Constructive Feedback…From Employee Point of View

Communication within an organization is essential in the sense that it brings out information which is analyzed and a feedback provided. Information flow is essential in creating an understanding between the workers and managers, investors and management and between an organization and its customers or business associates. Feedback is the cornerstone to putting in full picture how issues pertaining to the workers, customers, and employers and are being handled.

The management has to assess and evaluate the workers performance and prepare a conclusive report, which is presented to the employees for their actions. Investors demand that they be updated on key performance aspects including the financial performance and this means that the management has to prepare performance reports and present them to the investors.

The customers have to be informed of upcoming products and how their complaints regarding products and services are being solved. Employees also have a role to present their views, opinions, and performance reports to the management. It is perhaps thought that managers are the people concerned with giving information.

Whereas this is true, it must be appreciated that workers have also a great role in creating, preparing, and disseminating information. Employees have to prepare their performance reports and present them to the management. These reports are mainly based on their performance or the outcomes. This information is used by the management to analyze and prepare the final conclusive reports presented to the management team and the board of directors.

Workers interact greatly with the customers. They are furnished with information regarding the products and services which must be presented to the management. Whereas customers can address their problems to the management directly, workers are better positioned to receive these details. In workshops, exhibitions and trainings, the employees get the chance to meet the customers.

Workers also interact with customers in the process of selling products or when carrying out product surveys and research activities and they are able to get hands on information on the customer satisfaction. Employees are confronted with problems in the course of their duty execution and this need to be presented to the management.

Workers perform their duties as a team and when problems arise, the team leaders are mandated to present them to the management for actions. Similarly, workers are involved and participated in key problem solving and decision making forums where their contribution is highly appreciated. They give their views, opinions, suggestions, decisions, and methods, which are then analyzed by the management to come up with the right decisions and solutions to the underlying problems.

All these are but helpful platforms through which information is communicated from one point to another. Communication is essential and helps create an understanding between the parties involved and this enhances a mutual relationship bond. Conflicts of interest are minimized and performance is enhanced. Working blindfolded without being highlighted on key issues can create problems that affect the business growth.  

When Is Autocratic Management Style Good for Your Business

What is autocratic management style? Autocratic management system is that which assumes a hard-lined, authoritarian, centrally instituted form of people's management skills. All the management functions are initiated from one central point, which is the management. The top management is manifested with too much authority. Even the other down-line managers are not empowered to effectively and efficiently test their attributes. 

There is a lot of control and confinement of power to one individual or the management. Other people's input in terms of ideas, opinions, views, and strategies is not welcomed. There is disconnection between the workers and the management. The most affected are the subordinates who do not have any say in the management initiatives of the organization. 

The associate workers are compelled, enforced and inflicted to deliver to expectations even when the work environment is not conducive and the targets set are unrealistic, unattainable and not measurable.  Employees feel enslaved to their duties. There is frustration, intimidation, and fear created in the efforts of influencing the workers to accomplish set goals. Nonetheless, this kind of management style has its own benefits.

One of the key advantages of autocratic form of people's management is that set goals can be achieved even in situations where they have previously failed due to lenient and non compelling efforts of the management. Although the results are attained, this is usually out of fear. In fact, this form of management forced the workers to deliver to expectations without failure as there is fear of victimization. 

But the main question is that; should employees be forced to execute their duties? Another importance of authoritative form of management is that decisions are made and implemented without interference from other employees. There is no objection as to why such decisions are being implemented without the consent and involvement of the employees. 

It must be said that, this system of management views employees as just mere tools of production and they are not valued and respected. The management is not presented with a lot of problems as the workers fear that when they present their complaints they will be victimized. Workers shy off from airing out their views from the repercussions that may befall them. 

However, this is extremely dangerous since when workers fail to express their frustrations, they develop ill emotions that may accumulate to reach a threshold level. When this point is reached, the results are unimpressive as they can confront the management showing anger and violent actions. In authoritarian system, the manager controls every management aspect and there are no overlaps in duty performance. 

