Discuss about the Workplace Policies to Motivate Employees.
It goes without saying that satisfied and jubilant employees produce the best quality of work. There exists a huge debate as to which method or actions motivate employees the most. At the end it is about keeping the employees happy and content by keeping them motivated. Employees are humans and it does not need a convoluted psychological analysis to provide them an enjoyable and involved work environment (Lazaroiu 2015). However, it does take some planning and research on the methods of motivation. Different organisations, companies or firms have people of different mindset. Thus appropriate methods need to implemented, otherwise it could be acknowledged in an undesirable way (Ristic, Selakovic and Qureshi 2017). Owners of small businesses to executives of multinational companies, all need their employees to be motivated to produce works of high quality. Owners of small businesses may somehow find it hard to convey the ideology, on which the business was established, to its small number of employees. Thus it is particularly hard for these owners to implement certain methods to motivate employees. Researchers have been trying for quite some time now to find or develop appropriate methods of employee motivation. Offering incentives, providing training or having group meetings to know the demands and needs of the employees, these have been employed by many of the current organisations to keep their employees motivated (Lau and Roopnarain 2014). In recent times, to further help in this process, researchers and people of higher authorities have introduced profound and innovative methods to introduce a novice and attracting methodologies. Employee motivation usually brings out certain level of dedication, enthusiasm and even creativity among the employees (Zameer et al. 2014). This report is focused on these new methods of employee motivation such as hot-desking, letting employees occasionally work from home or introducing flexible arrangements to provide a better quality of life to the employees. Various scholarly articles are looked into and discussed in details throughout this report. The purpose of this report is to find the relevant motives for developing these novice methods for employee motivation.
In order to keep the employees motivated, various concepts, ideologies and policies have been introduced or implemented. Some of the most common and vital ones are discussed in this section of the report.
Hot desking is referred to an organisation process implemented in the offices which involves employees revolving in their work place or work station after a specified time span. This means none of the office workers have a personal work desk and they keep mobbing from one place to another (Smith and Armstrong 2016). The intentions behind such a methodology are to reduce a sense of monotonicity in the work environment. Apart from this, it is believed to reduce requirements of work space, which in turn, helps the company from a financial perspective. Especially in metropolitan cities, where the prices of properties are high, the need of space saving is essential for the company’s benefits. As to components of connection, it was found that distinctive work area courses of action methodically changed the essential medium of dynamic investment in authoritative life, with suggestions for the elements of mental striking nature (Kim et al. 2016). Specifically, work area task highlighted the apparent estimation of correspondence and, through this, was an intense indicator of group personality, while work areas which were not assigned complemented the apparent estimation of electronic correspondence and, through this, was an effective indicator of hierarchical character. Hot desking enables employees to work from different work stations. They need not be in the same desk; same floor or even in the same building in some cases. It invigorates fluidity as workers can work on their assigned tasks, from a place they feel comfortable in while having access to all the relevant and required facilities.
Till date workers were usually assigned a specific work place or work desk to be specific, the work customized that desk according to his or her choices. This typically includes sticking family pictures of bringing in a table lamp or pasting sticky notes on the walls and such activities (Brand 2016). As hot desking is involved with workers or employees moving around from desk to desk, there is n scope for the employees to customize their cubicles or desks according to their own preferences. This gives the work place an organised and clean outlook. All the desks look symmetrical in terms of organisation and cleanliness. Basically, hot desking urges the employees to clear out all the personal belongings and focus on their own works. However, some feel that it is helpful to have a homely feeling to increase the productivity of the workers. Thus, hot desking may not be suitable for many of those who would like to customise their work place. As a solution to this problem, organisations have introduced and urged employees to keep their personal belongings in the lockers provided by the organisations.
By enabling workers to work from various places, it provides the employees to get better acquainted with the co workers. This builds a healthy and friendly environment in the office which in turn boosts the moral of the employees to produce good quality works. It also helps employees to work with employees of different fields and specialities. This gives the workers a massive exposure. For instance, if a person working in the marketing team needs assistance of the finance or sales team for a period of time, that person can quickly relocate near the relevant people and complete the assigned task with their help. This makes association and alliance within an organisation a much eloquent process.
The process of hot desking grants the organisation to reduce the wastage of space that can be caused due to the long absence of the employees (Bullock, Stritch, and Rainey 2015). This allows the company to save space and consequently save costs. Hot desking also help the organisations to reduce the equipment costs and downsize their activities to more affordable places.
Through hot desking, employees have the flexibility of working from places that may be helpful in personal lives. For instance, a worker who needs to attend an event may choose to work in an office that is nearer to the place of event for that particular day. This is a huge benefit for any employee. With hot desking employees have the choice to move to around as per convenience.
