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Hannan Chitate Business Correspondent
Revelations about CEOs ingratiating themselves with obscene packages whilst the workers toil for abortive earnings is just but a mere exhibit of the decadence that has pervaded our society. If indeed a line of best fit between rewards and performance output is drawn surely correlation will not be achieved. Then in the existence of such deplorable transgressions how do entities move forward towards unleashing their potential by churning out unadulterated profits from their business ventures.
Interestingly proven initiatives are in existence that cost very little and without doubt advance business performance. Employee engagement remains an indispensable proposition worth pursuing.
It should never be overemphasised that all mankind toil for a recompense. However, it should be acknowledged that engaged employees invest their time, energy or personal resources trusting that their investment will be rewarded intrinsically and extrinsically in a meaningful way by the supervisor.
Furthermore engagement through research has been found to influence positive individual outcomes such as job satisfaction, low absenteeism and lateness, low turnover and high organisational outcomes such as commitment and performance (Castellano, 2001).
Given this it should be mandatory that all entities implement employee engagement strategies that enjoin efforts to unlock shareholder value.
Engagement drivers such as leadership, job characteristics, perceived organisational and supervisor support, distributive, procedural and interactional justice, quality of life, opportunities and rewards and recognition influence beyond trepidation employee engagement.
Rewards and recognition
People’s engagement levels are determined by their perception of benefits they receive from their employers. Companies with reward mechanisms that are shrouded in secrecy tend to have disengaged employees who constantly grouse about unequal treatment.
Appropriate reward and recognition structures tend to make employees feel obliged to respond with higher levels of engagement thus promoting business performance. Recognition should be given when due and leaders need to demonstrate this in a manner similar to the way staff are reprimand when they deviate from expected behaviour. Remember this is not about hefty packages, but about making employees feel part of a team through appreciation and being rewarded without connotations.
Distributive, procedural and interactional justice
Employees’ perceptions of reward distribution and procedures to allocate rewards impact on their performance levels. In instances where the two are not in existence, employees respond naturally by giving barely enough to avoid being fired, thus inhibiting business performance.
This has been evidenced by a string of entities run by executives who pocket sturdy salaries at the scorn of the employees suffocating in abject poverty.
The yardstick seem the more the executives earns the less the returns to the shareholder and undeniably without a flinch of compunction.
Distributive justice is a key factor which underscores the employees’ perception of the fairness of decision outcomes and resource allocation.
Let us never forget that all employees drudge to earn economic rents. This should be analysed further by investigating the fairness of the means and processes used to determine the amount and distribution of resources.
What considerations were made if any at all to arrive at these currently being exposed vulgar executive pay scales? In the context in which no considerations were made, managers typically display heavy handedness by thwarting discerning employee voices ruthlessly.
In such companies it manifestly becomes taboo for employees to partake in decision making processes; hence employees are shunned into oblivion. Is this proverbial?
Procedural justice is a key aspect of organisational practices that influence employee engagement and transparency, accountability and fairness are effortless antidotes to this quandary.
Exclusion of employees in decision making processes especially when the outcomes affect subordinates can only be done temporarily and at the expense of business performance. With such compelling substantiations; why then are entities not fostering initiatives that manage employees’ perceptions of fairness?
Usually in cases where distributive and procedural justices are ignored, interactional justice is undoubtedly questionable. Interactional justice is the fairness and quality of interpersonal treatment employees receive when procedures are implemented.
Where there is no involvement, discretionary approvals are rampant which we all know are synonymous with subjecting the weak to all sorts of abuses at the caprice of notorious leaders.
The resultant consequence compromises business performance. Employees in order to be engaged simply yearn for justification, truthfulness and respect in all company practices. Undoubtedly, all CEOs should guarantee this with very petite effort.
Job characteristics
Excessive work or too little work is a recipe for pitiable performance. Research has found that employees afforded with enriched and challenging jobs will respond with higher engagement levels, as well as employees given room and incentive to bring more of themselves into their work are more engaged (May, Gilson & Harter, 2004). It is leadership’s responsibility to ensure that employees are provided with tasks that require of them to demonstrate skill, autonomy and feedback.
