Employee Motivation and Turnover: A Case Study Analysis

This article analyzes the issue of turnover as a motivation problem in a case study, and explores the departmental issue with expectancy theory. It provides recommendations for solving motivation problems in the workplace.

MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
1.0 Turnover as a motivation problem.............................................................................................4
2.0 Departmental issue with expectancy theory..............................................................................6
3.0 Solving motivation problems.....................................................................................................8
References:....................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction
Employee motivation may be considered to be one of the most significant and success-critical
aspects of the studies of human resource management (HRM). Since employees are considered
to be the resources for the organization, it may be utmost crucial for the management to suitably
devise effective HRM strategies that may be in line with the corporate aims and objectives as
well as the value creating for the employees. The instant paper delves into the theory of HRM in
the context of a given case study. At the very beginning of the study, the researcher provides a
brief introduction to the paper. Subsequently, the paper is divided into three parts. The first part
focuses on the issue of turnover as an indication of motivational problems for the employees and
analyses the same. The second part evaluates the departmental issue the organization in the case
study is facing. Such analysis is carried out with reference to the expectancy theory. In the last
part of the paper, the researcher provides a recommendation to the aforesaid issues relating to the
human resources and wraps up the discussion through ending note.
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1.0 Turnover as a motivation problem
It has been identified that employees are considered as the primary asset of every company. In
the similar context, it has been witnessed that several organizations in the recent times are
investing more time, energy and resources to build their employee motivation, as it allows
management to meet its depicted goals (Lazaroiu 2015). Motivated employees usually lead to
enhance final productivity and permit an organization to accomplish a higher degree of output.
Similar had been a case of FAB Sweets Limited, where the employees working under the HB
department are lagging in motivation due to poor supervision and management strategies of the
supervisor accountable for the particular department.
It has been recognized that it is necessary for the supervisor of every department to conduct a
proper division of work based on the skills, abilities, expertise, and potential of each employee
(Mikkelsen, Falk, Jacobsen and Andersen 2017). The specific understanding helps the manager
or the supervisor to allocate the right responsibilities to the right resource and thus, the chances
of repetitive amendments are less. Information extracted from the provided case reflects that the
employees in the HB department of the chosen organization were facing severe issue with the
hectic pressure of production. Despite several complaints were raised to the management against
the unorganized and unattainable targets expected by the supervisor of the department, yet, the
management always showed a laid back attitude against the issue and gives indirect support to
the supervisor to continue the method of generating greater production outcome. Therefore, the
result of the unprofessional management system is evident, where the department had been
manifested by high labor turnover rate underlining 6 new managers over a period of 8 years. It
projects that even the managers find it troublesome to meet the unattainable targets placed by the
supervisor of the HB department.
On the other hand, few experts claimed that there could have a probability of reducing the
turnover rate with the similar ongoing process if the management could have been a bit more
moderate with its employee reward system (Ahmad, Ishfaq, Danish, Ali, Ali and Humayon
2019). There had been cases where employees stayed back in companies having unnecessary
workloads and overtime pressure but a fine reward structure. In this situation employees'
undergoing unbearable pressures and fatigue are recognized with financial rewards. Hence, at the
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end of the day, employees are certainly satisfied where their hard efforts are recognized with
some token of appreciations. In this context, it may be noted that the level of employee
motivation largely depends on the psychological benefits provided to them in terms of
appreciation, recognition, credit token or even the acknowledgment. In the absence of such
considerations, the hard-working employees may feel extremely left out and secluded from the
workplace. However, the case of HB department is totally opposite, where employees are forced
to overproduction burden and no rewards are designed to retain their motivation level, which
leads to severe demotivation and thereby high turnover rate.
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2.0 Departmental issue with expectancy theory
In the statement of the expert, Vroom’s expectancy theory assumes the fact that behavior
generally results from the choice of consciousness among alternatives whose objective is
maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain (Al, Nada and Singh 2016). The framework states the
philosophy that an employee’s performance is dependent on individual factors like personalities,
skills, experience, knowledge, and capabilities. The theory also states the fact that effort and
performance are associated with employee motivation.
According to generic philosophy, expectancy is a faith that greater efforts would definitely lead
to greater performance, which is affected by few aspects like resource availabilities, right skills,
required support to perform a task, etc. (Campos, Irene, and Zúñiga-Vicente 2019). However, in
the given case, the scenario is different, where employees were not offered the right benefits to
stay motivated (Diamantidis, Anastasios, and Chatzoglou 2019). Rather, the department has the
right skilled resources who had given all their efforts to maintain the large scale production
despite the poor reward structure (De, Lynn, Brown, Bannister, Cianci and Mujtaba 2018).
