Employee Development Issues Individual Report

HND Business Level 2 Personnel

Employee Development Issues

Siobhan Alderson

1 Introduction

The following report has been based on a case study about a small plastics manufacturing company called William Beckett & Co (plastics) Ltd. In the case study it sets out a rough guide about the company like how it all began, its plans for the future and what is happening at present. So my job is to identify certain areas of the company and explain what I believe should be done to rectify the situation and improve this company in terms of staff morale, staff turnover, productivity and efficiency of the company. Then to back up my arguments I shall use a range of sources like academic books and journals to show example of what can happen or change within a company if my recommendations are implemented.

2 The problems

From the case study I have picked out several areas and examples of what I believe is wrong with the company and how it is managed. The following areas that I have chosen as examples of what is wrong with the company are as follows:

The rapid expansion of the company, which has put the management of the company under increased pressure.
Some of the employees have slipped into comfort zones.
A lack of flexibility with the workers.
The recruitments methods of the company.
The lack of training for employees.

These I believe are the main areas of difficulty for the company at present. So I shall deal with these problems one at a time and give my examples of how to combat these areas of difficulty.

2.1 The Rapid Expansion of the Company

The company had a lot of success in the first few years after the merger between William Beckett and David Whittington, as they were doing so well the companies directors (William Beckett and David Whittington) had to take on more responsibility than they had realised as they company was doing so well they felt the pressure of trying to maintain the same level of output, which had risen in the last few years to 2 million pounds in turnover.

Now that the company was doing so well the directors and the employees were very busy with work. This had mean that even though the directors did work closely with the employees, the directors had no time to actually identify

any trying needs for their employees. So the directors had no idea how well their employees were working, which can mean that productivity will be

“the resultant training needs that emerge could be subject to a topic or skills analysis, which might then be used to obtain more specific information about potential trainees by serving, as suggested at the end of the knowledge / topic analysis section, as the basis for the development of diagnostic procedures or entry tests” page 94 of the theory and practice of training, 4th edition by Roger Buckley and Jim Caple.

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affected, the standard of work could be dropping and they might not find out till they have started to loose busy because of this and the employees themselves maybe struggling to maintain their own standards of work as they have no idea of what they targets for productivity will be, they might not be able to work as well as they used to due to the increase of work and training could mean that they would be more able to complete their work to higher standard if only they were trained to a sufficient level. A good outcome for identifying these training requirements that they may need would also boost morale within their work force, as it is well documented that training can be a good motivator too employees as it shows that the company is willing to spend money on them which makes them feel more appreciated and wanted which is mentioned on Maslow`s hierarchy of needs for people.

This is a good example of how one bad decision can have a knock on affect and start to disrupt more areas of the company. As the directors couldn’t make time to try and identify their employees training needs they have arguably affected the company’s morale, productivity, efficiency and maybe the labour turnover as well.

2.2 Employees Who Have Slipped Into Comfort Zones

As mentioned above the lack of monitoring and training has allowed or even pushed some of the employees into comfort zones within the company. The employee’s state of mind will change as they know that they are not being monitored or that they will receive any training to spur them on. A manager or director of any company cannot allow their employees to just be left to get on with work especially when they seems to be no formal method of appraisal or motivation. This is another problem with the directors as you can’t blame the staff for becoming a little lazy as employees are not supposed to be self motivating, this concept is totally unrealistic. So it should be of no surprise to the managers in the company to see what has happened to some of its staff. The managers have the responsibility to push and motivate them as it is one of the responsibilities central to any management job specification.

“The different purposes for which the job is being analysed may include the identification of performance problems and therefore it is likely that some form

of job analysis will have been used in the filtering process” page 66 of the theory and practice of training, 4th edition by Roger Buckley and Jim Caple.

The employees jobs seem to have evolved in certain ways to suit these comfort zones and the employees within them. The problems that come with this situation will be a fall in productivity and employees redefining their jobs which will cause confusion amongst the staff and management about who is responsible for what and who should be doing what.

