Methods And Consequences Of Employee Engagement In Frishco’s HR Department

1. Analysis of different methods in which Frishco’s HR department engages its employees

1. Analysis of different methods in which Frishco’s HR department engages its employees.
2. Critical discussion of the potential consequences of the organization’s inability to address the employee engagement issues including how it would affect their motivation.
3. Evaluation of the methods that create the most impact in achieving highest level of employee engagement within Frishco.

This report introduces the detailed analysis of the case study related to Frishco’s HR department. Frishco is a brand having a worldwide recognition where its Knightbridge store has a big selling space. It states about the analysis of the different methods that Frishcho has practiced for the purpose of engaging its employees (Truss et al. 2013). The different methods include job enlargement, job enrichment and job rotation along with changing the leadership styles. The report has critically discussed the potential consequences due to the organization’s inability to address the employee engagement problems (Albrecht et al. 2015). Such consequences include deteriorated employee morale, decreased job performance and output, demotivated employees and clients.  The report has also made the evaluation of the methods that create the most impact in achieving the highest level to engage the employee in Frishco (Wang and Hsieh 2013). The report has introduced the issues that Frishco is currently facing and the solutions to fix them. There are different methods to improve the employee engagement in the organization. Such methods as good quality line management, commitment to employee well being, two way open communication, effective cooperation, clear HR policies and practices, fair pay and benefits are been described in the report.

Frishco’s HR department has applied different methods to increase the engagement of their employees (Breevart et al. 2014). The other method is changing the culture of the organization for enabling the business to meet the employee needs along with maintaining the values of the company. The culture can be changed through changing the leadership style. If the leadership is made favorable to the employees then it will lead to meet their needs as they have much opportunity to express their requirements.

The methods that are used to increase employee engagement are recruitment and selection, performance and development (Bal, Kooij and De Jong 2013). The methods also include the development of the employees for building their careers with Frishco through the identification of the career progression opportunities ((Albrecht et al. 2015).

 Frishco adopts several procedures to increase the employee engagement program such as changing the organizational structure, changing the leadership, improved communications, living the brand values (Truss et al. 2013). They are keen to change the organizational structure through job enrichment. Here job enrichment is the process to add more responsibilities for enhancing job satisfaction.

2. Critical discussion of the potential consequences of the organization’s inability to address the employee engagement issues including how it would affect their motivation

Frishco also prefers the method for changing the leadership style in the organization. In such environment, the employees will be given much more space to take decisions by themselves. They apply the transformational leadership where the vision of the organization is built at the top management. In such case, each and every employee gets engaged with the vision through the help of personal leadership.

Frishco has used different methods in order to utilize their HR skills and functions to address their employee engagement. They have concentrated to improve the communication level among the employees to increase their participation (Albrecht et al. 2015). The improved communication among the employees regarding the operational work in the organization actually encourages them for their views towards the management. Frishco also makes sure that every person understands the value of the brand. It is also a procedure for increasing the engagement of the employees. The internal employee magazine, morning briefing, intranet, quarterly employee forum, employee voice form are also the procedures in their organization to engage the employees (Mishra, Boynton and Mishra 2014). The morning briefing gives the information to the teams of the Frishco shop floor about the activities of the day.

The intranet enables information sharing with the employees. The quarterly employee forum actually enables the employees for presenting the issues and contributing to the strategy of the company. The ‘Bright Ideas’ provides the encouragement to the employees for sharing innovative ideas to make improvement in the overall structure of Frishco (Wang and Hsieh 2013). The company focuses on democratic leadership style where the employees are used to listen to their ideas and make improvements on continuous basis.

Therefore the culture builds the trust and respect and it is basically the key regarding the engagement of Frischo’s employee. The three elements that also encourage employee engagement are Talent Spotting, Mentoring and Coaching, Supporting Networks. The talent spotting involves identification of the talented persons who have the ability to make important contributions to Frishco (Duffield et al. 2014). The mentors and coaches provide advice and guidelines along with structured feedback to the people who are less experienced. The Line Managers in Frishco communicate their organizational targets to the employees through face to face interactions. They agree regarding objectives and involve people to take advice regarding new ways of working.

In Frishco, the managers also meet with the other managers for sharing ideas and problems to get better solutions regarding the retail business (Saleem, Shaheen and Saleem 2012). Job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment are the process which can also increase the employee engagement. The Job rotation makes periodical change of the jobs and the work places. It makes various job opportunities to the employees. Job enlargement actually encourages the employee to take additional tasks. The Job enrichment enables the employees for engaging in wider variety of tasks such as taking additional leadership responsibility and removal of unnecessary supervision.

3. Evaluation of the methods that create the most impact in achieving highest level of employee engagement within Frishco

The good quality line management, two way open communication makes the space for the employees to openly express their ideas to the management (Zareen, Razzaq and Mujtaba 2013). The commitment to well being employee, effective cooperation, good HR policies, fair pay and benefits along with focus on the development of employees increase the involvement of the employees in Frishco. 

Frishco is a company having an established repute throughout the world. The company has faced several problems as it was unable to address the employee engagement issues. The company was unable to track that how the problems will affect their motivation. The employees who are not so much engaged in Frishco can be costly to the organization (Choudhary 2016). The disengagement of the employees actually kills the overall morale of them and it eventually leads to decreased output. Such demotivation leads to absenteeism and lateness.

If the organization is unable to understand the problems regarding employee engagement then they will not be able to adopt the strategies which can motivate them. The company should adopt a leadership style which would give proper space to their employees to openly express their ideas and opinions for decision making. Such authority will motivate them to work in full fledge.

If those employees are not given such authority for a high level of participation in decision making then they feel demotivated towards the work they are doing (Mone and London 2014). This will result to lower level performance of the organization and it will lead to decreased market share.

