts of its hard-working employees, and this means that the reverse is true. Employees can decide to water down the company’s efforts and image by initiating a go-slow strike that will hamper its activities. Therefore, Paul would have advised his colleagues to design a framework that would ensure its employees are paid well, even if this is implemented in phases.
Employee Benefits
Paul should know that this company has competitors, and this should be an issue of concern. More than half of its employees think that this company offers benefits that are below average or poor. The management cannot cheat its employees that the company offers the best compensations in the area because most of them have worked with other organizations and know their rates (Kruse, 2012). Utiliscan should know that its employees can be poached by companies that offer attractive benefits, and this will be a huge blow to this company. Therefore, Paul should advise the management to introduce incentive packages that will reward workers according to their performances.
Regular staff appraisals should be conducted to evaluate the contributions of workers to the success of the company (Marciano, 2010). There is the need to promote individual sacrifices among workers to ensure they do their best to improve the performance of this company. In addition, this company is registering a positive growth rate, and this should be reflected in the benefits given to workers. It is unwise for the company to boast of impressive performance and growth through its employees do not get reasonable benefits.
Employee Satisfaction
The second most expensive issue is employee satisfaction. Paul realized that most employees (78%) were satisfied with their working conditions created by the presence of the freedom and flexibility to perform their jobs without supervision. However, the remaining 22% must be made to enjoy working in the company. Employees have a significant influence on the behavior of others and even though the dissatisfied portion seems to be small it can have huge impacts on the rest of the workers. Paul should advise the company to seek an audience with the dissatisfied employees and discuss with them what they think should be done to ensure they are satisfied with their working conditions.
In addition, the company may try to use the confidence of the 78% of employees to convince their colleagues that the company offers the best working conditions in the market. However, the HR department should ensure that none of the company policies are violated in the process of enhancing flexibility and freedom at work (Yu & Cable, 2014). This department should note that employees cannot be left unsupervised regardless of how they prove to be responsible for their actions. Therefore, Paul would inform the company’s executives that there is the need to ensure the number of satisfied employees is improved even though this cannot be achieved 100%.
Employees’ Safety
The most important and expensive issues to be addressed are the hazards that employees face while working in the company. This company produces software, and some of its processes and products are believed to have serious health impacts on employees due to the effects of radiation. Employees’ safety is the most important aspect that this organization should consider because it determines the wellness of its workers. Paul should know that nothing on earth can be substituted with human life, and it is necessary to ensure the safety of all employees is guaranteed. There is no need to pay workers enormous salaries and give them attractive allowances when their lives are in danger (Visier, 2012).
In addition, there would be no workers to sustain the operations of this company if they get sick or die due to the hazards they are exposed to while working there. Therefore, Paul should convene an urgent meeting and ensure the management addresses the health needs of employees. The company is not ready to increase its expenses, but human life cannot be compared with the profits it generates. Therefore, this company has a huge responsibility of ensuring that all employees are satisfied with how their health is protected.
Conclusion
Utiliscan should ensure that its workers are offered the best working conditions in the market to sustain its growth rate. In addition, it should invest in staff promotions and increase their benefits and allowances to motivate them to work hard. Lastly, it should ensure the safety of its employees is given immediate attention before any other issues that affect their performance. Therefore, it cannot escape spending additional expenses in ensuring that the welfare of its employees is managed properly.
References
Kruse, K. (2012). Employee Engagement 2.0: How to Motivate Your Team for High Performance (A Real-World Guide for Busy Managers). New York: Wiley.
Marciano, P. L. (2010). Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work: Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles of Respect. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Mathis, R. and Jackson, J. (2012). Human Resource Management: Essential Perspective. Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Osterwalder, A. (2010). Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. New York: Wiley.
Tyler, K. (2013). Job worth Doing: Update Descriptions. HR Magazine 58(1), 47. Web.
Visier. (2012). From HR Metrics to Workforce Analytics: Five Key Workforce Insights that Every Employer Should Capture for Greater Business Impact. Web.
White, P. E. (2012). The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People. Chicago: Northfield Publishing.
Yu, K., and Cable, D. (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Recruitment. New York: Oxford University Press.