Assignment Question
As an HR professional, we need to provide policies and practices which will enable us to get the best performance from our employees. As an HR professional what can we do to ensure that this happens?
Looking at an organisation which you are familiar with and their HR strategy please provide a critical review of:
• The methods they employ to engage and retain employees? Is this effective?
• What is the reward strategy currently used by the organisation? How is the effectiveness of these methods monitored and reviewed? Has this been found to be effective?
Provide recommendations for increasing the performance of employees within the organisation based upon the review carried out.
(Draw on your learning from Unit 5 – 9 and brainstorming activity in unit 5 to make use of frameworks, theories and best practice to support your ideas).
Word Count: 2,000 words (The report is 2,000 words and then the reflective statement is an additional 200 words. See below for details of a reflective statement.)
Solution:
Introduction
The policies and practices of human resources management are the principles that a company follows in the management of its employees (O'Dea, 2017). It provides human resource professionals with detailed guidance on different job issues and helps in defining the company’s purpose with regard to multiple facets of human resource management including recruiting, promotion, compensation, training, selection etc. They are benchmarks for designing strategies in human resources or for deciding about the employees of a corporation (Anderson, 2014).A successful Human resource policy offers extensive input on the strategy to be followed by the company’s workers in their different job roles. All across companies, there are specific situations, and a set of unique organizational policies that are created to meet the needs of such situations (Pravin, 2010). Therefore the aim of this report is to provide a critical review of the methods Nestle Plc employs in engaging and retaining its employees, showing how effective it is, what reward strategy Nestle Plc is currently using, How the effectiveness of the methods are monitored and reviewed, and also how effective the method has been.
About Nestle Nigeria Plc.
Nestlé Nigeria PLC is among Africa’s largest beverages industries. Nestlé have been in the production of excellent standard nutritionally balanced products for customers in Africa for over decades. The corporation manufactures and distributes many famous brands, comprising Maggi, Milo, Golden Morn, Nescafe and Nestlé Pure Life, with more than 2,300 staff, 3 production plants, 8 branches and a headquarters situated in Lagos. The goal of Nestle is to enhance the health and wellbeing of the society. The corporation supports the environment whilst achieving the company's long-term sustainability (Tay & Diener, 2011).
Nestles attitude towards business is in a prolong strategy. They have always been of the opinion that that the business success is in the creation of value for their stakeholders and their environment. The technique they employed for corporate activities was called Creating Shared Value (CSV) (Chiang &Birtch, 2010).
Creating Shared Value (CSV) at Nestlé ties both industry and environment by enhancing greater financial advantage, in a manner which still increases social value. Nestle was positive that the success of the corporation will be guaranteed by developing values both for their shareholders and their environment. (Pınar, 2011).
The methods employed by Nestle Plc to engage and retain employees
i. Good working conditions
Nestle Plc is a major adopter of two factor theories of Herzberg (Hygiene and Motivation) that believe in a healthy and sanitary workforce environment which minimizes workforce dissatisfaction (Herzberg, Mausner& Snyderman, 2010). Nestle has dedicated itself to offering quality work environment, a conducive and restorative workplace as well as a flexible job prospects for its staff throughout the globe, which adequately bring an equilibrium between personal and business life in line with Nestle 's vision as the largest wellness and nutrition corporation (Kenrick, Neuberg, Griskevicius, Becker & Schaller, 2010). However, Nestlé’s engagement extends far beyond its staff. They are meticulous about anyone operating within or without the premises of the organization under contractual agreements with suppliers of services and Nestle also insist on taking steps to ensure appropriate conditions for their jobs (Muchinsky, 2012).