There is also a no nonsense approach which instills discipline among the workers. It must be appreciated that employees can be difficult to handle especially when it comes to adhering to rules and regulations or accomplishing set targets. When workers have intentionally failed to play their part, they can be influenced by putting in forceful actions to manipulate them perform to expectations. 

Employees do not have to over think and indulge in aspects such as problem solving and decision making. This makes their role in the workplace simple and easy to handle. However, it must be said that this is not the best approach in career development as the workers lack the experience, knowledge, and skills to solve core problems in the workplace. They are unable to test their abilities. 

This negatively implicates on their performance. The management is also confronted with a lot of problems to solve and decisions to make which would otherwise be accomplished by the subordinates. In a nutshell, there is lack of self initiation and responsibility within the workforce when authoritative management style is used inappropriately.

Annual Salary verses Hourly Salary… Which Is Better?

Salaries are the returns that a worker gains in exchange of offering his or her skills, efforts, talents, willpower, expertise, time, and energy in a task or job performance. What is annual salary? Annual salary is that form of wage, which is paid once for a period of twelve-months. On the other hand, hourly salary is that form of wage, which is paid on hourly basis. Annual salaries are mainly accustomed for tasks that are to be undertaken for a long period.

The employee is permanently engaged in the job. They are also based on the fact that, the company is fully convinced that the worker will show a good performance throughout the year. Annual salaries are beneficial in the sense that the worker is promised to be on duty for the better part of the year. The employee is assured of work through out the period. Hourly salary is usually applied for short-term tasks and jobs.

This implies that the worker is not in that particular job for a long period and this may soon render the worker joblessness. Annual salary implies that the company has a long-term relationship and commitment with the employee. Workers benefits such as pension schemes, healthcare insurance, and retirement benefits are offered to the worker. There is a pronounced use of company resources such as cars.

The company is also mandated to enhance the training to the worker depending on the training needs and company goals and objectives. In the case of the hourly salary, the company has a limited commitment to the worker. In fact, the relationship between the employer and the employer is terminated immediately the task is complete. This is however renewable based on the needs of the services of the worker to the company.

The hourly role worker is not mandated to get any company benefits such as retirement benefits. However, based on the kind of worker being performed, the company may be required to offer benefits in form of insurance coverage for the time the employee is on duty. When a company engages in a long-term relation with an employee, it is able to benefit from any unique skills and talents from the employee for that timeframe.

This lacks in case of hourly role as the employee has a limited stay in the company. Unique skills are enjoyed for a relatively short period. On the perspective of the worker, the annual salary role creates an after-job benefit in the sense that after retirement, the employee is able to benefit from any long term schemes that were initiated by the company.

A company may set up investment schemes for its worker as part of the retirement benefits. This implies that workers are granted these benefits upon retirement and they enjoy them for the rest of their life simply due to the contributions they made to the company during their employment tenure. Hourly role workers do not benefit from these benefits.

Other benefits of annual salary include; gratuity benefits and service charge, and these miss out from the hourly salary. In a nutshell, annual salary plans are more beneficial than hourly roles as the employees are entitled to other underlying benefits due to their long-term relation with the company.

What are the Attributes of a Good Human Resource Manager

Human resource managers are concerned with the planning, organization, control, development, and maintenance of the manpower in an organization by enhancing workers performance to achieve improved productivity and profitability while meeting customer satisfaction. The human resource managers are responsible for a very dynamic and integral resource of an organization. In deed, employees are the greatest asset of a company, which has a mental ability to execute duties and apply cognitive thinking to solve problems and be creative in productivity.

A quality human resource manager should be able to understand the employees’ needs and expectations. This implies that, the manager has to listen to the staff complaints, problems, suggestion, opinions, requirements and aspects that are presented by the workers for managers' attention. The human resource manager should in fact possess good listening skills. This way they win support and confidence from the workers.

Creative problem solving techniques are ideal for a personnel manager. More often than not, human resource managers are confronted with staff challenges and problems that require the application of intellectual, intuitive and conceptual skills in order to come up with viable and sustainable solutions.   For example, employees’ absenteeism may be a backstreching problem for the human resource manager. These managers should also have training and administration skills.

