Benefits of Increasing Employee Engagement to a Business - Assignment Example

Human Resource Management.

According to Dessler (2000, 44), human resource management is described as a function within an organization that involves the process of valuing, hiring as well as developing employees to be more productive at their place of work. Basically, human resource management is responsible for recruitment of employees, managing the affairs of the employees and providing them with a well defined direction in regard to their work expectations (Mondy &Noe, & Gowan,2005, p.12)

Generally, the task of developing employees by human resource management involves recruitment and selection of employees; that is, hiring and screening employees to obtain the most suitable employee for the job (Stone, 2002. p.66). Performance evaluation is also a key aspect in developing employees whereby enabling environment is created for employees to fully exercise their roles with exposure to necessary trainings. Finally, the employees are made to build their professional careers through recognition of careers progressive opportunities.

Benefits of increasing employee engagement to a business

According to assertions made by Marciano (2010, p.54), employee engagement is an important aspect in any business or organization geared towards success. This is because it defines the extent to which employees in organization or business participate or commit themselves towards realization of business goals. Precisely, employee engagement in a business setup basically means the extent to which employees get emotionally and intellectually devoted towards the success of the business (Abbott, 1973 p. 88). In other words, it is the loyalty level demonstrated by an employee to an organization. It actually suggests involving the employees in the overall decision making process within the organization .This section of the paper seeks to explore various benefits that a business can derive from such engagements.

Firstly, increasing the employee engagement definitely improves the relations between the employee and the employer (Hyman, 1982, p.40). This eventually leads to a reduced employee turnover in the business. Reducing the rate at which employee leaves their employer is obviously an asset to the business since the business will be able to retain expertise for desirable period of time hence saving the business unnecessary expenses that would have incurred in new recruitment and trainings. As a matter of fact, high employee turnover presents a significant cost as well as performance implications to the business.

Secondly, a study previously conducted to establish the impact of increasing employee engagement had earlier validated that such engagement leads to employee satisfaction. An employee who participates and is fully engaged in the activities of the business tend to demonstrate high level of commitment as a sign of loyalty to the business. Such employee feel satisfied hence become self motivated towards supporting the business towards achieving its predefined goals. The image of the business is also outstandingly represented by employees who are good ambassadors to the business.

In terms of performance, engaged employees have at all times been proved as top performance since they are always self driven to an extent of going extra mile primarily to achieve the set business objective (Koch, 1996, p. 36). The demonstrated sense of motivation in such an employee always translates into productivity in the business, this is because they become more efficient and greatly tuned to success. To emphasize further, the report submitted by HayGroup also confirmed an increased productivity on a group of employees that were engaged in their various offices. Their report indicated an average of 53% productivity rate.

Innovation, as a product of participation and involvement in every business cannot be underestimated as far the subject matter is concerned. An engaged employee is always committed towards establishing better ways of doing things. By extension, they usually come up with new ideas, skills, products and business processes. (Dienhart, 2000, p.78)

Different ways that Harrods uses to engage its employees in decision making. Which methods do you feel would create the most impact?

Harrods, an internationally recognized product business have greatly revealed a great concern in improving the employee engagement in the business. This is clearly demonstrated through the effort made by human resource management to establish a viable strategic plan focusing on engaging its employees in taking part in the actual decision making process of the business (Fitzgerald, 2002, p.103).

Changing organizational structure has been identified by Harrods as one of the viable method that if employed would engage its employees in active participation particularly in decision making process. Previously, there was a feeling from senior managers that the organization is extremely hierarchical i.e. decisions were made from top management. However, with this structural modification, employees are now guaranteed an enriched job environment where they are trusted with more responsibilities hence making them develop a feeling of self worth and satisfied. In most cases, such engaged employees eventually tend to develop a stronger bond of responsibility for making business decisions.

Secondly, changing leadership is also a method adopted by Harrods purposely to create an encouraging environment where employees can feel part of the organization hence contributes sin pertinent business decision making exercises. This can be effectively achieved when senior managers trust ground level employees by delegating some of the leadership roles to them. The idea definitely subjects such employees to task hence making them commit themselves on future oriented problems solving rather than focusing on blame game that the management is solely responsible for the currently existing problems in the business. Furthermore, such arrangement obviously frees up the manager’s time hence concentrates on a more demanding and sensitive future oriented business decisions. (Rowe, 2007, p. 90).

