BUSM1162 Managing People Assignment Sample

• Subject Code : BUSM1162
• University : RMIT University My Assignment Services is not sponsored or endorsed by this college or university.
• Subject Name : Management

Executive Summary

The purpose of this study was to understand the managerial behaviors and their impact on employee engagement that can eventually impact the performance of the organization. This paper aimed at identifying various factors and issues contributing to employee engagement. Moreover, it provided an understanding related to the significance of engaging employees in the organization. The literature review was carried out with the help of various scholarly articles and books. Based on the findings gathered with the help of a literature review, some recommendations have been given that can improve employee engagement practices by the managers in the organization.

Contents

Executive summary

Introduction 

Literature review 

Managerial behaviours

Leadership

Rewards and recognition

Establishing a bond between employees and manager

Communication

Establishment of Culture

Issues

Handling conflicts

Erratic expectations

Favouritism

Micromanagement

Findings

Recommendations/Solutions

Conclusion

References

Introduction

The existence of the corporate industries usually depends on proliferating profits from the capabilities that already exist while adjusting and identifying with the reality that what may function today may not essentially work tomorrow. To make and maintain the companies, the leaders of those companies must take efforts in engaging their employees (Albrecht et al., 2015). However, there are times when the managers or leaders may have to struggle in adapting to organizational change if they tend to restrict their concentration on the existing processes and products. It is highly significant for the managers to understand how to maintain the balance between adopting innovations, enhancing short-term profits, and employee relations along with making certain a feasible future for the organization.

Moreover, the implementation of advanced technologies, best practices, skilled labour, and education has been helpful for huge businesses in improving efficiency. However, employees who are disengaged having lower productivity can have a drastic impact on the financial performances of the organizations leading to the financial meltdown. Therefore, it can be said that the longevity of any organization gets affected by the employee engagement that can be considered as one of the factors for the financial improvement of the organization.

This report is going to discuss various managerial behaviours that can contribute to employee engagement in modern organizations. Further, there will be a discussion on the managerial issues causing disengagement of employees. It will provide some recommendations according to the findings gathered from the literature review.

Literature Review

Employee engagement has been considered to be the indistinct and young construct in the organization. However, it cannot be regarded as a well-defined construct according to several authors. According to Ghosh Sinha (2014), engagement is divided into rational as well as emotional engagement. Rational engagement is a kind of engagement wherein employees tend to believe that the organization, managers, and team consist of self-interest within the mind whereas emotional engagement implies to the level to which the employees of any organization value, believe, and enjoy in their jobs, teams, managers, and organizations. Guest (2014) defines engagement in terms of the ability and willingness of employees in contributing to the success of the organization.

The concept of engagement is made up of various psychological states such as attachment, involvement, mood, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction (Bhuvanaiah et al., 2014). Additionally, affectivity can also be considered to be highly associated with engagement. Moreover, management behaviour tends to restrain the relationship between organizational outcomes and engagement and hence can impact employee behaviour. Bailey et al. (2017) stated in their research that, every manager must try to involve for their subordinates to be engaged. Additionally, Wickramasinghe & Perera (2014), suggested, that the management essentially be customer-focused, effectively communicate and consider the well-being of the employees as a priority for producing engaged employees due to fact that they have built “trust”. Apart from this, engagement can also be related by certain organizational variables such as human resources, values, policies, technology, and culture that are responsible for facilitating the perception of practical justice.

Popli Rizvi (2016), argued, a major variable driving all the outcomes of the organization is human behaviour: if the practices, processes, and systems of the management are not structured based on the identified facts about behaviour, then none of the organization can anticipate for establishing a workplace wherein the entire workforce incessantly offer their best.

Managerial Behaviours

Various actions of the management that are responsible for creating “engaged” employees in the organization can be illustrated from the perspective of organizational behaviour management and implemented with the help of intervention (Aninkan et al., 2014). The research of organizational behaviour management is completely empirically examined communication tools that include task classification, goal setting, checklists, and explicit rules.

