Essay: Significance Of Employee Communication And Strategies For Involvement And Engagement.

Development of Strategies and Techniques to be used for Employee Involvement and Engagement

Human resource management within any organisation is often referred as the division of a business which is charged with findings, training job, recruitment as well as includes employee-benefit programs. The aim of the paper is to identify and analyse the significance of employee communication and its method of building approach of employee engagement and significance (Albrecht et al, 2015). The discussion section of the paper is divided into three parts where each section will emphasize on the factors of employee communication, its strategies and theories. In the first section of the paper the development of strategies will be outlined which will be used for enhancing the employee involvement and engagement. However, the strategies of Unitarism and pluralism theory will be considered to analyse the situation. In the second section of the paper, the communication approach will enable to assist the approach of employee voice. Furthermore, the benefits if the employers and employee will be stated based on the approach of employee voice (Saeed et al, 2019). In the third section of the paper, it will emphasize on the training and development of the employees and managers so that it is easier for them to understand the responsibility and role of employee engagement. However, the report will end with a recommendation section that will provide assistances to the organisation on importance of employee involvement and engagement within the workplace.

Development of Strategies and Techniques to be used for Employee Involvement and Engagement:

The factor of Unitarism strategy within the human resource management can be analysed to consist of individuals who share the same interest and are homogeneous in nature. It is the third party that is viewed to be irrelevant as the employer and employee comprises of mutual cooperation. As Unitarism comprise of staff as well as the management who share a common goal all throughout has a great loyalty towards the organisation (Greenwood and Van Buren 201). There are organisations who use this type of approach as they depend on the workplace to create a strong sense of cooperation within the employee and employer as they allow the staff to maintain their focus on primary aim. Considering the factor of soft HRM approach it can be related to the workforce which is managed consensually as a valuable resource where the workforce is considered to be a foundation of competitive factor. In addition to his strategy, this approach also facilitates effective communication which will be effective for employee engagement and their involvement within the business firm. According to the CIPD report, the benefit of employee engagement can be analysed as the feeling of being engaged which is evident for workers which are working in effective work culture. Emphasizing on the other studies it show a positive relationship between employee engagement and other business metrices thereby including productivity, customer satisfaction, health and safety, staff retention and effective performance.

  According to Hook and Jenkins (2019), it can be analysed that the basic requirement of HRM is to serve for the corporate strategy and thereby achieve the corporate aims by means of high-performance workforce. In order to gain a competitive benefit through the workforce, irrespective of whether they are permanent or part-time, provisional or contract staff, all conceivable must be refined and industrialized, and programmes that recompense due notice to information about the behavioural features of people at work are industrialized. Thus, pluralism can be considered with the trade unions as they are essential to occupy the integral role of solving issues (Brewster et al, 2016). However, some of the advantages of using this method will initiate forward planning, realistic approach of dealing with the unions, increased rate of flow of information, maintaining a balance of interest of staff and management. As compared with the partnership approach of pluralism it had some resemblance as well as differences (Wilkinson et al, 2020). While working within a management setting, flow of communication is essential as it brings in the employee from every level to work effectively, thereby leading to higher rate of employee engagement. For instances, Tesco in 1998 had witnessed pay negotiation which are complete in single day as it was easier to discuss than the usual adversarial event. It assists with more information to the union and had set the potential payroll cost.

Factors of Unitarism and Pluralism Theory for Employee Engagement

Employee involvement within the organisation can be referred as their direct participation of employees to help the workplace fulfil the mission and meets its objective of applying their own ideas, efforts and expertise towards solving issues and making decisions. For every organisation, including Tesco the factors of employee involvement are very essential for the workplace to include. The involvement within the employees makes the individuals feel a part of their workplace. Some of the major initiative that an organisation can take up is to firstly think Bottom Up and Not Top Down. The factor of employee engagement can also be emphasized on the crucial management setting and the process that keeps the employees aligned with the organisations value and work ethics. If any individual is involved by providing them autonomy, then the performance turns out to be better (Radda, Majidadi and Akanno 2015). This also includes to achieve full potential of the employees to work for the leaders and their work efficiency also increases.

With the help of questionnaires and surveys it is vital to gauge with the employees’ feelings and opinion. It is also necessary to conduct team meetings which is not necessary to be a formal meeting but employees can be taken out for lunch. Secondly, the management should adopt the strategy of showing that they are listening to the employees. This is because it will enable the employees to clear doubts and issue faced while conducting work and most importantly it will help them to address effectively (Awadari and Kanwal 2019). The advantage of using these approaches will enable the management to engage the employees and will provide them with a great service to the clients. Similarly, it will also improve the efficiency and productivity of employees. It is evident that an engaged employee will definitely work to benefit the organisation so they find a way to produce a great quality of work.