Harrods appreciates communication as a very vital tool in any effective decision making involvement. A decision to improve the business communication strategies was arrived at to ensure that employees are well informed in terms of the day to day operations to help them establish a stronger ground for decision making. A well defined communication strategy in any business facilitates employees to always at all time be equipped with accurate and reliable information pertaining the direction of the business. This by extension enables them to use the shared information from their managers and supervisors to make good decisions for the business.

Finally, living the brand values is also a tool used by Harrods to engage its employees to business decision making exercises. Precisely, ensuring a strong brand values in a business is a collective social responsibility that can only be achieved if the employees are engaged by providing them with prominent roles within the business so as to propel the engagement and demonstrate a greater sense of credibility to establish a more human face for the brands.

Based on the above methods embraced by Harrods in its mission to fully engage the employees, it reasonable enough to conclude that changing the organization or management structure and leadership are the most influential methods with a greater impact since they are all aimed at recognizing the employee a significant person in the day to day operations of the business. These in equal measure transmit morale and sense of motivation to employees to an extent whereby they tend to demonstrate commitment towards realization of business goals.

Evaluate the effectiveness of employing a democratic leadership style on the success of Harrods.

Just like in any organization, leadership, particularly democratic style of leadership has been identified as a key element in shaping culture of a given organization (Northouse, 2007, p. 66).This kind of leadership is entirely based on mutual respect whereby the manager accommodates the ideas from employee and allowed to take part in decision making process (Kippenberger, 2002, p.67). This section of the paper therefore seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of this leadership style on the success of Harrods.

Democratic leadership style as demonstrated by Harrods’ management is aimed at ensuring that its employees are satisfied. As a style that fully advocates for employee’s participation, leadership approach at Harrods mainly identifies talent from gifted individuals from the business then encourages and honors their performances. As a result of this, they tend to gain high morale and provide more creative solutions hence creating an environment of cooperation as well as team spirit among the employees (Fitzgerald, 2002, p. 63).

Mentoring and coaching have also been recognized by the management of Harrods to ensure success in the business. Harrods senior managers advise, counsel and guide employees. Through structured feedback mechanism and informal conversations, mentoring and coaching of employees in Harrods have been effective since the line managers are encouraged and motivated to enlighten their employees by communicating and at the same time advising the employees towards business goals. In addition, they help their employees to come up with workable goals. Most importantly, through the use of this style, they involve the employees while developing strategic plans and even keep the employees informed on matters concern them and their work (Lewis, 1993, p.108)

Also, Harrods embraced the idea of support network whereby different managers conduct regular meetings primarily to exchange, share and compare ideas necessary for operations of their business. This benchmarking kind of activity assists Harrods with the right insights for its success. Employees therefore get the right information that is then used for appropriate decision making. With much importance attached to the above outlined processes, Harrods through its managers and front-line-staff has explicitly demonstrated great confidence and confirmed that indeed employees can make a significant change in an organization once their contributions are recognized and valued. Neglecting an employee is a clear and direct path to a business failure. Conclusively, the great impact of leadership style in determining success in any business cannot be underrated.

Reference

Abbott, S. (1973). Employee participation. London: Conservative Central Office.

Dessler, G. (2000). Human resource management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Dienhart, J. W. (2000). Business, institutions, and ethics: A text with cases and readings. New York: Oxford University Press.

Fitzgerald, S. P. (2002). Decision making. Oxford, U.K.: Capstone Pub.

Hyman, J. D. (1982). Employee participation: Managerial attitudes and behavior. Glasgow: Centre for Research in Industrial Democracy & Participation, Glasgow University.

Kippenberger, T. (2002). Leadership styles. Oxford: Capstone Pub.

Koch, K. (1996). Employee participation: The European experience. London: South Bank University.

Lewis, A. C. (1993). Leadership styles. Arlington, VA: American Association of School Administrators.

Marciano, P. L. (2010). Carrots and sticks don't work: Build a culture of employee engagements with the principles of respect. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Mondy, R. W., Noe, R. M., & Gowan, M. (2005). Human resource management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Northouse, P. G. (2007). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

Rowe, W. G. (2007). Cases in leadership. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications.

Stone, R. J. (2002). Human resource management. Milton, Qld.: Wiley Australia.