Motivation and job satisfaction

The movement of workers to act in a desired manner has always consumed the thoughts of managers. In many ways, this goal has been reached through incentive programs, corporate pep talks, and other types of conditional administrative policy. However, as the workers adjust their behaviour in response to one of the aforementioned stimuli, is job satisfaction actualized? The instilling of satisfaction within workers is a crucial task of management. Satisfaction creates confidence, loyalty and ultimately improved quality in the output of the employed. Satisfaction, though, is not the simple result of an incentive program. Employees will most likely not take any more pride in their work even if they win the weekend getaway for having the highest sales. This paper reviews the literature of motivational theorists and draws from their approaches to job satisfaction and the role of motivation within job satisfaction. The theories of Frederick Herzberg and Edwin Locke are presented chronologically to show how Locke’s theory was a response to Herzberg’s theory. By understanding these theories, managers can focus on strategies of creating job satisfaction. This is followed by a brief examination of Kenneth Blanchard and Paul Hersey’s theory on leadership within management and how this art is changing through time.

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Rightsizing

Rightsizing is still one of the most pertinent corporate issues in the 1990s as organizations continue to operate in conditions of economic depression, cost constraints, intense competition, market deregulation and structural changes such as mergers and acquisitions. Subsequent to this most industries have experienced slowed growth in a period of intense competition that is complicated by the high degree of uncertainty in the business environment. In these circumstances a fundamental dilemma is to maintain both high organization adaptability and high workforce commitment. This is a difficult task because the constant resizing and restructuring required for adaptability may undermine the employee security needed for commitment.

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Rachid Zeffane and Geoffrey Mayo

HIDDEN COST OF WAL-MART JOBS

Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the United States, with over one million workers. It is the largest food retailer and the third largest pharmacy in the nation. The company employs approximately 44,000 workers in California, and has plans to expand significantly in the state over the next four years. Wal-Mart workers receive lower wages than other retail workers and are less likely to have health benefits. Other major retailers have begun to scale back wages and benefits in the state, citing their concerns about competition from Wal-Mart. We estimate that Wal-Mart workers in California earn on average 31 percent less than workers employed in large retail as a whole, receiving an average wage of $9.70 per hour compared to the $14.01 average hourly earnings for employees in large retail (firms with 1,000 or more employees). In addition, 23 percent fewer Wal-Mart workers are covered by employer-sponsored health insurance than large retail workers as a whole. The differences are even greater when Wal-Mart workers are compared to unionized grocery workers. In the San Francisco Bay Area, non-managerial Wal-Mart employees earn on average $9.40 an hour, compared to $15.31 for unionized grocery
workers—39 percent less—and are half as likely to have health benefits.

At these low-wages, many Wal-Mart workers rely on public safety net programs— such as food stamps, Medi-Cal, and subsidized housing—to make ends meet. The presence of Wal-Mart stores in California thus creates a hidden cost to the state’s taxpayers. This study is the first to quantify the fiscal costs of Wal-Mart’s substandard wages and benefits on public safety net programs in California. It also explores the potential impact on public programs of Wal-Mart’s competitive effect on industry standards.


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Ensure your Health: Learn about Employee Health Benefits

Being an employee of any company allows you to receive some perks, fringe benefits and privileges aside from the salary that you regularly receive.

One of the most important benefits that you should get at work is a health benefit or medical plan. Especially for jobs which present risks on your health or on your life, make sure that you are always adequately insured.

First, take a look at the disadvantages to you, as an employee, if you do not have sufficient health benefits from the company that you work for:

- If you suffer from a long-term or temporary illness that would lead you incapable to go to work for a long period of time, your savings can be gone in an instant.

- With the onslaught of hospital bills that you would need to shoulder, other members of your family will be affected as well if you share household expenses.

- Your own personal well-being will be at risk if you do not have ample health benefits.

To prevent these from happening, you should know the basic health benefits that you are entitled to once you become officially employed by a company.

'Health Benefit Plans for You'

The government offers the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan to assist all workers with their health care needs.

Here, health and dental plans developed by insurance companies and labor unions are offered to employees of the government. The coverage and premiums, however, vary from state to state.

Your employer might have a traditional health insurance company where you will have the option to visit any physician or hospital, and the costs will be covered under the plan that you have.

For employees of private corporations, there is the HMO or the Health Maintenance Organization. Hospitals, doctors, health insurance companies and providers who have are members of a health maintenance organization offer the services.

The advantage of HMO's over traditional employee health benefit providers is the discounted costs that they offer. Because employers pay them a fixed fee for each person that they hire, they are assured of a steady stream of patients so they can afford to offer discounted rates.

There is also the PPO or the preferred provider organization which consists of health care providers and a health insurance company who provides benefits for employees. This also results in reduced premiums because doctors and hospitals are given a constant number of clients through employees who will utilize their services.

Companies may offer any of these three health insurance coverage.

With health care costs soaring every year, it is your responsibility as an employee to ask about the health care benefits that you are entitled to.

Here are a couple of tips on how you can better understand your health insurance coverage:

1. Read your employee handbook.

A detailed description of the health insurance coverage that you will get should be indicated in the handbook.

2. When in doubt about something, go to your Human Resource Department.

This is important especially for people with medical conditions. Ask about the limitations of the health insurance coverage as well as the deductibles.

You will never know what medical emergency might come up during the time that you are employed. It is better to be prepared and know everything about the health benefits that you are entitled to, rather than asking about them when you are already lying on the hospital bed and not being able to do something about it.

Dave Poon

Hiring Employees: Checking References To Insure Quality People

When you must take on employees for your business, you will have to go through the hiring process. After preliminary interviews, you should be able to narrow the field to three or four top candidates. And that is the time to do a little detective work to insure you have the right (and honest) employees coming in.

It's estimated that up to one-third of job applicants lie about their experience and educational achievements on their resumes or job applications. No matter how sterling the person seems in the interview process, a few phone calls upfront to check out their claims could save you a lot of hassle - and even legal battles - later on. Today, courts are increasingly holding employers liable for crimes employees commit on the job, such as drunk driving, when it is determined that the employer could have been expected to know about prior convictions for similar offenses.

Unfortunately, getting that information has become harder and harder to do. Fearful of reprisals from former employees, many firms have adopted policies that forbid releasing detailed information. Generally, the investigating party is referred to a personnel department, which supplies dates of employment, title and salary - nothing more.

There are ways to dig deeper, however. Try to avoid the human resources department if at all possible. Instead, try calling the person's former supervisor directly. While the supervisor may be required to send you to personnel, sometimes you'll get lucky and get the person on a day he or she feels like talking. Sometimes, too, a supervisor can tip you off without saying anything that will get him or her in trouble. Consider the supervisor who, when contacted by one potential employer, said, "I only give good references." When the employer asked, "What can you tell me about X?" the supervisor repeated, "I only give good references." Without saying anything, he said it all.

Depending on the position, you may also want to do education checks. You can call any college or university's admissions department to verify degrees and dates of attendance. Some universities will require a written request or a signed waiver from the applicant before releasing any kind of information to you.

If the person is going to be driving a company vehicle, you may want to do a motor vehicle check with the motor vehicle department. In fact, you may want to do this even if he or she will not be driving for you. Vehicle checks can uncover patterns of negligence or drug and alcohol problems that he or she might have.

If your company deals with property management, such as maintenance or cleaning, you may want to consider a criminal background check as well. Unfortunately, national criminal records and even state records are not coordinated. The only way to obtain criminal records is to go to individual courthouses in each county. Although you can't run all over the state to check into a person's record, it's generally sufficient to investigate records in three counties birthplace, current residence and residence preceding the current residence.

