HR Issues in Council: Findings, Initiatives, and Proposal

This report discusses the findings from a survey conducted in a council regarding HR issues, including high stress levels, lack of support from senior managers, lack of job security, and low work-life balance. It suggests three initiatives to address these concerns and proposes an email to the CEO outlining the findings and the need for action.

Human Resource
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
1) Five findings from survey that Lisa is to be concerned. Justify your answer.........................3
2) Three initiatives which Lisa should develop immediately to improve concern......................5
3) Draft an e mail.........................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
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INTRODUCTION
HR department is responsible for solving issues related to employee behaviour, salary, etc.
they also manage work force and provide training and development to them. However, in
organisation staff should be allowed to work in stress free environment. They have to identify
what issues are prevailing and how it can impact on well being. By maintaining this, it becomes
easy to satisfy employees and retain. When they feel happy to work goals can be attained easily.
This report will find out 5 issues from survey that is conducted within council (Bratton and
Gold, 2017). Also, it will be described about 3 initiatives that can be taken to resolve issues. At
last an e mail is proposed by HR manager including objectives.
1) Five findings from survey that Lisa is to be concerned. Justify your answer.
A survey was conducted to identify satisfaction level of staff and their engagement with
work. this was easy for here to find out what issues are been faced by staff and what measures
can be taken to solve. It also gives an insight on what issues are prevailing and what it its impact
on well being of employees. Thus, from survey the 5 issues are as follows :-
High level of stress- from survey it can be identified that stress is issue among staff. This is
because as said, 90% of staff felt that in recent times their work has become stressful. This is
because in council people on part time basis. Moreover, when staff retire or leave, new candidate
are not appointed until a strong business case is developed. So, it increases pressure to other staff
as they have to do the remaining work. Alongside, 90% of staff also agreed that they sometimes
feel stressful at work. so, these two are the signs that current staff is working under a lot of
pressure. It impacts on their well being in negative way. their mental and physical health is
impacted to a great extent. However, it also led to health problems such as headache, pain in
eyes, etc. Due to high stress council is not able to manage staff. Many of them work only for
short period. (DeCenzo, Robbins and Verhulst, 2016)
Lack of support from senior manager- By analysing the survey it is determined that only 55%
of staff get support from line manager. Also, 20% of them are supported by senior manager. thus,
when they do not get support staff well being is impacted. Their mental health is impacted.
However, employee feel depressed and are not able to work in effective way. this is also a reason
that staff is working under high stress. They are not getting support from senior manager and due
to it their wok is not managed. Lisa should concern this as she needs to find out reason that why
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senior manager does not value and support staff. However, with this people can be managed
easily.
Autonomy – another issue that is identified from survey is that high level of workload. Here,
83% said that their workload has increased in past year. It means that the have to do what is said
by senior manager. they are not having any dependency to work. It has resulted in their work
load. The manager puts high pressure on them to complete given work in time. Along with it, the
management only listen to 28% of staff. The rest are ignored and kept aside. So, staff is not
having any option but to listen to their manager. here, rest staff is not listened because manager
feel they are of no use. Therefore, due to high workload their well being is impacted. In addition,
when management is does not listen to them, they feel sad and lose interest in working. Hence,
their mental well being is affected. Lisa needs to look after this concern. She must try to manage
them and reduce work load. So, if autonomy is reduced it enables in working in team and in
effective way. (Sparrow, Brewster and Chung, 2016)
Lack of Job security – the survey also depicts issue of job security among staff of council. In
this it is identified that only 35% of employees are happy with job security. It means they feel
that their job is secured. But rest of staff does not feel like that. They feel there are high chances
that staff can be fired any time from job. Furthermore, there is no sense of job security within
them. Therefore, lack of job security impact on well being of staff. One reason is that as most are
employed on basis of temporary contract so they only work for short time period. So, a
perception is developed among them they will work only as temporary. It has resulted in lack of
satisfaction among them. they do not feel that their job is secured. Due to this, it is difficult to
manage people at work. by identifying this it will be easy for Lisa to provide job security to
people. Hence, if job is secured then council will have to recruit les number of people on
temporary contract.
