Tips for Optimizing HR Management Regarding Salesmen - Personal Statement Example

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report is intended to highlight a specific issue that I am facing at work and details the nature of the issue as well as theresolution suggested for the same. This report provides the methodology on how the information pertaining to the issue was collected and the findings from the survey. The steps needed to resolve the issue are also detailed in the report. INTRODUCTION I work at a Superdrug store as a sales advisor and this report is intended to address an issue that I am facing at work. This report forms part of the project that includes identifying a suitable issue that I am facing at work and negotiating with my employer at work regarding the issue and the proposed solution. Briefly, the issue that I am facing at work has to do with the lack of growth opportunities and lack of promotion in my current job that is hampering my career progression and leading to loss of motivation and consequently. This report details the suggested resolution of this issue and the steps needed to be taken by my employer regarding the same. METHODOLOGY This section describes the methodology used in gathering data and information about the topic for which this report is written. For starters, I work in a drug store as sales advisor and hence my interactions with my co-workers and peers have resulted in a substantial amount of information about the way things work in the hospitality industry. The main thrust of this project is to highlight the fact that lack of promotion opportunities and lesser incentives to grow and move up the hierarchy are some of the pressing issues in this sector. As I interacted with my peers, I have found that they feel the same way about the growth opportunities and though we are not frustrated, we nonetheless feel the need for some kind of opportunity to show our potential. The methodology that I employed was to talk to my co-workers individually and in groups about how they feel about the workplace and if given a chance, what is the one thing that they would like to change about their jobs. Almost unanimously, they replied to me about my questions regarding job opportunities and pointed out the lack of promotion and growth as the significant barriers to their job satisfaction. FINDINGS This section is the main part of this report and consists of sub-sections that detail the kind of job that I have and the issue that I am facing in the job along with potential solutions. The purpose of this report is to address the issue of my lack of promotion in the current job that I have. Towards this end, I have talked to other people in the company and conducted informal surveys among my co-workers to gauge whether they perceive the lack of promotion as acutely as I do. The methodology employed by me has been described in the section related to the same. The findings from the informal interviews would be documented here. NATURE OF MY JOB I have varied duties at my work that range from operating the till to assisting customers and advising them regarding their purchases and stocktaking and unit keeping among other responsibilities. Mainly, my responsibilities are horizontal in nature rather than lateral. What this means is that I perform a range of duties that are on the same level of my title and there are no higher responsibilities that I am asked to take up. This creates an issue of not having a chance to display my abilities to perform at higher levels and without any potential for moving up higher in the organisation. Further, I look after replenishing the stock and keeping the registers up to date with the latest inventory of drugs and other items that are sold in the store. ISSUE BEING FACED As outlined previously, the lack of promotion and opportunities for growth forms the core topic of this report. Hence, the issue that is being faced at the workplace and something that I the employers should know is that the employees feel a bit constrained in the job because they do not see themselves climbing up the ladder of the organisational hierarchy. The way the organisation is structured leaves very little scope for lateral movement and employees often have to perform the same role for years on end. According to Maslow’s need hierarchy theory, “It is often depicted as a pyramid consisting of five levels: the lowest level is associated with physiological needs, while the uppermost level is associated with self-actualization needs, particularly those related to identity and purpose. The higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus when the lower needs in the pyramid are met. Once an individual has moved upwards to the next level, needs in the lower level will no longer be prioritized. If a lower set of needs is no longer being met, the individual will temporarily re-prioritize those needs by focusing attention on the unfulfilled needs, but will not permanently regress to the lower level.” (Maslow, 1943: 120) What this theory clearly states is that people in organisations need to progress from one level to another if they are to derive satisfaction from their work. Hence, there needs to be a clear cut progression from lower levels to higher levels of jobs for the employees to perform at their optimal level. This is a theory that has been accepted internationally as a valid and standard model of human motivation. To take the case of my personal growth, if am promoted to the level of sales manager where I am given higher responsibilities, it would be an incentive for me to perform well. Further, if the career path or the progression from sales advisor to sales manager is clearly spelt out and the employees told that they can expect promotion upon good work, the employees would have a definite incentive to perform well and the motivation levels would go up accordingly. The recommendation is that there should be adequate avenues for promotion and also good performance should be rewarded. In the next sub-section, the potential solutions for resolving this issue are described with reference to some theories of motivation by experts. STEPS TAKEN TO RESOLVE THE ISSUE In this section, I detail two possible solutions to the issue of lack of promotion. The first solution has to do with enriching my job and the second solution has to do with creating promotion opportunities for me in my current job. The first solution i.e. enriching my job experience is based on the Herzberg’s theory of motivation that lists the factors needed for job satisfaction. Herzberg found that the factors causing job satisfaction (and presumably motivation) were different from that causing job dissatisfaction. He developed the motivation-hygiene theory to explain these results. He called the satisfiers motivators and the dissatisfiers’ hygiene factors, using the term "hygiene" in the sense that they are considered maintenance factors that are necessary to avoid dissatisfaction but that by themselves do not provide satisfaction (Herzberg, 1959). Herzberg argued that job enrichment is required for intrinsic motivation, and that it is a continuous management process. According to Herzberg: The job should have sufficient challenge to utilize the full ability of the employee. Employees who demonstrate increasing levels of ability should be given increasing levels of responsibility. If a job cannot be designed to use an employees full abilities, then the firm should consider automating the task or replacing the employee with one who has a lower level of skill. If a person cannot be fully utilized, then there will be a motivation problem. This solution would envisage increasing the scope of work that I do on the job and creating innovative approaches towards making the job more interesting. This would mean that there would be lateral duties as well that would make me perform at a higher that what the employees currently do. The second solution that is being proposed by is to do with creating opportunities for the employees to grow and providing for promotion to the next level. These solutions has been discussed in the previous sections and suffice to say that in the absence of this proposal, the task of job enrichment as discussed above can be considered. CONCLUSIONS To conclude this report, it has to be emphasized that this report is an attempt to find the issues that are being faced at work by all of us working here. It is not a criticism on the working of the Superdrug store and it can be construed as a set of recommendations that can be implemented in order to improve the motivation levels of the employees and enrich the jobs of those working here. In concluding this report, it would be pertinent to point that among the several issues that can be identified; the one relating to job promotion is the most relevant and is of the utmost use to the company. This is because of the belief the company wants to make the workplace conducive to the employees and hence would take this report in the right sense. APPENDIX: LETTER FROM THE EMPLOYER This is a letter from my employer of the Superdrug store attesting to the fact that he/she has seen this report and is concurrence with the description of the issues faced as well as the proposed solutions: I am familiar with Miss Helena’s report about the issues being faced by her at the Superdrug store and her evaluation of the solutions presented in this report. She gave her recommendations about Job enrichment and promotion that would lead to higher levels of motivation from her. During her work she was cooperating with the sales and staffing department and understood the organisational processes and contributed to the success of the store. Her work as a sales advisor brought an improvement in sales and an increase in the revenues to the store. Reference List Herzberg, F 1959. The Motivation to work. Macmillan, New York. Maslow, A 1954. Motivation and Personality. Harper press, New York. Lawler, E.E. (1971) Pay and Organizational Effectiveness. A Psychological. McGraw-Hill, New York. Hospitality Jobs online. Hospitality online. Available from: http://www.hospitalityonline.com/ [Accessed Dec 01, 2009] Hospitality Career. College Grad. Available from: www.collegegrad.com/career/hospitalitycareer.shtml [Accessed Dec 01, 2009] Read More