Frishco Employee Engagement and Its Influence

Questions:

1: Analyse the different ways or methods in which Frishco’s HR department engages its employees.
2: Critically discuss the potential consequences of an organisations’ inability in addressing employee engagement issues including how it would affect their motivation.
3: Evaluate which methods you feel would create the most impact in achieving the highest level of employee engagement within Frishco.

Answers:

Introduction

Employee’s plays a very important role in the survival of the company and as discussed in the case they are face of organisation especially in service industry. This is why, employee engagement has slowly become integral for any human resource development. It’s said that people don’t leave organisation because of the organisation, it usually happens because of the people with whom they are working (Crawford et al, 2010). Employees are not engaged with the company because of people around them. Employee engagement is very crucial since it is connected with the emotional and many times operational commitments for an employee with the organisation and these commitments cannot be ignored (Crawford et al, 2010).

There are number of reports that claim that now a day, there is very low percentage of employees who seems to be engaged at work and rate of workplace engagement is constantly going down (Crawford et al, 2010).

The report will discuss in detail about a company called Frishco which is one of the biggest brands all across the world and the company is known for its services, innovation and employee engagement. The case shows that employees are valued the most in the company since they are the one who are actually running the company and taking to the level where it has actually reached.

1: Analyse the different ways or methods in which Frishco’s HR department engages its employees.

Human resource development is one of the key departments in any organisation which seems easy but it is actually very difficult to execute or manage. The main aim of the HRM is to assess the manpower requirement in the company to managing and retaining them at the same time (Albrech, 2011). Therefore, human resource is actually accountable for designing and implementing many rules, policies and processes in the company. In a way, every function is related to development and managing knowledge at the same time. Management of knowledge can be related to skills, aptitude, creativity and talent and using it in an optimal manner (Albrech, 2011). Moreover, human resource is much more than managing and exploiting the manpower. It also aims at managing the physical and emotional being of the employees. It is crucial to understand that this function widens the scope of human resource and with every passing day, the importance is only increasing (Albrech, 2011). The functions covered under this are much more than planning, hiring, training and development, rewards and appraisal, payroll, industry relations, solving conflicts, legal processes and many more. In addition to this, human resource is about development and managing the relationship and creating harmony at workplace. It is also about striking a right balance between the organisational goals and personal goals (Markos and Sridevi, 2010).

Following are different methods which Frishco uses for engaging their employees: –

1. Employee Magazine: – the company runs a popular internal magazine which is completely managed by the employees. This magazine includes various view point of the employees like the interviews of many key people, personal experiences, new starter list, charitable contributions, and many interesting columns like competition or quiz. It also has separate columns for an Agony Aunt (Markos and Sridevi, 2010).
2. Morning briefing: – in this activity, all employees of a department meet every morning and update the teams with the plans for the day as well as the latest statistics for sales. This helps every member of team to stay updated with what actually going on and what they are expected to do (Markos and Sridevi, 2010).
3. Intranet: – this helps the employees to share information with the employees in a more convenient manner. Employees have the capacity or the opportunity to actually select the right aspects on which they actually focus upon (Shuck and Wollard, 2010).
4. Quarterly employee forum: this forum is formulated by employee volunteers and it helps the people working in the organisation to identify the issues and problems and present them to the seniors (Gruman and Saks, 2011). In a way, it helps in improving the strategy of the company and takes it to another level.
5. Other forms of employee: – number of schemes run in the company which helps the employees to voice their ideas and thoughts about improving the process in the company. One such scheme is bright ideas (Gruman and Saks, 2011).

Employee motivation & Employee Engagement

Motivation and its dynamics have changed a lot over a period of time and it helps in reflecting the requirements of new work needs and change in the expectation of worker. One of the huge changes is the increase in the need or importance of intrinsic rewards and the decrease in the material or any kind of extrinsic rewards (Dollard and Bakker, 2010).

Extrinsic rewards are usually related to financial aspect and are connected with the tangible rewards that are given to employees by the employers like raise in pay or bonuses and many benefits.  These rewards are called extrinsic because they are completely external to the work and other people can control the size and think whether or not it is granted to them or not (Dollard and Bakker, 2010).

On the other hand, intrinsic rewards are more psychological related that employee’s get from doing the right work and performing it in the right manner. It is important to analyse the nature of the work of the employee and worker should be asked to manage the work to a specific degree and also use the intelligence and also experience the work activities directly in order to achieve vital organisational motives (Dollard and Bakker, 2010). These are the ways employees can add value and also innovate, solve problem and also improvise the current conditions that can be encountered to meet the need of the customers.

2: Critically discuss the potential consequences of an organisations’ inability in addressing employee engagement issues including how it would affect their motivation.