Indeed these initiatives cost nothing but yield colossal benefits to organisations.
Skill variety which is the degree to which a job requires different activities and skills to carry out positively influences employees’ engagement levels. This is achieved when individual skills are matched to job requirements. Managers can also allocate jobs with task significance to their employees.
Task significance is the degree to which a job has a substantial impact on lives of people in the organisation or external environment.
This simply creates a sense of importance in employees.
Task with autonomy in which the employees have a degree of freedom, independence and discretion in scheduling and procedures enhances positive reactions from employees.
All these initiatives can be implemented by managers without daunting budgetary considerations and yield positive business performance results.
Supervisors who give feedback to teams or individuals through direct and clear communication on how effective his/her performance was induce positive attitudes within the employee. This is a matter of information feedback which comes at no cost to the employer. Given this, why not strive for this initiative and realise the budding rewards.
Perceived organisational and supervisor support
In situations where employees believe that their organisations are concerned about them and care about their well being they respond by trying to fulfil their obligations in the entities by becoming more engaged.
Further, in instances where employees perceive that their employer and supervisor demonstrate support and care; this will create a sense of safety amongst employees which fosters engagement. In summary, employees simply want to feel supported, cared for by their supervisors and employers.
In Zimbabwean companies this should be prevalent given the amount and level of education possessed by leaders and supervisors.
But is this the case?
If not ubiquitous then leaders should make the year 2014 synonymous with enhanced performance through an engaged workforce.
CEOs should be made aware of the fact that having the right people in the right roles with the right managers drive employee engagement and subsequently drive customer loyalty (Buckingham & Coffman, 1999).
Thus the onus is upon leaders to provide a supportive and trusting environment that allows employees to fully invest their energies into their work roles.
Simply implementing this initiative will corroborate as already attested through research that there is a correlation between the way people are managed, employee attitudes and business performance.
Leadership
The implementation of the above engagement drivers rests solely on the awareness, desire and commitment of the leadership to implement the initiatives in an effort to influence business performance.
Leaders play a great role in sense making, offering security and purpose to followers and it is for this reason that followers chose to remain followers. Leaders have the responsibility of lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the rising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations (Drucker, 2008) and ensures that systems and structures remain in place that offer workers a sense of security and balance, without which it would be hard to maintain levels of motivation, commitment, trust and psychological well being (Gosling & Murphy, 2004).
Thus the ball in is the leadership court, to foster employee engagement initiatives in order to unlock superior performance outcomes.
Evidently given the above discussed drivers of employee engagement, all of us at one point or another we entered a shop to purchase goods or services and to our surprise where only referred to the competitor’s shop across the road by the shop assistant.
Indeed this should cease to happen in 2014. Facts are abundant that engagement levels still remain low and there is scope for converting the disengaged into an engaged workforce to advance performance.
Under circumstances where the bulk of employees are disengaged businesses may formulate the best strategies, introduce new products, re-brand and/or recapitalise, but the truth stands, the bottom line will remain pathetic.
This only bolsters the need to adopt employee engagement initiatives in order to unlock value.
Employee engagement has been proved to take place when people at work are interested in and are positive, even excited about their jobs and are prepared to go the extra mile to get them done, to the best of their ability (Armstrong, 2009).
In conclusion supportive workplace relationships are important predictors of engagement, and that engagement levels are affected by organisational structures, system of work and the quality of leadership.
If managers do not believe in strategic objectives of the business then engagement would decline. It is clear that line managers have a role to play in creating conditions that enable employees to offer discretionary behaviour (Evan & Redfern, 2010).
The way senior management and line management behave and communicate with employees and how work is organised impact on employee engagement. To summarise it should be every CEOs desire to create highly committed and motivated employees who are potentially more productive and more flexible, eager to learn through job rotation than employees who score lowly on commitment and motivation.
Given the direction the engagement subject has taken, it is imperative that the several leadership styles obtainable that influence employee engagement and enhance business performance be discussed in detail in the next article. In the meantime be engaged.
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