‘Work from home’, as the name suggests, is a scheme that enables employees to work from their own homes. It has been a massive success in recent times, especially in the fields of content writing or jobs with similar demands of tasks. With such high advancement in technology, it is becoming comparatively easier to work from outside the office. Working from home provides the comfortable environment that any human understandably wants (Bloom 2014). Employees of this kind usually get paid on assignment basis. Surprisingly, this method or scheme has been in existence since the early nineteenth century. Usually the employee has to pay a certain amount to the employers initially which is considered as security deposits. There are various kinds of works that can be done from home For instance, assembling certain type of jewelleries or furniture. Packaging is also an essential part of jobs that require the employees to work from home (Bridgman 2016). Processing financial or professional documentations are also a common aspect of this job. However, this kind of employment involves a great scope for scamming and fraudulence. Thus both employers and employees have to be very careful while assigning or accepting tasks respectively (Schmid 2016). Cases of identity theft, social security issues or worse criminal activities have been reported in the past. However the prospects of this sort of job are ever growing and with digitalisation and introduction of high end innovative devices, it has opened the doors to various streams of works (Bortolotti, Boscari and Danese 2015). A few of the vital points are discussed below from the employer’s point of view. It is obvious that physical absence from a work field of respective organisation depends a lot on technological advancements and availability rather than communications that involve face to face interactions.
Overhead expenditures include, among others, labour charges, repairing costs, supply costs and travel expenditures as well. Organisations incorporating the work from home ideology have been seen to witness a significant reduction in their overhead expenditures. This contributes to the profit of the organisation. There is no need of providing the employees with supplies such as phone, desktop and other relevant materials (Bender and Arrocha 2017). Apart from this, as there is no need to have an office building. This means there is no need of electricity bills, phone bills including reduction in fax machine costs also. Thus the starting capital can be relatively much less.
Allowing the employees to have a flexible work hour from home, is a massive intensive for any employee. Working from home also has the potential to provide high level of job satisfaction and reduce the turnover (Giles 2015). This in turn keeps the employees motivated and dedicated towards the profession as well as o the organisation. Through long term experience, employees have a better understanding of the market prospects as well as the task. Gradually, the employees become accustomed to their preferred task and the turnover is further reduced with time.
With implementing the ‘work-from-home’ scheme, employers have the opportunity to employ a vast pool of employees. For instance, a disabled person would obviously like to work from home. Thus this scheme partly contributes to the upliftment of society as well. Disabled war veterans especially can build their own living hood through such schemes.
As mentioned above there is high occurrence of fraudulence and crimes of that sort in this business. Employees can produce not as per requirements or may not work for minimum number of hours need. It is the liability and duty of the employer to make sure that all the assigned workers are producing as per the requirements and in time. There is also a major cause of worry as far as communicating with the staffs are concerned. At times there are cases when the employee is not able to receive or simply refuses to accept calls or acknowledge emails. In such cases it is really problematic for the employers to covey important information to the employees.
The policy of open door refers to the work place etiquette where the managers, executives or directors leave their doors open to show and promote transparency at work. It brings a sense accessibility and equality at the work place. Even the feeling of assurance that one can talk to the people of much higher authority at any time serves a motivation for the employees. Employees are urged to meet or visit these officials at any point they feel necessary. This brings forth new ideas from the employees as well and serves the company in an effective way. This practice of keeping doors open is regarded as a morale booster for the employees. However there are certain disadvantages as well to this procedure. This policy requires the executives to be sympathetic and eager to listen to the employees. Unfortunately, there have been cases where this policy has been misused by the authorities. Instead of establishing alliance within the firm, managers have used this policy to make sure actions as guided by them are implemented and to put it in a simpler term, to keep an eye on the employees. For instance, executives have made sure the formation of any sort of union within the office is not taking place. Some of the advantages of using this policy are been discussed below.
Open door policy makes employees feel involved as there is feeling of assurance that the executives are there to support them in difficult situations. This makes the employees rely more on the executives and in turn helps in employee retention. Employee feel connected to the directors on an emotional basis and thus work loyalty also gets increased (Kecmanovic and Hall 2015). Employees feel safe to communicate with the managers. There is less scope of any misunderstandings or confusions as the employees can talk to the managers themselves directly. This policy gives an insight to the employees to the world of executives. This particularly helpful to the ambitious workers who strive to see themselves in such positions one day.
Just as the employees have the scope to communicate to the higher authorities at ease; it is beneficial for the employers or the managers as well. Managers can have a thorough understanding of the activities in the office and can interfere in such if felt necessary. Keeping the door open gives the managers the scope to see everyone working. On the other hand, to maintain a good reputation in front of the director, employees tend to stay focused on their tasks and show as much dedication as possible. This helps keep a professional and dedicated environment in the work place.
In previous days directors were someone all the employees used to fear. However, in today’s professional world, no stuff is prepared to work under such dominating circumstances. Thus the open door policy helps bridge that gap between the staff and the bosses. Employees feel motivated and work hard to maintain a certain level of work output. It urges them to meet the criterions set by the organisation and consequently this helps the organisation to provide a good quality work overall. To view it from the employer’s point of view, they need to be respectful to the thoughts and demands of the employees. Numerous innovative ideas are not implemented due to the lack of communication between the employees and the relevant authorities. Thus in an environment in which employees can freely convey their innovative ideas, ultimately the organisation will be on the benefitting side. Promoting new ideas from employees of lower levels will help the organisation in coming up with new inventions of strategies or aims.
