Acting Human

In consideration of the increasing globalization the mobility of employees seems to more important than ever. In Europe around 60% of the company’s record stays abroad. Very common are single-status-postings where employees are send abroad without their family for a special amount of time. Even the number of women who work a while abroad is increasing in Europe.

A company who sends its employees abroad should consider a couple of points. First of all there is the question about the costs. Sending an employee in a foreign country means normally around one and a half up to four times more costs for a company compared to the hiring of a local worker. Especially if an employee takes his/her family abroad the costs can increase quite fast: apartment or house, costs for education, special payments and so on.

A company also must be clear about the ROI (Return of investment) for the deployment abroad. There are different factors of success which can be considered: will there be an increase of returns, is it meaningful to build up a base of high qualified managers, how important is a global corporate culture and competence, does the deployment abroad fit together with the expectations of the employee, will there be a development of local competences and will there be an increase of the market share in the destination country.

The main problem companies have is the re-integration of employees who worked abroad. The re-integration including better job perspectives and a job guarantee are the main aspects. Furthermore a company must know that the returnees might suffer a cultural shock especially in the beginning. The loose of an employee with experience abroad might be very pricey in the end. Eventually the employee ends up at the competitor.

Of course the Human Resource Department needs to take care of most of these aspects. It’s important to figure out if the deployment abroad fits the expectations of an employee, to talk about the leaving, problems which might occur and also the return. The employee should get an idea what he/she can expect when he/she returns. And as said also the re-integration is important because time can change many things in the end.

Nowadays it is the custom that employees have to do unpaid overtime hours. One of the main reasons for it is the fear of losing the job. Of course there are plenty of companies which pay the overtime or at least other benefits such as compensatory time off.

But not only the missing payment for overtime hours are a problem for employees. Also emotional stress lets the work results suffer. An unmotivated employee doesn’t perform the same like a motivated does.

Unpaid overtime and the resulting stress from it can be seen associated with each other. If an employee regularly needs to work overtime and doesn’t get it paid, the company especially the human resource department needs to figure out what the causes are.

One main reason might be the fear of losing the job if everybody else also works so long. Another reason might lie within the fact the worker is just slower thn others. Then it is normally up to him to catch up with his work. Here the human resource department should check out if the worker is just slow or his work load is too high for one person and for that he cannot meet his goals.

Upcoming overtime might also depend on the economic situation. If employees need to work longer because of a positive economic situation it should be natural that the company takes care of a fair compensation. That might by individual from company to company. For some companies the paying of the overtime might be useful while for companies with seasonal products the compensatory time off might be more useful. On the other side it also depends on the personal situation of an employee: does he has family and needs extra money or extra time, is it a single person who wants some extra time for traveling or is he more interested in spending his money in new goods and so on.

After all overtime means more stress for an employee especially emotional. After all it is a loss of his free time which every person needs to regenerate to get new motivation, to relax, to be creative again and so on. Overtime normally means stress. Stress because the work is not and the boss might get angry about it. Stress because the employees are afraid of their job every day and cannot take care of the family and pay the bills. And stress again leads to mistakes and a poor job performance what probably shouldn’t be in the interest of any company after all.

An efficient intern communication process is important for a good performance of the company. Further it allows a better job satisfaction for the employees. Advanced technology has brought new possibilities of intern corporate communication. But also the classic way have their advantages. Within this post I summarize the different possibilities for the intern communication process as well as their advantages, and respectively their disadvantages.

Intranet

The Intranet is basically a network where the employees of an organization can share information or operations securely. It is restricted to the employees of an organization and requires a special authentication. The Intranet might also only be the company’s own internal website. Normally it can only be accessed by the employees during their working hours.

Sort of a variation is the so called VPNs (virtual private networks). Here the organization provides an access through a gateway with a firewall, along with user authentication and encryption of messages. The advantage here clearly lies within the fact that off-site employees also have access to the company information, their computing resources and internal communications.

Intranets mainly shall increase and advance the productivity of a company. They can give employees an easy access to needed tools and applications e.g. corporate directories, CRM tools, sales tools, space for collaboration and project management and so on. Mainly the thought that the employees can discuss and exchange each other is interesting for companies because through internal forums new ideas might turn out. Different points of view can lead e.g. to a better a service or a new product.