The workforce need to be constantly developed through retraining to sharpen their skills, introduce new technological know-how and inform them of the market trends. It's imperative for the human resource managers to have basic financial management skills. They usually perform their duties on one of the important company resource.

This resource need to be managed financially since it can adversely implicate on the overall financial budget. They should be able to design human resource budget, prioritize on expenditures, reduce on cost of human resource and use the budgetary allocation efficiently and with accountability. HR managers should also posses counseling skills. This is because; the workers often display changes in behavior due to reasons that may be within the company or outside the company.

The human resource manager through the intellectual and conceptual skills should be able to understand the kind of problem at hand. For instance, stress is a common mental and emotional problem. Others are alcoholism, workaholic, drug abuse, absenteeism, abscondment and poor performance. The personnel manager should apply counseling skills to rehabilitate the workers with such behavioral changes in order to improve on their personal well-being and job commitment.

Human resource managers handle intelligent resource and are thus required to posses leadership skills to lead the staff community in the most profound and responsible manner. They must be able to influence the actions and thoughts of the workers. In deed, the workers should show responsiveness whenever the personnel managers are talking. 

Aptly, HR managers must possess authority execution power in order to enforce the personnel management rules and regulation as well as key decisions. It's evident that strong managerial decisions are implemented at the personnel office and this implies that they must have a strong and influential character that is highly respected and honored.

For example, disciplinary actions of the employees are communicated and effected through the human resource office. The staff redundancies and lay offs are effected through the same office. Similarly, employees’ dismissals are done via the human resource office. These are very strong and critical decisions that require composure, authority, power, and the ability to influence the people's minds.  

How Managers Can Influence the Productivity of Workers

Managers play a key role in influencing the performance of employees since they can determine how workers enhance productivity. Often managers set goals that are unrealistic and demand the workers to accomplish them without knowing the harm they are causing to the employees. Workers are inflicted with discouragement and deteriorating morale when they are put in a dead end situation by goals that are unattainable.

Out of fear to fail in their management, managers set targets way above the workers ability to achieve. This sends the employees in nightmares as they tumble around to make ends meet. The result is a total failure and waste of time and resources as the workers beat about the bush and wonder in and around, simply spending more time thinking on what they can do achieve the results rather than doing what they are supposed to do.

The situation is, in fact, aggravated when the manager is autocratic. The employees shy off in giving their opinions and suggestion. They are whirled in fear of expressing the reality that the work is just too demanding to be accomplished as per the expectations of the manager.  This leads to a retrogressive performance.

Communication is a vital element for any business organization. In order to utilize this tool of performance, the manager should enhance a communication system that is open and accountable. This way the employees are able to channel in their opinions, ideas and thoughts that best lead to a desirable performance.

Empowering the workers to nurture a communication system that brings out the willpower usually makes workers more result oriented. For instance, compelling workers to reach set targets that where devised a couple of months ago during the initial implementation plans, and have never received any reviews and assessments, can be a derailment to the management efforts to achieve the projected results.

There is need for a constant review of the goals and plans in place to ensure that they are aligned to the changing business environment. A feedback loop must be created to offer a periodical update of the performance and any changes that may deem a necessary. Aptly, managers must realize that it is not their rigidness, toughness or their amount of authority execution that will influence workers to deliver, but the ability to develop goals that are attainable and measurable.

Furthermore, the more authoritative power is applied to manipulate the workers to perform, the more they become adamant and non-productive. To emphasize, today's managers should learn to captivate within the workforce what is referred to by critics as self-propelled performance process, where the employee is the kingpin in the work performance.

What Are the Bad Reasons Why Employees Quit Their Jobs?

There are mainly two ways in which employees quit or relinquish their positions in workplace. First, is out of good will and from justifiably good reasons. An employee may be foreswearing a position to join a better paying or more senior rank in another company. It may also entail waiving a current job to pursue a more economically advanced venture such as a stable business operation. Critics term this as leaving for a better course.

