Introduction
The aim of this essay is to explore aspects of improving organizational retention. The essay highlights the case of JC’s Casino to demonstrate poor aspects of human resource management, and it shows how an organization can enhance overall employee retention. Organizations that fail to retain their qualified employees remain with poorly qualified ones and lack adequate staff. This situation affects competitive abilities of a company. Employee retention is a vital part of human resource management. Human resource managers should possess such skills. In addition, organizations should have strategies for human resource recruitment, development, retention and fair treatment. Employees seek for job satisfaction other than pay.
Work motivation theories and their application to improve employee recruitment and retention at JC’s Casino
Reinforcement theory focuses on how rewards and punishment may influence behaviors. The theory considers behaviors as reactions to environments. Thus, employees are likely to repeat rewarded behaviors and act in specific manners that will bring about rewards (Guerrero, Andersen & Afifi, 2006).
At JC’s Casino, workers did not get rewards based on their performances. Consequently, majorities resorted to absenteeism and eventually left the company to work for its rivals in the area. A severe staff shortage led to many challenges while other full-time employees had to help with housekeeping chores. The company did not reward its employees well while new employees for the company were hard to find. JC’s Casino may use various approaches to reward its employees in order to reinforce their behaviors.
Justice theory posits that employees prefer reasonable and impartial management in companies (Spector, 2012). Such treatments motivate employees to uphold equality. Spector notes that fair treatment of employees helps in performance improvement (Spector, 2012). Moreover, people have tendencies to compare themselves with others as a way of determining fair treatment in an organization.
Employees at JC’s Casino had to work hard to mitigate effects of staff shortage, which affected housekeeping. While the remaining employees work hard, the company continues with poor treatment and does not reward their efforts. Justice theory requires that employees receive fair treatment. Therefore, the human resource director must address employee management issues to keep its dealers and eliminate challenges that customers face. The HR director must address Joe who supervises dealers, but exhibit counterproductive behaviors.
Possible occupational stressors that are negatively influencing recruitment and retention, and improvements to alleviate them
Spector (2008) refers to an occupational stressor as “a condition or a situation at work that requires an adaptive response on the part of the employee” (p. 292). In a work environment, there could be several forms of occupational stressors, which might have negative impacts on employees. One major stressor in the company is the conflict between dealers and their supervisor. In addition, the available employees have heavy workload. The director of housekeeping comments, “good help is hard to find”. Past studies have established that employees who had too much workload tended to experience challenges associated with behavioral, emotional, psychological and physical well-being. They also displayed job dissatisfaction, frustration and anxiety coupled with plans to quit. Conflicts in an organization lead to similar situations. When supervisors have self-serving tendencies and focus on themselves rather than employees, then such conditions may create occupational stress among employees (Spector, 2012).
At JC’s Casino, employees face various stressors such as employee shortage and conflicts. This situation forces current dealers to perform more work than others. Moreover, other full-time employees from other departments must assist in room cleaning. This is additional workload because cleaning rooms is not a part of their normal duties.
The director of housekeeping must find additional employees to ease the problem of staff shortage. The human resources director must find other employees immediately to reduce challenges at the JC’s Casino. The new employees would require training in housekeeping, favorable working environment and fair treatment from Joe. This would enhance staff retention and reduce staff shortage.
The role of job satisfaction and its influence on retention at the casino and recommendations for improving job satisfaction of the employees and how that can play a part in successfully improving retention
At JC’s Casino, job satisfaction among employees has deteriorated steadily. As a result, many employees have quit their jobs or increased the rate of absenteeism. The problems at the company, which exit interviews have identified, have not been resolved because the HR director does not want to meet the proprietor out of fear. In addition, the director of housekeeping has been unable to hire many employees to replace those who quit. However, he states that ‘good help is hard to find’. It is imperative for JC’s Casino to retain its employees and resolve management issues related to Joe’s incompetency and other shortcomings. These problems require a management who will act and protect employees against Joe. This would resolve the company’s staff attrition problem and assist in retention.
