Managing Human Resources: Employee Wellbeing at Timpson and Google

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This essay delves into the critical concept of employee wellbeing within the context of human resource management. It begins by defining employee wellbeing and its significance for organizational growth, emphasizing its role in employee satisfaction and retention. The essay then presents a comparative analysis of employee wellbeing initiatives at two prominent companies: Timpson, a service-based organization, and Google, a technology giant. It examines the specific strategies each company employs, such as flexible working policies, employee perks, and initiatives aimed at fostering a positive work environment. The analysis includes a discussion of the nature and scope of employee wellbeing, including factors like communication, safety, equality, and recognition, as well as limitations of such practices. The essay concludes by highlighting the impact of these initiatives on productivity, profitability, and overall employee satisfaction, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of how organizations can effectively manage their human resources to achieve competitive advantage.
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Managing Human
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ESSAY MAIN BODY
Introduction
Human resources are the employees of an organisation which are considered as the most
important asset for the business. It is important for an organisation to effectively manage their
human resources so that competitive advantage can be gained. The most important approach for
managing human resources is employee wellbeing (Čiarnienė and et. al., 2019). This concept is
related with providing satisfaction to all the employees and make efforts to retain them. The
main aim of this report is to build an understanding about employee well being and how it can
help an organisation to grow and develop their operations. For this purpose, two organisations
are selected which are Timpson and Google. Timpson Limited is a large scale private limited
company which operates in service industry and specialises in shoe repairs, locksmith services
etc. This company was founded in 1865 and has headquarters in Manchester, United Kingdom.
The other organisation is Google which is the largest technology company that specialises in
internet related services. Headquarters of this company are situated at California, United States
and was established in 1998. In this report, efforts of both these companies will be analysed
which these companies have made against employee wellbeing along with detailed explanation
of this concept.
Employee Wellbeing
The concept employee well being refers to the state where employees can be healthy and
successful (Yılmaz, 2019). This concept is related with the both physical and mental state of a
human being which must be aligned so that they can feel comfortable, healthy and happy with
the working environment. According to International labour organisation, employee well being
relates with the all the aspect of an employee’s working life. The working environment of an
organisation must be aligned with quality, safety and physical environment so that employees
can be satisfied from their working place.
This concept is even known as the major issue in organisations as majority of the company
fails to maintain a balance between their employee’s working and personal life. An organisation
can only grow and develop in today’s dynamic market environment, if their employees are
appropriately motivated and happy. But the work life stress fails to motivate individuals in a
company and results into high employee turnover.
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In order to identify whether an organisation is investing in the wellbeing of people, the
nature of this concept must be evaluated. Nature of employee well being are the well designed
set of characteristics which helps in identifying whether an organisation is investing in well
being of people. These characteristics includes various activities, initiatives and processes.
Effective communication and connections are the first most traits of employee well being. If a
workplace allows employees to communicate with their colleagues and share their ideas with
their superiors, then it can be said that the company is investing in the well being of their
employees. Another characteristic of this concept is safety and security. If employees of an
organisation are given security services as job security, health security and insurance then it can
be identified that the particular organisation is concerned about well being of employees
(STRIELKOWSKI, Kalyugina and Mukhoryanova, 2019).
The concept of employee well being is continuous in nature and is not limited to a time
period. Equality is another characteristic of this concept which ensures that all the employees in
an organisation are treated equally and there is no discrimination between them is done on the
basis of sex, religion, age, race etc. Another characteristic of employee well being is rewards
and recognition. Rewards includes bonuses, incentives and other monetary and non monetary
prizes which are given to employees for their hard work. Recognition are the intangible rewards
such promotion and employee of the month certificates which motivates employees to contribute
their best towards the organisational objectives. These rewards and recognition, if distributed in
an organisation then it can be said that company is effective contributing to the employee well
being.
Employee well being is a collection of various practices due to which it has a wider
scope. This concept helps an organisation to satisfy their employees due to which they well-
contribute in the organisation and productivity of the company enhances. Besides this, the
concept of employee well being also helps in developing a positive working environment in an
organisation. Scope of this concept also includes employee engagement and high retention of the
skilful employees. The scope of employee wellbeing can also be analysed using Maslow’s
pyramid.
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(Source: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, 2018)
Organisations can fulfil the physiological, safety, social, esteem and self actualisation
needs of their employees to ensure employee wellbeing in the organisation. All these needs will
motivate employees on certain levels and will lead to satisfied personnel.
The practice of contributing towards employee well being helps an organisation to retain
effective employees but there are few limitations as well, which employer must consider while
implementing employee well being practices so that employees must not experience
infringement in their personal life. These limitations or restrictions which employer must
consider are accessibility of social media accounts. Social media accounts are the most effective
way to identify an employee’s needs which employer must fulfil but this does not mean that
employer can access the social media accounts of their employees (Fei, 2018).