For certain positions, such as those that will give an employee access to your company's cash (a cashier or accounting clerk, for instance), a credit check may be a good idea as well. You can find credit reporting bureaus in any Yellow Pages. They will be able to provide you with a limited credit and payment history. While you should not rely on this as the sole reason not to hire someone (credit reports are notorious for containing errors), a credit report can contribute to a total picture of irresponsible behavior. And if the person will have access to large sums of money at your company, hiring someone who is in serious debt is probably not a very good idea. Be aware, however, that if a credit check plays any role in your decision not to hire someone, you must inform them that they were turned down in part because of their credit report.

Jeff Casmer

How Employee Misconduct Affects All Worker Productivity

In any workplace, despite the number of employees, there are instances of employee misconduct. As a manager, you cannot hide from it when it happens. And you must deal with it consistently, fairly, and quickly. It is critical to workplace morale that you manage this problem properly. Otherwise it will cost your company in both time and money.

Forms of Employee Misconduct

There are several forms of employee misconduct. This article will just discuss a few major ones. First, an employee can be disruptive and disturb others in the same work area. Commonly, this takes the form of employees who are comedians and spend more time being funny than doing work. Such employees claim they are having fun to make it a better place to work.

An example, of course is the standard "horseplay" where employees carry out inappropriate physical antics. However another, more recent problem involving misconduct, is with the use of e-mail and instant messaging.

Employees like to e-mail and instant message jokes around the office. But some employees get carried away and spend much valuable time sending that perfect tidbit of humor.

Big problems arise from these types of disruptions especially when left unchecked. Physical antics by one employee can endanger the safety of his or her coworkers. This can cause problems for the company with OSHA or other regulatory agencies. Other issues arise when one or more of the recipients do not find the joke funny or are offended by it. Occasionally, this leads to an employee filing a lawsuit against the company. Both situations cost the business time and employee.

Besides disruptive behavior, employee misconduct occurs when an employee is abusive or refuses to follow directions. Their personal behavior may make everyone around them uncomfortable and may even create a hostile work environment. Sometimes these employees have a following of other coworkers who are just as abusive and insubordinate.

A third type of employee misconduct is when the employee has excessive absences either excuse or unexcused. Typically coworkers do not expect much from these employees and everyone is demoralized because of it. Usually other employees have to pick up added work so the project gets done leading to inefficiencies.

And lastly there is the employee who is criminal. This employee steals property, takes money, and does bodily harm to others.

Action Required Quickly

If left unattended to, misconduct will quickly demoralize the other employees you supervise. While everyone reacts differently, your top performers are usually going to be your first casualties of demoralization.

Finding out exactly what happened is the first action you as manager need to take in response to employee misconduct. Sometimes, exactly what happened is hard to decide because other employees may be too afraid to speak about it. But you must get all the facts. If you fire an employee for this particular misconduct you had better have documentation. This means talking with the employee accused of misconduct and carrying out an investigation. Most importantly always keep your ear to the ground since employee misconduct can damage your business.

5 Common Mistakes In Hiring

Do you know the biggest mistakes employers make in hiring? One of the biggest challenges we find is that sales professionals and business owners think they can find somebody who is both people-oriented and great on follow-through and detailed work.

The five common mistakes employers make in hiring are:

-I need a body right now.

The manager hires out of desperation and it is common when the manager finds himself overwhelmed. Maybe somebody just quit or the manager received a number of leads and does not know how to get the transactions closed or tasks accomplished.

-Hiring close family, friends or referrals without any evaluation.

We have known a client for a while who continues to hire her close friends and family members without evaluating whether they are the best fit for the position.
She finds it difficult to motivate and get any worthwhile performance out of these employees. Teamwork is a struggle and she seems frustrated. She feels that there is a magic bullet which will solve her problems.

Unless she starts hiring the person who is most suitable for the position instead of using nepotism, she will always have this challenge.

Unfortunately I have been guilty of this as well and it cost me money, time and relationships.

-No process to screen candidates.

Most sales professionals and managers are quick decision makers and do not have the necessary patience to do the due diligence before hiring people. It sounds simple, but it is hard for people who pride themselves on their quick thinking and decision-making ability to slow down and go through all the steps necessary to get well-qualified people.

Why is this attitude a major business risk? Just using your gut feel to make a hiring decision is not a smart idea. Again, most managers are not trained in this skill.

-Hiring the candidate who is just like you.

This individual reminds you of yourself when you were younger. You have a good gut feeling about this person.

Many managers tend to hire a person with whom they feel comfortable. Of course, you like people who are like you or remind you of yourself. If the candidate is too much like you, then why are you hiring your clone? It is rarely a good idea to hire your clone.

-You hate to do the work that you should be doing.

Let us say that you hate detailed paper work and you are poor in following through. You feel that all you need to do is to hire somebody who likes that work and is competent at it and your worries will go away.

Do not make that mistake. Before you hire such a person, learn the basics of that job for two reasons. One reason is that the person who walks in to do that job will definitely need you to give her orientation and training before she can be productive. Secondly, that person's style of work will differ from your style by necessity. If you cannot appreciate her role and how she functions, you will be a poor manager.

Ref: Minesh Baxi

How leaders influence employees’ innovative behaviour

How leaders influence employees’

innovative behaviour

Jeroen P.J. de Jong
EIM Small Business Research and Consultancy, Zoetermeer,
The Netherlands, and
Deanne N. Den Hartog
University of Amsterdam Business School, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Purpose – To provide an inventory of leader behaviors likely to enhance employees’ innovative
behaviour, including idea generation and application behavior.
Design/methodology/approach – Based on a combination of literature research and in-depth interviews, the paper explores leadership behaviors that stimulate employees’ idea generation and application behavior. The study was carried out in knowledge-intensive service firms (e.g. consultants, researchers, engineers).
Findings – It was found that there were 13 relevant leadership behaviors. Although innovative
behaviour is crucial in such firms, it has received very little attention from researchers. Leaders
influence employees’ innovative behaviour both through their deliberate actions aiming to stimulate idea generation and application as well as by their more general, daily behaviour.
Research limitations/implications – Future quantitative research could condense our overview of leader practices, explore which practices are most relevant to employees’ idea generation and/or application behaviour, which contingency factors influence the leadership-innovative behaviour connection and provide information as to whether different practices are relevant in other types of firms.
Originality/value – Neither the innovation nor the leadership field provides a detailed overview of specific behaviors that leaders might use to stimulate innovation by individual employees. This paper fills that void.
Keywords Leadership, Innovation, Employee behaviour, Ideas generation, Knowledge organizations
Paper type Research paper


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Industrial and Employment Law For Women

Industrial and Employment Law For Women (MALAYSIA)

INTRODUCTION
For centuries, women employees have been subjugated by unfair labour practice and poor working conditions through out the world. In Western European countries, Industrial Revolution has change most of the Western countries from agricultural based to industrial based economy. Early development of textiles and tin factories have spurred the demand of labourers and natural resources like tin ore and cotton with rapid using of steams and other heavy machinery. Women employees were forced to work in dangerous mining camps and in unsafe work station in the factory which caused accidents.
In Malaysia, since 1970s there have been periods of rapid industrialisation and women employees have been majority percentage of industry workforce. With a lot of women making up the population of the Malaysian workforce, they are more concern with their rights and the law that protect their rights. All women employees are governed by some part of Employment Law (1955) and the protections of women employees’ rights also shows that government and particularly employers are more thankful to the contribution by their women staffs. Excerpts of Employment Act 1955 also have stressed importance of women workforce rights in their workplace and environments with Section 34 – 36, Section 41, 44. The excerpts from Employment Act 1955 can actually be divided by us into two main categories which is the law on working environments and condition and the latter is focus on the benefits to the women employees.


BENEFITS FOR WOMEN EMPLOYEES
Malaysian women employees are lucky because the Employment Law covered their rights to receive certain benefits. Compensation is an important area of human resource management not only to satisfy your employees but also to abide the statutes and employment law to avoid hassle law suits by your employees. Women enjoy a lot of benefits especially concerned to the maternity benefits. However, some employer refuse to abide the requirement because they claims that the women employees are less productive especially those who have married and reluctant to hire or give out such benefits. With gaining knowledge on rights and law, women employees can now file suit, claims or complain to authority to protect their rights.

