Ashton and Sung (2003) believe the purpose of becoming a High Performance Work Organisation is to make your employees more effective in their job roles and enhance their contribution to the organisation. Is Company an organisation that wants their employees to be more effective in their position?
3. MANAGEMENT v LEADERSHIP
Do you have to be a manager to be a leader? In an opinion it is believed that you do not need to be a manager to be a good leader. However, you can be a manager and not necessarily a good leader. We need to recognise the distinction between management and leadership.
Leaders are strong role models for the beliefs and values they want their followers to adopt. They are believed to motivate and inspire fellow colleagues by being passionate with staff and building a team which collaborates together. Company follow the diagram below for all the aspects in being a strong leader.
Managers are seen as the employee who solves problems and a more passive and impersonal approach to their staff. They are believed to organise staff and establish rules and procedures which generate solutions.
3.1 Leadership Approaches
Leadership has noted the difference between ‘transactional’ forms of leadership and ‘transformational’ leadership. Transactional leadership is having the leader building loyalty in followers by giving rewards in exchange for loyalty. Transactional leadership focuses on completion of tasks and good working relationships in exchange for desirable rewards.
This assumption above for transactional leadership is that people are motivated by reward and punishment. This shows that the prime role of the follower is to do what the leader tells them to do.
Transformational leadership has the leader engaging with others and creating a connection that raises the level of motivation for both parties. This is believed to motivate followers to do more than is expected of them. A leader who is attentive to the needs and motives of staff and tries to help them reach their full potential is transformational leadership. For example, the leader stimulates interest among colleagues of staff to view their work from new perspectives and develop higher level in ability and potential. So how can an employer motivate staff?
- MOTIVATION
The concept of ‘Motivation’ involves an individual’s characteristics or attributes, circumstances of a situation and the perception of that situation by the individual involved. As individuals react in different ways to similar situations, organisations have found difficulties in trying to understand what drives or motivates people to behave in certain ways.
Mullins (2005) defined motivation as ‘a decision-making process, in which the individual chooses their desired outcomes and sets in motion the behaviours appropriate to acquiring them.’ It is easy to distinguish a motivated person from one who is not motivated. A motivated person usually works harder, is alert, interested, enthusiastic and full of ideas. Organisations have to establish what will motivate their employees.
Several studies have found a link or relationship between a motivated workforce and increased work performance. Most organisations attach a great deal of importance to having a motivated workforce largely due to this reason. Company is one of such organisations.
- Motivation Theories
4.1.1 Maslow’s Theory
Maslow’s Theory assumes that individuals are motivated by satisfying both social needs and requirements in the workplace. These needs must each be satisfied in order of a hierarchy (See Appendix A). He argues that an individual’s needs affect their behaviour according to 2 principles. The deficit principle and the progression principle.
The Deficit principle states that a satisfied need does not motivate an individual, because individuals only take measures to satisfy their unmet needs. They do what is possible to rectify where a deficit exists. Organisations therefore, can not expect increasing levels of motivation from employees if they constantly give them the same rewards.
The Progression principle states that an individual can only progress through the levels of the hierarchy by satisfying each of the needs in turn starting from the bottom of his pyramid. For example, until an individual’s physiological needs are satisfied, safety based rewards will have little effect on his or her motivation. At the level of Self Actualisation, the individual is continuously concerned with self fulfilment so continues to be motivated.
It is believed that Maslow created this theory to apply in an ideal situation, but an ideal situation is hardly found in organisations. Individuals, in practice do not pursue their needs in an orderly way as Maslow suggests, but trade off needs according to the circumstances they find themselves in.
4.1.2 Herzberg’s Theory
Herzberg in a bid to examine the suggestions made by Maslow, conducted an experiment. Employees were asked to describe times when they felt satisfied or dissatisfied with their jobs. It was shown that in situations where the individual has a high level of self control and which is an integral part of the work itself was seen as sources of satisfaction, but were rarely mentioned as a source of dissatisfaction.
