VALUING EMPLOYEES AT WORK

‘People are your most valuable asset. Only people can be made to appreciate in value’.

Brian Tracy

INTRODUCTION

The success or otherwise of any business depends so much on the caliber of people that constitute its workforce. Employees are expected to be treated with utmost respect. Their voice on major decisions that affect or impact their job, welfare and productivity must count. They are not to be relegated to the background as having nothing spectacular to offer. Employees are the greatest asset that any prospective organisation could count on. How well are you treating your employees?

Nowadays most organisations are looking for total employee (an employee with the requisite skills, knowledge and attitude required to turn things around with minimum or no supervision). To achieve this aim they result to poaching but place little emphasis on making their present employees, total employees as well. Such an HR practice is often unsustainable. It’s not a crime to poach but it becomes an issue when organisations keep looking outside to fill every available position through poaching. One irreparable damage that poaching will do to your business is to make your succession planning strategy weak and ineffective and thus make your long time talent management goal solely dependent on the talents that are outside your organisation. The implication of this is that such practices can open up your organisation to external influence and culture capable of eroding its existing structure and culture and therefore jeopardize its long term growth and survival.

FACTORS DETERMINING EMPLOYEES EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS AT WORK

The capacity of your current workforce to function effectively and efficiently is a function of three interrelated variables. It’s a function of Ability (A), Motivation (M) and Opportunity (O).  Ep=f (A, M, O).  Ep stands for Employees performance at work.

Employees must have access to programmes that can give them the best of ability, motivation and opportunity. Ability focuses on employees job related skills, knowledge and attitude. This can be developed through training and retraining. Never joke with employees training and development. The motivation aspect has to do with empowering employees with can do and will do attitude. Despite haven gone through all kinds of trainings, employees may still fail to deliver if their needs are not met. The essence of motivation is to elicit employees’ commitment to work and organisation. This could be achieved through competitive remuneration, excellent welfare packages and opportunities for career growth and advancement. Employees must be given opportunities to exhibit their initiatives and make contribution towards achieving team and corporate goals. There must also be a merit driven career path to pave way for employees’ growth and advancement.

EMPLOYEES VALUING STRATEGIES

To develop the culture of valuing employees at work, try out these strategies.  

VERBAL PRAISE APPROACH

How best can we appreciate people for a job well done? By simply telling them, ‘Thank you’. Appreciating employees for a job well done should be the habit of all good managers, superiors and employers. Some employers find it so difficult appreciating a job well done. Their perception is that the employees are paid to do a good job. If you can condemn a bad job, you have no right overlooking a well done job. Learn to say a big thank you for a job well done.

Verbalizing appreciation gives employees a sense of belonging and ignite in them a can do and will do attitude. It costs you nothing as a superior, a manager or an employer to appreciate good performance verbally. Make the best use of it.

PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT APPROACH

If you believe that your employees are your greatest asset then develop them to become world class employees. You have no excuse for not developing your employees. All employees should have opportunities to learn, grow, develop and advance within the organisation. Identify employees training needs and meet them.

COMPETITIVE REWARD APPROACH

One way of showing how valuable your employees are, is how well you reward them. Your total remuneration package must not be below the industrial average. Your employees must be given a remuneration package that is good enough to take care of their needs. Failure to reward them adequately could make your organisation a stepping stone for people looking for a place to start their career growth. They’ll move elsewhere when you need them the most. Are you sure your employees are your greatest asset? Then reward them adequately. Teams and individuals should also be rewarded for achieving laudable feats.

THE WORKPLACE FAMILY CULTURE APPROACH

The problem with most business organisations is the adherent to a strict and rigid formal relationship at work. In most organisations employees don’t really have any relationship or networking opportunities at work. All relationship begins and ends at work. Employees are not closely knitted and they have nothing in common. Develop an encompassing culture that can encourage all your employees to see themselves as a member of one big happy family.

Encourage all employees to take invitation to attend social gatherings and programmes such as naming, marriage and burial ceremonies coming from any other member with all seriousness. Such an event must be attended as a team, provided it does not affect other official assignments.

EMPLOYER OF CHOICE APPROACH

The recruitment of labour must be done strictly by matching organisational values and culture with the job applicant’s skills, knowledge and capability.  Employers must also do everything possible to make their company an employer of choice. An employer that potential employees are willing and ready to work for at all times. An organisation whose employees can boldly associate with and even recommend to others. To be an employer of choice the companies must obey the law of the land, pay their taxes as at when due and must be involved in corporate social responsibility.

