Human Resource Management - Essay Example

Human Resource Management Keeping employees happy is not one of the significant priorities of many organizations in the current economic times. However, most researches have established that the wellbeing and happiness of employees is a vital business issue, which directly affects the performance and productivity of any organization. Fostering a happy workforce, on the other hand, is one of the challenges that most organizations experience. It is the responsibility of company’ s Human and Resource Managers to maintain a happy workforce, as stipulated in the Health and Safety Act of 1974. This act requires companies to ensure the health and safety, both physical and mental, of their employees. Beyond the provisions of this act, having and maintaining a happy workforce makes sound business sense. Leading organizations always engage in recruiting happy people. A happy workforce has turned out to be one of the major indicators for high performing companies. Studies have shown that employee’s happiness directly impacts their productivity, and organization’s profitability. A research conducted by Kingston University reported that a contented workforce helps an organization to succeed, and can create a difference on whether or not an organization survives during the recession (McGovern & Shelly 45). The report, Creating an Engaged Workforce, was commissioned and conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. The study was conducted on eight private and public sector firms for a period of two years. According to this research, employees’ engagement is “being positively present during the performance of work by willingly contributing intellectual effort, experiencing positive emotions and meaningful connections to others” (McGovern & Shelly 47). The project’s lead researcher, Dr. Kerstin Alfes of Kingston University Business School, said that engaged employees perform better than unengaged employees, since they are more innovative than others, they like consulting work-related issues with their employer, and perceived their jobs as more manageable (McGovern & Shelly 47). Engaging staff in attaining business objectives and success is one of the key challenges faced by most organizations. According to Dr. Alfes, the most significant factor in developing an engaged workforce, is to determine whether or not employees find a meaning in their job. Therefore, it is necessary to involve all employees in an effective communication system, so as to determine how they contribute to the organization (McGovern & Shelly 97). As much as Dr. Alfes stressed that employees should be committed to their jobs, she also warned against excessive commitment to job. She said that if employees are unable to switch off from work, then they are likely to lower their performance and productivity, since working for longer hours is not sustainable (McGovern & Shelly 103). Dr. Alfes was categorical when she said that their research work and report were specifically relevant in the current economic environment. She said that their research successfully determined the positive impacts of employees’ engagement on both an individual’s wellbeing and organization’s success, especially during times of economic down play (Price 302). She argued that engaged employees usually do not mind going extra miles to achieve the company’s goals, when their organization is struggling to survive during economic recession. In one of their case study organizations, they established that plastic firms under pressure to cut production costs, made saving by encouraging employee engagement (Price 311). Initially, the plastic company did not give effective communication to employees a higher priority, but after establishing a more open culture that allowed employees suggesting how they wanted to work more productively and efficiently, this company was capable of cutting production costs. The significance of effective communication between employees and managers in improving productivity and profitability was also confirmed by an Employee Engagement Consortium research team, which is based in Kingston University Business School. This research team established that only about 34 percent of employees are engaged in effective communication, in most companies (Price 327). In addition, this is the group that finds their job meaningful, and has the opportunity to air their views and express their feelings. Mr. Mike Emmott of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development Public Policy Adviser, argued that establishing and maintaining effective employee engagement is not an easy job. He said that their research work faced difficulties, particularly when dealing with public sector that faced spending squeezes. According to company case studies, public sector employees exhibited higher levels of intellectual and social engagement than employees in the private sector (Halbert & Ingulli 153). This is an indication that local authorities, NHS trusts, and government departments are making effective consultations across departmental divisions to help produce strategic responses for key challenges, and generate new ideas for their organization (Halbert & Ingulli 153). Additionally, this report also indicated that public sector employees are less frequently and less emotionally engaged. This is a key challenge for public sector managers, because they have to ensure that, employees’ minds and hearts are engaged, for them to invest much energy into their work. Employee engagement is, therefore, necessary in identifying and implementing new measures, which are aimed at improving employees’ productivity and organization’s profitability (Halbert & Ingulli 157). Professor Arnold Bakker, University of Rotterdam, also said that positive emotions help employees cope up with deadlines or difficult clients and tasks, and this makes them happy (Price 568). He also stated that workforce happiness is contagious, and two or three happy employees can uplift a whole