Management Posts

To enhance productivity at the workplace, Motivation is essential. but the question is how to motivate employees. Well, there are various motivational theories.

• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory
• McGregor’s X and Y Theories
• McClelland’s Need Achievement Theory
• The Equity Theory
• Value–Percept Theory
• Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
• Porter-Lawler Model

let's discuss the first theory

Maslow's Hierarchy of needs

This theory is based on the human requirement, Abraham Maslow explained how individuals behave when they met the requirement. Maslow's theory indicates that Job satisfaction revolved around employees' needs and that factors bring them to a reasonable level of satisfaction.

Maslow divided his theory into five different stages as per individuals' priorities, these five stages are based on the various needs of human beings.

• Stage-1 Physiological needs
• Stage-2 Safety and security needs
• Stage-3 Social needs
• Stage-4 Esteem Needs
• Stage-5 Self- actualization needs

Stage-1 Physiological needs

Physiological needs are basic needs like drinking when thirsty, and eating when hungry, Maslow considered psychological needs as the most essential needs. people are more likely to fulfill these needs first, for instance- If anyone is really hungry then it's hard to focus on any other thing besides food.

Stage-2 Safety and security

Once the physiological needs are fulfilled then it's human tendency to think about safety and security which includes saving, investment, and extra income.

Stage-3 Social need

This step involved love feelings and acceptance. These needs include both relationship Romantic relationships as well as tied with friends and family members. It also includes forming a social group. Feeling the love from others and feeling love towards others both are the key points of this stage.

Stage-4 Esteem Needs

This need involved two components- the first component involved Feeling confident and feeling good about oneself. The second component involved feeling valued by others.

Stage-5 Self- actualization needs

Self-actualization needs to involve a feeling of fulfillment all needs are acquired by the individual. A person is living up to the potential. a significant feature of this stage is person looks different from others.

According to Maslow, this feeling of self-actualization is really rare for instance Albert Einstein and Mother Teresa. to read more about Maslow's theory please read my upcoming blog

Importance

Motivation allows management to attain its goals. Without motivation, It’s too difficult to attain organizational goals without motivation workplace could be placed in a very risky position.

The motivated employee can lead the higher productivity and allow the organization to achieve a higher level of output. Imagine having employees without motivation for work, they will probably use their time at their desk surfing on the internet for personal pleasure, Gossiping with others, even applying for other jobs as well. This Is a waste of your time and your resources.

Benefits of Motivated Employees

Employee motivation is highly important for each organization since it brings many benefits which include.

1. Improve Employee Efficiency

2. Improve Employee Commitment

3. Ongoing employee Development

4. Improve Employee Satisfaction

5. Higher Productivity level

6. Lower absenteeism

7. Better problem-solving

8. Creativity and Innovation

9. Pro-Active workforce

10. Goal Oriented workforce

11. a Better understanding of the End Goal

12. Lower turnover

13. Better as a Team Player

14. Influence to another worker

15. Great reputation leads to strong recruitment

16. Client-centric

To know more about Employee motivation, kindly read the upcoming monthly blog.

We often hear the term motivation. We all are human and that’s why we all have emotions and motivation is the driving force behind our behavior. Let’s discuss this in detail.

What is Motivation?

Motivation is the desire to act in service of the Goals. It’s the most crucial objective in setting and attaining business objectives.

We can define the motivation by the line in the book ‘The War Of Art’ written by The author Steven Pressfield “At some point, the pain of not doing it becomes greater than the pain of doing it.”

Motivation is a powerful weapon for any organization yet a tricky one. Sometimes it’s really easy to get motivated and motivate others, other times it's nearly impossible to figure out how to motivate oneself and others as well.

Every choice has a price but when employees are motivated it is easier to bear the inconvenience of action than the remaining same. In other words, employees are at the level ‘ It’s Easier To Change Than The Remaining Same’

Scientists define motivation as a general willingness to do something. It is the set of psychological forces that compel you to take action.

Common Misconception about motivation

How does motivation come?

We all have this misconception that motivation arrives as a result of watching motivational videos or reading inspirational books but one of the most surprising things is Motivation often comes AFTER starting new behavior not BEFORE. It’s the result of an action, not the cause of it.

I hope you get a basic understanding of Motivation. To know more about the motivation stay in tune with upcoming HR Blogs.

Absenteeism at the workplace has become a common phenomenon in today’s era. Running Business is like putting the right piece in a Giant Puzzle if one piece is missing the whole picture remains incomplete. In other words, we can say that the absence causes in many ways to the organization. Absenteeism is a major problem in most firms.