Circular

In the origin a circular was a paper document which had been send out on the postal way to the addressees in multiples copies. Nowadays the advanced technology enables a company to send the circular around via the electronically way as an internal Newsletter.

On this way multiple persons receive the sent information. The disadvantage lies within the fact that the addressees cannot really discuss about the information because they are more of a given fact or final decision. Even in a form of a newsletter the main aim consist on broadcasting relevant and updated information concerning the company.

Bulletin board

The bulletin board provides people the possibility to leave messages and provide information comparable with newspaper advertisements. The messages might consits of advertisements for buying or selling things, announcement for events or free positions, renting apartments. It also can be used as for retention and passing on of thoughts and notes.

Especially the exchange of thoughts and notes is a nice old fashioned way of communicated with each other even if there is no direct contact. But the visualization of different things on the bulletin board might turn into new ideas. The bulletin board also allows that people from different sections get into contact.

This communication tool is not eligible for providing deeper information. Also the bulletin board probably won’t reach every employee in the company because people need to grab the information from there on their own. So it is not recommendable for important information.

Internal communications through employee magazines

Internal magazines or periodicals focus both active and passive employees of an organization or company. It’s also known as Corporate Publishing.

The aim of such magazines or periodicals consist in the information brokerage. Normally the department for Public Relations is responsible for it. The publication of such print articles serves as information source for other employees. It also represents as a connection between the employees and the management.

The content may diversify and includes relevant information of the company, explains decisions of the management and makes them transparent, contains free positions, possibilities for advanced trainings, farewells, and so on.

Weblogs

A weblog can be described as a Website which is permanantly updated with new entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Blogs allow it to leave comments and therefore can be seen as an interactive platform. The articles written appear in a reverse chronicle order so that the newest entry is always on top of the first page.

There are mainly two options how a blog can be integrated into a company or organization. The first option consist in a corporate blog written by mainly one person like the pr responsible like for marketing purposes. The second options would be that the blog is maintained as an employee blog. In that case different employees use the blog as a platform to write about their experiences and thoughts in the company.

The use of a blog can enhance the communication and culture of a company. There are also external effects as already adumbrate. It is good for public relations, marketing purposes as well as branding.

The problem here is that most employees won’t be open to blog. It’s not only a matter of time to do that. Most employees probably are just not open to give out sort of personal details especially since everybody out there might read it. There might also be sort of fear that they write something wrong and the management is not open enough for that. So a weblog written by employees might not reflect their true thoughts.

Information meeting of the management

This form of internal communication only concerns the management itself and not the interaction with the employees. But after all it is also needed. A regular information meeting of the management is helpful to figure out where the company stands, if goals where reaches, which problems need to be solved, and so on. The management normally has to discuss a lot of points always with the welfare of every employee in their mind.

After all a company or organization needs to find the right tools for an optimal internal communication. There just shouldn’t be an information overload because that probably would just lead to a resignation through the employee. So the right mix is important. In a company where the employees mostly work with the PC the electronicaly way probably might be the best way to spread information. But on the other hand classical ways like a magazine might be a nice change.

The job satisfaction is one of the main tasks of the Human Resource Management. Actions taken by the HR department are aimed to reach an optimum of job satisfaction. The background lies within the goal of reaching a sustainable and increased company management.

Nowadays one of the central theories for the job satisfaction is the “Two Factor Theory” of Frederick Herzberg.

The Two Factor Theory distinguishes between (Source):

1. the Hygiene factors which are needed to ensure an employee does not become dissatisfied. They do not lead to higher levels of motivation, but without them there is dissatisfaction.
2. and the Motivation factors which are needed in order to motivate an employee into higher performance. These factors result from internal generators in employees.

Typical hygiene factors are such as job security, salary, company, status, working conditions, job, quality of supervision, company policies and administration and interpersonal relations.

Typical motivation factors are achievement, recognition for achievement, responsibility for task, interest in the job, advancement to higher level tasks and growth

The combination of the two factors results into four possible scenarios:

1. High Hygiene and High Motivation: The ideal situation where employees are highly motivated and have few complaints.
2. High Hygiene and Low Motivation: Employees have few complaints but are not highly motivated. The job is perceived as a paycheck.
3. Low Hygiene and High Motivation: Employees are motivated but have a lot of complaints. A situation where the job is exciting and challenging but salaries and work conditions are not up to par.
4. Low Hygiene and Low Motivation: The worst situation. Unmotivated employees with lots of complaints.