Low level of work life balance – it is an issue that is identified by Lisa from survey. It is clearly
stated that only 55% are happy with their work life balance, so that is indication of issue of well
being. so, if staff is not able to spend personal time then they get frustrated and are not able to
work in efficient way. However, it led to rise in stress which can result in increasing health
issues within staff. This may impact on physical health. They may get sick, body pain, headache,
etc. therefore, Lisa needs to enhance work life balance so that she can easily able to manage
them. hence, the findings will give insight to improve work life balance. By providing them high
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work life employee satisfaction can be gained and they are retained for long term. (Berman and
et.al., 2019).
It is evaluated that by finding these the HR manager can take necessary steps. This means that by
solving issues employees can be managed. The upper-level management of the company need to
make a positive work culture in the business environment to take productive work form the
employees (Lee and et.al., 2019). The employees are one of the main assets of the company
which are always put their all efforts at workplace to achieve company's decided goals in specific
time period. There are different type of the employees are working in the company which are
comes from different background. All employees have their own mentality and mindset towards
company, but they all are working on the same goal. The management of the company need to
listen their employees at workplace, and try to make them comfortable at workplace. The
manager needs to interact with employees and provide specific support to them at their work.
Personal stress of the any employee is also impacting their work efficiency negatively. In this
case manager need to try recover that employee from stress on self basis, because it is necessary
to maintain employee's work efficiency properly. The management of the company also need to
implement such human resource management strategies in their business environment to
systematically manage people at work (Johansen and Sowa, 2019). These strategies are also
helpful in improve the work performance of the employees in the organization. The manager of
the company is responsible to create a safe and healthy work zone for the employees to increase
their skills and workability in the company. It is necessary to achieve company's decided goals in
the specific time period.
2) Three initiatives which Lisa should develop immediately to improve concern
It is important for Lisa to take certain initiatives so that employee well being is maintained
and there is no negative impact of their mental and physical health. Also, the initiatives will help
in creating a positive environment and keeping staff happy. The HR manager is responsible for
listening to concerns of staff and solving it. Thus, they are defined as below:-
Benefit and rewards- Another initiative that can be taken is by offering short term
benefits and rewards to employees so that they are able to improve their work life balance. The
initiatives can be offered to those staff who have performed very well. Also, they have attained
goals effectively and are working for long term. The council can start providing overtime benefit
for those who are working late. In incentives, small family trips, week offs, etc. can be included.
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So, it will be easy for staff to avail that whenever they require. Other than this, other staff will
also be motivated to obtain those initiatives. It will also lead to rise in satisfaction level of staff.
Here, Lisa can set criteria for attaining those initiatives. Thus, employees can prevail those
benefits to spend leisure time and enjoy holidays (Garavan, McCarthy and Morley, 2016). The
manager can provide flexibility to employees in their working hours. Therefore, in this way they
can maintain work life balance. In addition to it, the initiative will encourage staff to work for
long time for council.
Flexible working hours – In order to reduce stress and work load Lisa must form hire more
staff. For this she must form a policy and recruit people. beside this, part time employees job
profile should be removed. So, it will result in working of staff for long term. Apart from it,
council can take initiative of starting flexible working hours. They can allow staff to work in
flexible way according to their requirement. So, it will reduce pressure from them and they will
be easily able to manage work on time. Moreover, council can start work from home initiative as
well. So, in times of intense work load they can work from home as well. By offering flexible
timings staff can also manage their personal life. It changes way of doing things. with this
initiative concern of high stress can be solved. This will also result in enhancing working life
balance of staff.