What is Absenteeism?

Employee absenteeism is defined as a frequent or habitual absence at work but it does not include Authorized leaves or paid time off.

However, it is not easy to be present each day even organizations know the fact. Usually, it happens in case of health problems and therefore the company has its own leave policies to avoid that emergency.

Causes of Absenteeism

There are several problems related to the Absenteeism

Illness Harassment Low pay scale Workload

• Relationship issues within the organization Mental health

How to deal with Absenteeism?

At the first glance, it does not look like a big deal but it’s critical for organizational success. Employee absenteeism can be difficult to address once it’s become a habit or accepted behavior by your team. After all, no business can force employees to be there all working Days.

There are several ways to deal with absenteeism

Absent management policy

Build absence management policy as per your business requirement. It should be easy to understand for all employees.

Track employee absences

Constantly tack employee absent records which will help you to identify the common reason behind the absenteeism which will help you to develop various company policies.

Wellness program

We all know that “ health is wealth”. Healthy people can work with more zest which will upsurge not only productivity but Quality as well.

Offer Flexibility

We all are human and the future is unpredictable so in case of any emergency let your people work flexibly.

Create Social Culture

People love the workplace if they are attached to each other. Create your work culture more socially so each one can enjoy time at the workplace.

Focus on Employee Engagement

Employee engagement plays a vital role to grow the employee bond. If they are happy with each other they will be less like to take off from the work unnecessarily

Provide ample PTO

Adequate paid time off should be provided to the employee which allows them to complete their personal work

Build a Supportive environment

People will love to work if they get support from their co-workers. A supportive work environment should be there in order to reduce absenteeism.

Rewards and recognition

Rewards play a motivational role in an organization. By believing in rewards we can build a committed workplace and employees also feel pride in themselves.

Listen to the voice of Employees

Due to lack of attention towards employees make them disappointed in the workplace, management needs to listen to their voice and understand their mind to reduce the absenteeism

To know more about the same kindly read my upcoming blogs…..

Being an HR professional it's too critical to engage each person in the organization. To engage employee HR need to transform the relationship (from arrange marriage to Love marriage)

Now the question is

How it would be possible as each and everyone has a different mindset in the organization?'

The obvious answer is

HR needs to understand the Employee's Value circle and use the factor to motivate and engage employees with the organization.

Again the new question born in the mind

What is the Employee Value circle?

The employee value circle is the combination of various employee's values which they want from the organization. After identifying the value we can easily decide the category of the value circle. The value category gives us the way to motivate and engage the employee and we can form a long-lasting relationship between organization and employee.

let's understand what is Employee Value circle is

Category-1

3RPM

1st R- Recognition 2nd R- Reward 3rd R Respect P- Promotion M- Motivation

We need to find out what is the thing from category 1 that works better for the particular employee.

Category-2

Money

If the person works for money then prepare the monetary plan to motivate the employee. you can use the bonus, incentives, vouchers, commission, cash card, etc. Sometimes you purchase something for them which they can consider monetary reward and gain income out of them. For instance shares.

Category- 3

Learning Opportunity

Many people in the organization are willing to learn and explore new things, to engage their organization can provide the learning platform for them.

Category- 4

Flexibility

If the person wants the flexibility to figure out the possibility and provide them, believe me, they will be happy and become more productive

At the first glance, it looks easy to do the Employee Value Circle survey but it's not Easy as ABC. HR professionals need to keep patience, keep an active approach all the time and observe everything about a particular person otherwise it will become a worthless, waste of time, and a waste of resources as well.

In the last blog we have discussed two perspectives namely Financial Perspective and Internal Process perspective out of four perspectives of BSC. Let's look at the remaining two perspectives.

Customer Perspective

We all know that the 'Customer is the king of the market' and that's why we need to ensure that we have a satisfied customer group in the market.

Each organization serves a specific need in the market and this is done with a target group in mind. There are many points to focus like the Quality, Price, Service, and acceptable Margins on the products and/or services.

The organization always tries to meet customers' expectations in the market and that's why any organization needs to keep its eyes on the market and be ready to adapt to changes quickly.

The existence of alternatives( competitors ) has a huge influence on customers' expectations and we need to focus on overall market trends to build satisfied buyers in the market.

This perspective answer the question: "How attractive should we appear to our customers?"

