Inspiring Workforce, Essay Example

The importance of effectively managing human capital has only grown due to globalization and competition for talent. The competition has also increased the pressure on the companies to improve their quality standards because customers have more choices than ever and similarly, higher expectations. There are numerous strategies that can be adopted by the companies’ management to inspire their workers to take greater responsibility for product quality.

One of the reasons why workforce may hesitate to take greater control of the quality standards is lack of incentives to perform better. When there are no incentives, it is difficult to convince workers to take greater responsibility for quality because it only comes as extra work with no benefits. Thus, the management should ensure there are incentives in place to motivate workers to be in state of self-control. Different incentives such as profit-sharing plans and performance bonuses align the workers’ interests with the performance of the company and give them a reason to ensure high quality standards.

Another reason why management may fail to guide employees to state of self-control is due to absence of feedback system. It is difficult to convince employees to take greater role in maintaining quality standards if there is no system in place to communicate the results of greater self-control by employees. When employees know their efforts are paying off, they will be motivated to continue with the behavior but if they rarely receive feedback on the results of greater self-control, they will see little reason to take greater responsibility for product quality.

One reason workers may be hesitant to take greater control of quality may be due to lack of skills or training. Quality control often requires a systematic approach to improving quality standards and lack of former quality control procedures may leave the workers confused. One solution is to train workers in quality control aspects and put formal procedures at place that provide guidance to workers in areas of quality control.

Workers may also be difficult to convince if they lack self-confidence regarding their ability to improve quality standards or do not think their efforts will make much confidence. In such scenarios, the management should encourage workers and reward any improvement with both tangible and intangible rewards. The management could also put measurement metrics in place that could be used to convince workers that greater role in quality control indeed makes a material difference and the benefits outweigh the increase in efforts.

Quality can mean different things to different people which is why it is understand for companies to understand consumers’ definition of quality. Quality could be defined as the extent to which a product or service meets consumers expectations. Thus, it is important for management to convey to their subordinates what the marketing department may know or have learnt about consumers’ experiences with the product or service as well as their quality expectations. If workers have a better idea of what aspects of a product or service consumers’ care about more, the workers can organize their quality inspection to devote more resources to aspects most valued by the consumers. Similarly, the management should be specific in quality expectations instead of leaving the workers guessing as to what constitutes quality and what not. Quality objectives could be either qualitative or quantitative or both.

The management should also create an environment of open communication. The employees may feel that they do not have adequate resources to ensure high quality standards or lack authority to take the steps required to improve quality such as interacting with other departments directly and implementing solutions without having the need to seek management approval every time. More open communication with management will also motivate employees to suggest areas for improvement that the management might have overlooked.

The management should also implement accountability policies to persuade employees to take greater role in quality management. If the employees feel that the quality issues are the result of neglect by other departments and they could do little to change other departments’ attitude, it will negatively affect their state of self-control. Thus, there should be clear accountability standards. The management may also encourage greater interaction among departments so quality management becomes a collective goal.

The management may also set personal examples to encourage employees to move to state of self-control. If the management continues to seek ways to improve quality and acts immediately as soon as quality issues are identified, it will send a strong message to the subordinates. The management has huge influence on organizational cultures. But if there are not examples at the top of the organization, the employees may feel that the management just pays lip service to quality and self-control.

The quality should be everyone’s job in an organization. The management should create an environment of open communication and empower employees to identify and suggest areas of improvement. The management may also align compensation policies with quality standards. Similarly, the management should provide adequate resources to employees and also keep them up to date on consumers’ expectations regarding quality.