How Does Work Design Influence Team Performance in an IT organization?

What is Work Design?

‘Work design is the creation of systems of work and a working environment that enhance organizational effectiveness and productivity, ensure that the organization becomes ‘a great place in which to work’ and are conducive to the health, safety, and well-being of employees’. (Armstrong, 2014)

Despite the nature of the end product or services, all the IT organizations are used to perform their task on a team basis. For example, once a project is confirmed by the sales team then there will be several teams allocated for executing that particular project in the given time. Hence, team performance is crucial in every aspect of every IT company. 

What Makes a Team Effective?

 (Anon., 2019)

Four contextual factors appear to be most significantly related to team performance. These factors include

•         Adequate resources
•         Leadership and structure
•        A climate of trust
•         Performance evaluation and reward systems. (Anon., 2019)

Adequate resources and leadership are most sensitive when it comes to the IT industry as almost all the projects are depending on knowledge sharing and teamwork. If you don’t have the correct technology and resources with you then you will hardly ever succeed in a project.

Due to these reasons, IT organizations are focusing on State-of-the-art concepts in their working place with the frequently updated technologies. This will in return help the organization to enhance the employee job satisfaction increases the employee retention.  

How does work design affect IT organization’s team effectiveness?

An effective team should take responsibility together and take collective responsibility for completing tasks. Important work design elements include autonomy, using a variety of skills, being able to complete a whole and identifiable task and products, and working on a task or project that has a significant impact on others.  (Nestor-Harper, 2019)

As mentioned above, Work Design has a profound impact on the effectiveness of an IT organization which will in return help to improve the profitability as well. So top management must take this as a serious concern and take the necessary actions to enhance the work design.

How do you think, in your organization’s work design should change to improve team effectiveness?

References

Anon., 2019. openclass. [Online]
Available at: https://content.openclass.com/eps/pearson-reader/api/item/93e3b7b0-d68f-11e5-95f5-cd3b5082a19b/1/file/robbins_decenzo_coulter-fomecaa-10e_v5a/OPS/xhtml/ch10_sec_06.xhtml
[Accessed 30 04 2019].

Armstrong, M., 2014. In: ARMSTRONG’S HANDBOOK OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE. s.l.:s.n., p. 136.

Nestor-Harper, M., 2019. Chorn. [Online]
Available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/work-design-influence-team-performance-18159.html
[Accessed 28 04 2019].

What Modern Employees Expectations and How Important to Consider it?

“Most workers hold jobs that are complex, interconnected, and knowledge-based. Peter Drucker predicted this rise of work accomplished with minds rather than muscle in the 1950s, and that’s now changed to an emphasis on jobs that require not just knowledge but also adaptability. This workplace transition has deeply affected the expectations of employees, as jobs now require greater psychological resources and soft skills in every role, from software developer to CTO, from customer support associate to sales manager”. (Patrick, 2019)

What does modern employee expect?

Autonomy

In all IT the organization, almost all the employees are considered as knowledge workers, hence, they want to be able to control their work. They want to be able to decide when, where and how their work gets done. They hate being micromanaged, if you can avoid this it will increase the trust between you and your employee.

Recognition

Recognition helps employees to feel valued at work, yet just 21% of employees report feeling strongly valued. Giving recognition is a simple, low-overhead interaction. It doesn't cost any money, and takes very little time to say "thank you." (Dickson, 2019)

Respect

Employees want to be treated respectfully no matter what their job role may be.

Trust

Employees want to be able to trust management, and they want management to trust them to do their jobs. Show them why you're a trustworthy partner.

Social Interaction

Employees want to have friends at work, work in a collaborative environment, and have a good relationship with their immediate supervisors. Make sure you're providing an environment that encourages social interaction.

With all the above characteristics, the far most important things that should be more considered in an IT organization is the Psychological Contract.

What is Psychological contract?

“In addition to the explicit agreements between employer and employees, there are often unacknowledged and unspoken expectations.  These are part of the psychological contract.  The psychological contract is an unwritten the agreement that sets out what employers expect from employees and what employees expect from employers” (Anon., 2019)

 Despite the nature of the business, these modern expectations should be fulfilled in order to improve the employee retention. In an IT organization, employee retention is one of the most important thing as experienced employees play the key roles when winning the new projects rather than new employees.

