Managerial Practices and Employee Well-Being

Managerial Practices and Employee Well-Being

Introduction

Some of the primary theories or concepts that will be discussed in this assignment paper, as mentioned by Grant, Christianson, and Price in their article, include protection and promotion of the employees’ wellbeing and managerial practices theory. The paper will also examine the workers’ wellbeing tradeoff concept by analyzing how managerial concepts tend to create tradeoffs between various dimensions of the employee wellbeing and determine how wellbeing tradeoffs can be mitigated. The essay will provide relevant examples to support these concepts or theories.

Analysis of the Key Arguments Discussed in the Case Study

Employee Well-Being Concept

One of the significant theories that Grant, Christianson, and Price (2007) have raised in their case study relates to the protection and promotion of employee wellbeing (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007). The wellbeing of the workers in an organizational context has become a very crucial topic of debate when discussing the life and longevity of an organization. In their attempt to promote employee wellbeing, supervisors, managers, and leaders agree that one of the best approaches to enhancing the efforts, productivity, and contributions of the workers in an organization is through motivation (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007). For instance, in the attempt to motivate the employees, leaders and managers tend to allocate a significant portion of the company’s resources towards promoting professional development, providing free employee assistance programs and healthcare benefits all in the explicit goal of improving employee wellbeing.

Another example of the efforts that organizations are pursuing to promote employees’ wellbeing is emphasizing their commitment to providing the workers with a safe workplace environment. Companies are also regularly monitoring the progress that they have made in enhancing the welfare of their workers by conducting internal surveys (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007). For instance, in 2006, the General Motors Company publicly declared that one of its overriding priority was to improve the health and safety of all its workers. General Motors stated that no wellbeing of any employee would be compromised in any of the operations that it would undertake.

The consistency of these trends can be further supported by recent studies that are in consensus that the concept of employee wellbeing has attracted a lot of attention from the organizations. These studies also agree that the welfare of the workers is now being given priority in the majority of the companies, given its contribution to facilitating the achievement of organizational goals and objectives. For example, in a recent study by Shier and Graham (2013), it was discovered that employee wellbeing significantly impacts both the performance and the survival of companies (Shier & Graham, 2013). It does so by affecting costs related to employee turnover, absenteeism, organizational citizenship behavior, discretionary effort, and job performance

Managerial Practices Theory

Secondly, Grant, Christianson, and Price (2007) have extensively explored the concept of managerial practices and how they tend to create tradeoffs between various dimensions of employee wellbeing despite being primarily structured to enhance the wellbeing of the employees as a strategy of improving organizational performance. According to Grant, Christianson, and Price (2007), the fact that the well-intentioned managerial practices that are pursued by managers and leaders tend to end up having unintended consequences and mixed-effects make the management of the employees’ wellbeing an increasingly challenging and complex task (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007). Examples of the standard managerial practices within an organizational context include implementation of safety initiatives at the workplace, redesigning and scheduling work, team building activities, and development of employee incentive compensation programs.

Several effects are realized from the implementation of managerial practices by leaders, supervisors, and managers. For instance, the physical wellbeing of the workers is affected by managerial practices in the sense that they tend to influence the health of the employees in terms of possible workplace health outcomes (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007). Another effect of managerial practices on workers is psychological wellbeing, whereby they may shape the job and life satisfaction level of the employees (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007). Moreover, managerial practices affect the social wellbeing of the employees in various ways, such as treating them with varying degrees of fairness and providing them with opportunities for interpersonal relationships.

Employee Well-Being Tradeoff Concept

Grant, Christianson, and Price (2007) claim that for the employee wellbeing tradeoffs to take place, one aspect of employee wellbeing must decrease while at the same time another element gets improved (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007). These tradeoffs in the wellbeing of the employees are significantly influenced by the kind of managerial practices that are undertaken by the managers or leaders within an organization. For example, work redesign practices such as enrichment of jobs in the effort of increasing simulation play a pivotal role in increasing the job satisfaction level of an employee. Some of the other employees’ benefits of task enrichment which is part of the work redesign practice include task identity, autonomy, acquisition of variety of skills and ability to benefit other people from duties carried out thus improving the level of employee job satisfaction (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007).