Moreover, it is often believed that commitment of senior management and leaders is not significant for everyday business activities and forming attainable goals but also for high engagement, trust, and commitment. Kuntz & Roberts (2014), in their study, found that, when employees are confident about their manager, they are numerous times more likely to feel committed and engaged. Moreover, when the managers are trusted by the employees, these employees also trust on terms that the treatment from their manager’s side would be fair and respectful. The result of this trust is such that the employees try to put up all their energy and relevant skills into their assigned tasks.

Leadership

Soane (2014), mentioned in the study that authentic leaders influence employee engagement. The balance between moral perspectives and interpersonal relationships result in the establishment of a healthy employee-leadership relationship. Moreover, effective leadership can offer direction and vision for the development of the employees. The ability of effective communication for leadership is the base for employee engagement. The appreciation from the manager can prove to be effective twice at motivating and inspiring employees as appreciation can be considered to be the single greatest predictor for employee commitment.

Rewards and Recognition

Osborne & Hammoud (2017), indicated that the leaders must play a significant role in the implementation of incentives for engaging employees. According to Bridger (2014), recognition can be considered to be critical to the operation and culture in the workplace that can affect workforce engagement. Furthermore, recognition and rewards can have a tremendous impact on the performance of the employees and can be regarded as a form of influential feedback. The requirement for autonomy, influence, and intrinsic rewards are much needed for accomplishing employee engagement. Recognition and competency are promoted when the employees are provided with the opportunity by their leaders to communicate the issues being experienced by them or give input based on the operations within the organization.

Establishing a Bond Between Employees and Manager

Managers play an influential role in enhancing employee engagement. It has been proven that leaders are the ones who can influence and motivate their subordinates through the demonstration of explicit values and also by promoting positive teamwork in a satisfying manner (Madan & Srivastava, 2015). When the relationship between the employees and management is strong it can build a healthy team environment thereby lead to improved productivity and job satisfaction. The engaged employees would have high performance and hence positively affect the entire organizational performance (Ariani, 2014).

Communication

Communication is considered to be a significant aspect in establishing employee engagement. Nasomboon (2014), indicated that every manager must be a good listener since they are authoritative. Moreover, communication when effective can be regarded as imperative in meeting the goals of the organization. The positive bond between the employees and a manager improves with effective communication. Moreover, the communication process offers employees to provide feedback to the manager so that with the help of these insights various strategies can be implemented to enhance employee engagement resulting in improved profits. It is also indicated that while giving feedback to the team members, managers must behave positively as it can be beneficial in improving the relationship between him and the entire team members.

Establishment of Culture

Organizational culture when positive can facilitate a competitive work environment as well as incessant improvements. Hence, a generative organizational culture needs to be fostered by a manager that can result in encouraging growth and development for themselves as well as employees. Osborne & Hammoud (2017), implied the culture of an organization include core values, observed norms, and beliefs of its leader. Osborne & Hammoud (2017), suggested an organization if effective would use diversity for having authenticity with the customer base but also uses the diverse environment of the employee for increasing cultural awareness as well as appreciation. A culture or environment must be created by the manager wherein every single employee should feel engaged and appreciated. Therefore, the manager must cultivate a kind of workplace culture wherein every member of the team should be valued and appreciated for their exceptional contributions since this type of bond can invoke them to accomplish their greatest potential.

Issues

If the employees seem to be less eager at the workplace then there must be some issue related to the engagement. Before combating the cause for poor or low engagement, every manager must understand the root cause of those issues.

Handling Conflicts

One of the most challenging aspects of management as well as leadership is to handle conflict and have ‘courageous conversations’. Shifting from a collective method towards individual-centred needs well-developed people management and communication skills.

