Introduction

 

The human resources are one of the most important resources of the company where studies have shown that they are competitive advantage when managed effectively. Well trained and highly skilled employees are the means of the company to be able to meet their goals. Likewise, today many companies not only work hard to in hiring the most appropriate candidates for the job but also maintaining the retaining policies and management to ensure that the employees are happy and motivated to work in the organization (Patterson, Warr and West 2004). However, many times organizations have seen that there are problems found in managing the employees at the organization this leads to increase in the absenteeism and employee turnover which eventually costs the organization. The production quality and profitability is also impacted. In an organisation human resource covers wider range of activities.

The following report looks into the different factors that affect the productivity of the organization related to the employees. This report content has been researched from the internet.

Communication practices

The business communication is one of the most integral parts of the successful function between the employees, the managers and other stakeholders. It is important that communication has to be effective in order to succeed. There are many benefits of effective communication. Communication is the key in any relationship to succeed. Likewise, for business to succeed it is important that there is effective communication that allows the employees to interact with each other. In order for the employees to understand what is expected out of them, it is important for them to establish better communication process (Patterson, Warr and West 2004).

In today’s, multicultural organizations it has become essential that the communication is done effectively that not only allows people from different background to understand each other but most of all it reduces the barriers and the distances between the diversity in the employees. Therefore, it bridges the gap between people of different cultures and backgrounds.

When clear instructions are given to the employees, the employee is also able to give his / her feedback allowing the management to respond, hence is an example of effective communication within the different hierarchical employees. Thus, this allows to boost the employee morale as the employees are fully aware what is expected out of them furthermore, they become clearer with other employees and the management. The employees are also able to get their work feedback. This increases the employee’s satisfaction level as they are aware of how well they are working (Patterson, Warr and West 2004).

Many organizations have training sessions such as seminars or training days on the effective communication. This allows the employees understand the importance of the effective communication. Furthermore, today organizations are using the latest information technology and telecommunications to have the most effective means of communication where messages are transported in a blink of an eye whether in short distances and long distances (Patterson, Warr and West 2004).

Furthermore, there are legislation on the communication where there are company policies regarding how to improve and manage effective communication. This includes where employees are given their personal mobile phones or laptops. They are asked to keep in contact at all times. In addition, the business environment requires open communication policy where there are freely official and informal communications between employees (Patterson, Warr and West 2004). Moreover, there should also be no bully or offences communication allowed in the organization where each employee should be respected regardless of their background.

There are different organizational structures that impact the communication effectiveness. In a longer and narrow organizational structure where there are many hierarchical layers the communication is a tedious job where there are many barriers. It is difficult for a lower level employee to communicate with an upper level manager. However, when there is a flatter organizational structure, the communication is easier where employees can freely and easily communicate with top management (Egan, Yang and Bartlett 2004).

In general, effective communication in an organisation is pivotal to increased productivity since it has a direct impact to the behaviours of staffs as well as how they perform. Effective communication tends to provide clear instruction from the managers to the employees. Clear instructions do play an essential role in ensuring that things get done with a way that increased the firm productivity (Patterson, Warr and West 2004).

On the other hand, poor communication in an organisation may affect the work production since staffs may not receive the required information that would complete the assigned tasks. This may be the case since employees would forget mentioning significant information which may result to delays in completion of certain projects or result to errors. Capacity to practice communication among the employees would improve the level of understanding a factor that would elevate the efficiency and productivity. Such aspect tends to strengthen the organisation internally and externally (Gelade and Ivery 2003).

Generally, communication is said to be effective of the receiver will be able to understand the message being conveyed in a manner the sender want. The receiver is able to confirm this by being able to let the sender understand that message was received via the right medium and on time. According to research, it was found that, businesses that have capacity of communicating with the staffs have higher chances of experiencing lower labour turnover.

