Providing a good working place that would lead to employee satisfaction is one of the main management functions. It is explained by the notion that content with one’s job is strongly associated with motivation and performance. Therefore, this paper will firstly discuss how to ensure adequate workplace safety and security as these factors are primary determinants of people’s level of satisfaction. Secondly, additional measures that lead to job contentment would be considered.
Workplace Safety and Security
Safety and security procedures in any company seek to protect employees from possible risks to their health, life, and well-being. The former usually encompasses the following actions to control or eliminate specific workplace hazards (Society for Human Resource Management, n.d.):
- Looking for the options to substitute materials and equipment that may cause or are causing harm to the workers with the safer components;
- Ensuring that dangerous areas or objects are appropriately isolated;
- Installing ventilation in the workplace, especially when people are involved in industry related to processing materials that emit toxic air pollutants;
- Providing personal protective equipment to employees when the potentially harmful effect cannot be sufficiently controlled by the aforementioned methods.
On the other hand, security measures are directed towards protecting the company’s physical and human assets from criminal actions. In this regard, it is important that decision-makers should consider the safety not only of tangible elements such as equipment and computers but also of intangible components, including information and communication. For instance, the procedures may include installing CCTVs and steel doors, introducing key-card access system(s), and creating secure areas.
Workplace Violence and Bullying
Bullying and violence constitute another aspect of employee safety and security issues that are mainly associated with people’s psychological well-being, although in the latter case, physical damage is also possible. In this regard, Rayner and Lewis (2020) maintain that it would be wrong to think that certain actions are needed only when the ‘unpleasant incidents’ actually happen. Rather, the early measures would help to prevent the appearance of bullying and violence cases. Therefore, the protective and reactive strategies should include, firstly, educational efforts such as conducting informative campaigns to increase employee awareness and teaching conflict management skills (Bambi et al., 2017).
Secondly, there should be zero tolerance for abusive behaviors, meaning that workers who bully or use physical force against their colleagues should be punished as strictly as possible. Finally, it is important to adopt relationship-oriented leadership, which would ensure that managers have close relations with subordinates so that the latter are not scared to report any cases of abuse.
Further Improvements in Workplace
Despite good levels of security and safety in an organization, these measures still may not be sufficient to make workers very happy with their jobs. Indeed, in 1959, Frederick Herzberg suggested a two-factor model of employee motivation and satisfaction (Mullins and Christy, 2016). The first group of determinants was called hygiene factors and included salary, company policies, supervision, relationships, security, and work conditions. The researcher argued that all these variables are perceived as basic requirements for the workplace. Therefore, if an employee is not provided with all the hygiene needs, they would not be satisfied.
On the contrary, if a company can address these demands properly, the worker still will not be happy; rather, it would mean that the individual will not be unhappy anymore. For this reason, it can be argued that ensuring safety and security and effective struggle against bullying and violence would not lead to employees’ satisfaction with the work.
On the other hand, factors that are called motivators are positively related to an employee’s enjoyment of the work. They include achievement, growth, recognition, responsibility, and interesting content of the task. Therefore, to create the best workplace, company managers should create opportunities for promotion based on employee’s performance and achievements. Also, it is necessary to assign workers with adequately challenging tasks so that they are neither too easy nor too difficult. Finally, it is important to recognize employees’ accomplishments and reward them accordingly.
References
Bambi, S., Guazzini, A., De Felippis, C., Lucchini, A., & Rasero, L. (2017). Preventing workplace incivility, lateral violence and bullying between nurses: A narrative literature review. Acta Biomedica, 88(5), 39-47.
Mullins, L. J., & Christy G. (2016). Management & organizational behavior (11th ed.). Pearson Education Limited.
Rayner, C., & Lewis, D. (2020). Managing workplace bullying: The role of policies. In S. V. Einarsen et al. (Eds.), Bullying and harassment in the workplace (pp. 497-519). CRC Press.
Society for Human Resource Management. (n.d.). Introduction to the human resource discipline of safety and security. Web.