The solutions for this would be to go back and look at the employee’s job specification and remind them about what their role is and what their responsibilities are. The directors should also think about job rotation at William Beckett & Co, as this would mean that employees will not become so bored and disgruntled with their own jobs and slip into these comfort zones and redefine their jobs to suit them. Job rotation is a good way of making the

employees jobs a little more flexible, they won’t be stuck on the same repetitive jobs day in day out. This in theory has a positive affect on most organisations as “variety is the spice of life”. It could be seen as a new challenge to some of the employees which again is also known to motivate most staff. This is a simple and clear solution to a problem that can have a large implication on a company such as William Beckett & Co.

2.3 Lack of Flexibility with Employees

One of the main reasons that the company William Beckett & Co needs to have a flexible work force is a factor that we have already spoken about which is the increase of work for the company that has happened in the last few years, which has created a few problems for them in most parts of the business. The other major factor that requires the company to have a flexible works force is the job rotation strategy that I have also mentioned earlier. This can only work if the employees themselves have the skills and abilities to actually perform this different jobs otherwise the whole thing will break down. If the employees don’t have the right skills and abilities then the process is pointless and costly to the company as the workers would be very ineffective to produce the same standard of work that the other employees produce as they have been trained to do this.

“Although many view employee training as a necessary evil and expense that must be tolerated, a well designed training program pays for itself and increases the bottom line. Such a program teaches new employees to "do it right the first time," thus minimizing down time, equipment damage, and personal injury while maximizing productivity and profits” (technical training tips)

To help control the increasing level of work that the company has, they would need a flexible workforce who could move around to different areas in the company to help out with the work in order to create some stability of the work

that is coming in and the work that is being completed. This would allow the company to deal with the influx of work, help the productivity of the company

and even help with the motivation of the employees, whilst maintaining the impressive level of sales.

2.4 The Recruitment Process

As the company is over run with business, they are in need of more staff to handle the amount of work which they are generating. So the director employees a new sales administrator to help with the situation. The problem is that the person he has employed is a friend of his so he has had no formal interview or application. After a while the man redefines his own job to sales representative as he is more experienced at doing this job as he knows more about this side of the company than the administration side. The director had employed his friend to do a job he is not really qualified or able to do.

I believe that the company needs to set up a human resource department which would be able to deal with the recruitment of new employees for the company. The problems with recruiting employees who are not able to do the job are that the will not be able to complete jobs on time or to a high standard of quality, which also means that productivity will be affect and the employee himself will be unhappy as he isn’t able to perform the duties in his job specification. Once the HR department is setup the managers will be able to

move some of their tasks over to them like recruitment, appraisals, motivational and training. As the directors are struggling to do this now the only solution would be to set up the Hr department as soon as possible.

2.5 Lack of Training for Staff and Management

The training needs are needed throughout the company, this is due to the fact that the company has grown rapidly and the fact that the company has invested in a new range of technologies to keep them up to date with their competitors and the changes in the market. I have identified certain areas that need improving with the management which are leadership training, interpersonal relationships need to be worked on and they also need to be able to delegate tasks and responsibility.

“The interpersonal skills when the one to one trainer has to exercise are described by Megginson and Boydell (1979) as being similar to those required by the skilful counsellor” page 229 of the theory and practice of training, 4th edition by Roger Buckley and Jim Caple.

The results of this should be an increase in productivity and an improvement in sales. They could also develop their own internal learning programme as they don’t have a lot of time to send them away from the company for a long time as they are so busy.

The lower level staff need new training as they will not be able to work effectively enough with the new technologies as they will not be familiar with it compared to the old equipment they were familiar with. The areas that they will need to be trained on are their team working abilities, stress and pressure courses, good communication and motivation skills and theories.

This should help the employees to work together as a team which will help morale and productivity as a team that are working together and are happy will be a great asset to the company.

3 Conclusion

So in conclusion if all my recommendations are followed then I believe that the following things will happen at William Beckett & Co:

The higher level of management will be under far less pressure.
The company will be able to expand more rapidly and continue its impressive level of sales.
Management and staff have necessary training which will mean greater staff and manager relationships.
The employees in the comfort zones will be eliminated.
The company should be more flexible if they have the appropriate training.

This should result in the company being more productive and efficient, the staff becoming more flexible and motivated which in short make the company a lot more efficient, profitable and secure for the future.