The criticism of the Herzberg theory lies within the fact that it neither doesn’t say anything how to measure hygiene and motivation factors not does it distinguish between the individuality of a person.

Many other theories can be found like e.g. the Range of Affect Theory of Edwin A. Locke, the Dispositional Theory and the Job Characteristics Model of Hackman & Oldham.

The Range of Affect Theory e.g. postulates that satisfaction is determined by a discrepancy between what one wants in a job and what one has in a job. Also it states that how much one values a given facet of work. This leads to a special degree of satisfaction when expectations are met or dissatisfaction when they aren’t met. The application of that theory in the daily life turns out to be much more complicated since there are normally a couple of factors which influence the job satisfaction. Also it needs to be considered that wants and needs change.

After all there is still the question if people work faster and more efficient: are they satisfied with everything? After all job satisfaction seems to be a dynamic process which changes constantly. This already is the case when a person works for longer and longer for a company. With the time he gets more new tasks and starts earning more trust and responsible tasks.

One of the main problems in companies seems to be the missing communication mainly from top to bottom. It can be pretty frustrating for a worker when he for example doesn’t get a useful feedback to keep on going with a special task and reach something valauble.

A good communication culture in a company - also known as social embeddedness - is essential for the job satisfaction. The communication process is an essential need of people and leads to social interaction. The aim of it is to resolve problems and eliminate deficits. A good communication enables for a better team work - and in a team you can as is generally known reach more. For that special rules are needed and the critic of every single person needs to be considered what is part of the work of the Human Resource Management.

Common terms which are connected with the job satisfaction are job enlargement and job rotation:

1. Job enlargement concerns new tasks in the horizontal area with a constant aspiration level. That means that a worker, who had been limited to one activity, accomplishes a variety of actions with the same aspiration level. The aim of it is to change the single impact, avoid psychological and physical monotony and get some recovery without stopping the work.
2. Job enrichment is a process of vertical restructuring. The worker gets a higher scope of work with a higher aspiration level. This is reached through advanced training so that a worker can work more on his own responsibility.

If these concepts work out as wanted also depends on the special situation of a worker. The Human Resource Management needs to figure out what the problem is and where they can intervene: is it the communication, is it the work itself or are there other circumstances why a worker is not satisfied in his job. For that a company needs adequate concepts, an organizational structure and regular trainings. There needs to be a together of the company and the personal organization as well as a complete view which doesn’t only focus on one thing.

Then after all - viewed from marketing aspects - a company is more successfull if people talk positevely about it. So why not start with the own staff which can do word-of-mouth for the company?

Like every company also the people working there are individual. There are a couple of factors which have influence on the performance of a company which need to be considered.

The essential factors can be distinguished in external and internal aspects. The externals are the macro environment (demographic, technological, political, economical, legal and socio-cultural aspects), the social class, the meaning of reference groups and the family.

The internals include psychological aspects which are the needs and motivation, the perception, the learning progress and the memory, the attitude as well as the personality and the self-image of an individual.

Those factors form the personality and the acting of a person. For a company and the human resource department it can be essential to know “where” people come from, why and for what they work. The origin of the performance of a person lies within that. Manifold examples for that can be found easily e.g.:

• does a worker perform bad because his surrounding told him that this job is great but he actually doesn’t like the work because it doesn’t meet his dispositions
• is somebody motivated because he needs to earn money to supply his family
• does someone constant work because he is just not interested in learning new stuff and keep on developing his skills

As already said there are a lot of factors which influence the performance. Companies can intervene partly on these factors especially those concerning the macro-environment. Knowing the people who work for a company furthermore helps to work out special incentives to reach a better performance. Nowadays that doesn’t mean that a higher salary leads to more motivation. Also things like e.g. a better workplace design, taking care of a good, internal communication progress or the creation of an acceptable work-life-balance can already mean a great benefit to the workers and motivate them to increase their performance.

There are many different ways in the end to value the work of people and show it to them. Then no company can exist without the work of people who perform it!