Introduction
Firms should invest their employees in their goals so that they can help the organization attain success, feel motivated to enhance its products, contribute to the workplace culture as well as be actively engaged as part of the company’s community (Nichol, 2018). Firms can only achieve these aspects when they have a sound professional development program. Wal-Mart is a multinational retailer that is regarded as one of the biggest employers in the world and having a professional development program cannot be ignored for it to remain sustainably competitive in the global retail industry. Faced with issues that were identified in the previous papers; this essay provides a proposal for Wal-Mart on a professional development program based on the concepts of emotional intelligence management approach. The proposed program is focused on fostering teamwork, strengthening interpersonal relationships, enhancing organizational communication, increasing overall performance and providing benefits to not only managers but also the firm’s bottom-line.
Emotional Intelligence and Motivation
Emotional intelligence is an essential component for employee motivation, performance and job satisfaction. Srivastava (2013) posits that leaders in an organization have direct influence on the workplace culture and environment. Leaders impact employee behavior implying that they should be use the building blocks of emotional intelligence. Leadership creates relationships that exist between group and individual emotional intelligence and organizational effectiveness. Understanding the building blocks of emotional intelligence is a critical aspect of any manager’s ability to attain employee performance and job satisfaction; especially the human resource department (Louie, 2014). Managers use emotional intelligence in predicting organizational commitment and employees’ performance since most jobs require effective management of emotions.
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Wal-Mart employees have concerns about the effects of the problems arising from how the firm’s parking lots are used as this may affect their overall motivation and performance as well as their commitment to the retailer. Therefore, the management must implore effective emotional intelligence aspects by using effective building blocks in solving the issue and enhancing motivation as well as commitment. Emotional intelligence building blocks include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management, motivation and empathy (Louie, 2014; Arphire, 2014). Imperatively, the most important building blocks that will enhance job satisfaction and performance are motivation, self-perception and leadership self-awareness, and social skills or relationship management.
Motivation is the drive to work for results that transcend the financial intent of status. True motivation is based on the desire to attain internal rewards like fulfillment from learning and impacting people positively (Gleeson, 2018). Secondly, self-perception and leadership entail the ability to understand one’s image and their leadership abilities (Louie, 2014). Thirdly, emotional self-awareness entails the capability for an individual to be aware of and comprehend their feelings and their influence on others. Social skills or relationship management involves building and maintaining social networks and strong relationships with people. Relationship management requires the manager to have empathy and self-regulation so that they build effective relationships with employees.
Positive reinforcement is a motional tool that focuses on offering rewards to employees that do well. This tool can be used when employees perform excellently and attain their goals. Managers can use positive reinforcement in situations where the firm wants to promote competition among teams (Gleeson, 2018). The organization ensures that it builds teamwork and relationship when it allocates duties based on the existing teams. For instance, the teams that compete well and attain their goals should be given bonuses and other incentives.
Negative reinforcement entails having a penalty for not doing something as expected or poorly. The management can use this motivational tool when employees perform poorly in their duties and responsibilities. The management can also use the tool in situations where employees are not willing to undertake their responsibilities and duties in the workplace. For instance, employees who break a firm’s policies, procedure and organizational culture values and ethics should be punished or penalized.
Emotional Intelligence, Social Skills & Decision Making
In their study, Hess and Bacigalupo (2011) posit that individuals and organizations benefit when they develop and use behaviors associated with emotional intelligence. They observe that the practical use of emotional intelligence skills enhances group as well as individual decisions and outcomes. Imperatively, management in organizations can use core concepts of emotional intelligence to enhance social skills and make decisions that improves employee performance (Gleeson, 2018). Social skills like relationship management as an aspect of emotional intelligence are critical for decision makers in organizational contexts. Decision making implores on one to acknowledge individual emotions so that they create outcomes that do not affect the employees’ motivation, commitment, job satisfaction, and performance.
Further, decision makers that perceive and understand their emotions are considered more effective in managing the emotional aspects involved in the decision-making process (Louie, 2014). As such, the emotional intelligence skills involved in the decision making process as those related to the social engagement, relationship management and self-awareness. Further, self-management and social awareness are social skills that cannot be ignored by decision makers when they seek to understand the impact of their interactions with employees and the need for performance (Hess & Bacigalupo, 2011). For instance, self-management entails the behavioral components of self-control, adaptability, conscientiousness, and goal driven. These components are essential emotional intelligence skills for managers in decision-making capacities in their organizations.
