Human resource managment

Employee relations, their motivation and productivity are terms that are quite connected when it comes to real life situations in business environment. Scholars and researchers as well as I agree that they are interconnected and that they tend to depend on one another. Employees require compassion and the feeling of belonging and appreciation by both their colleagues and superiors. Superiors in particular should ensure that there is good relationship existing between them and the juniors. According to Heery and Noon (2001) when dealing with employee relations the management’s duty is to ensure there are channels that are used to solve and actually prevent problems from occurring in the workplace. The other issue to look into is the ease in flow of information from the management to the employees on matters pertaining to their welfare.
When the management does the above well then the employees will have the drive to work better and harder. This is in other words motivation which is all about the inner drive to act in a certain way. In this case this inner drive is externally created by the management through good relations. When these two aspects are combined, the employees find themselves working harder than before toward the realisation of organisational goals and objectives. This is the end result of a workforce that has good relations within itself and with the management leading to their high motivation, which is productivity as stated by (Martin 2005). A good example to show how the three relate will be illustrated using a Sales and Marketing Company.
Sales and marketing firms are known to be requiring employees who are highly motivated as well as productive for the firms to gain market share and maintain profitability (Khan & Soverall 2007). However, the basic hindering factor is the poor employee relations that exist. For the firms that have been successful it is the relationship between the management and the employees that acts as a catalyst to direct employees’ motivation toward higher productivity (Dyer 2007). Sales and marketing is not as easy job for the employees as targets are the order of the day and failure to achieve ones targets almost always leads to imminent dismissal or low income. The firm therefore needs to come up with ways that will ensure that employees achieve their target with relatively manageable difficulty.
Employees in this case need to have open channels through which to relay information to the management on the challenges they are facing and give suggestions on how to overcome them. The manager on the other hand should be accessible and be ready to listen and make compromises with the staff. These sorts of companies have Retainer Allowances that are given to an employee irrespective of whether they have made a sale or not. This amount should be sufficient as to cater for an employee’s needs in case they face an unfortunate time within a certain period hindering them from performing appropriately. On the other hand is the Commission which depends on the sales volume, the higher the volume the more the commission. This is the hook that most employees in these firms base their motivation and where it is satisfactory it leads to higher productivity. This case clearly shows how these three aspects interrelate to bring about positive or negative outcome depending on how they are handled.
References
Dyer, B 2007, Employee Motivation and Productivity – How You Motivate Others To Do As Little As Possible, viewed 17 August, 2010, .
Heery, E & Noon, M 2001, A dictionary of human relations, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Khan, J & Soverall, W 2007, Gaining productivity, A r a w a k publications.
Martin, AJ 2005, The role of positive psychology in enhancing satisfaction, motivation, and productivity in the workplace, Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 24(1&2), pp. 113 – 133.