The practice of developing social communication in an organisation is an effective
technique of employee well being. But employer must ensure that no friendship or relation are
imposed on the employees. Human resources should be encouraged to communicate with each
other but they must not be bound for this purpose. Providing flexible working hours and work
from home is considered as one of the best practice to implement employee well being. But it
should be considered that no private life of employees is not being violated due to this practice.
In present working culture, the practice of encouraging employees to be fit is also
considered as effective for which various organisations bring fitness challenges and workshops.
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In this process, employer must ensure that no employee is forced to participate in these
challenges as it will violate their personal preferences and choices.
Duty of Care is a legal obligation of an organisation in which employer must ensure the
health and safety of all the employees. This is a practice of employee well being which every
organisation is legally obligated to follow which motivates employees and encourage them to
contribute towards aims of the organisation’s objectives (Werner, Inkpen and Moffett, 2016).
Timpson’s attempt at Employee Wellbeing initiatives
Every organisation whether small or large scale is encouraged to attempt initiatives of
employee well being so that organisation can gain the benefit of high productivity and
profitability (Ketchen Jr and et.al., 2017). The first organisation which is selected to analyse
employee well being initiatives is Timpson Limited. This is a private limited company which has
a brand image of being a good employer. There are various initiates which are undertaken by this
company to satisfy their employees. While researching, it has been analysed the reason behind
investing heavily against these initiatives is the objective of this company. Primary aim of
Timpson is to provide best services to their customers. Employees are operative hand of a
company and in a case where company aims to provide best services, it is important to retain
effective employees in the organisation. There are reportedly various initiatives which Timpson
has undertaken for the purpose of employee well being which are analysed as follows:
The most important initiative taken by Timpson is to regulate the operations of the firm
in an old fashioned way by following family values (Conley, Powers and Smith, 2017). Timpson
believes that it is important for employees to feel like home when they are at work, due to which
despite of facing drastic changes in business environment, Timpson still took the initiative to
follow their old fashioned morals which ensure that every employee is comfortable in the
workplace. Another initiative which this company has undertaken is the facility of procuring the
loan at low interest rates. This company has initiated a facility in their organisation in which
employees can take loans for their personal reasons against an interest rate of 5%. This initiative
helps the employees to manage their contingent monetary requirements.
Another initiative for employee well being which Timpson has taken on their celebrated
centenary is that they provided benefit of a full day leave for employee’s birthday. This benefit
has now became a permanent fixture for which employees can take a leave for their birthday.
This is a minor initiative but has resultant in highly motivating the employees and build a sense
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of belongingness. Flexible working policy is a major employee well being initiative which this
organisation has taken so that employees of Timpson can maintain a balance between their
personal and work life. Employees can work for part or full time according to their convenience
(ŠIKÝŘ, Sekerin and Gorokhova, 2018).
Another initiative which Timpson Limited has undertaken is distribution of Mother
Voucher for new parents. Timpson is experiencing a situation where 80% of their staff has men
due to this they are attracting women in their organisation by providing them attractive perks and
benefit. In addition to this, there are various maternity benefits which pregnant women of this
organisation can gain. These perks provided by Timpson does not only restricts to the employees
only. This company provides perks which includes employee’s children and partner as well.
Vacation is the another employee well being perk which is provided to the employees of
Timpson. Under this initiative, employees are allowed to take a time out from work and spend
quality vacation time with their family (Denhardt and et.al., 2018). This organisation owns
various holiday homes in exotic vacation countries such as Spain and Turkey where employees
can visit and stay without any charge. Not only this, Timpson Limited ensure that the families of
the employees of this company are given high preference at the time of recruitment. A bonus
scheme initiative is also undertaken by this company in which they offer bonus of 150 pounds to
the employees if they recommend an effective employee for this organisation. This initiative has
encouraged employees to work in this organisation as by this family members of the company’s
employees can also get employment.
Human resource department of this company makes sure that every employee can get
training so that their skills can be developed. This company gains benefit from skilled
employees by which reputation of his company also enhances. Few minor initiatives taken by
this company for the purpose of facilitating employee well being includes ice cream treats,
milestone birthday rewards and newsletters (Đalić, and et.al., 2019).
All the above attempts mentioned above are taken by Timpson Limited for employee well
being. Due to these attempts, this company is considered under top 10 companies to work with.
The core values of this company states that it is important for an organisation to make its
associated individuals happy whether they are employees or the customers. These values and
initiatives of this company is the result of the high productivity and profitability. Being a private
limited company, there are less revenue streams available to this organisation but the effective
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employees of this organisation makes sure that customers are satisfied and their needs are
fulfilled. It can be said that the attempts of undertaking the employee well being initiatives are
successfully implemented by this company and they have even lead towards the enhanced
productivity of the organisation.
