Employee Competence and Reward Strategy - Essay Example

Employee Competence and Reward Strategy Employee Competence and Reward Strategy Competence Competence can be defined as the requirements for a person to appropriately execute a particular undertaking. It involves the incorporation of various elements such as behavior, skills and knowledge about that particular task and this are combined to enhance the performance of the individual. In general terms, competence can be said to be the condition of excellence and being sufficiently capable and also having the aptitude to execute a particular undertaking. A good example is the competence that is related to management whereby an individual who is competent needs to have particular traits which include emotional intelligence as well as the negotiating power (Bourne, 2003). An individual can be said to be competent if he possesses the skills, knowledge and abilities that are necessary to perform a particular task that the individual is given the responsibility of. With such a combination of traits, a person can be able to competently perform a task in any given situation or a working environment. In the same respect, one may lose competency without losing the skills, abilities or knowledge if the requirements for executing a particular task changes or the working conditions changes (Dickmann, 2008). Competency is also used as a general term when the requirements of people in communities and organizations whereby there are requirements for the people to perform various tasks for the community or organization. These can be described by the various requirements that organizations have put in a particular language for the employees to be considered competent or what educational institutes have put in a specific language for the students to graduate from them. One of the most important aspects of this kind of competence is that it has to be an action competence and this means that the people must show their competence in action (Armstrong, 1999). As far as human resources are concerned, it is more significant to have competence development policies especially for some general competences that an organization is dependent on to run its business. The general competences can be classified into levels and they include the novice whereby a person who can be classified as a novice has the behavior based on the rules of the organization and is very inflexible as well as very limited. The next level is the experienced beginner whereby this employee has the ability to incorporate aspects from a given situation. The third level is the practitioner who is capable of acting consciously in relation to any long term plans and objectives. The fourth level is the knowledgeable practitioner who has the ability of seeing a situation and acting according to his or her personal conviction. The fifth level is the expert has the intuitive and understands and in any situation he is quick to narrow in the central aspects (Bourne, 2003). It is important to note that the process of developing competence in any organization is a life long sequence of action and reflection and there is the requirement of a specific environment for enhancing competency. This environment must also afford the employees with favorable resources for the enhancement of competency. There is also the necessity of the organization to have rules which will be very instrumental in the introduction of novices although they may not always be workable to the more experienced people who can be classified in various advanced levels but only if the situation requires that the rules to be broken. This environment is often referred to in various terms which include self organizing, empowerment, learning organization and knowledge creation. Competences are the characteristics that ensure outstanding performance is achieved in an organization. A model of competence refers to the collection of competences that are required by a given organization to perform a given function or role and there are about seven to nine competences in total. The type and number of the competences in a model varies with the nature of work and that is the complexity, values of an organization and the culture in the organization. A competence model is also referred to as a competency framework and many organizations in the modern world are using the five levels that have been identified which ranges from novice to expert. Competence can be measured by the use of performance management which is the procedure of evaluating the progress which is being used in achieving a given goal or performing a certain task (Armstrong, 1999). In the case study of Utility Co, the company has very good strategies of identifying and measuring competency within the human resource of the organization. This can be attributed to various factors which include that the competence levels have been classified in a given model of competences. This can be seen by the fact that the company has identified various stages of the employees under which they can be identified with and this include various classes that have been assigned to different departments. It is important to note that Utility Co due its nature of business has many classes of employees some of them contractual and others fully hired by the company (Hesketh, 2006). In order for the organization to be competent it also needs to incorporate various reward systems for employees who portray high level of competency and this has been one of the policies of the Utility Co organization. Since the organization deals in the provision of public utility services, it has high number of employees and this can be evidenced by the fact that the company has permanent employees as well as contractual employees. This means that the organization will have to be very strict on its service provision as it is facing competition from other organizations as well. To this end, the organization has been very competent in ensuring that the employees who are showing high levels of competency are well awarded with such things as the improvement of the status of the employees within the organization as well as other rewards for competency (Bourne, 2003). Success of the new Strategy The success of the new reward strategy will be based on the motivation of the employees to be competent. Since the company has been experiencing competition and it has been enjoying monopoly in the public utility service industry, it has a responsibility of ensuring that the employees of the organization are well motivated to be able to handle the challenges that the new market in the United Kingdom will bring to the organization. To this effect the company has already initiated various job grades and this can be seen as a motivating factor to the employees who need to improve the grade they are currently in. This has already been agreed by the trade union and the management of the organization a very important step towards the success of the new strategy (Fleetwood, 2009). Any strategy or introduction of a new policy should be seen as a means by the management to improve the outlook of the organization, increase its efficiency, increase its competitiveness in the market and ensure that the objectives of the organization are met with the outmost high level competency that is possible. This can only be done by ensuring that the employees are highly motivated. This