As an employer, your people don’t count until you value them and also do everything possible to become an employer of choice. If you’re important, your employees are important as well.

CONCLUSION

The more you value your employees, the more productive they become and the more profitable your organisation will be.

REFERENCES:

Armstrong, M (2003). A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 9^th edn, Kogan Page, London.

Capelli, P (2000). A market-driven approach to retaining talent, Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb, pp 103-111.

Philip Stiles, Jonathan Trevor, Jaap Paauwe, Elaine Farndale, Patrick Wright, Shad Morris, Guenter Stahl, Ingmar Bjorkman (2006).  Best practice and key themes in global human

resourcet: project report. http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/research/centres/cihrm/downloads/ghrra_report.pdf.

 About the author

Ajiboro Ayodeji is a Chartered HR Practitioner based in Lagos, Nigeria. Tel: 2348027807452. Email: hutrenconsulting@gmail.com.

               

               

BENEFITS OF EMPLOYEE TRAINING

‘The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who could not read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.’

ALVIN TOFFLER.

INTRODUCTION

Many organisations are afraid of investing extensively on their employees’ training and development due to the fear of being poached. Some organisations are also of the view that training employees add value to the employees more than it does to the organisation. In some business organisations, investment in employees’ training and development are seen as a waste because of the believe that a trained employee could call it quit with the organisation at a time the organisation is yet to derive the full benefit of training and development investment on such an employee.

DEFINITION OF TRAINING

Training is a systematic development of knowledge, skills and attitudes required by employees to perform adequately on a given task or job (Abiodun, 1999). The quality of employees’ job performance is a function of their knowledge, skills and attitudes. If the requisite skills, knowledge and attitudes needed for optimal job performance are not possessed by employees, poor job quality is inevitable. To be productive and profitable an organisation must be staffed by competent individuals. This competency can only be

guaranteed through training and retraining of employees.

One thing that employers need to understand is the fact that training, if well designed and carefully implemented, could serve as a useful strategy for employee retention. The fear of losing employee to the competitors should never be a reason for failure to invest in training and development as an employer.

BENEFITS OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

There are so many benefits accrued from investment in training and development of employees at work. Some of these benefits are listed below.

·         Improved employees’ morale and job quality.

·         Increased productivity.

·         Development of new skills, knowledge and attitudes.

·         Training addresses obsolescence in skills, products, production process and   

            production method.

·         It reduces waste and cost by reducing the rate of accident, turnover and

absenteeism.

·         It aids smooth succession planning strategy.

·         Training ensures correct usage of new tools, machines and methods.

·         Organizational growth and survival.

FACTORS TO BE CONSIDERED IN DESIGNING TRAINING PROGRAMME

Getting optimal return from investment in training and development of employees requires laying emphasis on the major determinants of the success or failure of any training and development effort.

The factors determining the success or failure of employees training and development must be put into consideration when designing and implementing employees training and development programs.

Those factors to be considered in designing and implementing training and development programs are:

·         the training needs

·         the training objective

·          number of people to be trained

·         appropriate training method and format

·         optimal training duration

·         most conducive training venue or location

·         measurement of training effectiveness, and

·         ascertaining trainees’ reaction to the training efforts.

TRAINING METHODS

There are so many ways of delivering or achieving training and development objectives of an organisation. Employees training and development could be achieved through the following means:

·         mentoring

·         apprenticeship

·         business game and case studies

·         self directed learning

·         cd’s and DVD

·         cd-rom

·         intranet

·         team training

·         action learning

·         adventure learning

·         audio visual techniques

·         on the job training

·         distance learning

·         internal training courses

·         external training, seminar and workshops

·         secondment and job deputation

·         interactive video

·         internet and e-learning

·         Job-swap, etc.

CONCLUSION

The returns on employees training and development far outweigh the investment; therefore employers should see investment in training and development as investment in organisational growth and development.

REFERENCES:

Abiodun, E.J.A. (1999) Human Resources management, an overview. Concept Publication,

Shomolu, Lagos. P. 110-121.

Olaniyan D.A, Ojo L.B (2008) Staff Training and Development: A Vital Tool for Organisational Effectiveness. European Journal of Scientific Research.Vol.24 No.3, pp.326-331.

About the Author

Ajiboro Ayodeji is a Chartered HR Practitioner based in Lagos, Nigeria. Email: hutrenconsulting@gmail.com. Tel: 2348027807452.