Employee Engagement (EE)

Introduction

Today, Employee engagement (EE) is an important topic for HR professionals. Forming an engaged workforce is one of the highest prioritize tasks for many organizations in both private and public sectors (CIPD, 2009).Engaged employees perform better than others, they do not take more leave and        they are less likely to quit (CIPD, 2006).Above all those employees like to recommend their organization to others, at the same time they experience job satisfaction, positive attitudes, and emotions towards their work (CIPD, 2006).

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The Drivers of Employee Engagement

CIPD (2006) has suggested key drivers of employee engagement are:

·        There should be opportunities in the organization to employees to feed views upwards.

·        Employees should feel that they are well informed about what is happening in the organization

·        These should be an environment to think employees that their manager is committed to the organization.

These findings tell that the internal communication is very vital, and the organization needs to change its communication style from a traditional style to consultative or participation style (CIPD, 2009). Some of the major important roles of the managements are treating employees with respect and handling problems in a fair-minded way (CIPD, 2009). The psychological contract outlines the importance for morale of employees feelings that make them to keep faith in the employer and believing they are treated fair-minded way (CIPD, 2004).

The Key Barriers to Successful Employee Engagement

These barriers are according to CIPD (2009):

·        Employee experiences poor work–life balance because of a long-hours working culture.

·        Employee experiences a rigid communication environment or cultural norms when sharing knowledge or in communication.

·        Employee experiences unreliable management style based on the attitudes of individual managers, which may lead employees to think unfairness to them.

·        Employees experiences that the management practices reactive decision-making styles to the problems before it is too late.

·        Employees experiences the quality of downward communication and low awareness of senior management visibility.

·        Employee experiences the low levels of advocacy

Conclusion

If organizations are willing to achieve its objectives, then they have to have a well-organized strategy in employee engagement. There is an important role to play by human resource professionals and management in an organization to recognize the plan to engage employees.

References :

CIPD. (2004). Employee well-being and the psychological contract. CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND DEVELOPMENT : London.

CIPD. (2006). How engaged are British employees. CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND DEVELOPMENT : London.

CIPD. (2009). An HR director’s guide to employee engagement. CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND DEVELOPMENT : London.

CIPD. (2009). Employee engagement in context. CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND DEVELOPMENT : London.

Employee Relations (ER)

Introduction

Today employee relations are a much broader area than ever, which involves keeping good working environment to satisfy the individual employees and the management while focusing on organizational goals. The relationship between employees and employers is not always straightforward; they both have their own set of needs and requirements (Bingham, 2016).

An employment relationship is one which establishes a set of mutual rights and responsibilities between the employer and employees (Bingham, 2016). And further Bingham (2016) writes that the relationship is main path that helps employees to gain access to the rights and benefits which are related with employment in the areas of labor law and social security.

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Union Representation

CIPD (2005) says that the employees’ relations have changed since 1990s.  Many companies prefer to have a good relationship with employees and, with the trade unions if it is important (CIPD, 2005).

CIPD (2005) have categorized the employers based on their interest in making a relationship with the trade unions.

·        Some employers are completely anti-trade union ones.

·        Some employers do not have strong opinion or practical experience of dealing with trade union, if they feel that the trade union can add business value then, of course, they can be persuaded.

·        Some employers are having long-term relationship with trade unions and they like to build new progressive relationship with them.

Management

CIPD (2005) suggests the people those who are responsible for employee relations in an organization should have the following skills: collective understanding of labor law, good knowledge of general employment law, knowing the way how representation structures work, knowing the way how to develop trust and respect, understanding the awareness of employee attitudes, facilitation and communication skills, negotiation skills and business knowledge.

Challenges

The managers must be able manage the gloomy areas of employees relations such as handling people with PSTD (Posttraumatic stress disorder), anxiety and LGBT (Forbes Human Resources Council, 2017).