Maternity Leave
Women maternity benefits are areas that much envy to the workforce of other nation especially in Asia. In Section 37(1) (a) (E.A), it is stated that women employees are entitled to have maternity leave for not less than 60 days. The maternity leaves are including any public holidays and rest days so if the leave falls on the rest days or public holidays, they will not get any additional days of maternity leave as stated by Section 60D(1B). Maternity leave is very important to women employees because they need a rest after strenuously giving birth to their child. It is commendable that Malaysian government also give the maternity leave to the husband of women employees.
During the employees are on the maternity leave, it is prohibited that the employer from dismissing the employees because it is an offence. However if she still absent from work after expired 60 day’s of maternity leave, she cannot be terminated with reasons of medically unfit to continue working. This exception is only valid for not over than 90 days and if the women employees cannot provide any medical proof to support their claims, they will not be protected under the law. During the extension of maternity leave, it will be counted as unpaid leave or withdrawal of the annual leave by the employer.

Maternity Allowance
During the period of maternity leave, women employees cannot work and they are virtually lost their monthly income if there are no maternity allowance and salary protection. However the Employment also covers the maternity allowance to all those women employees. The employers have to pay the monthly salary of women employees as usual. As for rated employee, their wages will be paid at ordinary rate of pay or at the rate of RM 6.00 per day, judging which is the highest will be chosen. To be eligible for payment of maternity allowance, women employees must meet certain condition such as:
• Have been employed by the employer for a period of at least 4 months and must be working for at least 90 days
• She may not have more than 5 surviving children at the time of her confinement. This means that is she was to giving birth to the sixth child, she will not be entitled for maternity leave allowance
However the law also give some constraint to the women employees if they break the rules by not informing their employer on their absenteeism
Payment of allowance to the nominee.
It is undeniably that during giving birth to the child, employees may face some difficulties and also involving fatal accidents while during the maternity leave period. A female employee may nominate some other person to whom the maternity allowance may be paid on her behalf and payment of the maternity allowance made to the person so nominated shall, for the purposes of this Act, be deemed to be a payment to the female employee herself. (Section 41)


CONCLUSION
Undeniably that Malaysia has good Employment Act coverage on the women employees. We have been giving attention to the women work force because the women will be largest work force and playing important role in economic development soon. In general, Employment Act covers two important areas for women employees, which are the working condition and the statute fringe benefits. Government have been considerate in providing safety working condition for women employees by not allowing working at night without permission from Director General of Human Resource and giving limits of working hours to women. We have to accept that women are physically poorer than men and they need special attention regarding the safety and physical limits of their job, even though we are talking about gender equality. Some dangerous and accident vulnerable job like in mining and transportation are restricted from women employees to ensure their safety. Any act of employer against the Section 34 of Employment Act is an offence causing them to face law charges in Industrial Court. As for the benefits area, it is considerable to let the women employees take 60 days of maternity leave with continuing salary or wage rate during the leave. This will ensure the women employees have continuing income during their break as for those who is covered under EA, their income is below RM 1500 tag and those allowance are essentials for their survival. Maternity should not only satisfy the law requirement but better package of benefits should be offered by employers to women employees. Employer should not be acting double standard on the matter of hiring women employees with reasons that they will be less productive by taking more holidays than male workers. As for women employees, even though they have special treatment, they must not misuse the rights given by the law.

It is not only introduction of law that will ensure the women employee’s rights, but an enforcement of the law is the most important factor to ensure employers abide the rules and regulation. The women employees must not only satisfied with the current laws, but keep on urging the changes and modification, as the current law or act cannot suit the changing environment workforce today. Women employees can hope for a better future to come.


RECOMMENDATIONS
Employment Act (1955) coverage on women employees is a little bit outdated and it needs attention from the government and law maker to make some changes and modification on part regarding the women workforce. To built a more productive workforce and by turn to ensure women rights are protected is not an easy task. Our group will give some recommendations regarding the changes that can be made to the current Employment Act 1955.
1. Even though we agree that maternity leave should be maintained but women employees can be given option to choose whether they want to continue working while on leave (for example working from home – telecommuting) or voluntarily cut short their maternity leave. We have to accept rationally that in Malaysia, women population grows at faster rate and one day they will be larger workforce population than Malaysian men. If they accept the option, maybe we can solve shortage of workforce woes in the future and it will be more productive to employers. However, employers should provide additional compensation if they choose this option.
2. The term of not allowing women workforce at certain period at night in certain sectors have to be changed because the changing of economic sector, differently from when the Act (Section 34) was created. It is recommended that the women workforce working at night in certain areas like entertainment outlet, cyber café and security should be regulated to ensure their safety too. These sectors operated until late in the wee hours but not well regulated. Larger and wider scope of modern occupations allowed or restricted shall be discussed.
3. More enforcement on the area of mining and agriculture because women workforce especially in agriculture are working alone or with small employer. These workers maybe are working without resting 11 hours as required by the Employment Act but hardly notice but anyone because they are rural-based.
4. Allowance for maternity leaves should be given at higher rate for the first child and lesser for additional one to encourage women employees and this is to encourage them have the right amount of children. This is not discrimination but certainly for the welfare of the children because poorer family should have smaller size compare to family who has better financial sounding. However, employer also can be regulated to give better benefits to poorer women employees in their company.
5. Enforcement of the rules and regulation is more important because there are so many employers reluctant to follow it while the Act do not stated the consideration what if the women employees work in restricted area by their own and not hired by someone else? For examples there are a lot of women workforce hired as bus driver, construction workers and mining but no action from enforcement agency.
6. Even though we focused on Employment law, but our group would like to discussed some protection and benefits that women should be given from HRM perspectives. For examples protection from sexual harassment and other discrimination which are still new in Malaysia and not covered by law compare to other country like United States.

Managing change of government servant (MRS)

PART 1: INTRODUCTION
Change is a continuously and ongoing process to lead an evolution towards organization and career development to earn the competitive edge in global market place. Change also defined as a simple process and simple to describe. It occurs whenever we replace the old with the new (de Jager, Peter & Futurist, 2001). But when came to the step of change implementation, change agent would face the difficulty to promote the change with the creation of an environment for change within organization. The replacement of New Remuneration System (SSB) created change among civil servants. The announcement made by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 29th July 2002 indicated that the Malaysian Remuneration System (SSM) would replaces the New Remuneration System (SSB) on 1st November 2002, leave a room of resistance to change among the civil servants.

Some of the government workers refused to accept SSM even though SSM have been claim that include all concern in the search for justice, accepted and standardized practices and fairness. The workers most likely resist to change are management, senior workers and the workers who satisfy with SSB. They resist change due to many rational reasons, some of which are lack of information on the proposed change, facing threat of loss of position power, fear of the unknown future and doubt their ability to adopt it and other variables. To ensure the SSM could implement effectively, government should identify the signs of resistance to change to overcome it with reasonable explanations for proposed change through education, promoting the change, plan an effective communication, and negotiation process. As a result, government should find out the proper approach to overcome resistance to change to make sure that could achieve the SSM objectives and goals.

OVERVIEW OF MALAYSIAN REMUNERATION SYSTEM
The Malaysian Remuneration Scheme (SSM) replaces the New Remuneration Scheme (SSB), which was introduced in 1992 for government employees on November 1 2002. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced the SSM, which will be effectively and knowledge-oriented to determine the career development and salary increments of government employees, after a meeting with CUEPACS and the Public Service Department (PSD) on the SSB review at his office on July 29 2002.