Decision-making in teams requires the management to understand how the employees socialize, interact and perceive their groups as well as their self-image. Having deeper connections with others ensures that employees develop effective social skills that allow the management to seek better ways to develop the team so that it can attain its important goals (Suifan, Bahjat & Sweis, 2015). As such, building and maintaining healthy and productive interactions and relationships is important to a manager’s ability to attain higher emotional intelligence and social skills for the employees and make effective decisions.
Empathy and compassion are social skills that enhance one’s core concept of emotional intelligence, especially in a group situation. Managers have a responsibility to seek ways to empathize with their employees and be compassionate so that the decisions that they make do not have negative effects on the overall satisfaction and performance of the employee.
Effective Teams
Effective teams demonstrate many different and essential attributes. Firstly, effective teams not only possess technical skills but also have emotional intelligence. Therefore, emotional intelligence is essential for a team more than the IQ of each member. As such, teams that have members who are socially aware attain their goals and perform well. Therefore, group emotional intelligence is an essential component of a successful team (Gleeson, 2018). Secondly, effective teams communicate well and proactively. While communication is essential, a proactive approach to communication distinguishes an effective because it allows members to provide information before they are asked, offer support and assistance where necessary, and encourage each to take team initiative through provision of guidance and making suggestions to other team members (Vrabie, 2014). Further, proactive communication allows members to provide updates thus attaining situational awareness for other members of the team.
Thirdly, an effective team has good and visionary leadership that inspires the members to attain goals, have emotional intelligence attributes and perform so as to attain the team’s goals and objectives. Best teams are led by people who can communicate the vision, lead in a humble way, and open to both positive and negative feedback and criticism (Suifan et al., 2015). Inspiring leadership in teams and organizations allow employees to develop, have open door policies and practices, and do not shy away from delegating as well as recognizing their team’s successes and giving them credit. Again, effective teams require cooperation so that they can attain a common goal. Cooperation encourages sharing of ideas and information with the aim of achieving one vision. Further, it allows employees to develop personal skills and interpersonal relationship attributes (Vrabie, 2014). Cooperation ensures that team members appreciate and acknowledge diversity and diverse ideas because they understand that people come from different backgrounds.
Team dynamics are an essential component of any success in an organization. Firms fail to fully leverage their employees’ potential and tap into their skills and experiences if they do not nurture positive team dynamics. Imperatively, developing team dynamics that will help Wal-Mart requires teams to have effective leadership at the helm, effective cooperation and collaboration as well team performance that encourages the use of constructive communication. Leadership inspires and encourages team members to attain not just team-based but also individual goals. Secondly, the organization should encourage and build team communication as well as improve team culture (Mind Tools Content Team, n.d). Thirdly, they team should develop group emotional intelligence so that each member can pay attention to the group intelligence and individual emotional intelligence. In addition, effective team dynamics requires the organization to break any potential barriers so that each person can feel a sense of belonging to the group.
Reward System
An effective reward system is crucial in employee motivation. A good reward system should address both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The reward system should satisfy the basic needs of employees, be comparable to the one provided by the competitors in the marketplace, be available to employees in similar positions and based on the principle of fairness and equitability. Further, a reward sysyem should be multifaceted implying that it should measure different aspects of the employee performance against the best industry standards.
As such, this proposal identifies a Five Star Reward System as the most effective for rewarding employees that the giant international retailer. The Five Star Reward System contains both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. The reward system will entail compensation, benefits and perks, recognition, and appreciation. The company should apply these rewards consistently across the different segments and should ensure that employees are involved so that they have a buy-in to the strategies.
Effective strategies to implement this reward system will include ensuring that each employee is involved in the development, execution as well as revision of the programs and aspects of the system. Secondly, employees should be encouraged to view the rewards as worth the efforts that they have put in place to achieve those goals (Suifan et al., 2015). Thirdly, employees should be aware of how they can earn each of the listed reward by the organization. Fourthly, the reward system should have reasonable and transparent performance standards that each employee and team understand well so that they can devise innovative and creative ways to attain them.
Conclusion
Emotional intelligence is a key determinant of effective organizational as well as team and individual employee performance. As such, firms should develop effective social skills among their management and leadership positions aimed at enhancing emotional intelligence, social skills in decision making, and attaining effective teams. Further, reward systems that enhance motivation and performance should be set so that employees feel a sense of appreciation, recognition and belonging to enhance organizational commitment as well as performance. This proposal implores on the management of Wal-Mart to seek better strategies and use the ones identified here to attain its goals and develop employees that will help it remain competitive sustainable in a highly competitive business environment.
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