Job Rewards as It Relates to Staffing - Literature review Example

Job Rewards as it Relates to Staffing Staffing is the term that is used in referring to the managerial function of employing and developing human resources for effective functioning in different managerial as well as non-managerial activities in a given organization. Staffing also maintains cohesion in the organization. It is significantly influenced by rewards, promotions, and demotions. This study was designed to expound on the relationship between staffing and provision of rewards. The literature review was compiled through referring to journals on the related subject. Introduction Staffing is the term that is used in referring to the managerial function of not only employing, but also developing human resources for effective functioning in different managerial as well as non-managerial activities in a given organization. One of the things associated with staffing is developing people for various posts in the organization. Staffing is very elemental for the success of any organization. For instance, it is apparent that the selling of products depends on the type of a salesman. Additionally, the quality of industrial products depends on the goodness as well as the engagement of workers. In relation to this, organizations determine the right people and ensure they have maintained them for the success of the organization. The benefits of good staffing are diverse, and some of them include getting the right employees at the right time for a specific job. In addition to contributing to successful organizational productivity, good staffing helps in enhancing job satisfaction to employees which as a result boost their morale. Staffing also maintains cohesion in the organization. The steps of staffing management are very many and diverse. One of the steps is the employment decisions that entail rewards, promotions, demotions. In relation to this, the paper aims at expounding on how job rewards relates to staffing. In addressing this, the paper will provide detailed information on intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, employee value proposition in addition to job reward information from the employees. According to Mustapha (2013), there are many examples of rewards, and they can be financial or non-financial. Bonuses which are often tied to revenues, profit as well as sales are used mainly to reward individual accomplishment. Apart from individual rewards, there are group rewards that are associated to corporate performance at group or company-wide levels. According to Jehanzeb et al. (2012), most organizations reward excellence so as to motivate employees with the aim of achieving specific objectives. In addition to this, Jehanzeb et al. claim that accumulation of rewards can result to a promotion. However, the result of the interview with many employees from different organizations shows that employers observe some criteria in rewarding their employees. One of the key things that employers pay attention to is the performance appraisal. According to Danish and Usman (2010), performance appraisal is the mode of judging the performance of workers. Specifically, it is used in determining the relative ability of an employee at work in a specific systematic manner. Performance appraisal enables managers to determine the employees who carry their assigned duties satisfactorily, and those who do not meet the demands of their respective work (Mustapha, 2013). It is through this that compensation chips in. According to Danish and Usman (2010), compensation is one of the elemental factors that influence the relationship between management and employees. No company can manage to attract and retain its qualified employees without providing those employees with a fair compensation. In tandem with this assertion, Mustapha (2013) argues that compensation is the term used to refer to a wide scope of financial and non financial rewards given to employees for the services they provide to a given organization. The compensation includes wages, salaries in addition to allowances and benefits an employer pays to the employees in regard to their services. According to Ozutku (2012), the compensation can be categorized into two: primary compensation and supplementary compensation. Primary compensation refers to the fixed amount of money paid to an employer. It includes not only wages, but also salary and allowances paid to a worker irrespective of his or her performance. Supplementary compensation on the other hand refers to the compensation paid to an employer so as to motivate him or her to work more efficiently. This type of compensation is also referred to as incentive compensation. This type of incentive can be monetary or non-monetary. The monetary incentives constitute of bonus, commission sales, and profit sharing plans. The non-monetary incentives include cordial relations with the management and supervisor, assignment of tricky jobs, and recognition. According to Ozutku (2012), such incentives not only boost employees’ interest in the job, but also motivate them to work more hard. In connection to the information provided above, Gohari, Ahmadloo, Boroujeni and Hosseinipour (2013) claim that providing as well as using rewards is a main staffing strategy for motivating several human resource outcomes such as applicant attraction, employee performance and retention. He also claims that the successful matching of the rewards with the rewards desired is one of the critical things for achieving HR outcomes. Rewards can be classified either as extrinsic or intrinsic (Nujjoo & Meyer, 2012). External rewards are tangible factors which are external to the job itself. They are designed and given to the employees by the envoys of the organization. This type of reward often fail between direct pay, indirect pay, hours of work, as well as career advancement and job security. Intrinsic rewards on the other hand constitute of the intangibles. It is experienced by the employee as the product of not only doing the job, but also being part of the organization (Johnson, Chang & Yang, 2010). The tables below provide a summary of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Extrinsic reward Reward Explanation Direct compensation (base pay): starting, range, and raises. The starting is the beginning salary, range