Organizational Retention And Motivation Action Plan

Organizational Retention and Motivation Action Plan Name Institutional Affiliation Organizational Retention and Motivation Action Plan One of the main assets that every organization looking to succeed should have is a motivated and committed workforce. The workforce acts as the driver of the organization, effectively ensuring that the organization is consistently moving in the direction it should and towards its goals. At the same time, two main impediments that hinder the optimal performance of organizations are high employee attrition and a de-motivated workforce. It is important that every organization works to overcome these impediments on a regular basis. While CleanEats is a relatively successful medium size grocery store specializing in providing fresh, organic, and high quality produce, it is struggling to keep up with its competition as well as to maintain a motivated and committed workforce. Struggling with high attrition rates and low motivation, CleanEats needs a complete transformation of its organizational behavior, culture, and structures in order to motivate its employees and reduce attrition. This paper seeks to highlight some of the measures that CleanEats should implement as an action plan in order to overcome said problems. Organizational Behavior Issues Impacting Employee Retention and Motivation A number of issues tend to affect employee motivation at the workplace, and low motivation inevitably contributes to high employee attrition within the organization. Some of the issues that tend to contribute towards a low level of motivation for employees include excessively negative criticisms and badmouthing, inability to enjoy work, poor inter-employee relations structures, as well as poor wages and benefits (Allen & Bryant, 2012; Latham, 2012). These factors affect how employees interact with one another as well as how they interact with other employees and management staff. For instance, an organizational culture that limits employees from enjoying their work greatly demotivates said employees. It fosters the perception that work is an unpleasant mandatory duty that must be completed at whatever cost. Such conditions can easily stress out workers, making them work under highly strenuous conditions that do little to foster creativity and enjoyment, especially as far as organizations such as CleanEats are concerned. They detach personal initiative and interest from the work being done, which only further demotivates employees (Griffin & Moorehead, 2012). It is essential that employees are provided with an enabling environment that not only supports collaborative efforts and work enjoyment but also enables employees to work in a relaxed state of mind. Such an environment, if developed at CleanEats, is likely to improve employees’ motivation and performance, and, in turn, customer satisfaction. Other issues such as condoned disrespectful behavior, inability to follow rules, special treatment of some employees, and the absence of team-building activities grossly contribute towards employee attrition. For any organization to function effectively, it is important that the employees work together towards a common goal. In order for this to happen, employees need to have active work bonds between themselves, which prompt them to work collaboratively and efficiently (Carsen, 2002). In essence, it is vital for employees to feel that they are a part of the team and that the team not only has their best interests at heart but also those of the organization. Such a workplace environment provides employees with a sense of belonging and identity insofar as the organization is concerned, effectively creating a workplace family for all employees. When such an environment is non-existent, many employees feel isolated, and this inability to connect with other workers can make it difficult for employees to commit themselves to working for an organization. When such employees receive similar, better, or even worse offers in other organizations that can seemingly provide such environments, they do not hesitate to leave an organization, which is a core cause of high attrition. Overcoming High Attrition One of the core issues affecting CleanEats grocery store is high attrition of employees. The management seems to be consistently unable to retain their employees, and particularly so after they incur costs to train them on how to help customers make informed choices when purchasing groceries. One of the main ways this attrition can be tackled is through applying an ‘at market’ compensation philosophy (Allen & Bryant, 2012). The compensation they currently award their employees is fixed and well below the compensation offered by other healthy living grocery retailers in their region. This is a common driver of attrition, and many employees leave the company when offered better compensation packages. An ‘at market’ compensation philosophy compensates employees based on current market values, set at a baseline. This baseline is established to determine the minimum amount of compensation that workers could be awarded, regardless of any shifts in the at market value (Carsen, 2002). This philosophy should be embraced because it provides a sense of stability for the workers as well as an elaborate compensation structure for the organization. This strategy will prove to be important to this organization because it fits in perfectly with the industry in which the organization operates. Much of the labor required for this organization is unskilled, and the wage was only slightly above the minimum wage. As such, providing training and increasing the wage to match that of similar retailers in the region is a surefire way to reduce employee attrition (Allen & Bryant, 2012). Admittedly, this strategy will prove to be very effective, seeing as the organization will save significant sums of money and time that could have been spent training new employees. In this way, this organization will maintain a consistent and committed labor force, which will greatly improve its consistency in productivity. At the same time, a performance-focused organizational culture is vital to ensuring that an organization is capable of consistently improving. This is because such as a culture is centered on improving the ability of the organization to meet its goals and targets, and especially so insofar as productivity and performance are concerned (Carsen, 2002). One vital performance-focused organizational culture is producing high-quality work consistently. In order to ensure that this culture is upheld, employees must be trained in a manner that ensures they understand their roles, and that they are capable of fulfilling them competently and consistently. Coupled with adequate compensation, employees can easily grow in such an environment, which further promotes employee retention. Overcoming Low Motivation A total rewards philosophy is an approach that leverages an integrated set of factors to maximize employee performance and job satisfaction. This is an important factor for any organization looking to ensure it can continue to attract and motivate employees while still ensuring a high level of engagement and retention of said employees (Latham, 2011). To achieve this, a total rewards approach utilizes 6 core elements. These elements include talent development, performance management, recognition of employees, a strong work-life effectiveness plan, employee benefits, and most importantly compensation (Griffin & Moorehead, 2012). By combining these factors in the right manner, this organization can ensure that its employees are motivated and engaged on a constant basis. As an employer, consistency is a vital part of success, and much of this consistency is drawn from having consistent performance from employees. Employee turnover is often detrimental to achieving this success because it often hampers the ability of organizations to perform consistently since it has to constantly train new employees on the organizational procedures (Latham, 2011). One of the ways in which employee turnover can be minimized is through benefits programs and appropriate compensation plans, both of which are parts of the total rewards mix. In this respect, it is vital that the employer ensures they can continue to motivate employees in these ways, seeing as they will work to improve organization retention and motivation by keeping employees motivated. Additionally, providing employees with proper benefits that not only suit their lifestyles but also motivate them ensures employees remain highly motivated in their efforts. The core reason behind said motivation is the fact that employees consistently know that their families and themselves will continue to enjoy a high-quality life (Latham, 2011). It should also be understood that these factors greatly impact the branding of the organization, as well as the recruitment,...