Public Services Department Director-General Tan Sri Jamaluddin Ahmad Damanhuri said the SSM, which was based on four core points, had to be accepted as a whole for its benefits to be seen where those who had proficient knowledge of their work would be given due recognition. The four points are the performance evaluation system, career advancement, salary and allowance structures revamp and improvement of service conditions.

Dr Mahathir, who is also the chairman of the Committee on the Salaries and Service of Public Sector Employees, said that the SSM would introduce efficiency appraisal procedure through examinations and courses to be made compulsory to all civil servants to ensure the progress of their career and annual salary increments besides the annual appraisal reports and recommendations of department heads. The prime minister said that the government also agreed to make adjustments to the existing appraisal system through the setting up of a human resources panel in all departments. He said that all governments’ employees would be given the option to opt for the SSM or remain under SSB a month before the SSM was implemented.

Civil servants who choose the SSM, he said, will be paid a special SSM payment of RM220 for personnel under the support group. The senior management group will be paid RM650, while those under the management and professional group will get RM350. It would be a one-off payment to be made in November. He said that for 2003, all government employees will get normal increments.

Dr. Mahathir said that with the implementation of the efficiency appraisal, the matrix salary scale for all grades would be adjusted to two instead of the present three. The SSM would introduce two salary movements, namely normal increment and incremental credits of salary. Meanwhile, the government also agrees to add another salary point to the maximum salary for all the salary scales.

In the other hand, the allowance and benefits would also be adjusted under one rate for all the new grades. On the Excellent Service Award, it would no longer be linked to the annual salary movement and the recipients would be rewarded with RM1000. To improve opportunities for career advancement, five promotional grades would be created.

Dr Mahathir said the implementation of SSM would involve an additional expenditure of RM302.58 million this year, RM600.76 million next year, RM719.25 million (2004), RM846.13 million (2005) and RM976.86 million in 2006 for the government. The expenditure for the sixth year was expected to rise to about RM1 billion and would continue increasing thereafter. The CUEPACS president Datuk N. Siva Subramaniam said the SSM would motivate government employees to show their true potential, especially in the field of information technology. This will result in a change of attitude; the worker will work hard to improve their productivity. CUEPACS secretary-general Adbul Rahman Manan said with SSM, CUEPACS had obtained what civil servants wanted, except for two matters relating to critical allowance. He said that CUEPACS had appealed to the government to extend to critical allowance, currently enjoyed by only nurses and doctors, to other support staff like assistant nurses and health attendants and technicians of the Public Works Department (PWD) and Drainage and Irrigation Department (DID).

Meanwhile, Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Samsudin Osman said problems which had existed since 2000 in relation to the implementation of SSB had finally been resolved. This development was well received by CUEPACS. He said the government had come up with what was best for civil servants so that they could dedicate themselves to discharging the duties entrusted to them. With SSM, evaluation of workers will no longer be 100 percent dependent on the appraisal by Department Heads but will stress more on staff ability. This is in line with our efforts to encourage government employees to embrace the K-economy so that they will continue to progress in the future.
RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
When change is proposed, it will be met with resistance naturally, because individuals involved resist things they are unsure of. Resistance to change is one of the most ubiquitous of organizational phenomena and has been recognized as an important factor that can influence the success of an organizational change effort. A research found that resistance by management and workers to be the major impediment to the use of quality management practices in Australian manufacturing industry (Waddell, D. & Sohal, A. M., 1998).

Resistance is defined as any conduct that serves to maintain the status quo in the face of pressure to alter the status quo. So, people will remain in the present if the change feel might threaten the status quo. Thus, resistance is an expression of reservation, which normally arises as a response, or reaction to change. These reactions may be, among others, are the signs of resistance to change. To address the resistance to change, the key element is identifying the signs of resistance. According to Applebaum, S. H & Lee Wohl (2000), there are some signs of resistance, as follow:-
 “In-your-face” resistance. It is most easily to recognize; those hate the change will say loudly and clearly.
 Immediate criticism. Even before the change is fully explained, people express their disapproval.
 Malicious compliance. People secretly undermine the change.
 Easy agreement. People seem to be going along but once they begin to understand the time and effort it requires, resistance develops.
 Denial. Employees who refuse to acknowledge that a problem exists and do not see a reason for changing.
 Confusion. Some employees continue to ask same questions over and over again.

The change that can threaten the culture and power of individuals and groups in organizations can cause behavioral resistance. This resistance to change takes many forms and may vary from strike to subtle reactions which management may never become aware of. According to Ansoff & McDonnell, the level of resistance to change is determined by: -
 The degree of discontinuity in the historical culture and power structure implied by the change.
 The length of the period over which the change is introduced.
 The threats, insecurities, loss of prestige and loss of power implied for key individuals.
 The expected contribution by the change to the success or survival of the organization.
 The strength of positive or negative loyalty towards the organization felt by the participants.
 The strength of the cultural and power drives at the respective power centers.
 Distorted perception, which can mean that resistance will be higher than is justified by the facts of the situation.
(Cited from Anderson, A. L. & Barker, D., 1996.)
Different factors would influence the level of resistance of change, if the resistance is due to threat of loss of position power, cognitive dissonance or mental discomfort, and fear of the unknown, the level would be higher and difficult to overcome it. Change is a transition between human being as very hard to estimate their mindset, to achieve an agreement between the change agent and the change resisters.

The problems of implementing change normally center in the technical and financial aspects of change in the early stages. The organization and social aspects are left until later. However, a manager should begin to think about implementation at the very outset of considering change to minimize the social resistance. Anderson, A. L. & Barker, D. (1996) said that social change is a major part of the change process in any organization and needs just as much effort as the changes in finance, administration or technology which managers used to coping with it. Managers should identify the social resources that have available for implementing the change, which are characteristics of stakeholders, employees and employers, such as friendships, loyalties, habits, perceptions, psychological style and will power.


In spite of the pressures on organizations change, it is inevitable that change will be resisted both by people and organizations. Hellreigal et al. said that individual resistance to change comes from: -
 Selective attention and retention
 Fear of the unknown
 Habit
 Economic reasons
 Dependence
 Security and regression

Besides that, they also believe that organization resistance to change comes from: -
 Threats to power and influence
 Fixed investments
 Organization structure
 Inter-organization agreements
 Resource limitations

The change agent needs to counter the limitation of change to ensure that change can proceed successfully as to minimize the resistance of change.
(Cited from Anderson, A. L. & Barker, D., 1996.)


PART II: WHY CIVIL SERVANTS WILL RESIST ADOPTION OF MRS?
RESISTANCE BY THE TOP MANAGEMENT
CUEPACS president Datuk N. Siva Subramaniam trusted the SSM is fairer than SSB especially for the assessment which doing by every leader from different department. SSB which implemented since 9 years ago only gave advantages to 5 percent employees, and the other 95 percent never get the suitable assessment although they are very hardworking. So, Datuk Siva trusted the 960,000 employees were to choose the SSM to replace the SSB. Meanwhile, he said the SSM are agreed by the government which able to give promotion for those employees and greater benefits if comparing with SSB. However, since the SSB are resistance by the 95 percent of employees, so the SSM will be also resistance by the employees which unable to get the advantages from SSM such as the top management I’m going to discuss now.

The reason they are resistance this system is because the power which holding by them will be reduce. The process of career development and salary movement are determined by exam or related courses. And what the leader doing to do is just evaluate the competence of employees. In addition, the yearly assessment will be observed by the Panel Development Human Resource in every department. So, any unsatisfied or uncomfortable with the assessment by leader, they allow to making complain with the panel. If compare with SSB, the department leader have the fully power to evaluate their staff and no any panel will check back the assessment. Meanwhile, the leader also able to giving promotion to those employees they like.