ii. Employee rewards
Nestle Plc has been able to retain its workforce with the use of efficiency wage theory, which believes that an increase in salary will improve efficiency of the workforce. However, Nestle focal point is on good salary pay, flexible compensation and benefits, personal success and advancement which serveas a key factor in describing Total Rewards (Nguwi, 2013). At Nestlé's plc, recruitment and retention of existing workforce are not only through salary and bonuses, but also the well-deserveddeference and respect the image of the brand gives to those employed with the corporation, alsorecognition and personal achievementare also experienced when employed with Nestle Plc (Nguwi, 2013).
iii. Training and learning
Learning is a component of Nestle culture and the company introduces different types of learning theories. The Social Learning Theory, which states that individuals develop by watching certain personalities they perceive to be trustworthy and competent, is one of the company's learning theory (Armstrong, 2012). They consider the individual as their style icon. Nestle staff are encouraged to watch each other and learn from each other to better improve their experience and abilities (Larkin, Pierce & Gino, 2012). The starting point of learning at Nestle Plc is through professionalism and on-the-job learning. Supervisors and executives take up the responsibility of coaching their workforce to take over their position after retirement or exit from the firm. Staff members at Nestlé recognize the significance of continual learning, and the free communication of information and expertise. Practices like technical differential growth, increasing roles and interdepartmental workforces are motivated to gain more skills, enhance quality job experience and expand transparency (Armstrong, 2012). Nestlé as well provides a variety of training programmes and strategies to encourage development and performance for everyone. In order to build and retain highly skilled personnel, corporate personnel programs are also implemented (Brookes & Croucher, 2011).
iv. Talent development and performance management
Nestlé plays a major role in achieving organizational and employee goalsthrough ahigh level performancetradition assisted by incentives and growth. It is motivated by consistent and clear functions and this knowledge have a significant effect on Nestlé workers. The management and staff operate closely to set the organizational goals and also make successful review of demanding goals during the year (De Wit & Meyer, 2010). This however helps supervisors to identify workers with high productivity and compensate them for it, while ensuring that poor productivity is appropriately handled with dignity. Workers receive reviews on a constant basis about their professional life and efficiency at work by means of a range of techniques and procedures, including an advancement and growth guide (Bremen, Sejen& Watson, 2012).
Every supervisor is committed to tracking goals and performing frequent workforce training throughout the year. Workers assisted by the immediate supervisor are tagged responsible for their own professional growth, allowing the staff member demonstrate their career goals and aspirations.
The effectiveness of these methods
Nestle Plc’s approaches were successful as their workforces have a perception of a strong personal connection to their responsibilities and the company. They are also encouraged and motivated to give the company their best. Employees have also increased their loyalty to the organization and their commitment to the organizational objective is also increasing.
Reward strategy currently employed by Nestle Plc
Figure 1: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs; Source: simplypsychology.org
Nestle Plc uses Abraham Maslow’s theory, the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to develop their rewards strategy. Maslow believes that employee’s needs are classified into five stages and each stage must be settled before moving to the next (Armstrong, 2010).
At nestle plc, before creating the reward strategies, the human resource considers the goal, vision and mission of the organization, the needs of the employees and ways to create the satisfaction that is demanded by the employees. Therefore, the following are the current reward strategy that are been employed by Nestle Plc;
i. Money Compensation
With every form of services provided by Nestle workforce (e.g. time, energy and expertise), the company provides a money compensation which incorporates both fixed payment (wages and salaries) and flexible payment (commissions and remunerations). Workers compensation package varies with duration and can be attributed to a variety of distinctive variables, such as productivity or job growth (Gkorezis, Petridou, Panagiotis & Eugenia, 2011). This however caters for the physiological needs of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs which are food, water, accommodation etc.
ii. Positive and Supportive Leaders
At Nestle Plc, a positive and supportive leader has helped in defining main talent retention element in this rising dynamic business period. Generally, workers want to operate in an atmosphere where a true sense of teamwork and cohesiveness is present with a manager who encourages and assists them in achieving greatness at home and at work (Nguwi, 2013). The positive work environment caters for the safety needs as well as the belongingness and love needs of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.