Some of the major initiatives that is adopted by Tesco in order to facilitate employee involvement and employee engagement can be analysed as follows: firstly, it incorporates colleague briefing session which ensures that the employees are the first people to hear the vital company news, as well as allowing them a chance of their opinion and ask them a question (Peeroo, Samy and Jones 2015). Secondly, Tesco includes showing of talent which assist them to drive the participation from employees in huge numbers. Specifically, during the event they get an opportunity to showcase their talents which can either dancing, comedy and many others. Lastly, it can also be analysed as the company had introduced Face Box which engages with the employees in a form of campaign (Szymanska-Bralkowska and Malinowska 2017). This idea had encouraged the employees to step forward and be the face of Tesco and received a great opportunity to connect and anchor with one another through podcast and videos.

According to the CIPD report it can be analysed that to third of the workers are satisfied in the overall jobs. The 2018 analysis showcases that the UK job satisfaction fluctuates the previous decade, dropping from 2010 to 2011 to a low f just over half but there are general pictures in more positive than negative. When the employees are engaged within the organisation then they are most likely to be invest in the work that they are doing and which is leading to a higher quality of work which is produced (Bailey et al, 2017). Hence, the employees are more engaged when they are more involved and are allowed to work harder while they disengage employees who are likely to only conduct bare minimum to get. However, with the help of employee voice being an example of employee involvement it can be determined that the factors of employee engagement, effectiveness, retention and creativity are some of the attributes that assist the employees to voice, thereby leading to employee involvement. Therefore, by catering towards formation of a functional system of employees they can voice both side and can enable to build a positive social partnership w0thin the management and workforce.

Employee Involvement within the Organisation

Employee voice can be analysed by ways of meaning in which people communicate with their views to the employees.  According to Hook and Jenkins. (2019) employee voice relates to how employees communicate to their employer. The main purpose of employee voice is to make workers feel like they are a legitimate stakeholder and to help them feel valued. Thus, employee voice emerges when the employees feel that they are able to be honest and tur with themselves. Hence, the role modelling of individual is through authenticity where the leaders indicate of having opinion and voicing which are desirable behaviour. However, it is the responsibility of the leaders and managers to ensure that the employee voice is accepted and that they are built into decision making at the highest level.

Communication strategies are often referred as the action plan for improving the communication within the workplace. It enables to establish goals for a successful completion of plan, a communication strategy which involves the selection of tools with inclusion of strategic mix of nonverbal and verbal communication. The communication style that is chosen for this section are team briefing and consultation strategy.

The first communication strategy that is team briefing emphasize on a simple management principle underlying the team briefing aspect as a part of good communication part of the organisation (Mheidly and Fares 2020). This allows face-to-face meetings of small groups which is relevant to work and is conducted by team leaders. Team briefing will allow to bring in managers, leaders and team members together on a face-to-face meeting so that the relevant information can be shared, employees can ask question an solve their doubts. It is more of an excellent way to organise communication upward, sideways and downward all throughout the organisation. Thus, it is a simple way to facilitate communication and at the same time effectively operate within the organisation (Drover and Ariel 2015). For instance, considering the factor of communication strategy of Tesco it can be identified that it conducts a survey, gathers views of the staff survey which is formally called Viewpoint. The survey assists to lower the barrier of participation where the employees are invited to send thoughts through emails and text. In this station, the leaders respond through face-to-face individual meetings. replying back to emails or though text. Thus, the benefits of optimizing the communication strategy of team briefing the leaders can offer with a channel of delivering clear messages and thereby encourage open communication.

The second strategy that is identified above is consultation strategy. It is the process in which the management decides upon the development of system, practice, issue and policies of mutual concern with the workers (Bard et al, 2017). This involves to seek acceptances of solutions towards the issue faced with the assistnaces of exchange of information and views. However, the strategy of consultation does not remove the right of the leaders to manage the work as they must make the final decision. It imposes an obligation in which the view of the employees will be sought and will be considered on issues that affect those workers before the decision are being taken. Considering the factors of meeting those obligation the employers will consider the effects of issue faced with regards to health and safety concerns and how it is effective as well as a meaningful consultation on the issue that can be achieved (Schapira et al, 2019). Furthermore, this strategy also involves employers to actively seek and then it takes into account the view of workers before they take any decision. This requires two-way communication where the managers provide the employee with information and the workers take on the responsibility on actively participate in the process.

