Final Business Proposal

1 Final Business Proposal Executive Summary This action research project primarily focused on finding efficient ways to enhance employee morale in the company to ensure improved productivity and low staff turnover. Recently, the number of employees reporting low morale has significantly increased, almost equaling half the total number of employees. The efforts made in the previous years have not been successful hence the need for new solutions. The proposed solutions based on the findings of this research for enhancing employee morale in the organization include ensuring frequent communication, training managers to become better coaches, helping employees to develop both personally and professionally, and encouraging continuous top-down and bottom-up feedback.

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2 It is believed that the successful implementation of the solutions will significantly benefit the concerned stakeholders by ensuring less employee turnover, better work attendance and timeliness, better productivity, increased attention to detail, improved customer service, relationship, interaction, increased communication between the employees and the management, and fewer workplace-related disagreements. Employee buy-in will be an instrumental factor in ensuring the successful implementation of the solutions. Leaders will play a major part in the implementation of the solution especially training and giving feedback. Training will entail; learning to delegate effectively, time management, the art of giving and receiving feedback, among other things. Frequent communication will be the responsibility of every employee, but leaders will train others on how to achieve this. The effectiveness of the solutions will be evaluated by collecting feedback from employees, tracking how training needs evolve, and revaluating the set objectives.

Purpose Statement In recent years, the company has been witnessing low employee morale that can increase the attrition rates within the firm. Lack of training, inadequate leadership, poor communication, and the disengagement of the employees have left the organizational staff low in morale. This has adversely affected their productivity and customer service in the workplace. As a result, almost half of the total number of employees in the company have reported low morale and are currently seeking jobs elsewhere. This proposal will outline a plan to enhance employee morale in the workplace to ensure that the company attains its overall goals and objectives besides keeping its esteemed employees.

Problem Statement

3 Employee morale is a key element of any company's culture and should be closely monitored with employee satisfaction surveys. Low employee morale can hinder a business from achieving organization-wide goals, and it can also lead to low productivity, increased employee turnover, and loss of profitability.

Data and Research Findings The prevalence of poor employee satisfaction or low employee morale is very high in the organization. The number of employees exhibiting low morale is also equal to those who are satisfied. This implies that even though some employees are satisfied, there are equally as many employees who exhibit low motivation (Ganta, 2014). The number of satisfied employees is 52 while those with low morale are 48.

Percentage of employees reporting low morale Percentage of satisfied employees

The study also indicated that 64% of the employees reporting low morale are currently seeking jobs elsewhere.

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According to the information above, the company runs the risk of losing its esteemed employees if it fails to address the issue of low morale among the employees. Fortunately, the members interviewed during the study recognized that low morale among the employees is an issue that needs to be addressed accordingly. Most of them believe that the firm's initiatives previously implemented to improve employee morale were ineffective in addressing the issue, no wonder the company still has almost half the total number of employees reporting low morale.

Proposed Solution Low employee morale is a significant issue for the company, and there exist four proposed solutions that can best work to help the organization improve its employees’ morale.

According to the data collected as presented in the chart below, the company can implement various measures to help it enhance staff morale.

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According to the pie chart above, one of the solutions to enhancing employee morale includes helping the organizational employees develop personally and professionally. Every employee in any given organization likes to acquire new skills and knowledge while at the job.

Employees tend to develop a sense of pride when they feel that their company invests resources and time in training them to become better. Helping its employees grow personally and professionally will help the company extract the best out of its employees. Training makes the employees feel that the responsibility of the firm lies on their shoulders only. As a result, they begin to perform at their best, thus benefiting the firm through higher profit yields. Nonetheless, facilitating this will require the company to put aside substantial money to enhance employee development.

Another proposed solution to the problem is training the managers to become better coaches. Coaching involves the art and practice of guiding a person from where they are toward the greater fulfillment or competence they need. Some of the means skilled coaches use to facilitate discovery and motivation include honest feedback and encouragement, precise questioning, and focused listening. According to Jones, Woods, and Guillaume (2016), coaching

6 makes employees more motivated as learners and increases their possibility of retaining what they learn and applying them in the workplace. Coaching is flexible and allows employees to express their thoughts and ideas regarding organizational issues. Coaching will ensure the development of accountability among the employees. It generates self-accountability around one's expectations.

Lastly, ensuring frequent communication and continuous top-down and bottom-up feedback can significantly help the organization improve employee morale in the workplace for better performance. Just as mentioned earlier, employees' morale can slide when leaders communicate ineffectively. Inadequate communication can adversely affect creativity and productivity, destroy innovation, and cause increased staff turnover (Mawarni, 2018). In addition, a lack of transparency in communication between the leaders and their subordinates can develop an environment of mistrust. The inconsistent communication approach used by the leaders has also left the employees on edge and confused, thus adversely affecting their morale on the job. Still, on communication, the employees continually receive poor feedback, which has made it difficult for them to know how well they are performing or how they can best improve.

This has resulted in them being more frustrated and confused, hence diminishing morale.