He called these situations satisfiers (or Motivators) and they include the following work attributes:
- Achievement
- Responsibility
- Advancement
- Recognition
- Incidents involving the work itself
Herzberg found that situations which were controlled externally were seen as sources of dissatisfaction, but rarely mentioned as sources of satisfaction.
He called these situations dissatisfiers (or Hygiene factors) and they include the following work attributes:
- Working Conditions
- Pay
- Supervision
- Security
- Safety
- Company Policy
- Incidents involving interpersonal relationships
These attributes satisfy Maslow’s lower needs level. He agrees that the dissatisfaction stems from unmet lower needs, but gratified lower needs do not produce satisfaction, but merely remove dissatisfaction.
5. COMPANY’S HR DEPARTMENT
It could be argued that Company restructured their HR department due to the fact that employees were not motivated in their position. However, research from HR Managers at Company shows the importance of psychological growth as a basic condition for lasting job satisfaction. This in turn led to the introduction of various HR job design systems which looked into the question of how jobs might be designed to promote such understanding of why these links are necessary to become central to job design.
Robbins (2001) describes job design as ‘the deliberate, purposeful planning of a job, including any or all of its structural or social aspects.’ This combines the specification of the task attributes of the job and the creation of appropriate work settings for these attributes. This means for managers that they have a responsibility to design both task attributes and work settings that will motivate each employee.
Job enlargement is a type of job design. It involves increasing the number of activities in a job therefore expanding the scope of the job. This was Company’s mission for the restructure of the department. They decreased numbers which resulted in an increase of responsibilities for existing members of staff. This increased task variety and consequently will lead to an increase in work performance and job satisfaction. So how does Company measure employees’ talent and high performance working?
5.1 Performance Appraisal Scheme
Company is committed to improving its service delivery to both employees and clients. To promote and monitor these improvements, it is essential that service objectives are well defined, understood and achieved by its employees. Performance management through performance appraisals enables managers to monitor and measure the achievement of service goals.
For the employee, objectives should represent an acknowledged personal contribution to corporate goals and so must be (SMART) ie specified, measurable, achievable and relevant to their job and for monitoring purposes, must be time specific. The company scheme requires that objectives are set and agreed jointly by the appraiser and appraisee. The extent to which they have been attained is then assessed in a one to one discussion during an Appraisal interview. At the end of the interview, any work deficiencies are addressed with appropriate training packages identified and agreed by both parties.
From Herzberg’s point of view, participation in goal setting should motivate an employee because it will give him the feeling that his views are being recognised and should increase his senses of responsibility in ensuring he meets organisational targets.
The appraisal scheme also reflects employees that are self-motivated and are eager to participate in decision making and goal setting. Feedback is also a central feature of the scheme; and the scheme provides for appraisees to record disagreement with the appraiser’s views of their performance where appropriate. Regular discussions between managers and staff take place on performance issues, with a genuine desire by managers to understand the constraints and external influences that affect work performance.
6. CONCLUSION
To conclude, it is believed that Company’s HR department are now talented, hard working and deliver to their highest ability. However, how do we really know that their HR employees are really motivated?
Throughout the restructure of the HR department, it is believed that it was introduced to engage staff, however reduce the numbers, keeping the strongest talent and giving the best to their clients and to the business. Due to the continuous globalisation changes, it is believed that Company had this restructure to ensure that high standards are always met and low cost solutions are always maintained. This shows a clear link in terms of the expectancy theory, between effort and performance, which in this case was promotion or development in employee’s position due to the restructure.
The cultural, organisational and developmental implications of HPW are likely to be profound for Company, due to personnel and development practitioners who are at the heart of these changes. It shows that providing a guiding light in the transition from low to high performance working in the HR department, it is likely to require an entirely new professional environment. It has been shown that by magnifying the role of management development to the 'whole department' size and shift the task of definition of learning and work organisation from the centre to the periphery.
It shows that Company are improving their way of working due to the restructure and culture of the department; however it is still early on in the process for any significant changes to be apparent. Although, it is believed, you can see that the HR department are engaging more with each other, showing that by working more as a team rather than individually, does result in more knowledge and the department becoming more streamlined. By working as a hub, the culture of the department is changing with people connecting more and expertise being shared.