Google’s attempt at Employee Wellbeing initiatives
It has been identified that job related stress seriously impact upon both organisation and
individual as a whole along with this work related stress also have direct consequence upon
employee’s health. In order to overcome this issues that has been faced by employees in
workplace companies are investing heavily on perks and benefits as to motivate their employees
and make them happy (Chowdhury and Shil, 2019). It has been identified that different type of
benefits and perks are mainly designed by companies like Google in order to make sure low
stress and can stimulate their employees to work even for long hours. Google is always good to
its employees; company offer all encompassing benefits package to their employees in order to
effectively make significant improvement in employee’s quality of life. Google is famous for
their staff perks, like free food, pool tables, arcade machines, on-site bowling, gym membership
and free books. Company continuously engage in the process of undertaking advantage of
strategies to boost engagement and motivation by involving their employees in creative
activities. There are different types of wellbeing initiatives that has been provided by Google to
their employees such as giving free space areas, painting and drawing, learning of musical
instruments and more as to create and foster positive workplace culture. Company believes that
motivated employees are more loyal towards their work and company and can automatically
generate higher productivity for entity. In addition to this it has been evaluated that Google is
known as an entity who considered employees as their biggest assets (Ymeri, 2019). Thus, in
order to ensure loyalty of their worker’s company take collective feedback from their employees
and duly solve their queries in a quick action manner. Google is having flat hierarchy
organisational culture; company have flexibility when it usually comes to employees to select the
project they wish to work on. Further, this has been evaluated that organisation effectively
encourage their employees to pursue company associated interest. Moreover, workers within
organisation are freely allowed to express themselves and are also allowed to arrive for work at
anytime as they like. In order to make their employees motivated at their job company put
number of efforts to make sure that none of their employees get discourage by organisational
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environment. In addition to this it has been evaluated that in Google food is pretty easy to get as
company make sure that employees have convenience to snack frequently. Company also benefit
their workers with free food as well as great variety of food types. In addition to this they also
make sure that their stocked up their kitchen with all types of essential requirements like
beverages, snacks, Candy and waters. However, in order to support healthy diet company,
provide number of healthy options in order to show care about their employee’s health. For
example, Google provide the facility of healthy snacks such as dried banana chips and Almonds.
In addition to this company also label their glass jars with nutritional labels. With the help of this
company make sure that their employees perform their work in a healthy manner (Wellness Case
Study: Google. 2015). Along with this it has been evaluated that Google is known for their wide
office and unusual designs as with creative people and engineer group, company generate
maximum creative ideas as to effectively ensure happiness of their employees. For example,
conference rooms in company are Broadway-themed with velvet drapes, and a labyrinth of play
areas (Mukhtar and Akbar, 2019). In addition to this it has been evaluated that Google allow
their software engineers to design their work desk and stations. By undertaking this wellbeing
initiatives Google effectively aim towards creating more innovative and comfortable workplace
structure for their employees in order to trigger maximum creativity. Company believes that
great idea cannot be forced thus they provide more relaxed environment and offer independent
time to improve performance of their workers. In order to stimulate their creative process by
offering all these measures company aim towards becoming employees more entrepreneurial in
nature that automatically generates their higher productivity level. Google workplace
environment and culture strongly impact upon innovation and invention as company effectively
organise their entire culture in a best effective manner that rewards entity with higher success.
Further it has been identified that, in order to make life of their employees easier and better
Google invest on “The happiness project” with this company ensure to remove all the barriers
that allow employees towards healthy life (3 lessons from Google's HR policy). Company always
care about happiness and health of their employees at first as they are aware with the fact that
happy workplace environment creates double profitable outcomes. Entity continuously monitors
and research about new direction and policies impact upon their employees. With the help of
formative research Google determine best effective approaches in order to manage individuals
and maintain productive workplace environment. Different types of training session and on-the-
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job learning method are being provided to employees from experienced managers. Company
empower employees and help them with their career development. With the help of clear vision
and strategy Google create effective management culture that encourages employees to be more
innovative and productive (Koor, 2019). By offering unique workplace culture and effective
human resource policies Google ranked No1 best company to work for. Along with this it has
been determined that Google continuously engage in the process of transforming the human
resource process in order to increase employee retention rate while creating a better and positive
workplace environment for employees to work for.
Conclusion
As per the above mentioned report it has been concluded that, employees are considered as
one of the crucial asset for any business organisation despite of their size and scope as they play
major role for generating revenue for company. Thus, it becomes essential for an organisation to
manage their human resources in a well effective manner in order to retain them from long
period of time. As to motivate workforce within organisation, entity is required to make sure that
employees are performing their work in a flexible, comfortable and healthy working
environment. In addition to this entry is also required to ensure safety and security of their
employees and provide equal opportunities to every worker despite of their sex, religion, race,
age and gender. In addition to this company is required to motivate their employees by providing
them different benefits and perks in order to make significant increase in their performance. By
providing new compensations, perks and benefits company can not only able to increase
workforce productivity of their employees but can also stimulate higher productivity and
profitability of organisation that automatically aid entity to ensure high competitive edge within
market place.
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REFERENCES
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