Withal, there is that ceasing a job that comes out of unjustifiable treatment in the company, conflicts of interest with the management, dismissal, or dissatisfaction with the job. This is where the rubber meets the road and the friction of the job sends one of the parties (company or employee) terminating the job. Bad reasons that can be attached to renouncing a job are;

Job pressure
When the job is too remanding, this may cause daunting moments for the employee. In extreme cases, it leads to stress and anxiety, which may further transform to depression. Job pressure arises when the targets set are unrealistic and unattainable. The management fails to understand that the targets it has put forward are unachievable and keeps on pressing the employee to deliver. Such a case occurs when the management implements decisions without consulting and involving the workers.

Conflict of interest with seniors
There are times when an employee differs with the superiors. This happens especially if worker feels that is on the right side and has no fear for expression of opinion or fact. There is need for employees to express their frustrations, opinions, criticisms, and corrections when they feel it is necessary.

In some companies, the management assumes a hard-lined management system, and they do not allow the inputs in form of any expression of opinion from other employees. This is the type referred to as an authoritarian management system. This is a tyrannical form of leadership in workplace that eventually makes the employees dissatisfied with the job environment and opts to quit.

Underpayment
Poor payment is one of the most pervasive reasons why workers quit jobs and depart a company for other career or business obligations. This happens when the duties or tasks do not match the remunerations offered. As a company performance improves, there is need for successive review and adjustment of the workers' salaries and other pay packages.

Nonetheless, there are cases where an employee works for a company for several years and no tangible salary adjustment is implemented. This calls for the worker to look for greener pastures. Why would employers want to pay little when they are getting big returns from the efforts, skills, talents, and knowledge of the worker? This is quite ironical. Otherwise, employees are not slaves. They have to be satisfactorily paid for their work.

Why Key Employees Should Be Protected In Times of Recessive Growth

Key employees can be useful resource during the hard times when a company experiences recessive growth. High performing employees are an asset to the organization and they are actually becoming scarce as organizations compete to make use of them. One of the unique characteristics of key employees is that they are virtually difficult to get. 

Companies tend to cling on them and often do not want to relieve them of their duties even during the hard economic times. The businesses are afraid that in the event they lay them off, they will need them when the situation improves and they may not be available as other companies take advantage of this recession to search for the most outstanding employees. 

In fact, they approach excelling employees who have developed their career brand and ask them to join their companies. Key employees build their career brand through exceptional performance which is characterized by an enthusiasm in performance. These employees take the company through the economic twists and turns. They are the same employees whose services are needed during the recession in order to offer unique strategies on how to tackle the vise.

One of the imminent things that companies do during a recession is to relieve of their duties the non performing employees. They get the opportunity to dismiss those employees who have failed to show any tangible contribution to the success of the business even after immense investment by the company to enhance their skills.

Such employees are viewed as slow movers and non-thinkers who have to be spoon feed on every decision or duty performance. Undisciplined workers are also laid off. The high performance assumes the chance to prove their existence in the company. As an employee, this is the right time to offer the very best of all the decisions and strategies.

As a matter of fact, as a key employee, one should get down to business and carry out a research on how to pull the company from the economic trench. The company should really be able to say that; surely this is the employee of the company! One should prove to them beyond any reasonable doubt that they are not there by chance but out of excellence in duty execution. High performer can help turn around the performance of a business during the hard times and they should be protected and retained.

Should Businesses Embrace Employees Internet Monitoring in Workplace?

Employee Internet motoring is not perceived positively in workplace. Managers are often placed in awkward positions as they adapt to innovations in the workplace including internet use.  Internet is one of the most needed technological advancement for businesses however, it's versatility in application is hampered by the behavioral role displayed by the workers.  

As a major socializing tool, the internet is prone to abuse and misuse by the employees in the workplace.  Technological innovations are strategic alignments for business organizations to advance their competitive edge. When introduction of new technology is announced in workplace, the employees develop a quest to have the innovation installed. They wait for the new technology with zeal.