On the other hand, these same work redesign practices end up causing numerous physical strains such as fatigue and body pains in the workers. Grant, Christianson & Price, (2007) suggest that these physical strains may result to serious health issues in patients such as cardiovascular disease that may be as a result of numerous pressure subjected to the workers (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007). Clear evidence of wellbeing tradeoffs is realized from the ability of work redesign practices to decrease the physical wellbeing of the employees as well as increasing their psychological wellbeing at the same time.

Another example of a possible employee wellbeing tradeoff may occur as a result of job rotation whereby employees may end up benefiting from the opportunity of learning how to undertake various responsibilities in multiple workstations (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007). However, this managerial practice also increases the risk of these employees to suffer from workplace stress and strain since they are required to engage in new activities that may place more demands on them when compared to the previous roles. Thirdly, the implementation of incentive compensation practices by managers in the effort of offering both monetary and non-monetary exchange for the employees’ performance acts as a significant source of workers’ wellbeing tradeoff. Grant, Christianson, and Price (2007) argue that through incentive compensation practices, employees’ wellbeing is enhanced through strategies such as pay increase, allowances, and recognition, thus enabling them to achieve high job satisfaction levels (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007). The predictions of both the expectancy theory and equity theory are consistent with these findings. However, it has been discovered that the incentive compensation program also tends to harm the interpersonal relationships of the employees, thus creating an employee wellbeing tradeoff. For instance, rewarding an individual employee rather than the entire team members may create conflict

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The conception of Mitigation of Employee Well-Being Tradeoffs

Organizations are currently succeeding in designing effective managerial practices that are synergistically increasing multiple dimensions of employee wellbeing as well as in minimizing wellbeing tradeoffs through paying more considerable attention to how managerial practices tend to affect different aspects of the wellbeing of the workers. Several strategies can be applied in mitigating wellbeing tradeoffs by implementing managerial practices in ways that are likely to prevent negative wellbeing synergies.

Firstly, increasing managerial attention is a practical approach to minimizing wellbeing tradeoffs. It involves encouraging individuals holding managerial positions to pay close attention to the level of impact that their managerial practices have on the wellbeing of their employees (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007). Such an approach enables the managers to identify those managerial actions that are likely to contribute to negative employee synergies and avoid them. It is highly advisable that managers think broadly about the parties affected by their managerial practices and some of the long term implications that such effects may have on a company. According to Grant, Christianson, and Price (2007), studies show that managers may end up considering those managerial practices that are salient to them and forget about other dimensions of employee wellbeing (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007). For example, managers may pay attention only to the physical safety and welfare of the employees and forego the policy implications of this action on the employees’ social and psychological wellbeing.

Another wellbeing tradeoff mitigation strategy is valuing the impact that managerial practices have on the wellbeing of the workers through using techniques such as increasing managerial motivation (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007). Several methods can be used to improve the ability of the managers to effectively value the impact of their actions on the wellbeing of the workers as well as overcome motivational biases that often make them fail to act upon realizing that their efforts may harm the wellbeing of the employees. Firstly, it is essential to broaden the range of outcomes that are considered crucial for the organization (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007). That means encouraging managers to pay attention not only to economic and rational outcomes but also to the human relations outcomes, which are often underestimated by most managers despite their significant impact on organizational performance. Secondly, managers need to start reconsidering the chosen managerial practices and adjust them accordingly based on the feedback provided by third parties such as the employees.

Conclusion

Conclusively, employee wellbeing is significantly affected by the kind of managerial practices that are performed by the managers. Employee wellbeing tradeoffs tend to take place as a result of the occurrence of unintended outcomes of the managerial practices implemented, hence preventing these practices from achieving their intended goal, which in most cases in improving the wellbeing of the workers. As discussed in this essay, managerial practices such as work redesign and incentive compensation tend to enhance one dimension of the wellbeing of a worker while at the same time decreasing another, thus causing workers’ wellbeing tradeoffs. Some of the strategies that can be used to overcome these wellbeing tradeoffs include increasing managerial attention towards the kind of practices that they decide to take and their possible impacts as well as valuing the impact of their managerial actions.