19 July 2007

Treat Employees Professionally

For the past few weeks, I've been hearing complaints upon complaints from almost everyone at work. The productivity level has gone down a bit but it was not so obvious in the department I was in. The daily work still went on as usual but with some hiccups here and there. The moral of the workers seemed to have gone down. There were other departments where the work flow was said to have slowed down noticeably. In the newspaper I read this morning, the company has denied that the current situation was the cause for a few recent flight delays.

The workers have been expressing their dissatisfaction over a few recent moves by the company which were claimed to be very unfair. For the past few months, the Management, headed by a new Managing Director, has put in their very best effort to turn the company around after having suffered from losses for the past few years. They did quite well in putting the company back on track, however, while in the process of doing it, some changes which were implemented have created pockets of unhappiness across the organisation.

A couple of years ago, the company decided to pay special monthly allowances to all technical staff in order to put a stop on the increasing number of Engineers leaving the company for better salaries. Dissatisfaction aroused among the workers at that time because the distribution of the amount being paid across different levels of technical staff was said to be unfair whereby some higher levels received far too much while the lower levels were paid far too little. However, the company managed to take control of the situation.

Last month, a lot of employees were unhappy when the company started to deduct the said allowances according to the number of days a person was absent from work regardless of any reason. The amount deducted was based on a ridiculous calculating formula. The workers were not properly informed about it and some of them were surprised to find out that their pay was deducted.

The company has also, in less than a year, changed the work shift patterns in my section for at least three times in its effort to reduce the overtime. There were other minor issues which have also created unhappiness among the workers and have caused grumbles here and there.

The recent move by the company to reward only some selected staff was the reason for the current dissatisfaction of the workers. The selections were made based on a system whereby the performance of the staff are monitored and assessed, but unfortunately there were flaws and unfairness in the newly introduced assessment system. And to add fire to the burning fuel of dissatisfaction, the top level managers have actually received their rewards earlier.

I personally think that everyone in the company should be rewarded as everyone has put in their effort and worked as a team to bring profits to the company.

Workers are important asset to the organization. Just like workers won't have employment without companies to work for, companies won't exist without workers. Every personnel in the organization plays an important role in his area of work, from a floor sweeper to a Managing Director, they are all important. If the workers are well taken care of, they are likely to be happier, more motivated and more productive. They would fulfill their duties diligently. Employers need to closely look at wages, benefits and working conditions to earn respect and loyalty of their workers.

A few days back, the company formed a special team to study and rectify the current situation. Hopefully they would do something good.

Since I started working with this company, I always put my good efforts at work. I was happy to work in this organization as there were some good things about this place that cannot be found in other companies. I've sincerely contributed much of my precious time working extra hours in order to accomplish task assigned to me. I have also contributed initiatives and ideas that have led to cost improvement. I can't help but to feel hurt with the company's recent move. At the moment, my sense of self belonging to the company has started to fade away.

I wish I could write about some nice to read stuffs, about happiness, joy and humor, but very often, I find that blogging is the best way of expressing my personal opinions and the best way of getting something off the chest.

Finally, I would like to include in this post, my deepest sympathy to all family members who have lost their loved ones in the tragedy of the Red Mosque in Pakistan, the Royal Malaysian Air Force Sikorsky S-61 'Nuri" helicopter crash and the Airbus A320 plane crash in Brazil.

2 comments:

  1. I agree that it's nice to write about good things. Life is too short to worry so much about things that we don't have control with. At the same time, blogging is a therapy so it's but natural to vent out some unwanted emotions. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds like a tough situation at your work... I agree with you, workers are the most important people in the workplace - bosses tend to forget that from time of time. Well, it might be my Socialist upbriging, but I totally understand you !

    Work is a big part of our life. If it's not good for whatever reason, people tend to feel a bit depress... Been there.

    ReplyDelete

Custom Search