Improving Organization Retention: A Case Study
Introduction
In any business organization, it is important to keep the employees motivated and willing to work. By extension, it is necessary to keep their morale high so that the work atmosphere becomes positive, thereby encouraging productivity and efficiency in the workplace. Because of this, there are specific theories in business and work that focus on motivating employees and making them happy and contented with regard to their work environment. This includes addressing any problems and issues in the overall work environment, identifying all factors associated with employee productivity and working around them, and improving the work atmosphere and the like.
In the given situation, there are many factors affecting the work output and the overall mood of the employees, which results in them having less than satisfactory performance in the casino. This, in turn, causes the business to shift its working hours which can prove detrimental to the customers, as evidenced by the dissatisfaction of customers due to them having to wait.
Obviously, something has to be done about this situation. The best way to approach this problem is to change the work attitude and outlook of the workers themselves. If the workers took a more positive outlook in their job, then everything will change—the atmosphere, the productivity, and the work reputation in general.
Before the problem can be addressed, it is important to take a look first at pre-existing work theories and how they can be applied in this situation so as to pinpoint out the problems and then focus on them.
Two-factor theory
One popular theory in employee motivation is the dual-factor theory, proposed by Frederick Hertzberg. According to this theory, there are two groups of factors that play a part in the workplace attitude in general. There are the motivation factors, which encourage the worker to have a positive effect on the workplace. These can arise from desires of personal growth, achievement, and the like. Examples of these are meaningful results from job opportunities, a sense of recognition, and an internal self-fulfilment, among others. On the other hand, hygiene factors, also called maintenance factors, are factors that do not necessarily contribute to the workers’ sense of self-satisfaction, but the lack of them leads to the workers feeling dissatisfaction of their work. Examples of these factors are salaries, job benefits, a positive work atmosphere, and the like. Another difference between the two is that motivator factors arise from intrinsic conditions in the person itself; i.e. they have to be experienced by the person itself. The hygiene factors, on the other hand, are dependent on the work environment itself and cannot be controlled fully by the workers (“Hertzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory”, n.d.)
Therefore, the optimal way for a worker to feel really satisfied in his workplace is to increase the effect of the motivator factors, while simultaneously minimizing the effect of the hygiene factors. When applied to the situation at hand, it can be said that the situation of the workers are in a state of low motivation, as well as low hygiene. For one, the environment in the work place is less than satisfactory, attributing the toxic influence of the HR director Joe. In addition, the workers are not paid enough—their pay may be similar relative to the wages in other companies, but they are doing more work than usual, which means they are overworked and underpaid. The unsatisfactory conditions are manifested in the high rate of absenteeism and high turnover.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Another employee motivation theory that can be used to assess the situation is the ever-popular Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, named after its founder Abraham Maslow. This theory posits that there are certain needs that people must meet in order to feel fulfilled, but some of these needs need to be fulfilled before the others can be achieved. In other words, there exists a certain ranking of needs, and for one to reach self-actualization he or she must first achieve the lower needs. The ranking of needs according from this theory from lowest to highest are: physiological (the most basic needs a human requires to function), safety (a feeling of security), love and belonging (the need to be accepted by the people around them), esteem (an achievement of confidence and respect) and self-actualization, said to be the crux of well-being. When one if in the self-actualization state, they are at their best. In addition, since their lower needs are fulfilled, they also feel secure, loved, safe, desired, and respected. (Huitt, 2007).
When the situation is viewed from Maslow’s Hierarchy, it is clear that what the employees lack is a feeling of love and belongingness—the third stage in the hierarchy. The company may provide them what they need such as salary and free work time, they may feel secure in their jobs, but they get no respect from the higher-ups. Because they describe their immediate director with negative qualities such as ‘incompetent’, ‘toxic’, and outright ‘evil’, clearly there is no feeling of camaraderie amongst the employees in the workplace. In addition, they feel that they are doing too much for too little a salary, something that they feel they have earned the right to. In other words, they do not feel like they are being accepted by the company itself, and so they could not reach a state in which they are self-actualized and therefore productive.