is the difference between maximum and minimum pay for a job, whereas raises refers to increases in base pay (Oriarewo, Agbim & Owutuamor, 2013). Direct compensation (variable pay): short-term incentives and long-term incentives. ST is often one-time cash bonus for an individual or team performance. LT constitute of a performance plan guided by long term performance targets. Indirect compensation: benefits such as health insurance, retirement, work life, perks, and many others. Apart from having employer-sponsored health care insurance, organizations provide a defined contribution for retirement pay. Work life benefits include childcare, lactation rooms, financial services, home computers and many others. Perks include cell-phones, student loan payoffs, and recreational facilities. Other benefits may include paid holidays, life and disability insurance (Nujjoo & Meyer, 2012). Hours of work: full or part time, shift, flextime, overtime. More than 40 hours working hours a week is considered full time. Day and night swings are characterized by a premium pay above the base pay. Hours beyond normal results to a premium pay that is above base pay. Career advancement: training and development, job changes, location changes. Training and development creates opportunities for competency improvement and mentoring. Job changes on the other hand create promotion and transfer opportunities. Job security and severance package. These constitute of fixed-term contracts and pay, benefits as well as assistance provided to terminated employees respectively. Intrinsic reward Reward Explanation Skill variety Employment of complex skills in performing different tasks. Task identity Completion of a whole piece of work instead of a portion of it. Task significance The work of an employee influences the lives of others. Autonomy Freedom to decide on how to do a specific job. Feedback from the job The result of the job gives employee information on how well he or she performed the job. Feedback from agents Manager or coworkers provide employee information about how well he or she is doing the job. Dealing with coworkers Job requires one to work in cohesion with other coworkers. Management relations Building of trust as well as communication from management. Employee value proposition All rewards, intrinsic and extrinsic, associated with employment make up the employee value proposition. The EVP can be referred to as a package of rewards given to an employee and to which the employee responds by not only joining, but also performing in addition to remaining in a given organization (Kunerth & Mosley, 2011). EVP is the deal agreed between the organization and the employee. First is perceived as a promise to the prospective employee which later becomes a reality to the real new employee. EVP can become a new deal depending on its changes as a result of reward improvement or internal job variations by the employee (Khan, Farooq & Ullah, 2010). In other words, EVP acts as a bind that holds the employee and the organization together, with the employee portraying some characters such as attraction, performance, and retention in exchange for the EVP. Although EVP is very important to an organization, it s creation is challenging. This is in relation to the fact that no reward either extrinsic or intrinsic is cheap. The organization must figure and decide on what it can afford as it comes up with its EVPs. In addition to this, the reward must be attractive to the intended persons. Therefore, the cost as well as attraction must be considered together when developing EVPs. According to Maluti (2012), the dual affordable-attractive demands for EVPs can result to some problems with EVPs such as wrong magnitude or wrong mix. Melancon, Noble and Noble (2010), claim that wrong magnitude constitute of a package of rewards that are too small or too huge in terms of money. Too small a package can be viewed by a current employee or prospective employee as inadequate or an insult, none of which is an elemental perception to be developed (Kucherov & Zavyalova, 2012). Such perceptions may crop very early in the applicant’s search for a job or before the organization learns about the applicant. Too small a package may not result to any issue until late in time as the applicant learns of other information regarding the reward package. It is as a result of this challenge that many applicants turn down job offers or decide to quit jobs. However, it is apparent that too small packages are affordable to organizations. Too large packages on the other hand create problems for organizations. Although such problems may not appear immediately, they have the potential of affecting the organization’s financial viability as well as survival. Affordability problems may specifically affect the service-providing of an organization when the employee’s compensation costs are a good percentage of the total operation costs. Wrong mix is referred to as a situation in which the content of the reward package is different from the preferences of the current employees (Melancon, Noble, Noble, 2010). A good example of a wrong mix is a package that provides not only excellent retirement benefits, but also long-term performance rewards to a comparatively young and mobile workforce. The attraction and retention of such package is minimal in addition to being relatively expensive to provide. Collection of job rewards information There are many things that can be employed in order to determine the importance of incentives to employees. With the right information about the employee’s preferences, the organization can successfully build EVPs that are not only of the right magnitude, but also mix and distinctiveness. One of the best approaches of collecting information regarding job rewards is to consider the preferences of the employees. Another crucial approach is to compare the employee’s preferences with the rewards provided in different organizations. Rewards information within organization According to Teeraprasert, Piriyakul and Khantanapha (2012), interviews with employees and formal surveys with them will aid one significantly in learning about employee reward preferences in a given organization. In relation to this, Aloo and Moronge (2014) assert that interviews with employees require observance of specific things. The total process should