Introduction
Innovation is always the cornerstone of differentiation of a company from their competitors. It is what that separates a brand in a market. The biggest problem today is that it is the most competitive environment in history with an abundance of completion. Globalization has shrunk the world thus increasing competition. The advancement of technology also has made things easier for the competitor to duplicate the same innovations that a company comes up with. Competition has also been increased by start-ups which have now have a low entry point into the market. This means that new companies have an easy way of entering the market and competing with well-established brands that have been in the market for a very long time due to technology advancements.
This has led to the failure of something that a company builds or innovates to continuously set a company apart in the market, also known as differentiation decay. Due to this companies are struggling to find a way to differentiate themselves in a very competitive market. The perceived value of a company or brand also tends to diminish over time. The innovations that are viewed remarkable today is viewed as expected over time. This diminishing slope is governed by how fast a market reaches equilibrium where all the competitors are working nearly on the same level. This slope of perceived value has become very steep due to competitive abundance. This has led organizations and executive struggling to find new ways to make themselves stand out in the competitive crowd.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
It has then been found that what differentiates a company and makes it successful is what it is and not what it does. This means that what makes a company’s value depends on its mission, the culture and the kind of people the company employs, how they inspire their talents and not about what the company does. This has made leading companies focus on who they are by relentlessly attracting and retaining great people. They are also creating a great working environment so that great work can take place. Human resource is responsible for these two priorities, making human resource jobs some of the important roles in any business. This has forced HR to be more innovative and up their game, this is because people are the ones who create value and not businesses. Organizations that learn to focus on their culture and the people to create value are the ones that succeed and differentiate themselves from the competition. The market adjusts to any product or innovation that a company comes up with at speed, but the people and the culture are the only things that define a company. This is HRs priority, but HRs departments in most companies are broken because they are more focused on procedures, processes and policies instead of focusing on the people productivity and performance. The management must make the human capital in a company the first priority.
Employee Cycle
There are only three variables to be considered when dealing with people. These variables include Time, Talent and Energy. Most organizations are sensitized to time and talent; they are more concerned with how fast a job is done and how well it is done. They make sure they hire the most talented people for the job, optimize them and do their best to retain that talent but nothing is done about the energy. What matters the most in optimizing a talent is energy. Without the energy to perform a given task, no matter how much time or how talented a person is, they will not be successful in their work. On the other hand, if a person has little time and talent to complete a task and they have enough energy and passion for it, they will end up being successful in what they do. This shows that the main determinant on whether or not a person is successful in their work is if they have enough passion and energy to do it.
The Gartner firm came up with the Gartner hype cycle that can be related to an employee’s journey. It shows that when a person is employed (trigger), they get excited and have unrealistic expectations about the job and how great it will be for them (peak of inflated expectations). After a while they start to realize that things are not going as they hoped for and this is harder than they expected and start doubting themselves (trough of disillusionment) but if they keep working at it (slope of enlightenment) and HR has to be there with them in order to they reach a stable level (Plateau of productivity). The biggest challenge is that as humans, employees are emotional and will go back to being disengaged and HR has to be there and guide them through the slope of re-engagement and bring them back on board to the plateau of productivity. The main role of HR is to be there when an employee is going through a slope of disengagement in order to figure out why it is happening and help them overcome it in order to get back to the plateau of productivity.
Onboarding and re-boarding are the engagements that HR goes through with an employee at the moment of disengagement in order to realign them back with the company’s mission and purpose. Since HR cannot do all these on their own, they have to train the company’s managers to recognize these in their employees’ journeys. By engaging with the employees' HR is able to re-engage with them and help them through their journey in the company, they will also help the employee move on if and advance in their career and life journey, even if this means moving onwards to another company.
HR departments have begun using the Employee Net Promoter Score in part to connect with the business side of the company. They ask their employees in a survey quarterly in a question, “how likely are you to recommend our company as a great place to work?”. On a scale of 1 to 6, they are detractors; this means they are having a bad experience working for the company. On a scale of 7 and 8, they are neutral, 9 and 10 means that they are happy and the company is creating a positive environment. Based on this scores HR can start getting a sense of employees’ sentiments and emotions towards their working environment. ENPS and other poll surveys can be used by HR to gauge how they are doing such as the stay interview. HR has to recognize that employees are people who go through emotional cycles and that they have to do better in understanding the employees and recognizing where each employee is in their journey in order to be able to intervene and adjust in order to keep them at peak engagement.
Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is the most important part of an HR department. Without employee, engagement companies miss out in optimizing the productivity levels of their employees. In HR there are 16 elements of employee performance, engagement, and satisfaction. These are the building blocks of high performing culture in people and organizations. These 16 elements are categorised into four main categories. These include;
1. What you need to get work done (Input). A person cannot do their work without the right tools to do the work. Without the right tools for the job, the employee will not be motivated to do their work. This category involves the following elements;
• Objectives: Objectives are the end results of what the employee is doing and having a destination in mind and caring about getting them. They are the purpose of why they are doing what they are doing and being happy doing it no matter how hard it is. Employees must have a clear picture of the short-term objectives and the long-term objectives of the organization and their individual objectives.
• Alignment: This is where an employee is tasked to do work that they enjoy, and good at and will succeed in. An employee must be competent, passionate and be given the opportunity to do the work in order to succeed at it. The HR department must ensure that an employee is given a task they are passionate about and competent at and also make sure that they have the opportunity to do it. Employees also grow out of alignment with the company because of changes in the company and HR has to make sure that they note these misalignments and reassess the employee.
• Plan: This is the way forward for the employee and the organization. An employee needs to know what is in the future in order to be motivated to work towards it. Both short term and long-term plans help employees focus and do their work better because they know what they are working towards.
• Space: Employees need to have what they require in order to move forward without any obstacles. This includes tools, trust, autonomy, ownership and time. HR has to be given space to achieve their objectives in a company.
2. Getting the work done (Action). An employee has to be motivated by the work in order to do it.
• Contribution: Employees are motivated to work harder when they know they are making a positive difference in the company through the tasks they as performing. HR has to keep on assuring the employees that they matter to the company and how they matter.
• Score: By keeping employee score openly, they are motivated to make an impact to it and take pride in their performance.
• Momentum: Employees need to have progress and a sense of moving forward in order to keep them motivated in their work. If they have a sense of being stagnate, they begin to become disengaged.
• Investment: When an employee knows that they have something to lose they become personally invested in the company. Things like equity packages and emotional investments motivates them to be more productive.
3. What you get from work (Output). An employee is more motivated to be more productive when they accomplish what was expected of them in the other tasks.
• Growth: This is where an employee gains mastery through experience, and progresses professionally and personally.
• Meaning: Employees need to find a sense of purpose and fulfilment in everything that they do.
• Value: Appreciating and recognising employees through reward goes a long way in making them feel valuable to the company and keep them happy in accomplishing their tasks.
• Identity: HR has a responsibility to the company and employees to recognise who they are and what they are capable of. They should also push them out of their comfort zones in order to make them perform above their own expectations and build them. If an employee is given a task and HR believes that they can perform it, the employee will tend to perform against that identity they have been assigned to and work to fulfil it.
4. Factors that fuel work (Influences). These are elements that give employees motivation to do the work, and without them they fall into disengagement.
• Leadership: Any Leader must be able to guide motivate, challenge and mentor their employees. They must help them push out of their comfort zone. They must be able to help employees through any challenges that they are facing.
• Relationship: Having strong connections, solidarity, and relationships at work help employees to be more productive. These relationships can be built through company events and meetings.
• Environment: The surrounding enables and supports the efforts being made. People work better in a conducive and encouraging environment. If you create a great place to work, great work takes place.
• Renewal: Most employees’ burnout and get demoralized in their work after some time. HR must be sensitive to recognize when their employees are going through this and help them renew themselves and become motivated again.
Conclusion
Companies must recognize the HR department is not just a functional part of it but a very centralized part of the company. This is because it deals with the biggest asset which is the human capital. HR should take up a more strategic role in the company than just procedural roles. The HR main responsibility is to ensure that the employees are well aligned to any task that they are assigned to and ensure that they provide them with the best environment and motivation for them to perform those tasks.