Managers should be able to take necessary actions quickly with the support of human resources management to communicate laws changes effectively; it can be federal or local levels (Forbes Human Resources Council, 2017).

Dell makes its effort to recruit people those who are open, direct and good fit with its values, and importantly it focuses on the people those who have abilities to get the job done rather engaging in office politics (CIPD, 2005).

Conclusion

Today human resource (HR) professionals will have to work as a bridge to build a good employer-employee relationship while helping to find solutions for the challenges in this regard. At the same time HR professional will have to play a vital role with trade unions in order build a good relationship between them.

References:

Bingham, C. (2016). Employment Relations: Fairness and Trust in the Workplace. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

CIPD. (2005). WHAT IS EMPLOYEE RELATIONS? Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Forbes Human Resources Council. (2017, April 13). 10 Critical Demands Managers Face And How HR Can Help. Retrieved June 30, 2018 : 8 pm, from forbes.com: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2017/04/13/10-critical-demands-managers-face-and-how-hr-can-help/#630812e35bac

Performance Management (PM)

Introduction

Every organization does their best to reach organizational objectives by getting the support from their workforce. Performance management (PM) is a systematic approach that includes performance appraisal and employee developments to achieve organizational objectives (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014).

Dessler (2013) writes that the performance appraisal is a kind of a process that will evaluate an employee’s current or previous performance related to employee’s performance standards. 360-degree feedback is a process in which an employee’s performance is monitored and evaluated (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014).  The feedback can be given by various people such as their manager, colleagues, subordinates, and customers (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014).

Most of the time, the PM is a basis for an organization to pay and for its human resource (HR) decisions (D.Pulakos, 2004). 

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Aims of Performance Management

Hanson & Pulakos (2015) have identified that PM has to aim to work on three significant areas by enabling employees to perform to their potential.

1.   Goal setting: Organization has to plan that enables employees to contribute their efforts which are aligned to reach the organization’s goal.  

2.   Performance review: Organization has to organize their employees with guideposts that will help them to monitor behavior and result. And further it helps making adjustments which may be needed in real time to maximize the performance.

3.   Performance improvement plans: Organization has to support employees to remove barriers to performance.

Challenges in Performance Management  

Forbes Human Resources Council (2017)  has identified some of the challenges.

Lack of standards in the evaluation process among managers, can bring issues to PM. Sometimes evaluation criterion is not in measurable formats, for example, managers get confused on which basis they are going to rate on employee’s “customer’s-service” or “communication” abilities.

Some employers are using performance appraisal process to weed out the low performers rather than practicing a solid recruiting and screening process to prevent that recruitment. Performance reviews are done only once in year, rather than practicing regularly one-on-one meetings between the manager and employees throughout the year to review goals and the achievements.

It is said that the traditional manager/employee corporate structure makes the performance appraisals more challenging.

Examples

Organization like Microsoft, Adobe, Motorola practice more frequently one-on-one meetings with managers in an effort to provide feedback and keep employees on task (Forbes Human Resources Council, 2017).

Conclusions

PM is important process that helps an organization growing.  It has to be adapted by an organization while finding solution to the challenges that it meets.

References

Hanson, R. A., & Pulakos, E. (2015). Retrieved June 30, 2018 : 6 pm, from https://www.shrm.org: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/special-reports-and-expert-views/Documents/SHRM-SIOP%20Performance%20Management.pdf

Armstrong, M., & Stephen, T. (2014). Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice (13 ed.). London: Koganpage.

D.Pulakos, E. (2004). Performance Management : A roadmap for developing, implementing and evaluating performance management systems. Alexandria: SHRM.

DESSLER, G. (2013). HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (13 ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Forbes Human Resources Council. (2017, December 1). Adapting The Performance Appraisal Process To Meet The Needs Of The Modern Workplace. Retrieved June 30 , 2018 : 6 pm, from https://www.forbes.com: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2017/12/01/adapting-the-performance-appraisal-process-to-meet-the-needs-of-the-modern-workplace/#63b11bfa5342