Employees as Internal Customers In recent years, m any employers and employees have been faced with a horrid economic downturn. Many employees have been laid-off, demoted and a slew of other horrible Issues. Many employers let go of average employees and retained the high-performers. What seems to be the norm nowadays Is to pinch every penny and never give more than what is necessary. This leads to employers devaluing their employees and making high performers feel inadequate and like they can always do more in some way.
Devaluing star employees can cause them to want to leave their rent employer and provide their services to another, more appreciative company. Many employers do not understand the risk and financial failure they incur when losing a star performer. In the auto-insurance industry, the claims department specifically (I. E. My target organization) there is a seemingly high turn-over rate. The statistics aren’t readily available for this particular area. However, Vive been working in this Industry for several years and have seen that the retention rate Is very low.
The claims department Is a high volume, high stress atmosphere to begin with. So employers must ensure that they hire the correct people to deal with these types of environments. They must also make certain that they treat their employees appropriately because company’s need employees just as much as the employee needs the company. According to the article “Employee Turnovers $$ Cost” businesses report that they incurred a 25-30% annual unwanted turnover rate. This article goes on to read that this figure is a direct result of bad hiring and bad treatment of employees. Hall, 2005) I would consider this statement to be very accurate in my target organization. Vive wanted to leave the company myself over heir poor treatment of employees and ‘Eve also witnessed newly hired employees quit in training or very early on in their careers at the company. Research also shows that the cost of losing star employees Is higher than It may seem. “The cost of replacing an hourly worker Is 0. 25 to 0. 5 times the person’s salary plus benefits… The cost of a manager or supervisor Is 1-1. 5 times salary plus benefits and replacing an executive or top manager is 3-5 times annual salary plus benefits. (Hall, 2005) The cost incurred during this transitory stage include; the cost of recruiting a new antedate, loss of production and training the new candidate. In order to locate a new employee, they must either use the services of an outside vendor, or they will have to use an internal employee to post Job vacancy notifications and attend Job fairs. Additionally, there is time consumed sifting through potential candidates and selecting the correct parties to interview. Managers and supervisors will have to take time out of their work production to interview these candidates.
In addition to the time it will take to find a new employee, we must also consider the loss in production hat the company will face In the department understaffed. New employees will take a while to catch on and cannot be expected to have stellar results from the beginning. A star employee most likely exceeded expectations and worked at a high level of production. Each new employee will most likely have to go through training. Are not really adding much value to the company. As they are Just learning the material and taking the time of employees who could be potentially yielding results.
Employers must also be cautious of the employees they hire. While recruiting, they just review references, gaps in employment, the number of absences they incur and the length of time they are employed at each employer. The article “The Cost of Employee Turnover” states that all of the aforementioned are indicative of the type of employee the candidate will be. Selecting the right applicants to begin with, will help reduce employee turnover rates and will reduce the need for the company to terminate. A positive work environment is imperative in a customer service organization.
Ensuring that the employees are happy is a good way to alleviate turn- over. Many employers see their workers as Just workers. They do not consider that they are internal customers as well. Getting up and going to an unhappy, hostile environment is horrible. Feeling as though your employer does not need you, but you need them is usually a driving force to look for new employment. Companies that have a better relationship with their employees seem to be those that are more successful in the end. Another practice that will show value is trust and for the company to be completely honest with their employees.
At my Job, we often feel as though everything is a big secret and that we aren’t being told the complete truth. A couple years ago, the company was faced with layoffs. Many employees were completely blindsided and had no idea what they were stepping into. The employees were forced to guess what was going on behind all of the closed door meetings. In my opinion, the company should have been forth-coming with their employees. The morale of the company would have been preserved much more than it was by not being completely honest.
They also told us in this round of lay-offs that there would be no others and a year or so later there was another round of lay-offs that once again, we were not warned about. If someone does not trust, they cannot be trusted. ” (Call, 2000) In all of the research I have done about this topic, another main point that is continuously brought up is that employers need to recognize a Job well done, and awarding those employees who deserve it. Of course no company wants to spend on expenses that are not necessary. However, acknowledging employees can be free of charge and ago long way.
A manager could send a small email thanking an employee for going above and beyond. Or they could create little award certificates as a thank you for those they would like to acknowledge. The target organization I have chosen is the auto-insurance industry, Mercury insurance is the company that I am specifically involved with. This company does have a program that acknowledges employees for a good Job. These awards aren’t given out that often, recently Vive only seen them handed out to employees who send out the most survey emails, or settle the most injury claims below a certain dollar amount.
What we don’t see very often is an employee being acknowledged for Just a Job well done or going above and beyond in a customer service capacity. Although, the employee saving the many money is very important, providing world class customer service is equally important. Mercury Insurance has recently changed from rating employees on their work ethic to a bell curve. Which ultimately means that a certain amount of employees need to be rated as below average, a certain number will need to be What this means is that many employees will be rated below what they actually should be rated.
This has caused extreme tension in the office, and the co-workers to be pitted against each other. It’s an unfair situation and has lead to an unpleasant irking environment. I haven’t seen any procedure that has been implemented to prevent/reduce employee turn-over. Actually it has been the opposite as there is very small room for growth within the company and employees feel unappreciated often. In order to counter employee turnover and losing star employees they must come up with a new way to review employees. There are other ways to save money instead of making their employees feel inadequate in order to save money on raises.