Does your organization have the above characteristics? if now how to improve that?

References

Anon., 2019. kautilyasociety. [Online]
Available at: http://www.kautilyasociety.com/tvph/output_oriented/employeremployee_expectations.htm
[Accessed 2019].

Dickson, G., 2019. Bonusly. [Online]
Available at: https://blog.bonus.ly/employee-expectations-in-modern-business/
[Accessed 26 04 2019].

Patrick, C., 2019. Medium Leadership. [Online]
Available at: https://medium.com/s/please-advise/employee-expectations-are-changing-so-must-we-356ac94a76ed
[Accessed 26 04 2019].

How training and learning help in development of a Product-based IT organization.

What is training:

“Organized activity aimed at imparting information and/or instructions to improve the recipient's performance or to help him or her attain a required level of knowledge or skill.” (BusinessDictionary, 2019)

When it comes to IT organizations, training is one of the vital factors to get the maximum output from an employee. Especially in product-based IT companies, newcomers should be undergone with a proper training process.

Almost all the Product-based IT organizations start new employment with proper training despite the candidates’ level of previous experiences. This is will help to get the maximum benefits out of the resource. Furthermore, proper training and development will increase job satisfaction as well as the employee retention.

What is learning: 

Learning Curve

“Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior, cognition or the effect, it occurs as a result of study, instructions, social interactions or experience” (Hergenhahn, 1982; DeSimone, Werner, Harris, 2002; Good, Brophy, 1990, 2015)

Every employee will have some sort of induction period this is also called the learning curve. During this period of time, we can see the development of performance against a certain time frame. This is details are used by the management in order to process the performance appraisal. In the IT industry, we can see the same learning curve, but there will be a limitation to performance-based salary increments even though the learning curve hits it maximum performance over the time period.

This behavior has a profound impact on job satisfaction as well as the higher number of employee turnovers due to salary differences.

“The findings gave an insight into the knowledge worker turnover behavior in which only 6% satisfied with their current job with the current employer while 24% intended to leave the current employer, if they get a better job offer from another IT company in Sri Lanka “ (Jinadasa & Wickramasinghe, 2015)

In the current context, IT companies must be more cautious on providing training and facilitating the employees with acceptable wages in spite of the learning curve. In product-based IT companies, Experienced resources are the most valuable assets as even the product change itself a lot the business logic is less likely to change.

Will poor training and learning facilities impact the other organization in the same way?

References

BusinessDictionary, 2019. [Online]
Available at: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/training.html
[Accessed 15 04 2019].

Hergenhahn, 1982; DeSimone, Werner, Harris, 2002; Good, Brophy, 1990, 2015. [Online]
Available at: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/isd/definitions.html
[Accessed 15 04 2019].

Jinadasa, L. & Wickramasinghe, V., 2015. University of Kelaniya. [Online]
Available at: http://repository.kln.ac.lk/jspui/handle/123456789/5871
[Accessed 15 04 2019].

How Employee value position affect to IT industry

“A business makes nothing but money, is a poor business” - Henry Ford

What is Employee value position?

(Bravery, et al., 2019)

Employee Value Proposition (EVP) refers to the rewards and benefits received by employees in return for their performance at the workplace. It is one of the most important factors to consider for any company looking to attract and retain top talent.

When it’s come to the IT industry EVP plays a major role in recruitment and retaining the top talents within the companies. Over the past decade, candidates have been steadily becoming more and more powerful in the job search. Ever since attracting best talent became harder than ever, consistent and efficient communication of employee value proposition has become extremely important. With the top talented person in the workforce, the employer can gain high ROI.

According to the Corporate Leadership Council, organization with managed EVPs are able to effectively source from more than 60 percent of the labor market.

EVP includes,

“Opportunity includes career and development opportunities and organization growth rate. “ (Anon., 2019)

                In IT industries, there are lots of opportunities everywhere. Therefore, employers must provide many opportunities for their employees if they want to retain a talented workforce with them.

“People: includes manager quality, coworker quality, senior leadership reputation, and camaraderie.” (Anon., 2019)

                This is one of the most critical parts, the employer must think about in a deep way as this might cause high employee turnovers.