Besides that, the top manager feeling upset and lose confident when they are doing their job because they are observing by the panel. Directly, attitudes of manager will be change
to the negative sites. Self interest also one of the reason why the top management resistance to change. This is because they are already having achieved status, privilege or self-esteem through effective use of an old system; they will often see the new system or plan as a threat. That’s why they choosing to stay at the old scheme to avoid any changing which may threaten their position or power. Differing perceptions between the top management and subordinate may make the top management unwilling to accept SSM. They believe that the SSM are wrong. It can’t bring any advantage to them if compare with the old scheme-SSB. Because they may view the situation form a different viewpoint. But for subordinate, SSM are more useful and fairer than SSB.

Meanwhile, the top management believes she/he stands to lose more than they will gain. Such as giving authority, promotion, determine salary movements and limited power. So, they think it’s safer if they are stay with the old scheme. One of the reasons of resistances is also due to the threat to self-image. They feel that the changing from SSB to SSM will threatens the current self image of them. Because the image developed by them are lose, limited power and may be the employees not respect them as before. The reason is the employees think the powerful people are from the Panel Development Human Resource but not the top management anymore. In addition, the evaluation by them also not necessary will give the promotion to the particular employee although they are holding higher position in an organization.

RESISTANCE BECAUSE OF UNFAIR PAYMENT PRACTICE
Government’s proposal for implementing Malaysia Remuneration Scheme (MRS) is something to be proud of as it will instill fair competition among civil servants and thus increase their efficiency. Government’s employees who opt for the new scheme will have opportunities for career and professional development. However the new system will have its own short and long term effect as he have not seen the progress of the implementation as the movement to adopt MRS is still a labyrinth efforts. There are always resistances from those employees because they tend to associate the changes with loss of their interest in the organization. A problem that we should take into account is the unfair distribution of increment points for various different job levels grouping in the new system.

First of all, as we know there are not much significant details from Public Service Department regarding the salary structure of MRS, but there have been a hot topic discussed in the local newspapers for the past few weeks. If we look into the increment structure, we can see that the Support Group basic salary will increase by RM 15, RM 65 for Managerial and Professional Group and RM 110 for Higher Managerial Group. Resistance from Support Group is expected as judging from wide disparity or category but both will receive some amount of increment.

What has been topic of dissatisfaction is that there are grouping of A, B, C and D category but A will be a standalone group while B, C and D will be grouped into one group. The problem arises when employees under Group B will question the wisdom of the government when almost majority of them have at least a diploma in many fields. So why should they be in the same group as C and D when they have sort of higher qualification than the latter? Group A employees who will receive increment in RM 65 is said to be too much compare to the RM 15 receive by Group B which falls on Support Group. Although Group A staffs which are managerial staff with first degree, Group B with diploma seems lower graded even both of the group share the almost same responsibility of workload and professionalism. The large gap pending upon adoption of the system will eventually demotivate civil servants who fall into that category. Furthermore it is also said that the dissatisfaction arises also contributed by the refusal of Public Service Department to acknowledge the staff who want to continue their study in doing their first degree. Civil servants in group B have to pay their own education expenses while studying with unpaid leave and the government will not offer any scholarship to them. The information presented just now was taken from a forum in local newspaper, Utusan Malaysia.

What is more visible to our knowledge is when the payment that civil servants will receive upon accepting the Malaysia Remuneration Scheme. Upon accepting MRS, Support Group will receive one-off-payment of RM 220, Managerial and Professional Staff will receive RM 350 and Higher Managerial Group will receive RM 650. This clearly shows that unfair distribution of interest still exist while government is promoting equal chance and merit based payment. When we want to change to the new system the support from all civil servants is equally important. So, when the government wants to show appreciation for staff that opted for MRS, equal value of the bonus should be paid regardless of job level or group. This is because equal support needed to make the adoption succeed and without support from lower level employees, MRS is also useless and will not move to the mainstream compare to the current New Remuneration Scheme (NRS).

The resistance can be explained by Equity Theory. Human beings are subjected to being wanted to be treated as fair as other do. If one person perceived that the other person who have the same ability, responsibility and workload as he or she do but receive more payment than him, he will feels demoralize, losing motivation and confidence to the company. A staff should receive too much difference in their payment if their work responsibility and work load are not much varies. From what we have seen just now, there are improper and unfair distributions of payment in some groups particularly when receiving adoption of MRS bonus. Senior managerial staff will get much bigger bonus from the support group even that adoption of new scheme is responsibility of civil servants regarding of level or status. Once adopt new scheme, all employee should be given same amount of initial bonus regarding of status to avoid resistance from workers over unfair payment practices.

ACADEMIC MODE NOT INTERESTED BY SOME WORKERS
One of the reasons that the resistance can be true when implementing Malaysian Remuneration Scheme is the academic mode that the civil servants have to take in order to qualify for promotion or salary increment. The problem arises when older staff and senior staff will feel hard and humiliated because they have to take the exam as the junior staff. Some workers are naturally don’t like exam and think that by taking exam they will have burden and time constraint as most of these workers have family. The will question the Public Service Department that why they should spend their time studying unwillingly as they are forced to do so because without taking exam they will not getting any promotion. As being force they will not only resist the change but also will initiate objection and frustration against government later. Furthermore the exam mode will consist of history, nation studies and Tata Negara which do not have any relevance to their real work requirement. We do not object government for using this kind of materials for academic route that the civil servants have to take because the most important is to instill loyalty and caring to the country. However if the government want to generate more skillful and competence workers, then this is not a good example for them to follow as it will not bring any significant results to their job performance. Senior staff will also feel that their contributions are not appreciated because they are judged by academic qualification rather than their problem solving ability in workplace. Some workers may reluctant to accept academic based performance appraisals but this does not necessarily mean that they are not capable and welcome in the organization.

OFFICE POLITICIANS WILL HAVE TO PACK HOME
Office politicians have to pack home. What does that mean to you? Well as we know office politics is one of the facet in the working life. Everyday we see or we maybe involve in office politics like building up a network, back talking, back stabbing your colleague and doing your boss favors. If you conduct one of these acts then you are involving in office politics. Office politics can be cruel, devastating or even make you more powerful depending how you use it. The winner will establish its presence in the organization for long term while the losers will have to move out. As said by a local newspaper, Utusan Malaysia, SSB is a system that also jokingly called Saya Suka Bos or Saya Sayang Bos. It is a platform for workers to play politics or apple polishing in order to get good evaluation for their department leaders. A staff with good ability to make their boss happy is the one who will get advantages from the system. However with the introduction of Malaysia Remuneration Scheme, these politicians will not be able to do their old dirty trick to satisfy their bosses because the final evaluation will not be on their immediate leader hands alone as there will be a panel to evaluate the staff performance.

The staff who have long playing office politics will be the one who will resist against the introduction of MRS because the will lose their chance and advantages. They have use this tactic to gain attention from the superior and suddenly with introduction of MRS by government they will feel that someone is trying to interfere with there status quo. The people who have been playing office politics are surely spending a lot of their time to build up what there are achieving today and will reluctant to let it go as soon as possible because it is not easy to achieve what they have today. Introduction of MRS will differentiate the department head responsibility and to ensure there are no misjudgments during the appraisal as the panel of human resource management is professionally qualified to do evaluation fairly. As the outside evaluator are professional and given authority by the Public Service Department, it is not easy for the workers to influence them as they will perform their job true to the form and being accountable and trustworthy.


WORKERS INCLUDED IN THE 5% ADVANCEMENT
Less than 5% of civil servants get promotion salary or position increment annum under the matrix system in the SSB scheme since it was introduced in 1992. This opportunity opens a limited promotion for diagonal and vertical salary movement to encourage government workers to show their effort and contribution to the organization. Meanwhile, it also increases the workers’ productivity. According to the SSB, the supervisor and manager assess the workers based on their performance to determine which worker is fulfilled the requirement would get the promotion. To get the promotion and increment, workers have to work hard and perform obtrusively to attract manager to give more merit onto performance.