is because a highly motivated employee will be very competent in the various duties he performs for the organization. Motivation is mostly brought about a good rewarding system and this can only be achieved with the organization ensuring that its rewarding scheme appeals to the employees who will be motivated by the rewarding system. This means that the management will need to ensure that the competence of the employees is based on their motivation and this can only be through the rewarding system (Armstrong, 1999). To this effect, the company has made a rewarding strategy that will ensure that the employees who portray high level of competence will be improving their grade and this means better rewards for the most competent employee. Although this move by the management was met with some skepticism by the employees, this strategy is likely to work because once the employees get the glimpse of that they are only wanted to portray competence in their roles, then they will be motivated to work hard towards their competency and they will stand the chance to be awarded better than they had been awarded earlier. This means that the organization will also increase its efficiency, reduce its costs and also increase its competitiveness in the market. This will be very instrumental in ensuring that the company is successful especially considering that the company has been of recent facing stiff competition from the new entrants in the industry (Bourne, 2003). It is in this respect that the extent of which the new rewarding strategy will be successful can be said to be high but it is limited to the long term. In the short term there will be some inhibition of the success by the fact that the employees are going to take some time to adapt to the new rewarding strategy. But in the long term, the strategy will be successful in ensuring that the employees are motivated, the outlook of the organization will be improve through its efficiency and motivated employees (Sparrow, 2009). Alternative Reward Strategy An alternative reward strategy for the Utility Co organization which can be seen as being a more successful one is one that ensures that the organization attracts and retains very competent employees. In this respect the rewards strategy should address such issues as the mechanisms in play when recruiting, retaining, engaging and developing the employees so that they can portray high level competence when they are performing various functions for the organization which will ultimately lead to the success of the organization (Thorpe, 2000). The new reward strategy should be motivating to the employees. Employees offer their services to the organization on the basis of the reward and this means that the reward system should be motivating to the employees as well. Motivation to the employees should be the most important element of any rewarding strategy (Sparrow, 2008). As far as the Utility Co organization is concerned, the new reward strategy should first of all motivate the employees to portray high levels of competence which is very important for the success of the company. This means that the company will need to come up with a reward strategy that ensures that the outlook of the company will be improved by the employees and this will be very important for the success of the company. At the same time, the new reward strategy should also save the operating costs of the organization as this will bring many problems to the organization if not well taken care of. To this effect, the major requirements of the new reward strategy is one that will address the issue of competence within the employees and at the same time ensuring that the costs of running the organization are not to overwhelming for the company (Fleetwood, 2008). Another aspect of the rewarding strategy that the company should undertake is the aspect of rewarding the people who show high levels of competence. However, this should not be limited to the five levels of competence ranging from novice to the expert although the reward size should be in corroboration with the level of competence. For example if a novice has portrayed that he is capable of making decisions like the experienced beginner, then the novice is rewarded. However, it is important to note that the expert has no more level of progressing so the expert should always be rewarded for any decision made that has been deemed to be very efficient to helpful to the organization (Fleetwood, 2006). The rewarding system should also incorporate some benefits and this means that the employees will be motivated to be more competent and this means that the organization will also benefit immensely from the fact that the employees will work hard towards the achieving the objectives of the organization. All employs should qualify for some form of benefit and this means that the employee will feel that he or she is appreciated by the organization hence the motivation to be more competent (Robinson, 2007). The rewarding system should also ensure that the people who have portrayed high levels of competence are promoted to higher levels in the organization. This will also ensure that the employees are motivated to work hard towards achieving the high level office and this means that the organization’s outlook will improve on the outside because of the efficiency that is being experienced in the internal running of the organization (Tyrrell, 2009). The rewarding system that Utility Co adapts should also ensure that the relationship between the employees and management is amiable so as to evade the problems that may be brought about by the trade union. In many instances, various organizations have been faced with the hardship of negotiating with the trade unions or the employee representatives and this have greatly undermined the efficiency of the organization as well as deteriorating the public view of the organization. This can be attributed to the fact that many organizations do not sufficiently reward their employees and this means that the organization will also interrupt the normal running of the organization when the workers are on strike because of poor working condition (Schuster, 1992). The rewarding system should also ensure that the employees are afforded the necessary resources and facilities so as to enhance their competence and also their performance. This is very instrumental in ensuring that the organization is very competitive which can be rooted to the fact that the employees of the organization are afforded all the resources and facilities which will ensure that they work hard and in a competent way to provide high quality performance. This means that the rewarding system should work towards ensuring that eventually the organization benefits (Hodgkinson, 2008). In relation to performance management, the rewarding strategy should be primary concerned with the development of the organization whereby the employees are rewarded according to the contribution to the development of the organization. Performance in organizational development can be referred to as the desired results compared to the actual results. In any situation whereby an employee’s actual results are more than the desired results, then the rewarding strategy should ensure that the employee is rewarded according to the new rewarding strategy (Brewster, 2007). 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