team. International researches also show that a happy workforce in terms of finding their job meaningful, being inspired, and experiencing frequent flows has a positive impact on the performance and financial outcomes of an organization (Price 568). Professor Bakker suggested that thing such as coaching, autonomy, education, development opportunities, and feedback by executives and colleagues make employees innovative and creative. He also said that engaged and happy employees benefit more from human resource instruments provided by their employer than unhappy colleagues. According to Professor Bakker, the most significant lesson that organizations can learn from “positive psychologists,” is that they should always focus on introducing strategies that make employees happy, and help staff recover from negative emotions resulting from an implemented change within their organization (Price 583). Other than focusing on cynical and uninspired part of the workforce, it is necessary to pay much attention to the happy employees, as they have the capability of uplifting their colleagues’ feeling. A happy workforce improves employee engagement, which in turn improves their productivity and organization’s profitability. From the researches highlighted above, it is obvious that happy people execute their duties better than unhappy people. Happy employees are a lot more fun to associate with, and consequently have better relations at work. A happy employee has better teamwork with his/her colleagues, a happy manager has better employee relations, a happy sales person improves sales and a happy customer service employee improves customers’ satisfaction. Happy people are also more creative than the unhappy employees. Productivity depends on the ability to come up with new ideas, and this is only possible when workforce is happy. Teresa Amabile in her research, established that there is an apparent cognitive process, which is created when people feel happy, and this leads to more fluent, flexible, and original thinking. In addition, happy employees are also flexible enough to carry over to the next day (Kleynhans 234). Additionally, happy employees are not worried about trying out new things and making mistakes. This, therefore, implies that they make fewer mistakes and introduce new ideas in their organization. When employees are happy, they perform most of their duties effectively, and learn from the simple mistakes they do. They also take responsibility of their mistakes, and apologize to others and their supervisors, while fixing the problem. This feeling implies that happy people perform most of their duties as required, and this improves their productivity and organization’s profitability (McGovern & Shelly 237). Another aspect of happy workforce is that happy employees usually fix the problems instead of complaining about them. When employees have negative feelings about their jobs, they usually find problems and challenges arising from their jobs very difficult to resolve. Such employees can never solve any problem without complaining about them. When a problem rises within an organization, happy employees are usually more interested in fixing the problem, unlike the unhappy ones, who will first raise complains before joining their colleagues in solving the problems (Kleynhans 245). Happy people are stress free, and this means that they are more energetic than their unhappy counterparts. In addition, they are more positive when executing their duties. Martin Seligman’s research work established that optimists are more productive and successful than unhappy people (Kleynhans 251). International researches have also indicated that happy people are easier to motivate than unhappy employees. Low motivation usually results in low productivity, and the only effective means to motivate employees, is to ensure that they are interested and happy in what they are doing (Kleynhans 259). Unhappy people are at higher risks of getting stressed up and developing a long list of diseases such as diabetes, cancers, and ulcers than happy employees. A research that assessed the effects of job strain on the health of 21,290 female nurses in the United States found out that those female nurses who do not like their job, are at higher risk of developing health problems than their happy colleagues (Kleynhans 265). Their health problems were associated with a sedentary lifestyle and smoking. Last but not least, happy people make better and wiser decisions, and value their work more than unhappy employees, who perform their work under strict supervision; they focus narrowly, dislike their job, and lose the image of the big picture. In conclusion, international researches have established that keeping employees happy is one of the most appropriate means of cutting production costs in the current economic environment. A happy workforce is determined to achieve the company’s set goals and standards, even during hard economic recess. Although fostering a happy workforce is one of the key challenges faced by most organizations, human resource managers should struggle to ensure that their staffs are happy, as this will increase their productivity and increase the organization’s revenue. A happy workforce is highly innovative, stress free and wise decision maker. Unhappy employees on the other hand, have fixed minds, and this implies that they only work under strict supervision, and this in turn lowers their productivity and efficiency. It is, therefore, recommendable that all organizations should create and develop a happy workforce as this will significantly improve their profit margins. Works Cited Halbert T, Ingulli E. Law & Ethics in the Business Environment. New York: Cengage Learning, 2008. Print Kleynhans R. Human resource management. New Riders: Pearson South Africa, 2006. Print McGovern J, Shelly S. The Happy Employee. Littlefield Street Avon: Adams Media, 2008. Print Price A. Human Resource Management in a Business Context. New York: Cengage Learning EMEA, 2007. Print Read More