Occupational Stresses
Simply put, an occupational stress is a problem that can be traced to the job. They can be external factors surrounding the job conditions, or they can emanate from the people who are part of the job, like the supervisors and the co-workers. What is common about these occupational stresses is that they present a challenge for workers—they have to learn to deal with them on a regular basis in order to cope with the workplace life in general. If these are left unchecked, it can lower an employee’s productivity and performance, however. Therefore, it is a company’s duty to oversee that occupational stresses are kept to a minimum if not thoroughly eradicated.
The situation outlined above contains many occupational stresses, which could explain the productivity of the employees. For example, their leader pit boss Joe can be described as one of the primary occupational stress. He has a negative effect on the employees, severely degrading the morale of the employees. In order to address this, perhaps he can undergo disciplinary action in order to fix his negative attitudes especially towards the workplace. Better yet, he can be replaced by someone more accommodating and congenial when it comes to the employees. If he cannot be terminated due to his connections with the owner, then he and his employees can undergo a seminar and some workshops in order to foster camaraderie not only between the supervisor and the employees but also among the employees themselves.
Another occupational stress the employees experience is that they have to do some jobs which are not part of their description, such as ones from the accounting department being tasked to do housekeeping duties due to high absence rates. In order to remedy this, perhaps the environment among the housekeeping staff should be improved so as to encourage them to actually come for work. This can be achieved by giving them incentives, increasing their salaries, and the like. Applying the two-factor theory here, the motivator factors should be given importance as well---they have to learn to love doing their job, not just make them perceive their tasks as something that will merely pay them.
Job Satisfaction
Interestingly enough, job satisfaction—the feeling of content the employees have with their current job—is directly linked with employee retention, the chance that the worker will stay or resign their job. Basically, if the worker feels that they are not satisfied, there is a higher probability that they will resign from their job within a year (“Job Satisfaction and Employee Retention: What is the Connection?”, n.d.) This explains why there is a fairly high rate of turnover in the situation—based from the stressors explained above, the employees are left unsatisfied and thus they are prompted to leave the job.
Therefore, a way to improve job retention is to improve the satisfaction the workers have with their job. This can be achieved by giving them a higher salary, better working conditions, and better job benefits. Additionally, the work environment itself should also be improved—a more positive feel should be added to it, so as to make the employees feel that they are welcome to work there.
Counterproductive Employee Behaviour
A counterproductive work behaviour is defined as an action that is antithesis to the goals of the company and of the employers (“What is Counterproductive Work Behavior?”, n.d.). In the situation presented above, it can be said that the primary counterproductive behaviour experienced in the company would be the aggression experienced by the workers when it comes to Joe’s bullying tendencies. In addition, the constant absenteeism and high turnover rate among the customers, which does not improve the customer experience at all.
The best way to deal with this is to brief everyone involved what are their work duties and how they should treat other employees and the customers fairly. If everyone knows what would be expected of him when it comes to work goals and social interactions, then the overall work environment would improve.
Conclusion
The JC Casino situation is an example of a work situation that has gone bad due to internal factors, and thus affects the overall work performance of the workers. Fortunately, it can be remedied. In order to fix this, the company should take a look at what the employees really need—satisfaction, acceptance, a more positive mood, better employers—and thus address them respectively. They can assess the situation by various perspectives—job satisfaction, work behaviour, etc.—and apply motivation theories to make them like their job, which in turn will improve their performance by a long run.
References
“Hertzberg motivation-Hygiene theory” (n.d.). NetMBA Business Knowledge Center. Retrieved from http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/herzberg/
Huitt, W. (2007). Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Educational Psychology Interactive. Retrieved from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/regsys/maslow.html
“Job satisfaction and employee retention: What is the connection?” (n.d.) HRCouncil.CA. Retrieved from http://www.hrcouncil.ca/documents/LMI_satisfaction_retention.pdf
“What are counterproductive work behaviors?” (n.d.) HRZone. Retrieved from http://www.hrzone.com/hr-glossary/what-are-counterproductive-work-behaviours-cwb