Hence, time has to be interlinked with aspect of time management since it assists the project team to be able to complete tasks assigned on time basis. Using the aspect of time management in a firm tends to pave ways for better and effective communication among the employees which is ultimately significant to the organisation. For example, if a manager is able to communicate for certain project to distracted staffs and offer schedule of working, employees have chances of working effectively. Chances are that, work will be completed on time since goals have been well set for the employees to achieve within a set period of time. Organisation managers must ensure that communication is a requirement as well as listen to the enquiries in regard to the project and ensure there is no room for errors. This is one of the best way in which an organisation may improve on its communication (Saks 2006).

As well, it is advisable for an organisation to divide time with well organised breaks between work despite having a tight schedule since time management do require equal spare time and work time for the employees. In this case, time management will be an anchor of an organisation since wasted time may cause the company to face distress. In addition, time management tends to have a thin line between mediocre and successful firm. As well, time management tends to have significant benefits since it act as a junction that create refined workplace for satisfied staffs. Capacity to work under a well planned time schedule with proper time management offers an organisation controls over available tasks which assist employees to concentrate on necessary opportunities while focusing on expected hurdles (Liao and Chuang 2004).

Teamwork

There are many benefits of the teamwork. Firstly, the teamwork allows the team members to synergies their skills and positive attributes to work on a project. This means that people who acquire different skills can work together to achieve a goal. It is necessary to understand that teams work together for a given goal. Therefore, the more diversified skilled the team members are the more opportunity for the goal to be met easily through each member putting their skills into the work. Secondly, achieving the goal is much faster than the working individually. When there are large projects, there is a need for teams to work on them so that the work is equally divided among the team members and is manageable for all to complete in a timely basis. Meeting deadlines in organizations is important; therefore, together the team members can work efficiently to complete the work on time. Therefore, it is possible to complete large projects on time when working in teams. Thirdly, when working in teams one can explore new ideas and means of creativity to achieve the goals. There are more than one person thinking over how to achieve the goals. The team members give their creative ideas and this helps in becoming innovative (Shalley, Gilson and Blum 2000).

There are also benefits for the individuals to be working in teams. Firstly, the employee learns a lot from its team members whether about the new skills or being creative. Secondly, it improves the employee’s ability to work in a team. In today’s dynamic organizations it has become essential that employees have the ability to work in teams. Thirdly, it improves the communication skills of the employees where the team members are diverse the employee learns to talk and communicate with them easily. Lastly, it enhances the problem solving ability of the employee as together the team member’s work towards solving any problems that are seen while achieving the goals (Chiok Foong Loke 2001).

However, not every time a team would be able to meet it objectives on time or even fail to meet its objectives. There are many reasons for that. Firstly, the communication and understanding between the team members is essential. If the team members do not work together and understand each other there will be problems. The lack of communication many times leads the team members confused as what is expected out of them. Secondly, any disputes among the team members again can fail to achieve the objective because then the work and productivity is hindered as people try to solve their disputes (Shalley, Gilson and Blum 2000). Thirdly, when the goal is not clearly set, problems arise then as well. There is confusion what should be achieved by the given time period. Lastly, the lack of leadership in the team would also make it difficult for team members to work efficiently. A leader not only supervises but also guides the team members if they are following the right path to meet the objectives (Rogg et al 2001).

There are different leadership styles that have various impacts on the team work. Firstly, the autocratic leadership style is where all the decisions are made centrally by the leader. This is a common leadership style found in a bureaucratic company. However, in a team it may be difficult to manage when the leadership style is autocratic (Chiok Foong Loke 2001). It leaves little room for creative and freedom for the team members to do their work according to the way they want. On the other hand, the democratic leadership style is more lenient leadership where decision making is not solely the responsibility of the leader but also the team members give their say into it. This is a more common leadership style that we see today in most team work and in companies (Shalley, Gilson and Blum 2000). This allows the creativity and new idea generation to arise helping to come up with problem solving techniques and other ways to meet the objectives (Patterson et al 2005).