Nevertheless, when Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced that the Malaysian Remuneration System would replace the New Remuneration System for government employees on 1st November 2002, minority of civil servants show their resistance upon it. According to the Utusan Online, dated 30th July 2002, “Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who is also the chairman of the Committee on the Salaries and Service of Public Sector Employees, said that the SSM would introduced efficiency appraisal procedure through examinations and courses to be made compulsory to all civil servants to ensure the progress of their career and annual salary increments besides the annual appraisal reports and recommendations of department heads.” After announcement, some of the civil servants feel a sense of unfair because the promotions and increments would not longer rely on the appraisal reports and recommendations of department heads. The workers must take a series of exams and courses instead of the performance appraisal for getting the advancement.

For those who have been achieved the advancement, and have been worked hard wishing to get the promotion and salary increment. Most of them would reject the offer and remain in the present scheme. They resist due to habit and inertia with upholds that what they have always done is the way it should be. In the face of change, they might feel uncomfortable or difficulty with change even though government asserted that the SSM would provide fair opportunity for career development and salary increments based on workers’ ability. All their efforts and contributions towards advancement will futile.

These changes directly influence employees’ perceptions and expectations about the relationship between person and organization, in other words is psychological contract. The attitudes and behaviors of workers may be affected by changes in the psychological contracts of workers because of different set mutual obligations (Schalk, R., Campbell, J. W. & Freese, C., 1998). The organization commitment of workers might decrease after the implementation of SSM because of violation of the relationship between the government and workers affect the government workers face difficulty coping with change. This is why a worker refused to change even though the changes may bring the benefit towards job promotion and salary increments among government workers in SSM scheme.


INEFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
Most of the government workers resist the implementation of SSM because of the ineffective communication channel to deliver the relevant information to the involved workers. Selecting the inappropriate communication channel can cause confusion, anxiety and disruption among the change resister. Some of government workers refused to change from present because of the purpose of the change is not made clear, even though the television channel, newspapers and electronic mail were reported about the SSM since 30th July 2002 after the announcement of Prime Minister. Most of the civil servants included management and subordinate still ambiguous the concept and benefits of SSM. Resistance occurs due to poor communication may develop during the process of change. Poor communication can lead to misunderstanding or confused and it also cause communication barriers. As a need of change, those affected by change must know why a change is being made and how they will be affected accordingly (Anderson, T. P.). Needless to say, the important of communication cannot be underestimated. It is not necessarily to say that once a change strategy has been decided upon and committed to, management will see it through to the end (Bishop, C. H., 2002).

Furthermore, lack of two-way communication between the management and workers also cause resistance to change. The pattern of two-way communication that practiced by government servants in downward communication as an ordering manner in organization reduced the feedback from workers about the implementation of SSM. Downward communication may be used to inform to workers about the changes only. Middlemist, R. D, & Hitt, M. A. (1988) said, “Downward communication is frequently deficient. Workers often complain about the lack of information on changes being made in organization.” Upward communication seldom be used in government department can cause lack of feedback. This is because management does not want to hear negative feedback from workers about changes. It may cause resistance to change upon implementation SSM due to lack of participation in the change.

Other form of ineffective communication that can cause resistance to change is grapevine communication. It is include gossip between people regarding to the one matter without accurate information. Since SSM has been proposed, yet a valid information regarding SSM is not available. All information regarding to SSM provided through informal conversation between workers without any validity support of validity materials. Some of workers may put an inaccurate opinion about implementation SSM due to lack of valid information from Public Service Department, so it also lead to resistance to change.

RESISTANCE FROM SENIOR EMPLOYEES
Seniority means that someone who works for a long period in a field and have wide knowledge and experience accordingly. Normally, they are good in the field that they deal with the experiences they went through. Recently, the SSM are introduced in the government sector to replace SSB. According to Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohammad, ‘the basis (for promotion) will be on the competency of the workers and their professional development. Even the Cuepacs’ leaders assured that this would lead to higher productivity. They also stress that the employees will lose out if they do not improve themselves.

But with the SSM scheme will abolish the seniority rights that they deserved regarding their employment period in the organization. This scheme will influence the position of the senior employees in the government sectors. It means that the chances of promotional for the senior employees in the government sector are reduced. The good and hardworking employees that should be promoted will have a slimmer chance because their promotional are not longer based on their performances but on their education qualifications.

“Every man for himself”. This phrase shows that every man is selfish and will only take care of their self-interest before see to other people interest. When senior employees who achieved status, privilege or self-esteem through effective use of an old system, they will often see the new plan as a threat. Where the plan threatens paid overtime, people will naturally fear the impact on their bank balance.

Senior employees will not agree for the change because they do not want to lose their status quo. Left to our devices, some of us would initiate change, but most of them would prefer to retain the status quo. Not because they are lazy or stubborn, but because they were human. The status quo is a known entity and they like it that way. Most of them do not deal well with the unknown. The unknown is scary, it will makes them feel out of control, insecure, and generally as if they would like to go to bed, pull the blanket up over their head, and stick their thumb in their mouth. The senior employees would like to retain this status because they are already used to the situation and it will be too troublesome. The changes will only caused more inconveniences for them because they have to take more time to adapt the change of the new working environment.

Furthermore, the resistance of the SSM is due to the threat of the loss of position power (Anderson, T. P.). Before the introduction of this scheme, only the senior employees will be rise for promotion. But since then, the promotional criteria will be based on their qualification, ability and professional. Normally the young will have the educational qualification but the senior will have to climb through their experiences gained. So their positions are not secured because the young who have higher educational qualifications will rise faster than the senior employees. So the senior position that rightfully should belong to the senior employees is threatened by the inexperience young. Most of the senior employees think that they are qualified for promotional because they are more experience in dealing with the work they had done for the past years.

The older a person is, the more their resistance to the uncertainties situation that will pose a threat to them. This is because they cannot take up the challenges that may be face. They may be uncertain of their abilities to face the challenges of the world. Fear of the unknown situation can also be more prevalent to some than others, hence making it more of a personality trait than a situation variable. In addition, groups of people with such fears often find comfort in sharing their fear with each other, thus making the chance process more difficult as now it has become a “group” fear.

Conservatism is another reason why the senior employees would not want a change in the policy. Conservative senior individuals tend to resist changes. This factor has been measured and demonstrated in numerous studies and stands to reason on its own. Conservative individuals who group together, as was referred to above regarding the trade of “fear of the unknown” can also create great impasse for change. Especially those who value status highly are less open to change when the change threatens to impinge negatively on their self-perceived status.

Older people are more resistant to change, and people at the top of the organization are very versatile. This assertion is not true and unfair. If compared with the senior, many young people are tremendously resistant to change and many top executives rigidly reject new and expanded assignments. Assessment of an individual should not be biased for or against based on age, title, organization level, expertise, tenure, and any other factors (Bishop, C. H., 2002).

Normally, those senior employees who are old will get a mistreatment upon the introduction of the SSM. With the new SSM scheme, the promotional criteria are not fair to those senior employees that are bias to the beautiful employees. According to Cuepacs President N. Siva Subramaniam, they did not agree to the matrix system adapted by some department heads because their assessment inevitably involved personal feelings. He added that if the women are beautiful, they are given higher marks than those who are more senior to them.

Other than that, with the new SSM, those who want to be promoted will have to upgrading themselves. The exam is not only will test their writing skill but also their ability in solving problems. So it seems that the promotion will be based on their ability in educational certificate rather than their experiences. The resistant of the senior employees are also due to the fear of taking examination. This is because they had stop schooling for so many years and their age will affect their ability of thinking. Given their age, they would prefer to spend more time on leisure with their family rather than cope with the stress of examination.

It cannot be denied that experience is more important than paper qualification. Paper qualification does not show the real ability of oneself. Ability can only be proved via job performances but not by good writing skill. The senior employees think that experiences are more important than paper qualification. This is because they had gone through everything that may be encounter during their services in the related field. So they can solve the problems more effectively. Even though those who have many paper qualification but it does not prove their ability in performing well in their job. It will still need the senior employees to hold the power in ones organization.