Most employees at the company are not satisfied with their jobs. Full-time employees from administrative departments have worked as housekeepers due to staff shortage. Meanwhile, others have continued to quit and work for competitors. While Joe is incompetent and unable to work with many recruited employees, the director of housekeeping strives to hire many new employees. The few available housekeepers must overwork to meet needs of the company. The human resource department needs to hire many staff and resolves complaints from employees about Joe.
Joe is a supervisor who lacks management capabilities in supervisory roles and human resource management. Therefore, Joe, who is evil, toxic, overbearing and incompetent requires training in human resource management so that he can work with the dealers and enhance his professional capabilities. The company should train Joe or remove him from a managerial position. This will solve dealers’ challenges and enhance job satisfaction and employee retention. Employees cannot be satisfied with their jobs when they work with incompetent and arrogant managers.
The HR manager should develop a new retention program and reward employees who have worked and assisted the company during crisis. Therefore, HR managers must understand the role of effective recruitment and retention practices in a company.
Counterproductive employee behavior occurring at the casino, suggestions to reduce them and increase productive employee behavior
Any counterproductive behaviors at the work place affect performance, employees’ morale and job satisfaction among others. Such behaviors have far-reaching negative consequences for the company (Sackett, Berry, Wiemann and Laczo, 2006). Counterproductive behaviors affect employees, who are not directly involved. For instance, employees who perceived the work environment as poor at JC’s Casino started to look for alternative employers. In other words, counterproductive behaviors in organization have effects that run across the organization. At JC’s Casino, Joe’s behaviors, the failure of the director of housekeeping to find suitable replacement and Tom Sneed’s failure to control or report Joe to the owner of the company reflect aspects of counterproductive behaviors. In addition, housekeepers have also engaged in counterproductive behaviors associated with job avoidance and absenteeism
On the other hand, one may claim that housekeepers have reacted to poor management at the company and they might just behavior well under favorable work environments and professional management (Spector et al., 2006).
Apart from eliminating stressors at the company, the human resource director should arrange for employee training on various aspects of the job. It is imperative for the human resource director to understand employee recruitment, selection, training retention processes. Such knowledge will ensure that JC’s Casino has a favorable work environment and highly trained staff. While many employees are required to replace others who have quit, the human resource director and the director of housekeeping must address counterproductive behaviors in their respective departments.
The owner of the company should learn about Joe’s counterproductive behaviors and their consequences on the company. The HR director should propose a possible removal or training of Joe. Training can ensure that Joe acquires the necessary skills to supervise other employees or identify a new department in which he may serve well without affecting other employees’ work environment. It is also important for the owner of the company to understand consequences of employing untrained employees in supervisory roles. The company will eventually lose customers if such counterproductive behaviors persist. It may not serve customers well without dealers who ensure timely housekeeping activities for customers.
Conclusion
This essay has explored aspects of improving organizational retention by highlighting the case of JC’s Casino to demonstrate poor aspects of human resource management and show how an organization can enhance overall employee retention. Organizations should focus on using theoretical approaches, which motivate employees to work, improve performance and derive job satisfaction. This would enhance employee retention. The essay shows that counterproductive behaviors have broad outcomes in any company. Thus, occupational stressors and counterproductive behaviors have greater impacts on employees, which go beyond high wages and compensation. Therefore, the management team should adopt appropriate strategies to solve such challenges.
References
Guerrero, L. K., Andersen, P. A., & Afifi, W. A. (2006). Close encounters: communication in relationships. Los Angeles: Sage Publications. Web.
Sackett, P., Berry, C., Wiemann, S., and Laczo, R. (2006). Citizenship and Counterproductive Behavior: Clarifying Relations Between the two Domains. Human Performance 19(4), 441–64. Web.
Spector, P. E., Fox, S., Penney, L. M., Bruursema, K., Goh, A., & Kessler, S. (2006). The dimensionality of counterproductivity: Are all counterproductive behaviors created equal? ournal of Vocational Behavior, 68(3), 446-460. Web.
Spector, P. (2012). Industrial and organizational psychology: Research and practice (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Web.