Stakeholder Analysis and Benefits The low morale issue affects different stakeholders in the organization in a variety of ways. Some of the stakeholders impacted by the problem include frontline employees, managers, and customers. Low employee morale may result in increased turnover, high absenteeism, and disagreements among the frontline employees. Regarding the managers, the issue may give rise to low productivity, difficulty in achieving the set organizational goals, loss of profitability, and increased employee turnover. Further, customers can also be adversely affected by low employee

7 morale. It results in increased disagreements with the frontline employees, poor customer interaction, and poor customer service (Dobre, 2013).

However, the implementation of the proposed problem solutions will significantly benefit this group of stakeholders. Such solutions will work substantially to improve employee morale in the workplace. High morale in the workplace is vital to the overall success of the business. It ensures less employee turnover, better work attendance and timeliness, better productivity, increased attention to detail, improved customer service, relationship, interaction, increased communication between the employees and the management, and fewer workplace-related disagreements (Shahzadi et al., 2014). Therefore, the organization must invest in enhancing morale in the workplace. Low employee morale is costly to the organization, given that it results in the dissatisfaction of its key stakeholders, employees, managers, and customers. The company can best improve employee morale by helping the organizational employees develop personally and professionally, train the managers to become better coaches and ensure frequent communication and continuous top-down and bottom-up feedback. This is an opportunity that the organization should not let pass by.

Change Management Plan ‘Employee buy-in’ is an instrumental factor in the implementation of change. The company should always practice servant leadership and put a lot of emphasis on taking care of its employees. From day one, the organizational staff should always be taught to do what is in the organization's best interest and the customer's. Before implementing any change, managers will be briefed and given a manager talking paper to help them handle any questions that may come from their employees regarding the implementation of the new proposed solutions. According to Aguirre and Alpern (2014), a powerful and sustained change requires continuous communication

8 during the rollout and after the plan's major elements have been put in place. Thus, it will be necessary to communicate the reasons for change and its associated impact effectively and efficiently to the concerned stakeholders to ensure they understand the change and minimize any form of resistance. As a result, all the concerned stakeholders will be adequately involved in implementing the change to ensure their success.

Implementation Methods To ensure effective employee personal and professional growth, it will be first necessary to ask every employee what they want. Employees will not participate in a plan they feel is not beneficial. The management can create a specific and comprehensive development plan for its employees once it has determined what the employees want. Employees' feedback should be taken into consideration to develop a program that meets one's needs. Brainstorming and talking, and writing down the plan can ensure great success. Career development programs can take various forms. One can leverage different career development strategies to meet employees' needs. For instance, training materials for different job roles and functions and career workshops should be available to the employees.

Similarly, coaching programs can also be used to promote employee development and to enhance morale. Appropriate coaching can help employees to develop and grow in their careers.

To increase employee satisfaction, it will be necessary to communicate the company's goals from the beginning. Making the goals known throughout the organization is instrumental in boosting morale and ensuring the satisfaction of the employees. In addition, employees should be continuously updated on the relevant career development opportunities available to move into such roles. Constant communication will bring an essential part of the company as their voices are heard.

9 Evaluating success The evaluation of the success of the proposed changes will involve a look at the company's past and present combined loss ratio. As an insurance company, the firm's combined ratio can be obtained by dividing the total losses incurred by the total premium collected for that year. The lower the ratio, the more profitable the company is. Similarly, quantitative and qualitative data can also be gathered to help determine the success of the proposed solutions in the following year. For instance, the success of measures can be determined by the number of employees leaving the company or by the number of customers who have joined or left the company because of improved or poor customer service.

Conclusion/Call to Action With the company's annual general meeting only a few months away, the company's top administration must allow the proposed changes to be adopted and implemented. The concerned stakeholders, including the managers, employees, and customers, should notice that these changes are being proposed and be allowed to understand how such changes can help enhance efficiency, service delivery, and productivity. It is up to the company’s top management to address these proposed changes at the upcoming AGM to help the company improve in the following year. Having the support of the top management will significantly ensure the successful implementation of the proposed changes. The successful adoption of the proposed changes will help open the door for more customers and ensure the company's success in the years to come.

10 References Aguirre, D., & Alpern, M. (2014, June 6). 10 principles of leading change management. https://www.strategy-business.com/article/00255?gko=9d35b Dobre, O. I. (2013). Employee motivation and organizational performance. Review of applied socio-economic research, 5(1).

Jones, R. J., Woods, S. A., & Guillaume, Y. R. (2016). The effectiveness of workplace coaching: A meta‐analysis of learning and performance outcomes from coaching. Journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 89(2), 249-277.

Mawarni, I. (2018). Influence of organizational communication on employee satisfaction at PT. Perkebunan Nusantara III Sei Putih. Journal of Management Science (JMAS), 1(2, April), 54-57.

Shahzadi, I., Javed, A., Pirzada, S. S., Nasreen, S., & Khanam, F. (2014). Impact of employee motivation on employee performance. European Journal of Business and Management, 6(23), 159-166.