Changing way of leading - This is also an initiative that can be taken. here, HR manager can
allow leader to change their way of leading. In this senior manager can follow or apply
democratic leadership style (Marchington, 2015). This means that staff will be provided support
in their work. they will be allowed in decision making. However, in this each staff will be given
support by manager. the HR manager can also form a policy of structure and framework to be
followed. Therefore, senior manager support can increase among staff.
Thus, from all initiatives flexible working hours is best suitable. This is because if staff is
allowed work according to their needs it will automatically reduce their stress. They will also be
able to maintain work life balance. They can also work from home in case of need. On contrary,
benefit and reward can increase burden on financial situation of council. The council is already
not having enough finance as the expenses are increasing. Thus, opting for this will not be
beneficial for council in long term. whereas changing way of leading is only related to providing
support. In that stress can not be reduced or managed. it will also not relevant to increase
satisfaction level of staff. (Tian, Cordery and Gamble, 2016)
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3) Draft an e mail
Lisa is required to develop a proposal so that it can be sent to CEO of council. In that she
will work on concept of You said we listened. The e mail is as follows :-
To,
The CEO
Oldbridge district council
Subject – To take certain initiative to solve employees’ issues
As a HR manager of ODC state that in a survey it is analysed that staff is facing many
issues. So, it is essential to identify issues that are prevailing within staff and make things easy
listened to what they have said. The main objective is to find out concerns and solve them. It will
be easy to take necessary initiatives so that concerns are removed. Similarly, survey is conducted
to take feedback of employees. In this they give answers on what they have to say. So, all the
things have to be listened by HR and then proper action is taken on it. For instance, issue of rise
in conflicts were identified via survey and then HR took certain steps to solve it. Therefore, it
can be analysed that You said is what staff tells on various concerns and We listened is HR take
necessary action to solve that.
In similar way, we have done survey and got results about view point of staff and what
concerns are faced. Through that, we will listen to their issues and take relevant and proper
measures to sort out. As HR it is our responsibility to listen to employees. In council it was
identified that only 20 % are been supported by senior managers. Moreover, 55% are happy with
work life balance. The findings of survey state that 90% said their job have become stressful and
90% said they feel stressful at work. From survey it is also identified that 28% said they are
listened when at work. 36% said they are happy with job security. So, these all findings depicts
the issues that are prevailing within council.
Thanking you
Lisa
CONCLUSION
It can be summarised that the main issues occurred in council are high level of stress, lack of
job security and support, low level of work life balance, etc. these all are impacting on well being
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of staff in negative way. Therefore, to solve this concern there are several initiatives that is taken
by HR manager Lisa. first is benefits and rewards initiative is taken to improv work life balance.
Another is flexible work timings will be offered to staff so that their stress and work load is
reduced. Changing leading style initiative enable in providing support of senior managers.
However, flexible timing can be implemented as initiative. This will be easy to manage people in
it.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Berman, E.M. and et.al., 2019. Human resource management in public service: Paradoxes,
processes, and problems. CQ Press.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
DeCenzo, D.A., Robbins, S.P. and Verhulst, S.L., 2016. Fundamentals of Human Resource
Management, Binder Ready Version. John Wiley & Sons.
Garavan, T.N., McCarthy, A.M. and Morley, M.J. eds., 2016. Global human resource
development: Regional and country perspectives. Routledge.
Johansen, M.S. and Sowa, J.E., 2019. Human resource management, employee engagement, and
nonprofit hospital performance. Nonprofit Management and Leadership.
Lee, H.W. and et.al., 2019. Effects of human resource management systems on employee
proactivity and group innovation. Journal of Management, 45(2), pp.819-846.
Marchington, M., 2015. Human resource management (HRM): Too busy looking up to see
where it is going longer term?. Human Resource Management Review, 25(2), pp.176-
187.
Sparrow, P., Brewster, C. and Chung, C., 2016. Globalizing human resource management.
Routledge.
Tian, A.W., Cordery, J. and Gamble, J., 2016. Staying and performing: How human resource
management practices increase job embeddedness and performance. Personnel
Review, 45(5), pp.947-968.
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