Herein, the coordination between employees is quite poor and the types of equipment used for
the production purposes are inefficient to meet higher targets. However, the supervisor of the
HB department merely pays much attention to the struggles employees had to face due to the
ineffective support system to get their job done. Hence, it can be stated that in spite of having
the potential resources, the supervisors are failing to design the right operation lines that can
smartly utilize the expertise of the employee in the right manner (Jordan, Samantha, Ferris,
Hochwarter and Wright 2019).
Moreover, it has been assessed that instrumentality is the perception, which states that employees
performing well in the organization would definitely receive a valued outcome. The degree of
first level outcome would definitely reflect on the second level action (Jungert, Tomas, Broeck,
Schreurs and Osterman 2018). However, in the provided case, the concept of the instrumentality
of expectancy theory is not applicable. As the workings are independent by nature, thus, perfect
coordination between employees of both workstations are required to maintain an interrupted
workflow (Kong, Ming, Xu, Zhou and Yuan 2019). Nevertheless, the coordination between
employees in the HB department is lagging, which is creating several discrepancies and
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inefficiencies in the production process. Since the production process gets delayed due to
inefficient equipment, thus, the team accountable for wrapping also get delayed.
The previous section states the importance employees place upon their expected results
(MacDonald, Patrick, Kelly and Christen 2019). Similar had been the case of HB department,
where employees seek to be valued with a decent reward structure for the extra work they had to
perform in the company. It may also be noted that the expectancy theory suggests employees be
extremely motivated in order to perform their routine operations. However, the theory put more
emphasis on the need for psychological and non-monetary benefits that the employees generally
look forward to (Kong, Ming, Xu, Zhou and Yuan 2019).
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3.0 Solving motivation problems
Promote collaboration
The supervisor responsible for the HB department needs to create an efficient collaborative
culture within the workplace in terms of reaping the team benefits. It can be stated that effective
collaboration develops a common purpose, which facilitates to boost team motivation (Philippe,
Frederick, Lopes, Houlfort and Fernet 2019). Similar efforts need to be followed in the chosen
organization, which specifically lacks internal coordination. Since collaboration is highly related
to the communication process within the workflow, the management should devise strategies to
implement an efficient communication channel which will, in turn, ensure the collaborative
environment leading to excellence in performance. However, it should be noted that the
supervisor, in this regard, may need to establish a sense of transparency between the employees
responsible for both the workstations. The understanding would intricate the employees to work
harder as they would develop the knowledge about the whole process and would like to add their
expertise into it (Styhre 2019).
Management involvements
It has been identified from the provided case study that interruptions and breakdown to smooth
working are common in the specific organization (Mohammad, Jihad, Quoquab, Halimah and
Thurasamy 2019). The breakdown had been the main source behind the internal conflicts in the
organization. However, instead of taking proper remedial actions, the operators kept on blaming
the employees for their mishandling of the pieces of equipment and vice versa by the employees.
Thus, it is high time for the management to step into the process and to identify the root of the
issue and resolve it accordingly to ensure stability in the operation flow. The sense of
inclusiveness is a motivating factor for the employees and the scope for being part of the
decision-making process will give an additional impetus for the workforce which will contribute
towards the quality in their performance as well. Since the responsible departments are just
wasting time and energy over accusing each other, hence, the discrepancy is creating a massive
impact on the final outcome (Van, Berend, Veen-Dirks and Bogt 2018). Therefore, the
management of an organization requires taking necessary actions when the line managers or
leaders fail to do so (Kuvaas, Bard, Buch and Dysvik 2018).
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Supportive environment
It is evident from the case study that the employees are getting bored by the similar work
responsibilities that are lagging in self-innovation and creativity. The employees are given high
targets and they had to perform similar jobs every day, which is calling for monotony in the
workplace. Hence, the management may need to ensure that the designed and workflow process
is altered on a regular basis where employees can be given the freedom to improvise their own
inputs in the work to conduct it efficiently (Kauppila and Olli. 2018). This will help to
breakdown their monotony and thus, retain their degree of motivation. It may also be stated that
a supportive environment from the management may act as a moral boost up for the workers. It
may happen that the employees face difficulty in complying with the orders or executing the
jobs. In such a case, the helping hand form management by way of reallocation or training
mechanism helps the workers to finish the assigned task in most time and most efficient manner.
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