Employee Dissatisfaction in the Company - Essay Example

Employee Dissatisfaction in the Company Employee dissatisfaction is a result of many prevalent factors in an organization during the stay of an individual. However, any distortion is primarily a result of unmet expectations. As Dennis Wholey quotes, “expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is like expecting a bull to not attack you because you are a vegetarian.”[Mar09] This is particularly seen with fresh graduates who hope to enter the organization for the first time. Therefore, it is obvious that they are unaware of the ground realities of a workplace which leads to unmet expectations. Unmet expectations can lead to both extremes. An employee can feel distorted and ill motivated to work and eventually end up losing the job or he realizes the fact quickly and work to change the environment around. An organization is also in need of the workers. They too realize that the employee who is working for them has a set of reasons to work. These reasons will defer from people to people. Each reason will determine the employee morale, motivation and quality of life. Therefore, to create a positive impact and enhance expectations of their potential employees, organizations practice various exercises which include university drives, seminars, and creating assessment centers for the shortlisted students. Most organizations will achieve their objectives by the aforementioned exercises but that creates problems in the near future. Those expectations will be thrashed as the employee gets acquainted with the organization’s real culture. This is known as a breach of psychological contract. The term ‘psychological contract’ was initially used in 1960s however; it gained popularity after the economic downturn in the early 1990s[Jan05]. It has been defined as ‘perception of the two parties, the employee and employer, of what their mutual responsibilities and obligations are towards each other.’ It encapsulates the expectations of both sides as to what each expects the employment contract to deliver. This contract is not formally written or signed but, they are formed by the unspoken act which has happened in the past, as well as from statements made by the employer [Mai09]. They may be seen as ‘promises’ by some and ‘expectations’ by others. This is a high involvement mindset precisely for an employee. If these expectations are met, it will lead to an increased sense of happiness as well as deliverance of real results. However, violation of the expectations will lead to feelings of betrayal, anger and wrongful harm arising from this realization. [Usm04] In our case, there has been a huge chunk of unmet expectations for the fresh graduates employed at the advertising agency. They went through a rigorous induction process which encompassed a 2 day assessment centre along with a series of interviews and occasional visits to the client sites. Moreover, they met up with various senior staff members and interacted with them to gain knowledge about the organization’s culture. The lot of 225 about-to-be-qualified marketing and media graduates is reduced to 20 successful recruits. Sadly, the blooming picture of the advertising agency in the eyes of the employees was broken into pieces when the initial 6-months passed. They were engaged in trivial work which involved filling, answering telephone calls and doing emails. They were not given the opportunity to think creatively which was previously promised by the senior staff. There were no signs of training or development programs. On the whole, a breach of psychological contract took place. Employees were not motivated to work and a few of them started having days off. They felt that they have been cheated and deceived about the organization’s culture and values. This will eventually lead to high employee turnover. The organization is at a benefit for the time being as the job market has not been functioning well which has lead to low employment opportunities, but once an employee gets an opportunity to leave the organization, he would not resist in doing so. The agency will lose out on the talent which they inducted with thorough screening. In addition to the above, the employee morale is down due to low empowerment and career development. Corrective measures need to be taken to avoid loss of the most valuable asset that an organization has, which are their people. Recommendation: As discussed earlier that breach of psychological contract is generally prevalent in most of the organizations. A study was done among graduate management alumni who were surveyed twice, once at graduation (immediately following recruitment) and then two years later. Research showed that 54.8% respondents said that the psychological contract has been violated by their employers[San94]. And this occurrence of violation has a positive correlation with turnover and negative correlation with trust, satisfaction and intention to remain. [San06] This shows that this violation is not an exception but it is a norm in the current organizations. Therefore, the key is to create employee engagement to avoid breach of psychological contracts. Engagement pertains to something that employee has to offer. It goes beyond job satisfactions and it is created through a combination of commitment to the organization and values prevalent in it and willingness to help colleagues as a gesture of organizational citizenship. Employee engagement has led to amplifying benefits for the organization. It has also led to increase satisfaction, trust and employee retention[Mac09]. In this advertising agency following recommendations should be implemented to build an engaged workforce. This will foster company profits and also help in retention of employees. For an advertising agency you need motivated staff to convince your potential consumers to prefer your service over others. The company would not want poor service levels or product quality which will eventually lead to poor word of mouth and lost sales. A few steps that need to be taken to create a productive environment are as follows: Firstly, a proper measurement system to account for employee attitude needs to be established. Companies have ingrained this culture of employee attitude survey in the recent past. The results show what employees think about their job. Topics may include pay and benefits, inter-departmental communication, learning and development, training needs, line management and work life balance etc. These surveys will identify areas of improvement and also suggest ways to improve it. Survey has a recommendation section which will elicit meaningful, creative and cost-effective suggestions about work-life problems. These forms should be made a mandatory practice at the