Erratic Expectations

Managers must be consistent with their expectations to their team members and those should be clear, realistic, and concise. However, sometimes a manager is lenient and the other becomes tough with their employees. The lack of predictable expectations can lead to a disengaged employee as they may lack awareness of how to determine the order for applying their efforts (Geldenhuys et al., 2014). Therefore such kind of response results in employee disengagement.

Favouritism

There are times when the manager would provide a distinct retort for the same behaviour coming from different team members maybe because of personality preferences. Responses when inconsistent by a manager would build an unfair environment that can be regarded as the real damage to employee engagement.

Micromanagement

This is one of the most challenging areas specifically with those having a high requirement for control as they tend to struggle with micromanagement. Such employees may have a feeling that their manager does not have trust in them and doubt their ability to perform the job effectively.

Findings

Authentic leaders are capable of influencing employee engagement in an organization. The managers must put the effort in engaging employees to maintain the profitability of the organization. According to the literature review, it has been found that employee engagement can be considered as a byproduct of managers or leaders having direct bonding or relationship with the employees. Moreover, the findings indicate that the bond between the manager and employees is one of the most vital elements that can be used to engage employees that can eventually lead to the enhanced profitability of the company. Carasco-Saul, Kim & Kim, (2015) suggested that firms must look for leaders or managers who are capable of communicating the vision of the organization along with the support of the employee in accomplishing the goals of the organization. As per the findings, communication and rewards and recognition are the two behaviours that can be considered as the vital elements while managing people.

Communication business managers are required to know and understand the need for intrinsic rewards, autonomy, and influence for achieving employee engagement. Based on the findings through this research, communication can be regarded as the central part to increase engagement which can be done by placing a comprehensive communication strategy between leaders and employees. There is a need for centralized communication which is often referred to as internal communication. Moreover, one-to-one communication has a significant role to play in the interaction between managers and employees for solving any kind of issue. Centralized communication is about the communication of mission, vision, targets, and strategies by the organization. Managers must make sure that every message is conveyed incessantly to all the team members (Kang & Sung, 2017).

On the other, the findings indicate the importance of reward and recognition which shows that to be an effective manager at the workplace, a person needs to understand the significance of praising the employees. Appreciation can be considered as the fundamental need of every human. Employees responding to the appreciation articulated in terms of recognition of their performance at the workplace indicate that they have been valued for their work by their manager (Koskey & Sakataka, 2015), when employees are recognized for their work, their productivity, confidence, and satisfaction rises. This leads to the motivation of the employees so that they can maintain and improve their excellent performance. The findings show that rewards and recognition play an important role in an exceptional workplace. Employees want to be valued and respected by their managers for their contribution. Moreover, managers are required to have coaching and reinforcement. This way they can help in increasing productivity both at an individual level as well as organizational level along with greater satisfaction in employees.

Recommendations/Solutions

Based on the findings, some pragmatic actions have been recommended. The first recommended solution is communication; firms can benefit by paying extra attention to rewards and recognition, building a relationship between managers and employees as one of their strategic objectives and employee empowerment. The increasing level of the employees who are disengaged can significantly impact the profitability of the organization, employee citizenship, and the capability of retaining skilled employees.

The second recommendation would be utilizing the capability of the management in leveraging the strategies of employee engagement within the organization. Implementing effective strategies of employee engagement can be useful for business leaders to successfully engage the employees that can ultimately lead to profitability sustenance. Bringing improvements in employee engagement will have a positive effect on the job performance of the employee as well as organizational profitability (Bedarkar & Pandita, 2014). There is a requirement for leadership support and focus on improving employee engagement is crucial.

The third recommendation would be the managers could be benefitted by taking into consideration the findings of the study that contribute to the improvement of business practices along with the positivity in social change. Supported by Georgiades (2015), and as illustrated in the findings that every leader must understand the importance of organizational profitability and employee engagement also that investment must be made to enhance the strategies related to employee engagement.