be guided by a special expertise. The interviews should also be structured in a specific criterion in order to enhance the achievement of a specific goal. The major contents of the interview should include rewards offered, reward magnitude as well as reward mix and reward distinctiveness. It is also elemental for the interviews to be carried out by persons with interviewing skills. Apart from the sample being collected from all the organization, the interviews should be treated confidential and recorded so as to limit challenges associated with mistrust of the interviewer. In addition to this, survey of employees is very important. The survey of employees should be almost similar to the processes associated with employee interview. Structuring of the survey involves inclusion of the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards in a given response scale. Sampling of the survey scale involves use of all employees in the organization. This information collection tool assures the employees of their confidentiality. Despite this however, it is apparent that use of interviews is more effective than use of surveys because of their personal nature; employees have the freedom of responding in their own words and as a result it can allow the researcher to collect enough data for the study. Rewards information outside organization Data on the reward preference of employees from different organizations can be accessed through getting in contact with the survey of the employees from those organizations. The comparison of the collected information will enable the management of the organization to come up with effective reward measures that will not only motivate employees, but also maintain them in addition to increasing their competence in the organization. Rewards information from organization practices Examining the actual rewards provided to the employees by the organizations to their employees is one of the direct ways of gathering information regarding rewards to employees. The assumption made when using such information is that the organizations accessed are effective in meeting the preferences of their employees. The use of such information will significantly ad an organization in coming up with its EVP. Other important sources regarding the benefits of the employees include the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Department of Labor and the Society for Human Resource Management Annual Benefits Survey. Conclusion Staffing is the term that is used in referring to the managerial function of employing and developing human resources for effective functioning in different managerial as well as non-managerial activities in a given organization. One of the steps is the employment decisions that entail rewards, promotions, demotions. Performance appraisal is used in determining the relative ability of an employee at work in a specific systematic manner. Compensation is one of the elemental factors that influence the relationship between management and employees. It can be grouped into two; primary compensation and supplementary compensation. Successful matching of the rewards with the rewards desired is one of the critical things for achieving HR outcomes. Rewards can be classified either as extrinsic or intrinsic rewards. All rewards, intrinsic and extrinsic, associated with employment make up the employee value proposition. Interviews with employees and formal surveys with them will aid one significantly in learning about employee reward preferences in a given organization. Recommendation In connection to the information above, it is apparent that the success of organizations depends significantly on the activeness of employees. In other words, the productivity of organizations depends on the mood and participation of the employees. It is as a result of this that rewards play a significant part in enhancing the success of organizations. In relation to the requirements of staffing as introduced above, it is crucial for an organization to reconsider rewarding its employees in order to motivate them in addition to maintaining. Despite this, it is also evident that some organizations close down because of miscalculations related to the rewards offered to the employees. In connection with this challenge, it is advisable for organizations to reconsider the amount of reward to provide to their employees in order to avoid challenges associated with wrong mix that can result to the failure of an organization. The organization must figure and decide on what it can afford before it comes up with its EVPs. In relation to the challenges associated with the closing down of organizations as a result of bankruptcy, it is important for the organizations to figure the types of rewards to provide to their respective employees. For instance, it is recommendable for the organizations to major in providing non-monetary rewards to their employees because such rewards rarely result to the closure of an organization. The morale of employees is also highly affected by the way they are treated in the same working environment. Often partiality as well as provision of rewards to only specific persons affects the competitiveness of employees. In tandem with this, it is recommendable for the management to be fare always in provision of rewards to employees. References Aloo, V. & Moronge, M. (2014). The Effects of Employee Value Proposition on Performance of Commercial Banks in Kenya. European Journal of Business Management, 2(1), 141-161. Danish, R. & Usman, A. (2010). Impact of Reward and Recognition on Job Satisfaction and Motivation: An Empirical Study from Pakistan. International Journal of Business and Management, 5(2). Gohari, P., Ahmadloo, A., Boroujeni, M. & Hosseinipour, S. (2013). The Relationship Between Rewards and Employee Performance. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 5(3). Jehanzeb, K., et al. (2012). Impact of Rewards and Motivation on Job Satisfaction in Banking Sector of Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3 (21). 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Influencing Factors to Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment in Manufacturing Organization, Affect to Turnover Intention: A Context of Thai Fashion Industry. International Conference on Business and Management, pp. 551-562. Puket-Thailand. Read More