Initiatives Adopted by Tesco for Employee Involvement and Engagement

The communication approach of ensuring that the senior leaders set the right tone and climate is one of the attributes that sol e the issue and facilitates employee voice. There are times when the senior leaders communicate within each other and transfer the information to employee later, thus creating an impact on employee voice in an indirect manner (Barry and Wilkinson 2016). This is indicated by the action taken by them to make filter down within organisational stories which spread across the organisation. On the other hand, the leaders and managers of the organisation should make sure that the employee voice mechanism is built in the field of decision making which is at the highest level so that the organisational stories are an openness to the leaders and ultimately leading to positivity. Similarly, the communication approach that will solve the problem and instigate employee voice is by initiating information to employees in a non-hierarchical manner (Holland, Cooper and Sheehan 2017). When the managers make the employees feel safe, they tend to be more comfortable to voice their opinion in future. When the organisation offers a work culture that promotes employee voice it automatically turns out to be a positive work environment. For instances, the benchmark company that is Tesco, the factor of employee voice is conducted through emails and text which means that there is low barrier rate towards any conflict and employees are encouraged to raise voices.

Training and Development to enhance both employees and managers on communication strategies 

Most of the organisation do recognise the significance of fostering the factors of involvement and engaged workforce, but at the same time some struggle to make a meaningful improvement on the employee’s engagement level (Jamali et al, 2015). However, the training and development facility that can enhance the employees and managers understanding of roles and responsibility ca be firstly stated as job or task rotation. Employees can offer the opportunity to rotate roles with team members or within the leaders on a time or a shift basis so that they can place some of those new skills in practice. There are employees who can encourage the same approach of job rotation as a practice for the employees where they can indicate their desire to get into the practical experience to build and develop additional skills (Cloutier et al, 2015). The next approach is to coach the managers and leaders of the organisation so that while they talk to various employees, they can develop the method a benefit they stress on the significance of helping the managers polish their skills. This method of skill development can typically involve the senior staff member to work one-on-one with the fewer knowledgeable individuals. Lastly, the training and development method of conference is an effective method of communication strategy (Phillips and Phillips 2016). With this type of developmental strategy one can include committee and workshops as a useful way of creating network and gaining exposure towards a vast knowledgeable base.

Technique to support communication, employee engagement and employee involvement through training and development 

The technique through which one can support communication, employee engagement and employee involvement by means of training and development can be stated as: firstly, there must be constant communication with the employees in order to value their development. The first step is to value the employee’s development which is easy and simple to make through time for it. However, when the managers are trained it is simple to make enough time for it. So, when the managers train the employees, they must provide them with time as they need to be fully participated into the training activities and complete assessment. Therefore, when managers take care to organize the employee improvement process, they can train them during their job and this will facilitate effective communication within them. Eventually it will help the employees to feel appreciated as well as motivated to keep them growing (Eldor and Harpaz 2016). On the other hand, the technique of encouraging through personal development of employees as this will lead to flow effective communication, employee involvement and engagement within the workplace. Hence, it is the companies who retain the employees with specific skills set are not likely to face the issue. When the managers help the employees to reach the place, they wish to obtain during their phase of employment will encourage their development but allow to retain the staff.

For example, in Tesco it can be identified that the technique that is used to engage with the employee and maintain employee involvement through innovative training and development technique (Alxander 2020). It is termed as none-month training program that evaluates the essential management skills and is followed by the employee action skills and learning assignment for approx. three months. In this way they enhance their coaching skills where the managers participate for their employees and end up gaining the developmental experience with courage, understanding and accountability.

It can be recommended that the managers and leaders of the organisation can incorporate the model of core value and emphasize the workplace mission. It will be analysed that the employees will be more engaged within the workplace when the leaders and managers set goals for them and as a result, it will inspire them (Valmohammadi and Roshanzamir 2015). It is the mission and value statement that caters towards th foundation of company culture and plays a large role in how it can engage the employees. It can further start by creating a concise list of company core feature and value, the include training and development of each value. By conducting this it can guarantee the employees understand the significance of company value and how positively they can create an impact on business.

Conclusion 

The factor of effective communication and employee involvement within the organisation creates a robust on employee engagement strategies which is essential to ensure for the team to invest in their work and the company culture. However, the leaders must be thoughtful to enhance their approach to increase the employee engagement and thus it will reap reward with an engaged workforce for coming years. It is vital to consider that employee engagement is not a temporary aspect but it can keep the employees engaged in a serious endeavor which requires a constant consideration. Similarly, the training programs will assist the managers to equip with the employees for their roles and responsibility.

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