end of each period which will be decided by the HR department. The HR team needs to work in close collaboration and provide necessary assistance needed by the respondents. A research was done by CIPD on employee attitudes and engagement and they studied how perception of employees about their managers and leaders, job satisfaction, and work-life balance has led to employee engagement and ultimately to employee retention. A nationwide survey of 2,000 employees was done in UK and the results support the above presented idea[Gre06]. It is essential to know about employee attitudes to increase employee engagement or otherwise trust deficit will erupt and lead to ill-will among the employees. Secondly, after the employee attitude surveys are done then the company needs to identify engagement drivers for the organization. The Institute of Employment Studies (IES) concluded that the main ingredients of engagement are the feeling of being valued and involved[ROB04]. The company knows that the employees are not been valued which is evident by the mundane work they do. They are not encouraged to provide a suggestion which is killing their creativity bit by bit. Research also states that the main components of the aforementioned drivers are: Engagement in decision making Autonomy to provide suggestions which are given heed by the managers. And lastly, the feeling of being taken care off. The feeling that the organization is concerned about employee health and well-being. In our case, the above mentioned characteristics were missing. Therefore, measures such as a calling lower tier employee to end managerial meetings should be taken. This move will not only enhance employee knowledge bank but also it will lead to creative suggestions as a new mind will work for the given problem sets. Moreover, this approach will also create a feeling of being valued. An employee would feel that the organization trusts him with the information and his work is to live up to it. This will increase employee commitment as he will thrive harder to meet employer’s expectations. Furthermore, a little effort should be made by the line manager to seek engagement of the employee in decision making phases. This will aggravate the sense of being valued and increase employee engagement. Thirdly, a large part of employee engagement rests on the individual’s personal characteristics. The recent media graduates hired by the advertising agency are rigorously screened and interviewed before being employed therefore; it is assumed that they would have high interpersonal and intellectual skills. In such a scenario, it can be easily understood that majority of employees are likely to become engaged in their work provided the threshold of expectations are met. However, this is hindered by the job they do and experiences they have during their working hours. The way with which the leaders communicate with the employees and the way in which jobs are defined add up significantly towards making work meaningful and engaging. In order to eradicate this feeling of ill-will, managers need to step up to the task. They should indulge in conversations with the recently employed graduates and mentor them regarding their work. Managers can ask employees about the outcomes that they are supposed to achieve or how can they contribute to making this a great place to work. [Tru06] Fourthly, in our case, there exists a low motivation due to lack of ownership in winning projects. Employees would always cherish moments spent in a winning team. Therefore, managers should understand ways to engage an employee in a task and subsequently channel appreciation where it is due. For example, if an employee is given a challenging task to work on a project and his hard work has paid off then the satisfaction of being in the winning team coupled with manager’s appreciation will imbed ownership and engagement in his mind forever. Fifthly, employees will leave the organization if they do not find growth and development opportunities in the work place. Most employees would like to keep their jobs fresh and interesting by learning new approaches and building skills. Therefore, the organization should invest in their most valuable assets. The human capital cannot be replicated therefore; employers need to understand that training and development is an investment with infinite returns. Semi-annual training programs should be held and need for it should be solicited from the immediate managers. Lastly, the most influential factor for engaged employees is the quality of leadership, especially the immediate leader (line manager in our case). Every employee views the organization with the lens created by the leader. Employee’s feelings about their leaders or bosses are synonymous with how they feel about their jobs and organization as a whole. Therefore, the senior staff who initially talked about success, talent and innovation with the new recruits should strive to be exemplary. They are the face of the organization for the new employees therefore; any interaction made by them gets captured in an employee’s mind. Research show that compensation and benefits are less important if the relationship with your boss is rigid. I suggest that company should incorporate an ‘open door culture’ along with using first names to address your colleagues. This will create a friendly environment and increase in interactions will lead to better results. In a nutshell, the company needs to undergo certain shocks to create an interactive and learning environment. An environment that endorses employee value and engagement is a must-to-have rather than a nice-to-have in the current environment. The most valuable asset of the company needs to have the privileged treatment it deserves. Steps to create employee attitude monitoring system, working on engagement drivers, involving employees in decision making, involving them in winning projects, providing recognition and appreciation and catering to exemplary leadership needs should be worked upon to improve employee engagement and retention of this valuable asset. Research has endorsed the abovementioned recommendation and these small cost-effective steps can lead to amplified results in the short-run as well as in the long-run. Reference Mar09: , (Ciofalo, 2009), Jan05: , (Cranwell-Ward & Abbey, 2005), Mai09: , (Petersitzke, 2009), Usm04: , (Usman, Gary, & Filotheos, 2004), San94: , (Robinson, Kraatz, & Rousseau, Changing Obligations and the Psychological Contract: A Longitudinal Study, 1994), San06: , (Robinson & Rousseau, 2006), Mac09: , (MacLeo & Clarke, 2009), Gre06: , (Atiken, Marks, Woodruffe, Worman, & Purcell, 2006), ROB04: , (Robinson, Perryman, & Hayday, 2004), Tru06: , (Truss, Soane, Edwards, Wisdom, Croll, & Burnett, 2006), Read More