In case this policy is poorly implemented, managers have to be on the receiving end of a lot of unnecessary and pointless conversations. This may be problematic as directors or executives have to accomplish a lot on their on a daily basis. Thus constant interruption and or distraction may lower the productivity of the managers. This consequently will have an adverse effect on the working environment of the entire work place. The procedure may make employees believe that they can approach the officials at any time with any issue. Since the policy suggests that they may seek guidance of the executives at any point of time, it might urge them to ask for help with every other issue which they could have solved themselves by asking co-workers or even by doing proper research. Apart from this, some managers may also not be comfortable with this policy or may be able to adapt to the idea.
Incentives can be offered through various forms to recognise the hard works of the employees and more importantly to make the employees feel recognised (Sen et al. 2017). All incentives are not of the same priority or have the equal amount of rewards; nonetheless every recognitions matter and the employees are usually motivated by it (Guan and Yam 2015). To have a better implication, necessary incentives need to be provided to relevant work fields.
Financial incentives are the most common and widely used form of incentives. It has been proved to be the most effective incentive (Giles et al. 2015). It is a primary need of any individual and receiving recognition through financial incentives works wonders (O’neil et al. 2016). Financial incentives can also be in various forms. For instance, stock options are common for the multinational corporate firms. The organisations give the employees a right to buy stocks at relatively less price. Companies also share a certain percentage of their profits with the employees depending on their contribution (Bolderdijk and Steg 2015). Higher the revenue of the company, better incentives can be earned by the employees. Thus it prompts the workers to work hard and earn more. Financial incentives can be distributed in terms of raises and bonuses as well.
Conclusion
In conclusion, organisations have been and still are employing various methods and arrangements with primary focus on keeping the employees motivated at work. This helps the organisation grow and produce good quality outputs. Policies such as hot-desking, work-from-home, open-door policy and providing incentives are discussed in detail in this report. Various aspects of these policies are also included. It is evident that keeping the employees enthusiastic and attracted towards the organisation and their own work helps the company develop as a whole. Job satisfaction is indeed a major criterion for any employee and through these policies, companies can provide that satisfaction and motivation. Each manager should recognise the motivation required for every individual worker. On the employee’s part, they should maintain proper etiquette and work ethics to contribute to the overall development of the company. With proper implementations of all the incentives and policies organisations have seen major boost in their development and expansion. Furthermore, this report concludes that motivations in terms of incentives and various policies should vary according to the employee’s age, gender and point of interest in the relevant working field. Directors or executives of organisations on their part should be willing to check on their employee’s demands and problems to construct better policies that would motivate the employees. Available documents have been well researched to find relevant information.
References
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Bloom, N., 2014. To raise productivity, let more employees work from home. Harvard business review, 92(1/2), pp.28-29.
Bolderdijk, J.W. and Steg, L., 2015. 21. Promoting sustainable consumption: the risks of using financial incentives. Handbook of research on sustainable consumption, pp.328-342.
Bortolotti, T., Boscari, S. and Danese, P., 2015. Successful lean implementation: Organizational culture and soft lean practices. International Journal of Production Economics, 160, pp.182-201.
Brand, J., 2016. Health and Productivity Effects of Hot Desks, Just-in-time Work Spaces, and Other Flexible Workplace Arrangements.
Bridgman, B., 2016. Home productivity. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 71, pp.60-76.
Bullock, J.B., Stritch, J.M. and Rainey, H.G., 2015. International comparison of public and private employees’ work motives, attitudes, and perceived rewards. Public Administration Review, 75(3), pp.479-489.
Giles, E.L., Robalino, S., Sniehotta, F.F., Adams, J. and McColl, E., 2015. Acceptability of financial incentives for encouraging uptake of healthy behaviours: A critical review using systematic methods. Preventive medicine, 73, pp.145-158.
Giles, E.L., Sniehotta, F.F., McColl, E. and Adams, J., 2015. Acceptability of financial incentives and penalties for encouraging uptake of healthy behaviours: focus groups. BMC public health, 15(1), p.58.
Guan, J. and Yam, R.C., 2015. Effects of government financial incentives on firms’ innovation performance in China: Evidences from Beijing in the 1990s. Research Policy, 44(1), pp.273-282.
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O’neil, B., Graves, A.J., Barocas, D.A., Chang, S.S., Penson, D.F. and Resnick, M.J., 2016. Doing more for more: Unintended consequences of financial incentives for oncology specialty care. JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 108(2).
Ristic, M.R., Selakovic, M. and Qureshi, T.M., 2017. Employee motivation strategies and creation of supportive work environment in societies of post-socialist transformation. Polish Journal of Management Studies, 15.
Schmid, C.T., 2016. Germany’s “Open-Door” Policy in Light of the Recent Refugee Crisis: An Interpretive Thematic Content Analysis of Possible Reasons and Underlying Motivations.
Sen, A.P., Huffman, D., Loewenstein, G., Asch, D.A., Kullgren, J.T. and Volpp, K.G., 2017. Do financial incentives reduce intrinsic motivation for weight loss? Evidence from two tests of crowding out.
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