Human capital management in rwanda: challenges and prospects for microfinance institutions

2.2.3.3. What attracts and retains employees in organizations

Much has been done in the area of recruitment and employees retention. According to Management today, paying more salaries than competitors is not the best way to attract talented employees. Company histories and values («signature experience») make a difference. There are people who feel affinity to them, rather than just because they pay more or offer better benefits. Pay and benefits matter, but the choice of job and engagement and commitment at work depends on the coincidence of an individual's preferences and aspirations with those of the organization. Such companies "know their current and future employees as well as most

companies know their current and future customers". These companies know that not everyone would want to work for them - but those that do are attracted for the right reasons. ( http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/643589/company-culture-attracts-talent/).

Susan Ward², drawing from her business experience, she suggested many ways of attracting talented employees, most especially in small businesses. These include employee benefits like , medical and dental coverage, feeling for employees lifestyle, flexible hours, chance to develop new skills, incentive programs, profit sharing, widening the scope for advertising, hiring students, getting involved in community programs, etc ( http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/humanresources/a/attractemployee.htm).

As for retention, many theories were suggested to explain why employees would feel at home as they perform to the company expectations.

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856 - 1917) put forward the idea that workers are motivated mainly by pay. Elton Mayo (1880 - 1949) with his Human Relation School of thought believed that workers are not just concerned with money but could be better motivated by having their social needs met whilst at work. He therefore suggested better communication between managers and workers greater manager involvement in employees working lives and teamwork. ( http://tutor2u.net/business/gcse/people_motivation_theories.htm).

Abraham Maslow (1908 - 1970) along with Frederick Herzberg (1923-) introduced the NeoHuman Relations School in the 1950's, which focused on the psychological needs of employees. Maslow put forward a theory that there are five levels of human needs which employees need to have fulfilled at work. As a result employers were urged to offer different incentives to workers in order to help them fulfill each need. Noteworthy is that workers are not all motivated in the same way and do not all move up the hierarchy at the same pace. ( http://tutor2u.net/business/gcse/people_motivation_theories.htm).

² Susan Ward and her partner run Cypress Technologies, an IT consulting business, providing services such as software and database development.

Later, Frederick Herzberg (1923-) came up with a two-factor theory of motivation where he argued that some factors motivate employees to work harder (Motivators) while the others would de-motivate an employee if not present but would not in themselves actually motivate employees to work harder (Hygiene factors). He thus recommended some of the methods managers could use to achieve this are job enlargement - workers being given a greater variety of tasks to perform (not necessarily more challenging) which should make the work more interesting, job enrichment - involves workers being given a wider range of more complex, interesting and challenging tasks surrounding a complete unit of work. This should give a greater sense of achievement; and empowerment means delegating more power to employees to make their own decisions over areas of their working life

( http://tutor2u.net/business/gcse/people_motivation_theories.htm, http://www.hr-scorecard-
metrics.com/effective-methods-for-non-financial-employees-motivation.htm).

Indeed, some employees are happy with being exposed to all the functions of the organization through job rotation. Reported advantages of this practice include burnout reduction³, increased employee satisfaction, increased employee motivation, organizational commitment ( http://www.brighthub.com/office/entrepreneurs/articles/55274.aspx#ixzz0wQZ50wQJ).

Indeed, supervision quality is instrumental in attracting and retaining employees. Supervision is an extremely vital part of a workplace that intends to maximize its success potential. It naturally follows, then, that poor supervision in a workplace is among the primary obstacles to achieving potential successes by a business. After all, employees, no matter their task, must have the proper instruction and training to ensure that they are doing their jobs correctly, and with minimal risk of error or injury. After the initial training has been completed, supervision remains necessary for continuing skill and knowledge development among employees. It is for this reason that many businesses today refer to their supervisors as coaches ( http://www.anonymousemployee.com/csssite/sidelinks/poor_supervision.php).

3 When employees perform the same job functions each day without variation, they are likely to experience greater feelings of fatigue, apathy, boredom, and carelessness

When a company has poor supervision, there is not enough responsibility for taking action for the prevention of problems, mistakes, accidents, and injuries. Poor supervision removes a very important part of the employee support process, eliminating the opportunity for reference, learning, and safety. Poor supervision also opens the door for unethical behaviors within a company. With poor supervision, employees commonly feel that their work is not valued by the company, and loyalty is difficult to form - if it forms at all. Without loyalty, employees are more likely to deviate from acceptable business practices. Such activities can include theft, decreased employee effort, using equipment without authorization, and falsifying documents, among other things ( http://www.anonymousemployee.com/csssite/sidelinks/poor_supervision.php).

To avoid poor supervision in your business, you should consider supervisors not necessarily to be rule enforcers, but instead, they should be employee support people. They are the individuals who can assist employees when their work can be improved through different techniques. They impart safety knowledge and are the people to whom employees can come if they have questions and concerns about their tasks. A good supervisor should be approachable and a good people-person who knows the different equipment and jobs required by the employees, and is willing to help employees achieve ( http://www.anonymousemployee.com/csssite/sidelinks/poor supervision.php).

If a supervisor is not present enough, or is too overbearing, then the reaction from employees will only be fear, resentment, and displeasure in their work. The productivity will not be as good, and the employee turnover will increase ( http://www.anonymousemployee.com/csssite/sidelinks/poor_supervision.php).

In the same development, a recent Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) press release revealed the answer to the question of what people plan to do when the job market rebounds. When employees were asked why they would start searching for a new job, 53% reported to be driven by better compensation and benefits, 35% cited dissatisfaction with potential career development while 32% said they were ready for a new experience ( http://humanresources.about.com/cs/retention/a/turnover_2.htm).

In the same survey, HR professionals were asked which programs or policies they use currently
to help retain employees. 62% said they provide tuition reimbursement, 60% offer attractive

vacation and holiday benefits while 59% offer competitive salaries

( http://humanresources.about.com/cs/retention/a/turnover_2.htm).