PART III: OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
When resistance to change occurs in organizations, it will delay the process of change. Government needs to address the nature of change facing the organization, so that they can determine its likely magnitude and potential impact through change management methodology. Identify the signs of resistance to change can help to overcome resistance to change facing the organizations, managers and workers. According to Anderson, A. L. & Barker, D. (1996), resistance to change can be overcome by education when there is a lack of information or inaccurate information and analysis that bring resistance due to fear of the unknown. Public Service Department should giving civil servants all the relevant information about the consequences of proposed change that the Malaysian Remuneration System replaces the New Remuneration System to reducing potential fears. The information should valid, correct and supportive to the change so that government workers will be willing to accept the change and be less fearful.

Promoting change also is a key element to overcome resistance to change, changes should not be complex and should not be presented in an overwhelming manner at once (Applebaum, S. H & Lee Wohl, 2000). Government should introduce the change in a simpler, slow and smooth manner to increase the likelihood of the workers feeling less threatened by the change. This is because require some time and commitment to adapt and accept the change. Bringing about change requires the government to challenge the precedent, and requires perseverance against the habits and norms of established behaviors among the workers (Applebaum, S. H & Lee Wohl, 2000). A step to manage change successfully, Government gave one-month period to the government workers to opt for the Malaysian Remuneration System accordingly. During this period, Public Service Department should explain the need for and logic of change to individuals, groups and even the entire organizations to avoid confusion among of them.

Furthermore, government must provide support and facilitation during the change process. There are some tactics that government can be used to minimize the frustration of those coping with change, such as making oneself available, providing adequate information, actively listening, showing respect, offering emotional support and understanding to people affected by the change (Applebaum, S. H & Lee Wohl, 2000, Anderson, A. L. & Barker, D., 1996). Government must recognize that workers may suffer a sense of loss during the change process that will bring to resistance of change. They must accept the fact that resistance to change is inevitable because they feel that change are threatened the status quo (Spiegelman, B. M. 1990). They must help workers to find the way out to overcome their anger and frustration; it also can minimize the elements that may increase the resistance to change among the change resisters.

Communication of change is a key element to resolve resistance of change; inefficiency communication has been said as a root of fail of change. When the purpose of the change is not made clearly, resistance due to poor communication may develop. The effective communication can take away at least part of the feeling of uncertainty and lack of information about the change, reducing speculation and unfounded fears (Schalk, R., Campbell, J. W. & Freese, C., 1998). Government should plan communication carefully to maintain and remain positive workers morale during the change process by communicates often and through a variety of media to the workers regarding implementation Malaysian Remuneration System. Applebaum, S. H & Lee Wohl (2000) has said that communicating what is known and asking for employees to do the best with what information is available will help minimize conflict and promote change successfully.

Needless to say, government should communicate honestly to workers about the change impact, otherwise resistance to change will increase to defend the status quo. Remind workers that things weren’t perfect before change, and probably won’t be perfect after it (Spiegelman, B. M., 1990). Tell the truth to the workers in it for physically and psychologically prepared upon the change process. There are some key principles to conduct effective communication, include message and medium redundancy is related to message retention to ensure that the delivered data are clear on the related points that repetition of the message through more than one medium increases people's memory of the message, encourage face-to-face communication to increase the probability that the sender and the receiver are connecting appropriately, and obtain feedback from workers to correct deficiencies immediately (Klien, S. M., 1996). Besides that, direct supervision is the expected and most effective source of organizationally sanctioned information in an effective communication. Workers are expected to hear important, officially sanctioned information from their immediate supervisor or boss in the hierarchy of authority because supervisors are normally contact with their workers frequently than others management. So, by keeping the first level supervision, the lower workers are well informed about the rationale and progress of the organizational change (Klien, S. M., 1996).

Moreover, negotiations with change resisters and the forces imposing the change can minimize resistance to change (Applebaum, S. H & Lee Wohl, 2000). This is possible when some person or group, with considerable power to resist, will clearly lose out on a change. It make individuals involved in the change will feel they have some control and authority on the matter of change; help to make decisions upon change to reduce resistance due to force change and lack of participation in the change. During the negotiation process, government and change resisters should try to make a concession to achieve integrative results in order to gain the commitment from both parties in a win-win situation (Lewicki, R. J., Saunders, D. M. & Minton, J. W., 2001). To achieve integrative agreement, they must create a free and open discussion of all issues and concerns regarding SSB and SSM.








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Strategic Human Resource Management

If HR Were Really Strategically Proactive: Present & Future Directions in HR’s Contribution to Competitive Advantage

Pengurusan sumber manusia (HR) telah menjadi semakin penting di dalam dunia perniagaan hari ini. HR pada masa kini adalah diberikan perhatian kerana ia dapat mengaitkan kepentingannya terhadap strategi perniagaan jangka panjang. Ini adalah berbeza dengan masa dahulu di mana sub fungsi perniagaan ini hanya menitikberatkan aspek atau agenda pada peringkat operasi semata-mata. Semakin banyak organisasi perniagaan yang mengalihkan penumpuan mereka dengan memfokuskan kepada aktiviti-aktiviti HR yang dapat memberikan nilai tambahan yang tinggi kepadanya. HR telah membuktikan bahawa kepentingannya kepada prestasi keseluruhan organisasi sebagaimana fungsi lini yang lain. Misalnya kajian oleh Brian Becker & Mark Kloselid (1998) menunjukkan bahawa syarikat mengamalkan HRM yang lebih akan mempunyai nilai pasaran bagi setiap pekerja yang lebih besar dan setiap peningkatan dalam sisihan piawai dalam intensiti amalan HR akan membawa kepada U$ 45, 000. Sudah tentu hasil kajian adalah membawa erti yang lebih signifikan jika organisasi tersebut mempunyai sumber manusia yang amat ramai jumlahnya. Apabila HR menjadi semakin penting, beberapa aspek pembaharuan yang kita dapat lihat adalah hubungan pihak HR dengan pengurusan atasan adalah secara langsung pada masa kini, pengurusan atasan mula memberikan perhatian terhadap isu-isu HR dan prestasi organisasi yang meningkat juga boleh dikaitkan dengan amalan dan sumbangan HR itu sendiri. Tambahan pula, kerjaya dalam bidang HR mula mendapat perhatian ramai dan ia mula dianggap sebagai bidang displin yang profesional. Kepentingan HR adalah dimangkin oleh perkembangan dan perubahan yang berlaku di sekeliling dunia perniagaan terutamanya disebabkan oleh persaingan dan keperluan untuk terus berdaya saing di dalam jangka masa panjang.

Faktor persaingan telah membawa kepada kepentingan kelebihan daya saing yang perlu dimiliki oleh sesebuah organisasi dan HR dapat memberikan kelebihan tersebut. Dua pendekatan berbeza dalam HR di mana pada peringkat operasi atau pada peringkat strategik. Perkataan strategik sendiri dapat memberikan petunjuk bahawa aktiviti HR yang terlibat adalah bersifat jangka panjang, menyeluruh, terancang, bersepadu dan memberikan nilai tambahan yang tinggi kepada organisasi. HR yang proaktif adalah berbeza daripada HR reaktif dalam peringkat strategik mahupun operasi. Operationally Reactive HR adalah memfokuskan kepada perlaksanaan aktiviti asas harian HR seperti petadbiran gaji. Operationally Proactive HR memfokuskan kepada pembaikan aktiviti HR seperti memperbaiki kualiti dan kuantiti asas HR sebelum ia berlaku. Strategically Reactive HR memfokuskan kepada perlaksanaan strategi perniagaan yang biasanya adalah dijana oleh dan untuk unit lini dalam perniagaan tersebut. Akhir sekali Strategically Proactive HR memfokuskan kepada penciptaan alternatif strategi pada masa depan. Secara amnya indeks Kelebihan Daya Saing HR memfokuskan kepada tahap kelebihan daya saing yang dimiliki oleh organisasi dengan mengamalkan 4 peringkat HR yang berbeza seperti dinyatakan tadi. Semakin banyak organisasi telah menumpukan kepada Strategically Proactive HR kerana ia dapat mengaitkan kepada kelebihan daya saing organisasi dalam jangka masa panjang berbanding dengan Operational Reactive yang semakin kurang diamalkan.