A large challenge for organisation nowadays relates to the process of delivering quick and flexible new products and services with an aim to respond to the greater demand of the customers. However, aspect of standardization and specialisation do characterise the traditional work organisation where work was dividend to various segments ranging from the preparation to the support. All the roles are played by employees and they are expected to maximize productivity (Chiok Foong Loke 2001). For a high performing workplace, there is the need to focus on the increased individual influence to the business and impact to the processes, physical environment, techniques, technologies and tools that enhance the work. In general, high performing workplace does invest in its human resource with support of technical and innovation skills of the employees. In general, the need of having a new form of work organisation has a good base for the high performance workplaces. Such organisation is considered as a core element and integral to the firm success (Shalley, Gilson and Blum 2000).

However, team work in an organisation needs to be considered as a core element of new work organisation. There are different forms that can be distinguished and do not have the same consequences. Wider differences do emerge among the various forms of new work organisation that are well developed in different countries. In case of a dynamic company organisation, team work is considered as part of various elements that impact organisation changes (Chiok Foong Loke 2001). However, teamwork tends to be an important factor since it has direct effect to the employees as well as the quality of workplace. Hence, this is the main reason to why it is considered as the progressive instruments within the current organisation practices. In most case, the work performance of team tends to be higher when compared to the individual performance especially when tasks do require broad scope of judgement, opinion and knowledge (Eby, et al 2000).

Mainly, advantage of team work tends to have crucial productivity growth in the aspect that it does require creative ways of dealing with various tasks, high degree of adaptation and operation management. As well, teamwork is able to create a good environment that does facilitate aspect of knowledge and exchange of information well referred to as knowledge sharing process. Other merits associated with teamwork are capacity of forming new work organisations with an aim to alleviate the potentiality of innovations adding values to the services and products and moving to lesser price sensitive markets. In addition, the new form of work organisation have capacity of alleviating employability process of the staffs via aspect of multi-skilling and acquisition of high competency when it comes to problem solving, team working and communication. Teamwork has chances of causing job autonomy, high job satisfaction, and great employee responsibilities among others.

Remote working

The remote working is the new type of employment where the employee does not communicate with the central organization rather works in isolation. The remote working is also called telecommuting. Many times it is work from home basis where employees are given jobs to be completed by a certain time limit. In the recent years, the concept of work life balance has led to the popularity of the remote working. There are many benefits of remote working as well. The remote workers are less stressed as they do not have to work on a stretch nine hours as it is designated in the organization (Chiok Foong Loke 2001). Rather the remote worker can work according to their content and availability as long as the objectives are met. The remote workers are not completely working in isolation, in reality they are well connected where they communicate through the information technology such as video conferencing and cloud project management and so on. The remote workers are less costly; this means their wages are much lesser than a regular employee. This allows the company to cut down on costs and get the work done accordingly. There is less stress over the absenteeism because the employees are working from their homes and the management is aware of their work progress.

This allows flexibility for the employees and increases the motivation and satisfaction levels for the employee. Since the employees are motivated they are also happier hence their productivity also improves. Furthermore, the agile work environment also creates new jobs as the company is flexible coming up with new projects. There is less stress for employees as they do not have to through the commuting to the office in rush hour. They can easily relax and work from home with less hassle (Brynjolfsson and Hitt 2000).

The most appropriate leadership style in the remote working environment is the laissez faire where there is minimal control over the employees and the giving greater freedom to the employees to achieve their goals. The leaders only supervise the employees but giving them their freedom to complete the task. This is the most feasible of the leadership styles in the remote working as it allows maximum control over the work by the employees.

Remote working is commonly being found in information technology companies. Likewise, in Ireland the IBM office also have several remote workers who are young mother’s software engineers and are working from home. This allows the company not only to accommodate the need of the young mother but she is also able to complete her job without much stress over the child minding services and so on (Patterson, Warr and West 2004).