Internet connectivity is one of the digital edge instruments that have assumed another angle in its use in work place. As much as the importance of the Internet highly thrives, its use is looped around ethical loopholes that need to be sealed. In essence, the very innovation that is developed to benefit the company may turn out to be destructive to the employees' work initiative.

One of the importance of Internet is the ability to provide communication with other audiences all over the world. The greatest advantage and which is also the greatest threat to Internet use is the border-less access of information. Once you have logged in the websites, you entirely get into another virtual communication world. 

Internet can easily carry the emotions, mind-sets, feelings and concentrations of the audience in an immense way totally destructing the real people’s presence at the point of use of the Internet. The mental status and thinking abilities are carried away from the person’s position of work.

Internet in work place is essential as first and foremost it enhances the communication system within and outside of the organization. Information flow within the employees’ network is improved and this is reflected by the way problems are solved, tasks are delegated, and essential highlights are quickly distributed to the respective workers. 

Still of great importance is the ability to access research materials and information right from the office desk. The management can easily initiate a product survey, product and corporate research in a more accurate, convenient, and efficient manner. The list is endless as its use in the company expands with the company's need to grow.

Nonetheless, Internet use is often abused where the management does not have sound ethical guidelines to govern the use of this communication tool. The employees are easily ruined to engage in personal Internet use due to its borderless accessibility of information. 

In fact, the Internet is considered a fun and recreating activity. When workers begin to use it for fun and recreation, they fail to understand that they are doing the right thing at the wrong place and in the wrong time. Employees are in work place to undertake tasks and other assignment in form of jobs. Their time is limited. The management expects to get the optimum results of the tasks.

Internet interferes with the concentration of the employees to their jobs. It slows down productivity and affects the efficiency and effectiveness of the workers. It may also affect the quality of products, and this impacts on the buyer’s behavior. If not checked, it can result to total shift of positive performance to a retarded performance.

The management assumes the role to control the use of Internet in order to avert the workers from being swept away by the curiosity to discover fun and recreation in the Internet which affects productivity. When the use of this tool is monitored, this gets the employees alert and they are aware that somebody somewhere is monitoring their activities in the workplace.  

This way they desist from abusing the use of the Internet. They concentrate on their duties and their performance is least affected. This implies that the workers only use the net for the intended purpose and thus it saves time, energy and efforts which would be lost through nonconstructive use of the tool.

In essence, internet monitoring in workplace could help curb the abuse of technological innovations in businesses. Where Internet is used for research, survey, transactions, access to work-oriented programs and of course information flow within and out of the company, there is increased productivity and profitability. There is increase in product knowledge, understanding of the market dimensions and trends as well as an understanding of the customer needs and expectations. And what does this mean to the company?

What are the Disadvantages of Delegating Work?

Relegating work entails allocating tasks to employees with the aim of accomplishing the results within the stipulated time frame. Managers adopt work delegation so as to meet to demands posed by the pending work. When delegating, it is imperative to evaluate and establish the importance and urgency of the work. Sometimes, managers are tied up in attending to the more urgent and important assignments while other duties remain unattended.

This calls for a need to distribute the tasks to other employees in order to harmonize the productivity process in the workplace. Definitely, managers want to achieve the best results from delegated tasks. This means that the workers allocated duties should show high standards of performance to meet the manager's expectations.  

When delegating, the manager is accountable for the outcomes of the work.  Should the results be substandard, the manager is expected to respond to the cause of the poor performance. One of the setbacks of delegating work is the failure to achieve the desired results.  When duties are delegated, it is expected that the results will meet the requirements. 

However, due to the fact that the tasks are allocated to down-line employees they may lack the ability to give the desired results. This means that the results may not meet the exceptions of the manager and hence the customer. Indeed, this is one of the reasons why it's hard for some managers to relegate duties and opt to attend to them personally. 

Delegating can also create lack of commitment and laxity within the manager. This is actually abusing the role of delegation since the manager realizes that somewhere there is an employee who can attend to the tasks thus delegates even when not occupied with other duties. This promotes laziness within the manager. Delegation should only be done when it is necessary and not without a cause.