Glory Gleir G. Guay
BSA – 3A MWF 11:05 - 12:05 PM
Johanna Regine S. Wong
We Need More Engagement around Here
Problem
Despite its success, Health Maintenance Organization faces an employee motivation problem as stated in the case. Many of these HMO employees do not feel strongly motivated to help accomplish their company goals. Most of their workers are not fully engaged or simply ‘disengaged’ in their work, meaning, they are no longer committed to the company.
Areas of Consideration A. Strengths i.
HMO HMO provid provides es addit additio iona nall benef benefits its to their their employ employees ees aside aside from from the equitable salaries that each of them receive.
ii.
They also provide their employees with adequate resources, giving each one of them the opportunity to do their best every day.
iii.
It also has a strong internal culture where there is a good relationship among supervisors and their subordinates. The employees perceive that their boss is doing a good job and so, sets a role model to his employees.
iv.
HMO also defines work expectancies to ensure that workers understand well their overall job expectations that they are anticipated to achieve.
B. Weaknesses Weaknesses
i. HMO HMO has has a man managem agemen entt and and staf stafff prob proble lems ms where herein in a lot lot of the the employees are so laid back, indifferent and lack a sense of urgency. ii.
Only a few of HMO’s employees are given a chance to gain new learning experiences while other workers feel that their job is pointless and boring.
iii.
HMO has a high employee turnover since the employees, themselves, don’t expect to be working for the company for at least another 3 years.
C. Opportunities
i.
ii.
With its 25 local offices, HMO can provide better service to other organizations compared to other health care providers. Diverse customers intensify the chances of different client connections.
D. Threats
i. HMO’s competition for business has turned out to be more intense in recent years as other health organizations become more competitive. ii. Organizations continue to look for ways to reduce cost for medical and dental insurance and hence, arises a concern that a given company might shift to another health care provider that can offer lower costs.
Alternatives
To increase the employees’ motivation and engagement in HMO, we propose these several alternatives:
A.
As a primary motivator, HMO should increase all of its employees’ average work pay and benefits; or
B.
HMO should offer their employees more financial incentives by linking pay to performance rather than increasing all of the employees’ average work pay.
C.
The third alternative is to give rewards and recognition to HMO employees as a positive reinforcement; and
D.
HMO should focus more on enriching their employees’ jobs and making it more meaningful rather than motivating them with extrinsic motivators.
Evaluation A. Increasing average work pays
i. Advantages 1.
Most people have financial worries making money an all-important reinforcer and motivator.
2. Employees would feel more equally compensated with their work done and more likely be motivated to repay such favour. 3. This makes it difficult for the employees to find another company that may pay as high as HMO can pay.
ii. Disadvantages 1. This reduces competition in the workplace and slows down HMO’s level of overall productivity since everyone gets the same raise of pay. 2.
There is a little reason for the employees to work as hard as they could since everyone has equal financial benefit.
3.
As the cost of paying employees increases, so will the cost passed on to the organization and customers.
4. Costs of increasing salary outweigh the motivation that it can give. B. Linking pay to performance
i. Advantages 1. This results in a higher level of productivity as each employee strives to earn the highest marks on each performance review. 2. It also helps create healthy competition amongst employees. ii. Disadvantages 1. There is a potential for rifts among employees. 2. Earning extra money doesn't arouse some employees to work harder. 3. Employees not receiving a merit pay might feel that they have been punished thus will discourage employees of low performance. C. Giving rewards and recognition
i. Advantages 1.
As a positive reinforcement, it may motivate change in one’s behavior.
2.
As their hard work is recognized, this will let employees know that putting effort in their jobs is worthwhile and meaningful.
3.
Workers will be proud of what they have achieved and consequently satisfy their needs for self-esteem and self-fulfilment.
ii. Disadvantages 1. Rather than focusing on creating the best possible output, employees may find ways to increase output only to receive rewards and recognition, which can actually lead to poor-quality performance.
D.
2.
Offering these rewards for multiple times generates higher expenses.
3.
Receiving so much reward may make an employee too arrogant, making him think he’s too great that may only lead to his downfall.
Job enrichment through intrinsic motivators
i. Advantages 1. Workers may experience the meaningfulness of their work motivating them to give their best performance and enhance their self-efficacy. 2. Employees won’t feel restricted or limited and will have more times to improve their performance quality thus lessens employee turnover. 3.
Workers will have high internal motivation, job satisfaction and growth satisfaction which will eventually lead to greater work commitment.
4. As employee's level of responsibility increases, he gets the opportunity to try new tasks, making it inevitable to learn new skills. 5.
It gives HMO a chance to test and see their employees' strengths and weaknesses which is useful both to the organization and employees.
ii. Disadvantages 1.
It increases an employee's workload re-prioritizing their time and task.
2. In some cases, it may not give the expected result. 3. It makes many changes in a worker’s job, making it time-consuming.
Recommendation
To enhance the motivation and engagement level of these HMO workers, we highly recommend job enrichment through intrinsic motivators because it also adds variety to employees' duties, which can, in turn, reduce their workplace boredom. Through this alternative, we can also reduce HMO’s costs without sacrificing their service quality since it may as well challenge employees to stretch their skills beyond what they're used to doing at the company. With this, employees also get the sense of belonging to the organization and though given with some disadvantages, benefits still outweigh the costs.
