THE IMPACT OF REWARD ON LEVELS OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AT WESTLION.According to Armstrong and Taylor (2017) reward management is term used to describe the formulars, approach and systems essential to recognise the worth and present of employees to the attainment of organisational goals. Reward is acknowledging the effort and achievement of an employee. This can be used as incentives to motivate employees and improve performances. Examples of reward; public recognition, additional pay, bonuses etc. There are 2 types of rewards; the extrinsic rewards which shows the reward an employee receives like the bonuses, salary raise, gifts, promotion and other tangible rewards to focus on employee’s activities to attain a goal. Intrinsic rewards on the other hand, gives fulfilment of employee’s expectations such as information, recognition, trust etc, which makes employees feel better in the organisation. The aims of reward is to reward employees justly, impartially and consistently in relation to value these employees of the organisation.
Firstly, increase productivity. According to a Westminster College study (n.d) , 69% of employees stated that they will work harder when they feel their efforts are appreciated. Employees always need to be recognised for their achievements by management because the moment they feel valued, they put in more effort to work out their best to exceed the goals of the organisation.
Secondly it reduces turnover. Rewards makes employees happy and stay loyal with the organisation. When employees efforts are recognised and appreciated them really have joy in their work to boost them work out their very best and do not want to leave to work elsewhere.Thirdly, it recognises valuable employees.
Westlion avoids the cost of hiring and training new employees because when new employees are hired the organisation spends more on training them of which it could have been best on the valuable employees in the organisation in order for them to work out their best.It also helps in engaging employees. Employees at Westlion feel engaged and always want to work more harder because they feel recognised and respected in an organisation. There are various level of employees in the organisation, they are the operational employees, tactical employees who are the middle managers for example HR manager, Marketingmanager etc. strategic employees who are known as the top executive managers for example Managing Director, Chairman etc. Reward has an impact on employees, according to Kim Harrison leads to greater satisfaction of employees and Increase in customer loyalty and satisfaction.Enhance teamwork between employees.
Better safety records and fewer accidents.Increase positive effect such as punctuality and retention.The relationship between reward management and employee engagement is such that, Peter Adoko Obicci (2015) reward play a relevant role to determine the performance of an organisation and how its associated to employee outcomes like engagement. Reward depicts what the employee wants to derive from work or what they find from cash payments to working conditions (urReham et al 2010).
There are 2 types of rewards; the extrinsic rewards which shows the reward an employee receives like the bonuses, salary raise, gifts, promotion and other tangible rewards to focus on employee’s activities to attain a goal. Intrinsic rewards on the other hand, gives fulfilment of employee’s expectations such as information, recognition, trust etc, which makes employees feel better in the organisation. Employee engagement is a key driver of organisational success.
Saks (2006) defined employee engagement as the level to which an employee pay attention to their work and adopt a high performance towards their roles. Being engaged implies employees being fully involved and interested in the work which holds their attention and motivates them to do their best. According to Baumruk and Gorman (2006) , an engaged employee advocates for the organisation and refers potential employees and customers. Such an employee has a strong desire to be a member of the organisation regardless of opportunities to work elsewhere. Furthermore, the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards are positive influence on employee outcomes, they exist to examine the effect of rewards on employee engagement. A study by May et al (2004) found that the meaningfulness, safety, and availability were significantly related to employee engagement. It is found that, meaningfulness has a relation to various employee outcomes in terms of engagement.
Therefore, there are benefits of rewards to employees. Where work is meaningful it is said to have an intrinsic motivation for employees and to promote and sustain motivation.However, employees have a sense of achievement. Westlion employees have a good feeling or the pride especially when they have attained a challenging task, or worked out their best on a specific project. With this sentiment they always want a challenging task that will engage them in the organisation.
Furthermore, Westlion employees feel proud of the job they do because they know it makes a difference, for instance, Westlion employees would expect performance-related bonuses for meeting the needs and wants of customers. Employees feel delighted at satisfying the needs and wants of customers which play a vital role of inspiring them in the future, and sustaining their levels of engagement.Better still, employees are committed and satisfied. Rewards motivates employees and drives them to be committed and satisfied with their work.
For instance Westlion employees are very loyal to the organisation and speak well of the organisation to enhance its reputation. Employees are punctual, put in great effort to enhance productivity, enhance good relations with customers and also increase profitability.Employees are results oriented. Employees are oriented by knowing what results are important and focusing on resources to achieve them. An employee at Westlion provides his or her time, knowledge and abilities he or she can deliver to require results. In so doing he or she takes personal responsibility for achieving those results.
