Find out how 2 companies; Brean Leisure Park and Wilsher and Quick motivate their employees.

-Pension scheme. This is 5% of the salary.

Commission – Employees are paid based on what they produce (piece rate). Sales staff are likely to receive commission on every sale they achieve. If an employee is only getting paid commission and he sells nothing, he will get nothing.

Performance Related Pay/Bonuses – Paying employees more money if they achieve a set target performance.

Motivation

Motivation of workers can be achieved through several methods. Motivating staff means they will work more, meaning they will be more productive.

Fringe Benefits- Since monetary rewards are taxed by the government, companies offer Fringe Benefits. These can be company cars, private healthcare plan (with a company such as BUPA), or even vouchers (if the employee works in a shop).

Job Satisfaction- Job satisfaction is where the employee is satisfied with his job. Good working conditions can contribute to job satisfaction – as can the people the person works with. Leadership styles are also a contributor. If an employee can influence company decisions (or is allowed to speak their opinion), they will feel more respected and be happy with their job (satisfied).

Working Conditions- Working conditions contribute to job satisfaction. If the working conditions in a company are bad (for example, co-staff are unfriendly or the working environment is unorganised), the worker will not feel comfortable and will not produce as much output as they would in a friendly, organised environment.

Technology/Investment

Introducing new technology into companies can improve productivity by making the working process shorter and/or easier. By introducing new machines into a factory, the company can save money and increase the output of the staff using the new machines. Introducing technology such as computers can also cut down on errors made by workers.

Leadership Styles

There are several types of leadership styles. Different leadership styles can motivate workers, but some may de-motivate them. Offering choices to workers (for example, Laissez Faire) makes the choice take longer, and a dictatorship (Autocratic) can result in a bad decision and de-motivated workers.

Autocratic- Makes every decision and tells his subordinates what to do. Results in quick decisions, but there is the possibility they are bad. Also reduces employee’s motivation by making them feel as though they have no influence in the company

Persuasive- Makes every decision, but then persuades subordinates that it is the correct decision through reason and discussion. This results in more motivated employees.

Democratic- Shares decision making with workers. Employees are more motivated, but decisions take longer to make.

Consultative- Asks other workers for their opinions before coming to a decision themselves. This offers educated decisions (less likely to be bad) and also keeps workers motivated by letting them have input.

Laissez Faire- Allows workers to make most of the decisions. It lets employees be more creative and feel as if they have a responsibility within the company, making them motivated. But this leadership style can result in a lack of direction for the company, and sometimes a new informal leader is created within the employees.

P.T.O for Results

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Conclusion

Looking at my results, there are no major differences between the companies. Both Businesses work in similar ways – except for certain parts. For example, Cooper B Line continually motivate their workers by giving them fringe benefits such as free mobile phones and a company car, on which they provide insurance. Brean Leisure Park, however, doesn’t offer many incentives to work there except reduced Gold Club Membership fees and staff lunches.

There are also differences in Technology. Cooper B Line requires solely on technology. The building they are currently in contains an office and a factory. The office is full of computers and fax machines. Without these, they would lose touch with a lot of their customers. They also use them to type up documents and design their products (using specialised CAD System computers). The factory relies heavily on machinery to produce the cabinets which the company makes. Whereas Brean Leisure Park only uses technology for its rides and some miscellaneous uses such as the Barrier.

I can conclude that this is due to the field each company is in. Cooper B Line is more technology focused, as it produces high-precision cabinets for professional companies such as Terminal 5 (Heathrow Airport) and 3G, meaning its cabinets need to be high quality. This can only be achieved through vigorous design, which can only be done (within a reasonable time) on computers. However, Brean Leisure Park does not do any of these. They do not require technology – but instead use it to ease the workload of their employees and motivate them.

I think that a good method of motivation adopted by both companies is a Suggestion Box scheme. This allows workers who don’t want to bring things up with their managers give suggestions to the company. Many employees will have their own ideas on how the company could be run better/more efficiently, and a suggestion box allows workers to put forward their ideas without intimidation.

For Brean Leisure Park, I think that giving more perks to the job and appraising staff could improve the productivity of workers. I think that at the current time, the workers are not getting satisfaction from the job and don’t want to stay there long, making the staff turnover high. Except for Managers and Supervisors, everyone gets paid the same, which can de-moralise some more skilled workers that are working among the others.

Cooper B Line could increase worker productivity by paying factory staff higher wages. At the moment, the staff are not getting paid very well – and are leaving to other companies where they can get paid more. While this will cost more money, it costs the company more money to find new staff for the factory every time someone leaves. This also interrupts the schedule. Emptying the suggestion box and using some of the suggestions would also boost motivation in the company.

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Evaluation

My findings were for the most part how I expected. I expected there to be some differences in the companies with how they recruit, who they recruit etc. However, both companies work similarly, which is what I expected.

Based on my results I believe that all companies work similarly. The differences are likely to be within the way the company operates, how they divide labour etc. which is dependant on the boss and the field the company works in. For example, the employees in Brean Leisure Park (except Managers and Supervisors) are skilled enough to divide labour, whereas a company like Cooper B Line that has a lot of specialised staff cannot to this (except in the factory, where Division Of Labour is possible).

I think that if I did this with other kinds of business I would have found that the technology used and recruitment etc. would have been quite different. If I had done a company like McDonalds, for example, I may have found that division of labour was very common among the staff, and that very few people are specialised in what they do, unlike Cooper B line.

While working on this coursework, I encountered no major problems. I was able to justify each answer with a reason, meaning I managed to understand how the companies worked well.

If I was to re-o this coursework, I would possibly chose an additional company. This could help improve the accuracy of what I concluded and make it easier to justify my conclusion.

If I look at both my results, I think my conclusion is valid. However, it may be possible that if I looked at a greater range of companies, I would have found that the results will differ more than my conclusion suggests. This is why I would do this if I was going to re-do my coursework.