Paper Example. Kelecton Case

The human resource director has the primary role of overseeing the HR systems, including assessing staffing needs, managing HR budgets, ensure compliance with regulations, handle employee relations, design compensation plans, design training programs, and hire employees (DeCenzo, Robbins, & Verhulst, 2016). In the Kelecton Case Study, Paul, the HR director, had similar roles. The director conducted a survey on the employees to determine their levels of satisfaction in many aspects, where he received different opinions. Organizations are likely to remain productive and competitive when employees feel valued and appreciated by meeting their needs regarding compensation, opportunities for growth and development, and safety.

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The case study reflects various issues raised from the survey, including working conditions and freedom, workloads, occupational hazards, opportunities for improvement of skills and promotion, the trade-off between performance and compensation, and the spread of benefits. As the HR director, Paul needed to address every issue individually to meet the level of satisfaction for all the employees. Specific solutions are needed for particular problems, and therefore, an individual-based approach would be preferable in addressing the issues facing by the company. The discussion suggests changes to the current systems, processes, policies, and activities based on survey results, with the rationale for these changes. The approval rating for satisfaction is set at 80%, with the majority of the employees satisfied working in the organization.

The survey results indicate that 70% of the employees were satisfied with the workload indicating the need for slight improvements. The workers felt that the daily tasks were not heavy nor light. As such, the organization can improve workload satisfaction through further training and increase of experience in the employees' line of work. Training and education of employees may not necessarily mean getting external experts, but choosing some of the experienced professionals to increase experience, train, and educate employees to increase their efficiency. Employees would learn improved ways of completing their tasks, thereby perceiving their jobs to be lighter.

Additionally, the organization needs to offer employees opportunities for skill improvement to facilitate its growth. The study shows that 89% of the workers felt there were few, if any, opportunities to improve their skills. The improvement of the skills, especially in employees' areas of specialization, offers experience and knowledge to boost their expertise. Kelecton needs to provide employees with opportunities to grow their skills via the available platforms such as training, seminars, and benchmarking, among others, to learn new and advanced ways of operating. The organization may offer opportunities for the best performing employees to further their training or education.

The director noted that the promotion of employees received a significantly lower approval, where 87% felt that there were no opportunities for promotion. Well-performing employees are not likely to get promoted to new positions. A lack of opportunities for career growth and development of employees increases the rates of turnover. Employees are expected to grasp newer opportunities from competitors or other organizations, mainly if the firms offer better benefits, wages, and room for promotion. Consequently, Kelecton needs to roll out a program that builds employees' confidence in the promotion of the best performing workers to reduce the potential of high turnover rates. The development of an efficient promotion program based on performance merits would even motivate employees to work hard for consideration in the future. The director should liaise with heads of departments to identify skilled and experienced employees who should be considered whenever new vacancies of promotion arise. The employees would feel valued by the organization to attain a sense of rewarding for exceptional performances through promotion.

The survey indicated employees' concerns regarding the safety of the workplaces, where 45% were not satisfied with the safety of the work environments. Occupational health and safety laws require organizations to ensure that employees work in safe and secure environments. Firms are needed to have employees covers for settling their medical bills that might accumulate whenever workers attend health facilities as a result of injuries sustained in workplaces. The survey indicated that 55% of the employees felt that the organization provided a safe working environment, which translates the huge efforts needed to improve the safety of the workplaces. Kelecton needs to install utility plants with user-friendly equipment that reduces health risks. All the areas deemed to be vulnerable to occupational hazards need to be improved by proposing budgets for the next fiscal year. The prior preparation of the budgets would offer the organization adequate time to plan on maintenance and addition of new equipment. The firm also needs to improve the general working conditions to avoid instances of lawsuits that might be filed by injured workers. The lawsuits would damage its reputation and incur huge penalties for the compensation of the victims (Sims, 2009). The working conditions are a significant consideration for a majority of the workers who value safety, and therefore, the company may lose a skilled workforce due to poor conditions.

A significant percentage of the employees, 74% revealed that they felt the Kelecton was not committed to achieving a fair trade-off between performance and pay. They made numerous comments about performance reviews that they were never conducted, or they were not carried out on time. Consequently, the employees feel to be paid poorly, which increases their likelihood of leaving the firm in case competitors offer better compensation packages. Kelecton must develop a new employee compensation policy where the skills set of the workers rely on the employment packages developed. The HR needs to align performance and compensation such that the performance of the workers determines their pay to achieve satisfaction. The firm can also increase transparency in employees' salaries to build the trust of the workers and motivate them to perform better for higher compensation in the future. Notably, wages and benefits can be used as motivators to stimulate higher performance amongst the workers (Herzberg, 2008).

The survey revealed that 56% of the respondents felt their benefits were below average or poor. It is worth noting that Kelecton had hired a skilled workforce previously working in larger organizations, and therefore, the considered the benefits offered by the company were below par. Employee benefits are critical towards attaining workforce satisfaction, and many organizations resort to providing competitive benefits to attract highly qualified employees. Some of the common benefits offered by large entities are lucrative employee perks such as transport and lunch, which boost employees' loyalty. Hence, Kelecton needs to create attractive benefits such as free transport or lunch so that employees do not have to rely on their monthly salaries to settle them. Although the benefits may slightly increase organizational profits, redesigning the benefits package to incorporative lucrative perks would improve the views of employees regarding the benefits offered by the company.

Conclusion

In case Paul further stayed in the organization, he needed to address specific problems identified with minimal cost variations. He would have focused on working conditions and freedom, workloads, occupational hazards, opportunities for improvement of skills and promotion, the trade-off between performance and compensation, and the spread of benefits to ensure the approval satisfaction rating hits above 80%. Employees are critical assets for any organization, and their satisfaction impacts the overall organizational productivity and performance. Therefore, addressing those issues by implementing the changes would make the firm competitive in the long run.

References

DeCenzo, D. A., Robbins, S. P., & Verhulst, S. L. (2016). Fundamentals of human resource management. John Wiley & Sons.

Herzberg, F. (2008). One more time: How do you motivate employees? Harvard Business Review Press.

Sims, R. (2009). Toward a better understanding of organizational efforts to rebuild reputation following an ethical scandal. Journal of Business Ethics, 90(4), 453.