iii. Benefits Packages
Nestle Plc uses incentives to align workers with the financial rewards that they receive. This depends greatly on the rank of each employee and can provide the workers and his\her relatives with protection and satisfaction. The privileges usually involve vacations, health insurance, retirement plans and financial stability (Muchinsky, 2012). This also caters for the safety needs, belongingness and love needs, as well as the esteem needs of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.
iv. Employee Skill Development
Offering staffs chances for personal and career development is an integral part of the rewards strategy of Nestle Plc. The experiences are sometimes made available in the workplace through management training that are appreciated by the workers and often meet the primary objectives of the organizations. Nestle Plc tries to regulate standards, evaluate productivity and continuously striving to enhance them (Armstrong, 2010). The employee skills development caters for the self actualization and self fulfillment needs of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.
How the effectiveness of the reward strategy is measured
In order to determine the efficacy of the reward strategy, Nestle Plc adopts a structured approach that includes various viewpoints as well as robust and reliable processes. According to Nyandoro &Goremusandu (2016), the following methods were employed to assess the efficacy of the reward strategies;
i. Nestle employs the use of workplace opinion polls and/or peer reviews to consider the impartiality of reward strategy among staff and executives.
ii. They keep track on the effect of the reward strategy equality and transparency on workers performance.
iii. They carry out organizational performance assessment to know the effect of the reward strategy on employees, such as the disengagement and engagement.
iv. They also know the efficacy of the reward strategy through the value added by employees as well as the profitability of the company in the market through the calculation of the company’s rate of return on investment
Recommendations
Work Excesses should be reduced: the company should desist from allowing workers to multitask especially when they are more focused on a greater target. They should check the work load of the staff and see if anything can be changed to provide flexibility for workers to work more on important tasks.
Incorporate Telecommuting: it may sound impractical to encourage workers to work from home – and besides, what the assurance they will perform their duties successfully without been monitored? In human experience, it has been discovered that those who operate from residence are 13% more successful than workers in the offices. When the company allows workers to telecommunicate, it will conserve periods that might in actual sense be mismanaged.
Equalize workloads with expertise: The expertise and actions of the staff members are important to optimize performance. Extroverted, imaginative and powerful thinkers for example are possibly the perfect candidate to pitch ideologies to potential investors. Nevertheless, if a quite rule-intense, thorough function is issued, they can find it difficult.
Conclusion
Virtually, almost all companies have problems in retaining their employees and it has led to a competitive factor amongst company on who can offer the best reward to retain their staffs. This report has however shown the effectiveness of Nestle plc on how it has engaged and retained its workers, the reward strategies that have been employed by the organization to give the workers a better and the most exquisite job satisfaction through the provision of good compensation packages and benefits, employee trainings and development as well as a good working condition. Nestle Plc has managed to put things in place to measure the effectiveness of it reward system so as to know where to adjust and improve. However, It has been observed that the reward system of Nestle Plc have been effective as workers are productive and satisfied with their jobs.
Reflective Statement
The module started with contextualizing Human Resource Management where I have learned various definitions of Human Resource Management from a traditional approaches to people management. I further learned the correlation between Human Resource Management, employees and Organizational Performance.
The experienced I gathered in this module has equipped me for personal and professional life, particularly the Human Resource Planning which is significant to managing employees and organizations successfully. In addition, I learned about the nature and composition of United Kingdom Labour market and the key social factors responsible for employee’s engagement with paid employment. I learned further HRM Theories from the brainstorming activity where colleagues posted articles from different sources.
The Q & A sections where the module tutor discussed various areas of the module were of immense benefits to me in completing the Mid Module Assignment and End of Module Project. I used To-Do list and Scale of Preference for time management. However, I had a challenge on how to participate on the brainstorming activity at the beginning which the module tutor later clarified. I further need improvement on the Harvard Referencing style. Nevertheless, the knowledge garnered from this module has equipped me for the rest of my studies.
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