7. RECOMMENDATIONS
Even though these various strategies are meant to improve staff motivation, the reality is, are staff really motivated at work? My recommendations can contribute towards an improvement.
Performance Appraisal for senior managers varies from that for middle and junior managers. There are also variations between that of traders and support staff. Thus it automatically differentiates the level of recognition given to different categories of staff, and by implication could affect levels of commitment, especially at the lower levels of the organisation, who may perceive this as being considered less important. Because in reality objective setting at senior levels tend to be a rubber stamping exercise, as there is more autonomy in determining what targets are set, this could give senior staff the feeling that they are high achievers and others are not, and have to be told what to do. However, even at this level, there are some managers who actually welcome being told what to do; and as such cannot be expected to change their style because they are in a performance appraisal interview. Similarly, some may not be assertive enough to state their views in a one on one interview session with their managers and may end up simply endorsing the views of their manager. Rayner and Adam-Smith (2005) suggests that performance management and reviews interact with managers and employees, which leads to providing them with more encouragement and substance for learning and development. Therefore Company should ensure that every member of staff has a performance appraisal as it has a powerful motivational effect on employees.
Group appraisals may be advantageous for such employees as they would probably be more forthcoming to state their views during team work. Senior management should ensure that performance appraisals at junior levels ie for staff who are in the forefront of service delivery, involve greater staff involvement in target setting. Even they can be motivated through job design which according to Herzberg, builds motivators such as responsibility, recognition and advancement of opportunities into their job content.
It is a widely held belief, that most people are not motivated by pay, especially in organisations such as Company, where pay is not linked to performance but to other criteria such as the employee’s length of service. At Company, staff pay is determined by national terms and conditions, and regardless of employee performance.
The expectancy theory, performance resulting in reward, is relevant here. Staff, especially those at the top level would see no reason to work harder as this will not give them the reward of extra pay. Herzberg classifies pay as a dissatisfier or hygiene factor, especially when it is very low. Pay might only motivate when it is seen as a merit award in recognition (Herzberg’s motivator) of work achieved.
Even though money does not motivate most people, it does help to keep them satisfied in work as it reflects basic personal needs outside the workplace, according to Maslow’s lower levels of need.
Due to the restructure, Company is now working towards improving the remuneration scheme, which will help to motivate staff and improve service delivery. Attaining the Improving Working Lives (IWL) standard will ensure that the company embraces their best employment practices, where human resource management is integral to the workforce delivery plan, the company’s business plan and service delivery strategies and for all members of staff.
8. REFERENCES
Beardwell, I. Holden, I. (1997) Human Resource: A Contemporary Perspective, Second Edition, Great Britain
Beardwell, I. et al (2004) Human Resource Management: A Contemporary Perspective, Fourth Edition, Prentice Hall
Mullins, L J. (2005) Management and Organisational Behaviour, Seven Edition, Harlow, Prentice Hall
Pearson, R. (1990) The Human Resource: Managing People and Work in the 1990’s, London
People Management Magazine, 29 November 2007
Rayner, C. Adam-Smith, D. (2005) Managing and Leading People, London: CIPD
Robbins, S (2001) Organisational Behaviour, Prentice Hall
Torrington, D. Hall, L. (1987) Personnel Management: A New Approach, Prentice Hall
Torrington, D. Weightman, J. (1994) Effective Management: People and Organisation, Second Edition, Hertfordshire
APPENDIX A
MASLOW’S 5 NEEDS HIERARCHY
LEVEL KEY COMPONENTS
SELF-ACTUALISATION Challenging job
Creativity opportunities
Achievement in work
Advancement in the organisation
ESTEEM Social recognition High Status Job
Feedback from the job itself
SOCIAL Friendly colleagues
SAFETY Safe working conditions
Company benefits
Job security
PHYSIOLOGICAL Physical comfort
Pay
Working