“Organization: includes market position, product/service quality, and social responsibility.” (Anon., 2019)

“Work: includes job-interest alignment and work-life balance.” (Anon., 2019)

                IT industries, nowadays more focus on employee job satisfaction. For example, many IT companies in the world offer flexible work hours and even working from home facilities, which has become one of the demanding needs. These were able to add enormous value to EVP

“Rewards: includes compensation, health and retirement benefits and vacation time.” (Anon., 2019) (Anon., 2017) (Anon., 2019)

                In IT organization, normally they provide health benefits and vacations but they are lack of retirement benefits and compensation. This has become one burning reason for employee turnover.

Finally, EVP in the most organization has moved towards the more of an individual value position. “By clustering attributes such as age, income, life stage, family status, career level and certain preferences to create unique groups, or personas, employers can design programs to better target individual needs” (Bravery, et al., 2019) (Anon., 2019)

What do you think about this approach in any organization? Does EVP should focus on more individual needs or should deal with the entire company as a whole? (Bravery, et al., 2019)

References

Anon., 2017. HR Technologies. [Online]
Available at: https://www.hrtechnologist.com/articles/employee-engagement/the-importance-of-employee-value-proposition/
[Accessed 12 04 2019].

Anon., 2019. Gartner. [Online]
Available at: https://www.gartner.com/en/human-resources/insights/employee-engagement-performance/employee-value-proposition
[Accessed 12 04 2019].

Anon., 2019. MSG- Management Study Guide. [Online]
Available at: https://www.managementstudyguide.com/application-of-talent-management.htm
[Accessed 13 04 2019].

Bravery, K. et al., 2019. Mercer. [Online]
Available at: https://www.imercer.com/uploads/common/HTML/LandingPages/AnalyticalHub/july-2018-spotlight-career-strengthening-your-employee-value-proposition.pdf
[Accessed 13 04 2019].

Evaluation of Human Resource Management

Period Before Industrial Revolution: 

At the early ages, we had kind of an agriculture-based economy with fewer communication channels and limited production. On those days these economies are mainly limited within the village. one master was there to assist all the followers in this small community.

Period of Industry Revolution (1750-1850): 

With the conversion of the economy from agriculture based to industry based, the term industrial revolution came into action. Communication has increased and it led to expanding the economy throughout the world using an industry setup. Since the growth of the industry, a separate department was introduced to look into workers wages, welfare, and other issues. This led to the emergence of personnel management with the major task as   

•  Worker’s wages and salaries
•  Worker’s record maintenance
• Worker’s housing facility and health care

The growth of labor union was one of the most important facts of the industrial revolution. “The workers working in the industries or factories were asked to work for long hours under very fewer wages with growing unrest. Due to these reasons workers across the world start to protest and this led to the start of the labor unions. “ (Mind Tools Content Team, 2019) To deal with the labor issues like these, a department called “Industrial relation department” emerged. It acted as the link between manages and the labors.

Post Industrial Revolution:  

After 1850’s, there were some major studies and experiments carried out and term “Human Resource Management” hence given by a new meaning importance.

Major theories released during this period:

1.  Frederick W. Taylor gave principles of scientific management (1857 o 1911).
2. Hawthorne studies, conducted by Elton Mayo & Fritz Roethlisberger (1927 to 1940). (Anon., 2019)
3. Douglas McGregor Theory X and Theory Y (1960). (Mulder, 2015)

Strategic Human Resource Management:

Human resource management has become increasingly critical role today. Main reason behind this is the improvement of technology and knowledge-based industries. HRMs major accomplishment is it helps in aligning the individual goals and objectives with the cooperate goals and objectives. In Strategic Human Resource management, it focuses on actions that differentiate the organization from its competitors and target to make long term impact on the success of the business and the organization.

What Next?

from the next post, we will have a look into some HRM theories and how we can apply those into the real world.

References

Anon., 2019. Lumen. [Online]
Available at: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/baycollege-introbusiness/chapter/video-hawthorne-studies-at-att/
[Accessed 02 04 2019].

Mind Tools Content Team, 2019. MindTools. [Online]
Available at: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_Taylor.htm
[Accessed 02 04 2019].

Mulder, P., 2015. Toolshero. [Online]
Available at: https://www.toolshero.com/leadership/mcgregor-theory/
[Accessed 02 04 2019].