Companies have to accept the fact that, workplaces design is changing and the workplace has to keep on changing and cope with the changes. According to report on the changing workplaces, four areas of change were noted the source of driving the need for flexibility in organisations:

New technology: in this phase, the aspect of communication has transformed the entire business landscape where individuals and entire departments are allowed to work in remote areas. This has assisted in eradicating the barriers associated with international collaboration and eradicating such barriers requires traditional workplace. As well, aspect of technology has driven various changes within the organisation hierarchy where working has been team based and not line managed. As well, this has created aspect of meritocracy where young workers are able to achieve skills and time reserved (Patterson, Warr and West 2004).
New society value: within the current workplaces, they have become more democratic with two more ways, mature relation as well as employees having greater independence hence becoming proactive
Changing demographic: some organisations are capable of seeing to five generations within the workplace in their first time ever. Flexibility in the workplace as well as work practices tends to be significant since it accommodate various cultures
Globalisation: this aspect has been fostered by technology where the world has been accessible where suppliers and customers are capable of working across various nation and different time zones. Due to such demand, implementing a traditional 9-5 pattern cannot be successful (Mowday, Porter and Steers 2013).

Capacity to accommodate such flexible working practice in an organisation, offices must be adaptable. As well, part time and the remote staffs must feel being welcomed and as part of the entire team. For the full time based staffs, technology has eradicated the need of being rooted within the same spot in all days (Patterson, Warr and West 2004). Utilizing hubs, quiet zones, meting spaces, as well as use of laptops, phones and tablets would assist in driving the new, proactive and collaborative workplace which may push up productivity. For instance, such new agile working techniques have been accepted and put in practice by companies such as Uniliver, Google and BT. Such companies have been valuing their measurable impacts on recruitments and retention of best employees. Conversely, changes are inevitable and successful workplace design and flexible employment practices tends to help organisations and workplace to clinch greater opportunities brought forth (Bock and Kim 2001).

Support structures

The human resource department plays an integral role in supporting the employees. The first step that the human resource department should take is to develop policies that would ensure that employees are happy and motivated to work in the organization. This includes developing retaining policies and also giving fair payment, equal treatment and so on. Secondly, the human resource department should have fair policies about the wages where employees of same designation should be given the same wages. There should be no biases when it comes to promotions or rewards giving rather there should be an unbiased system where employees are promoted or given rewards solely on the basis of their work quality.

Therefore, there should be policies developed for the recruitment where there is fair recruiting process allowing the best candidates to be chosen for the job. There should be honest and transparent promotion and reward systems that would motivate the employees to work harder and strive for them. There should be fair policies where all individuals are treated equally and only due to one’s work quality one is discriminated. The environment should be friendly and no bullying or other negative communication should be seen in the organization. This again can hinder the work quality. All these policies should be implemented in order for the employees to work efficiently (Boselie, Paauwe and Jansen 2001).

Recommendations

The following are the recommendations for employees and the management:

There should be elaborate human resource policies that would provide the support system for the employees. Therefore, the employees are aware that they have the support of the organization and are not intimidated by the organization system.
Communication is vital for the company to work effectively. The latest technology should be used for communication. Furthermore, there should be some more comprehensive communication systems where employees communicate on formal and informal grounds.
Team work should be conducted in organizations, however, the factors that lead to failure in meeting objectives should be looked upon and worked to eradicate.

Conclusion

Raising employee productivity level has been a pressing issue that many organisations are facing. However, there are believes that, productivity improvement may be achieved via significant reforms in core areas of employee relation. In fact, changes are necessary for the organisation and the structure to ensure they work in a better way that ensure employees are trained, well remunerates and motivated. In addition, there are arguments that such changes cannot be easily separated from the overhaul needs of firm system. Capacity to maintain employees’ relations within an organisation tends to be pre-requisite for the firm success. Sturdy employee relations may be essential for organisation high productivity as well as human resource satisfaction. In generally, employees relations has to del mostly with the process to avoid and resolve issues concerned with individuals that has chances of causing influence to the workplaces. Sturdy employee relations largely depend upon safe working environment, commitment and involvement of the employees which leads to improved production levels.

 

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