Employees Disengagement
The issue of employee disengagement has gained much attention in many organizations today. Disengaged employees negative influence their co-workers and if the behavior is not dealt with at an early stage it can lead to adverse loss since most of the working hours are spent in non-work related affairs. Various organizations have identified the reasons for employee disengagement and devised different methods of dealing with the issue. Therefore this paper will discuss why Eric Knight was disengaged from his organization and solutions to the particular issues. It is crucial for an organization to attract and maintain the right employees who will have a positive impact on the business.
While working at Orthodox Plastics Company, Eric Knight’s manager noticed that his performance had become poor. The manager had observed Knight for a two weeks period and realized that he came to work late, missed meetings and rarely met the deadline in various assigned tasks. Similarly, Knight had recurrent cases of absenteeism. Evidently, Knight was dissatisfied with the affairs of the company, and this led to disengagement. Various reasons could have led to Knight’s withdrawal. To begin with, Knight found it difficult to put up with the constant changes that were being made in the company. Notably, the company faced stiff competition from its competitors, and thus it put a lot of pressure on the employees in a bid to remain relevant in the marketplace. Knight felt that the organization’s management did not handle the changes in the correct manner and resulted in many employees getting disengaged and some leaving. According to Swindall, 2011, for the human resource manager to solve this issue type, they must understand that any decision made has a direct impact on the workers and ensure that proper communication is done so that they can feel motivated and considered.
The other reason that Knight became disengaged from the organization is that there was a minimal personal connection between him as an employee and the management. The manager seemed too distant from the juniors and only interacted with them on official matters. Knight felt that the management did not trust the workers, and thus they felt belittled and became withdrawn. It is human for one to desire the feeling of being needed and in this case, the manager did not make Knight feel like his services were needed, and that is why he started coming to work late and also failing to attend important meetings. The solution to this form of problem is that the human resource manager should make it known to the employees that he trusts them by assigning them empowering responsibilities that develop them career wise and make them feel significant to the company (Williams, 2012). Likewise, the manager should acknowledge the work of the employees work through rewards, end of year parties and even occasionally offering them free lunches. The management can also introduce a welfare kitty to cater for employees who fall sick and also visit the new parents at their homes. In the same manner, the management should be generous with relaxation time for the employees by giving them enough time for family vacations, sick days, academic advancement and maternal or paternity leaves. With all that consideration, every employee will feel wanted and connected to their employer making the work environment conducive.
In Knight’s opinion, the company gave unnecessary warnings and uncalled for modes of punishment and favoritism. He gave an instance where his services were suspended for three months simply because he gave the manager the wrong document that he was supposed to use in a meeting. In this case, Knight had two different documents that had the same cover therefore he mistakenly gave his boss the wrong one. The manager said that this was a sign of disrespect and sent him home. He started being reluctant in his job after going back as a way of expressing dissatisfaction on the form of punishment given. It is important to deal with the employees as humans and people with aspirations, feelings, and pride (Lindley, 1984). The best way for the manager to solve this kind of issue is to create a written discipline policy that covers all the workers and outlines the required employee code so that when a worker is in the wrong, the policy can be used as a reference. Ideally, this will make the employees stick to their lines and not complain if one of them is punished according to the written policies.
Further, Knight complained that the company did not have a training program that could keep the employees updated on the market trends and the innovations. This made him and the co-workers feel inadequate and incompetent resulting to disengagement. Every business should have a way of measuring its performance to ensure that it is moving with the current economy (Roos & Pike, 2004). The stated kind of issue can be dealt with through introduction of a training program and allowing the employees to go for development seminars to be at par with the evolving world.
To sum up, if the human resource management has a consistent and conscious interest in its employees, the employees will reciprocate by showing the same interest in their work. If an individual is shown that they are worth and are valued, they perform better than they did before. The organizational culture created should make the workers desire to come to work and perform well because they feel motivated.
References
Lindley, C. J. (1984). Putting “human” into human resource management. Public Personnel Management, 13(4), 501-510.
Roos, G., Fernström, L., & Pike, S. (2004). Human resource management and business performance measurement. Measuring Business Excellence, 8(1), 28-37.
Swindall, C. (2011). Engaged Leadership: Building a culture to overcome employee disengagement. John Wiley & Sons.
Williams, D. (2012). The 5 Rs For Building Lifelong Relationships with Employees. Forbes, p. N.P. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkwilliams/2012/11/03/the-5-rs-for-building-lifelong-relationships-with-employees/#7b0c3aa59e6d