This helps employees to be very innovative. THE PROCESS OF CREATING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES AT WESTLION AS AN ORGANISATION.Strategy is defined as the blueprint executed in designing to achieve a long term goal.Organizational strategy is the sum of actions the organisation intend to take to achieve long term goals. Strategic plans take at least a year to complete, which requires contribution from all levels of the organisation.
Top management generates the larger organisational strategy while middle and lower management accept goals and plans to fulfil the overall strategy gradually. When employees are engaged at work they are more productive, increase profitability, they are customer focused and more likely to stay with current organisation.Factors relevant to organisation strategy include resources, scope and the organisation’s core competency. Resources are finite, allocating them, people, facilities, equipments and all that. This means redirecting them from somewhere to elsewhere in the organisation. For example; Westlion to become a no.1 in Accra Ghana sales, needs more focused plans because of its competitors.
Competitive advantage is where an organisation is best at its capability along with the sum of knowledge through experience talent and research. Other factors to be considered include;The mission and vision of the organisation: the organisation’s strategy should be in line with its missions which explains the existence and why the organisation is in business. Every activity performed should fulfil its purpose. The mission guides all strategic goals and the vision relates to what the organisation will have attained in fulfilling its mission.
Business and functional objectives: a strategy works when it is disintegrated into smaller, shorter term goals and plans. Middle management implement goals and design plans to contest in the market place. The functional managers concern themselves with the day-to-day activities of the organisation, taking days, weeks and months to complete their objectives.
This engages the employees to work harder to attain their goals.Organisational culture: are shared assumptions, plans and trust which controls how employees act in the organisation. On the other hand it is the way things are done.
This is a factor to consider in organisation strategy because it has strong influence on employees. For example, employees are dedicated on how they dress most especially decently and presentable. This also engages employees making them feel recognised in the organisation.Organisational structure; this demonstrates how tasks, authority, functions are given and how information disseminates between the various levels of management within the organization.
This helps in identifying specific roles of staff in the various department in the organisation. For example in Westlion every department such as HR play a role of recruiting employees, Marketing department has a role of advertising the products and services, Sales department also play a role of rendering sales to the organisation etc. they work hand-in-hand with each other without conflicting with their various roles and responsibilities.
Leadership: leaders are the profile of the organisation who lay down planned goals and objectives to guide the organisation in accordance to attain its goal. They also create good environment to which employees can be engaged to achieve their strategic goals. The leadership style for employee engagement strategy is vital. Leaders at all levels should aim at building a very healthy relationship with employees. They should also be visible, communicate clearly and consistently to their employees for them to be effective to meet business strategy.
According to managementstudyguide.com (MSG) organisations seeking for sustenance and growth in this era acknowledge the needs of employees while implementing a personalised process to increase employee engagement. The process of creating employee engagement strategies in Westlion is as follows;Prepare and Design: The first step in the process is about finding the distinct necessity of your organisation and deciding the priorities. After that an appropriate design of carrying the whole process can be designed. Westlion seek advice of expert management consultant in order to get the right approach done at the first attempt. Employee Engagement Survey: outline the questionnaires of employee engagement survey and distribute it with a suitable media. The questions can be printed or set online depending on the comfortability of the employees and your questionnaire evaluation process.
The survey should be done in a way to engage employees to be part of the action. Result Analysis: the relevant aspect of the complete process. This is where the information given is to be analysed to find out what actually inspire employees within the organisation to increase performance and what exactly detach them and compels them to leave the organisation. At this period every view and opinions of the employees are taken into consideration. The outcomes and information can be delivered in a meeting through presentations which helps implement strategies.
Action Planning: at this stage, the results of the survey are to turn into an action which happens to be a very challenging task that organisation needs to deal with an extreme care. Instruction of the line managers and HR professionals is very relevant as to tell then to take the right actions to engage employees. They should also be told what to be done and what not to be done to successfully implement the changes. A flexible leadership style like the democratic style where leaders respect employees and also involve employees in decision making will be appropriate to get action done.
Action follow-up: Action follow up helps to find if the implementation of the action has been taken accordingly or not and also if its generating the needed results. With this communication will help get a feedback in order to monitor actions.