Motivation is a very crucial factor that affects the success of the organisation in many ways. There are number of factors that can actually influence the human motivation and it’s a myth that only pay is the only factor that influences the motivation level (Dollard and Bakker, 2010). There are many more factors that can affect the level of motivation in an employee like workplace environment. Motivation not only impacts the work done in time but it also contributes in the quality of work cannot be compromised. Employee engagement can be easily understood as an effort from human resource department to keep the workforce happy. However, the whole process is much more than that. It is important to focus on the employee satisfaction but employee engagement is not limited to the satisfaction part only. When done in a proper manner, this process helps in zoning the attention on the elements which really motivates people to remain in the company and at the same time also focus on delivering innovative services or even go beyond the customer service.

Workforce has their own personal needs and there are specific expectations as well at work and conflict can completely change or raise some serious question on the way people feel and dis-engagement with the organisation (Andrew and Sofian, 2012). There can be so many causes of conflicts or alienation at work which are listed down below: –

1. Harassment or cases of bullying (Wollard and Shuck, 2011)
2. Unclear or improper job roles
3. Unfair treatment
4. Improper training
5. Lack of opportunities and that too equal opportunities
6. Conflicts also arise when the level of communication is poor.
7. Work environment is very crucial and when there is poor work environment, there are conflicts (Wollard and Shuck, 2011).
8. Change is another very important cause for conflicts. It is often said that change is only constant thing available. This can make employee insecure and vulnerable since it raises the questions for the future and their career prospects (Wollard and Shuck, 2011). This is why, managers must communicate and also be able to consult with every employee and that too about future changes so that people don’t feel alienated and have any sort of grievances (Xu and Cooper Thomas, 2011).

In order to reduce or completely prevent any sort of conflict or alienation at workplace, it is important for the organisations to try and learn about conflicts that can develop during the process. This will help them address it in a more prepared manner (Xu and Cooper Thomas, 2011). There are so many common actions that points that managers must consider are discussed in detail below: –

1. Development of a strategy in order to manage alienation or conflict with the managers, employees and other workforce.
2. Appraisal and due rewards in timely manner (Cole et al, 2012).
3. Healthy policies and procedure in place.
4. Proper explanation for the place for change and training the workforce so that they can feel part of the change process in an early stage (Cole et al, 2012).
5. Including employees in the decision making.
6. It is also very important to ensure the work safety.
7. Mangers should also train properly and can also handle management responsibilities.
8. Employee feedback is very crucial and it must be taken from time to time.
9. Communication must be kept open from all the channels.
10. It is also important to understand the personalities of employees and plan strategy around them (Cole et al, 2012).

3: Evaluate which methods you feel would create the most impact in achieving the highest level of employee engagement within Frishco.

In order to increase the level of motivation, the overall environment is very crucial and the factors that influence the workplace environment or in fact increase the level of motivational level of work force are discussed in detail below: –

1. Employee’s relations: – an organisation is all about a bunch of people working as a team and in coordination with one another. There is one single goal which is achieved through working together at one place (Macey et al, 2011). Relationship building is the key that create good understanding between the employees which helps in increasing the employee engagement in the organisation. Good or cordial relationships between employees helps in reducing the level of stress and this way, employees are more relaxed and perform their duties in a more effective manner (Macey et al, 2011).
2. Role of leadership at workplace: leaders play a very important role in maintaining an ideal work environment (Shuck et al, 2011). Frishco also focuses on developing the leaders who can very well understand the ways in which employee can be more involved with the work.
3. Conflict management: conflict management is another important aspect which can influence the level of motivation. Whenever people from different cultures and background come together, conflicts are something which is bound to happen (Welch, 2011). Therefore, it is very important or crucial to manage the conflict in a manner that it will minimally affect the environment at workplace.
4. Workplace incentives: – appraisal, bonuses or incentives are the form of financial boost and they are very important for any organisation. It is important to maintain these aspects in an effective manner so that it helps in bringing peace in the organisation (Welch, 2011). People who have the capacity to promote the notion of one company can actually add much calmness and also help in showing respect and promoting those performance features that are not connected with material.
5. Workplace culture: – the organisation culture is very crucial for an organisation since it dictates the policies and the behaviour that people feel while working. Work culture includes almost everything at work right from when employees enter the office to the way people leave it (Robertson and Cooper, 2010). It also includes their way of dressing to the way they behave in the organisation. All this can be official and it can be non-official as well. However, it also affects the organisation and the way it motivates people.

Conclusion

Dis-engaged or less motivated employees are actually worst dream for any organisations. In many studies recently, the situation is of dis-engaged employees is increasing on an alarming rate (Stander and Rothmann, 2010). There are so many basic elements which are crucial in the process to determine the employees feel more engaged and can include whether they are doing some constructive work or not. These elements are open communication or supportive leader or timely feedback (Stander and Rothmann, 2010).

Knowledge plays a very important role and a leader has the capacity to employ some strategies or policies that can improve the level of employee engagement in an organisation.

Reference

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