In short, we need to focus on three points-

1. Target Group in Market
2. The expectation of the Customers
3. Our Competitors

After focusing on these points definitely, we will be able to lure maximum potential customers in the market.

Learning and Growth Perspective

In today's competitive era, if we are not ready/capable of learning something new then it's next to impossible to survive in the market as 'nothing is constant only the change is constant.

Here knowledge is not important but advancing knowledge plays a vital role.

The organization's learning ability and innovation indicate whether an organization is capable of continuous improvement and growth in a dynamic environment or not. The dynamic environment is subject to change on a daily basis due to new laws, economical changes, technological changes, or even increasing competition.

This perspective answer the questions:

"How can we sustain our ability to achieve our chosen strategy ?"

To know more about the BSC please read my upcoming weekly Blog.

In the last Blog we have discussed the basics of BSC, let's start a discussion about four perspectives of BSC.

A Balanced Scorecard looks at an organization from four different perspectives to measure its health, each of these perspectives focuses on various sides of the company and creates a balanced view of the organization.

And yes all four areas of BSC are interrelated; we cannot ignore any out of four to the success of the organization.

Financial Perspective:

This perspective views organizational financial performance and the uses of financial resources.

We need to focus on two points:

• Is the company achieving its financial goals?
• How well do the strategies and operations contribute to improving financial health?

Well, now the question is how we can measure the output from a financial perspective?

These data are always past-focused, we need to gather two types of data.

1. Historical Data: How did we do last month, last week, last year, and so on.
2. Current Data: How are we doing right now, Today?

For instance,

1. Our net profit for the year versus last year
2. Our sales revenue this year versus last year

These measures of corporate performance are based on history and also vary from organization to organization.

As the BSC is a holistic approach, any key objectives that are related to the company's financial health and performance may include in this perspective as given below:

1. Cost Saving and Efficiencies: Specified Goals: Reduced production cost 10% by 2021
2. Profit Margins: increase operational profit Margins
3. Revenue Sources: adding new revenue channels/department/products

In the end,

• Are you making money?
• Are your investors happy?

If yes then be happy...

The financial health of your organization may be an indicator of your past decisions but still incredibly important.

Money keeps the company alive and the financial perspective focuses solely on this.

Internal Process Perspective:

This perspective views various organizational processes and the efficiency of the particular process.

1. From this view, the question should be asked what internal processes have added values within the organization and what activities need to carry in the organization (In all three perspectives).
2. The internal Process perspective looks at how smoothly your business is running (Here, Efficiency is important )
3. It's all about,
   • Reducing waste,
   • Speeding process/ production
   • Doing more with less

We need to focus on three points:

• Is the company improving the critical process?
• Are there any obstacles standing between ideas and execution?
• How quickly can you adapt to changing business conditions?

This perspective answer the question :

"what process we must excel at to satisfy our shareholders/financial Backers and customers?"

To know more about BSC please read my weekly Blog.

Development:

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) was originally developed by Robert Kaplan of Harvard University and Dr. David Northon as a framework for measuring organizational performance using the more " BALANCED " set of performance measures.

Traditionally companies used only short-term financial performance as a measure of success but now non-financial strategic measures are also added in order to focus on long-term success.

The BSC system evolved over the years and is now considered a fully integrated "Strategic Management System".

What is a Balanced Scorecard (BSC)?

• A Balanced Scorecard is a performance metric used to identify, improve, and control a business's various internal processes and resulting outcomes.
• Balance Scorecard is a framework to implement and manage strategies.
• The Balanced scorecard is derived from the idea of looking at strategic measures to get a more balanced view of performance. The concept of a Balanced Scorecard evolved beyond the simple use of perspectives, every business can implement it according to the requirements and therefore it is a holistic system for managing strategy.

Why do we need to implement it?

• The key benefit of using a BSC framework is that it gives way to the organization to "Connect the Dots" between various components of strategic planning and management and it means there will be a visible connection between Projects and Programs that people are working on it.
• BSC framework also helps management to meet pre-decided targets.

Perspectives of Balanced Scorecard:

Indeed a balanced scorecard plays a significant role to aid management to keep updated internal processes and the external Business world as well.

The framework Balanced Scorecard is divided into four areas (perspectives) that are critical to business success as given below.

1. Financial
2. Internal process
3. Learning and Growth
4. Customer

The BSC suggests that we view the Organization from four Perspectives to develop Objectives, Measures, Targets, and Initiatives (relative to each of these points of view).

To know more details about all four perspectives, read my upcoming weekly Blogs.