A problem that took place in Frishco is the difference between customer and employee experience. Frishco should make a detailed analysis about why there is the difference existing. If such problems are not been analysed in a proper manner, then it will severely affect the impression on both the customer and employee’s mind.

Frishco makes a practice of democratic leadership which will not be effective in case of decrease of sales (Karatepe 2013). There are other problems such as reactive decision making, inconsistent style of management which can lead to evil results for the company. If the hierarchies of the management are not clearly defined then it can lead to confusions between the management professionals regarding decision making (Choudhary 2016). Incoherent communication is also a problem, which can make a lot of misunderstanding between the people in the organization.

The poor work life balance, few opportunities and low perceptions are also other issues which if the organization is not able to handle can lead to disastrous results. One of the potential consequences is the higher employee turnover (Bakker, Tims and Derks 2012). A high employee turnover rate symbolizes higher number of employees leaving the organization in a particular calendar year. The higher employee turnover rate has a significant level of cost and performance implications to a business.

If Frishco faces a high level of employee turnover rate then it will lead to loss of expertise and increased requirement of training the new employees. The company will also face a problem from increased cost of recruitment.

As the expert people leave the organization, it will lead to degradation of the overall performance of the company leading to less market share (Biswas and Bhatnagar 2013). If the employees get lesser opportunities in their job responsibilities then they will get demotivated to work further. A poor balance in work-life will lead the employees to a mental discomfort zone. They will lose the interest of their job responsibilities and will go to quit the job.  

Proactive decision making always lead the company to flourish to their fullest extent. But Frishco has a practice of reactive decision making which lacks the assertion of the management professionals from the initial time (Sonnentag et al. 2012). Therefore, there is a high chance that the organization can be in an acute financial crisis as they have not planned to face the evil situation in advance.

If Frishco suffers from employee disengagement, there will be a lot of issues regarding manpower cost. The company will be going through financial loss due to shortage of manpower as it will not have sufficient manpower while serving their customer. It will lead to less revenue generation and will lower the market share of the company.

As per Vroom’s Expectancy Theory, behavioural option can be selected by a person on the basis of his goal. There is also an equation, which states that motivation is the product of expectancy, instrumentality and valence. Here, motivation is the particular amount where an individual will get motivated by the environment he is involved. Expectancy is normally people’s perception that effort will result in performance. On the other hand, instrumentality is the perception where the performance will be rewarded (Karatepe 2013). Valence is the perceived amount regarding the punishment or reward that will result from performance. If Frishco empowers any of these three factors then it will eventually increase the motivation of its employees. If any of the factors are degraded keeping the other factors unchanged, it will result to demotivation and disengagement of the employees towards their work.

There are several methods that have the capability to achieve higher level of employee engagement. But the methods that can create the most impact in achieving the highest level of employee engagement is job enrichment, enlargement and rotation (Biswas and Bhatnagar 2013). In case of job enrichment, the existing job roles enable the employees to get engaged in wider varieties of tasks. In such case there may be some addition of team leadership responsibility and removal of unnecessary supervision.

The job enrichment is the concept of the management that makes the involvement of restructuring of the jobs. It can be more challenging for the employees having less repetitive work. In case of Frishco, if an executive employee serving the customers is given additional responsibilities such as supervising an entire team in a floor, then the job of that particular person gets enriched. In case of job enlargement, additional responsibilities will be added in the basic responsibilities of the employees. It will increase the responsibilities and tasks for making the position more challenging. The job rotation will provide exposure of the various dimensions to the employees (Bakker, Tims and Derks 2012). The job rotation is normally the practice to move the employees between several tasks for promoting experience and variety. It is basically the method through which the employers will use the method for rotating the assigned tasks in their employment.

The method of democratic and participative leadership is also the most preferred one for enhancing the employee engagement. In case of democratic and participative leadership, the employees get much more opportunity to express their ideas and opinions regarding management decisions.

The style of participatory leadership makes an attempt for adding a democratic dimension where there is top down hierarchy (Karatepe 2013). If Frishco maintains such participative leadership they will be able to involve the employees in higher extent. If the employees get added responsibilities, added work and additional authority regarding decision making through personal leadership, then they will have a sense of ownership about the task they are doing.

The quarterly employee forum and the other forms of employee voice are also the other procedures that can make the employees bound to be more engaged towards the organization. In the quarterly employee forum, a facility is given to the employees for sharing their problems (Mone and London 2014). The Bright Ideas scheme also makes the encouragement of the employees for sharing the ideas for the improvement of Frishco.

The way which can make the employees of the organization to be more engaged is fair pay and good HR policies that are clearly accessible by the employees (Mirvis 2012). If the employees of the organization get a good salary and other non monetary benefits, they will definitely have the tendency to stick with the organization with a greater involvement.

Conclusion

From the above discussions and analysis, it can be stated that though Frishco has achieved a worldwide popularity in their retail business, there are some drawbacks which created problems in their management structure resulting to employee turnover. A solution to such issues is to increase the employee engagement. To increase the employee engagement, job rotation, job enlargement, job enrichment should be imposed. The leadership style should be participative so that there will be space for the employees to express their opinion regarding decision making. These methods will motivate the employees to stay involved in the maximum level with Frishco. The good quality line management, two way open communication, effective cooperation, fair pay and benefits along with focusing on the development of the employee will also increase employee participation. Frishco should change their leadership style as per the varying situation to stay competitive in the market. If the company removes the problems regarding inconsistent management style, incoherent communication, poor work-life balance then it will be able to remove the issues such as lateness, absenteeism of the employees. Such solutions will lead the company to fix the issues regarding decreased job performance and decreased output. Overall, the HR policies will be such that it will make Frishco to be an organization of flexible manpower.

References

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