The last recommendation would be that the managers must use the findings if the study to build leadership strategies leading to the rise of job performance and employee engagement. In this respect, quarterly surveys could be conducted by business managers with employees for the development of better understanding related to the expectations of the employee. There should also be strategies related to tracking and monitoring employee engagement of an organization along with its competitors which can also be advantageous in planning for the implementation of effective employee engagement strategies.

Conclusion

The study can be concluded by mentioning that the significance of the role of managers is usually underestimated. They are the ones who hold up the vision, manage disputes, reinforce essential messages, and bring people closer to uncover questions and concerns. Apart from this, the managers are hugely responsible for model attitudes as well as actions that can be helpful for the employees to have the desired future. Disengagement can be a serious reason for concern for the organization. Therefore, the managers or leaders of the company must work to engage their employees so that the performance, productivity, and profitability could be maintained.

References

Aninkan, D. O., & Oyewole, A. A. (2014). The influence of individual and organizational factors on employee engagement. International Journal of Development and Sustainability, 3(6), 1381-1392.

Anitha, J. (2014). Determinants of employee engagement and their impact on employee performance. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management.

Ariani, D. W. (2014). Relationship leadership, employee engagement, and organizational citizenship behavior. International Journal of Business and Social Research, 4(8), 74-90.

Bailey, C., Madden, A., Alfes, K., & Fletcher, L. (2017). The meaning, antecedents and outcomes of employee engagement: A narrative synthesis. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(1), 31-53.

Bedarkar, M., & Pandita, D. (2014). A study on the drivers of employee engagement impacting employee performance. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 133, 106-115.

Bhuvanaiah, T., & Raya, R. P. (2014). Employee engagement: Key to organizational success. SCMS Journal of Indian Management, 11(4), 61.

Bridger, E. (2014). Employee engagement (Vol. 10). Kogan Page Publishers.

Carasco-Saul, M., Kim, W., & Kim, T. (2015). Leadership and employee engagement: Proposing research agendas through a review of literature. Human Resource Development Review, 14(1), 38-63.

Geldenhuys, M., Laba, K., & Venter, C. M. (2014). Meaningful work, work engagement and organisational commitment. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 40(1), 01-10.

Georgiades, S. (2015). Employee engagement and organizational change. In Employee Engagement in Media Management (pp. 9-37). Springer, Cham.

Ghosh, P., Rai, A., & Sinha, A. (2014). Organizational justice and employee engagement. Personnel Review.

Guest, D. (2014). Employee engagement: a sceptical analysis. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance.

Kang, M., & Sung, M. (2017). How symmetrical employee communication leads to employee engagement and positive employee communication behaviors. Journal of Communication Management.

Koskey, A. K., & Sakataka, W. (2015). Effect of reward on employee engagement and commitment at Rift Valley Bottlers Company. International Academic Journal of Human Resource and Business Administration, 1(5), 36-54.

Kuntz, J., & Roberts, A. (2014). Engagement and identification. Strategic Outsourcing: An International Journal.

Madan, P., & Srivastava, S. (2015). Employee Engagement, Job Satisfaction and Demographic Relationship: An Empirical Study of Private Sector Bank Managers. FIIB Business Review, 4(2), 53-62.

Nasomboon, B. (2014). The relationship among leadership commitment, organizational performance, and employee engagement. International Business Research, 7(9), 77.

Osborne, S., & Hammoud, M. S. (2017). Effective employee engagement in the workplace. International Journal of Applied Management and Technology, 16(1), 4.

Popli, S., & Rizvi, I. A. (2016). Drivers of employee engagement: The role of leadership style. Global Business Review, 17(4), 965-979.

Soane, E. (2014). Leadership and employee engagement. Employee Engagement in Theory and Practice, 149-162.

Wickramasinghe, V., & Perera, S. (2014). Effects of perceived organisation support, employee engagement and organisation citizenship behaviour on quality performance. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 25(11-12), 1280-1294.

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