Dalam indeks Kelebihan Daya Saing HR ini ia menerangkan strategi yang boleh diamalkan oleh sesuatu organisasi bagi mencapai kelebihan daya saing melalui sumber manusia ini. Terdapat 4 faktor tumpuan utama yang patut diteliti oleh organisasi yang mementingkan kelebihan daya saing ini. Pertama adalah Operationally Reactive HR, iaitu mengambil tindakan pengoperasian selepas sesuatu yang berlaku. Disini, organisasi perlulah cekap dalam amalan-amalan pengurusan sumber manusia secara reaktif iaitu dengan mengambil perhatian keatas permintaan pekerja-pekerjanya. Faktor kedua ialah melalui langkah Operationally Proaktif iaitu mengambil sesuatu tindakan pengoperasian sebelum sesuatu perkara yang tidak diingini berlaku. Sebagai langkah proaktif, organisasi mestilah sentiasa menitikberatkan peningkatan produkiviti dalam jabatan sumber manusia dan amalan-amalan pengurusan sumber manusia mereka. Langkah-langkah seperti outsourcing dan work elimination haruslah ditekankan. Dengan mengaplikasikan konsep Pengurusan Kualiti Menyeluruh (Total Quality Management), iaitu kebolehan untuk menetapkan piawai yang realistic dan boleh dicapai, amalan-amalan pengurusan sumber manusia dapat ditingkatkan. Selain itu, dengan mengamalkan internal HR audits dan error-free HR work, peranan HR dapat menjadi lebih proaktif. Dalam faktor ketiga, amalan HR melalui pengurusan strategik yang reaktif, mampu mengekalkan kelebihan daya saing ini. Peranan HR disini adalah untuk menyokong strategi jangka panjang organisasi melalui taktik-taktik tertentu dan membentuk budaya organisasi dari segi pengurusan dan teknikal untuk menyokong strategi jangka panjang sesuatu organisasi. Dalam mencapai kelebihan daya saing melalui faktor ketiga ini, terdapat lapan langkah yang membantu organisasi membentuk taktik dan budaya organisasi. Langkah pertama ialah kita mendefinisikan unit perniagaan untuk setiap amalan HR yang dibentuk, Langkah kedua ialah mengenalpasti tren-tren pasaran luaran, langkah ketiga kita mengenalpasti & menyusun mengikut kepentingan sumber kelebihan daya saing organisasi, keempat ialah mendefinisikan keperluan budaya dan pengetahuan teknikal yang sepatutnya dibentuk oleh organisasi dan menyokong kelebihan daya saing dalam langkah ketiga, kelima, mengenalpasti kriteria-kriteria kebudayaan yang sepatutnya dikurangkan bagi mencapai kelebihan daya saing, keenam, membentuk amalan HR yang akan memberi kesan yang positif ke atas budaya organisasi yang dikehendaki, ketujuh, membentuk plan tindakan dan akhir sekali ialah mengkaji keberkesanan setiap langkah yang dibentuk.

Kedudukan HR dalam strategi proaktif boleh didapati dalam dua cara iaitu, pertama dengan mempelajari secukupnya mengenai bidang fungsian lain seperti pamasaran, pengeluaran, kewangan supaya mampu untuk menyumbang dalam perniagaan berdasarkan syarat dan konsep bidang fungsian lain dan kedua dengan mengembangkan dan memperkayakan parameter agenda HR melalui alternatif strategi yang mana boleh ditakrif dan dicipta. Artikel ini mencadangkan tiga pendekatan yang mana HR boleh menjadi strategik proaktif iaitu pertama (1), mencipta budaya kreativiti dan inovasi. Kedua (2), terlibat secara luas dalam aktiviti penyatuan dan perolehan sesuatu syariat yang lain. Ketiga (3), mencipta kapabiliti atau keupayaan dalaman berdasarkan keperluan persekitaran luaran masa hadapan.

Pertama (1), HR boleh secara proaktif menambahkan nilai strategik dengan meningkatkan inovatif kapabiliti firma. HR memainkan peranan major dalam kejayaan pembaharuan organisasi. Untuk meningkatkan kemungkinan pembaharuan, dua prasyarat umum mesti diwujudkan. Pertama, mesti ada keputusan sedar oleh pembuat keputusan dimana pembaharuan merupakan focus atau agenda organisasi. Kedua, halangan kreativiti harus disingkirkan. Dengan prasyarat ini, firma boleh menbina infrastruktur HR yang menggalakkan dan mengekal etos pembaharuan di dalam komunikasi, pemilihan, latihan dan pembangunan dan pengukuran dan ganjaran.

Kedua (2) ialah melibatkan diri dalam setiap tahap dalam proses M&A (merger & acquisition). Dengan melihat kepada aspek strategik, HR boleh menggunakan strategi proaktif di dalam arena pergabungan dan pengambilalihan perniagaan yang popular pada masa kini serta memainkan peranan penting dalam setiap tahap tersebut. HR mempunyai tanggungjawab yang penting dalam konseptualisasi dan pemahaman keupayaan teras organisasi berbanding dengan fungsi perniagaan yang lain kecuali pengurusan atasan. Proses pengambil-alihan sesebuah perniagaan bukan sahaja dinilai berdasarkan kepada faktor teras seperti kewangan, pasaran dan teknologi tetapi juga elemen manusia seperti budaya adalah penting. Dalam proses menilai firma berdasarkan kriteria ketersediaan, kesesuaian dan harga seperti yang diutarakan oleh Krallinger (1997), HR memberikan sumbangan dalam dua cara iaitu penilaian keupayaan asas firma yang ingin dibeli seperti aspek teknikal, pasaran, kewangan, budaya dan keupayaan pengurusan. Menurut Mirivs & Mark (1992) kebanyakan kegagalan dalam M&A (merger& acquisition) bukan berkisar kepada aspek seperti teknologi, kewangan, pasaran dan sebagainya tetapi juga sebenarnya dipengaruhi oleh budaya atau manusia dakam organisasi itu sendiri. Maka HR dapat memainkan peranan yang amat penting dalam proses M&A untuk memastikan kelancaran proses tersebut. Kedua adalah HR dapat membawa isu-isu penting ketika proses penilaian yang teliti melibatkan aspek seperti gaji dan bayaran lain yang perlu dihadapi, keperluan penstafan, hubungan industri, demografi pekerja dalam organisasi dan sebagainya. Ketiga ialah HR menentukan keperluan penstafan untuk panel yang terlibat dalam M&A dan penilaian berdasarkan bukan sekadar keupayaan teknikal tetapi juga kemahiran interpersonal.

Ketika proses perundingan dalam M&A, HR memainkan 2 peranan penting iaitu content role dan process role. Dalam content role, HR akan membuat penyiasatan secara mendalam isu-isu yang dinaikkan ketika proses penilaian. Sedangkan pihak penjual cuba untuk memaksimakan harga julan ketika proses rundingan M&A, pihak HR akan cuba mengenalpasti masalah yang wujud dan boleh mempengaruhi harga jualan tersebut. Dalam process role, HR bukan sahaja perlu mengekalkan hubungan kerja yang baik dengan pasukan penilai syarikatnya, tetapi juga dengan ahli dalam pasukan rundingan pihak lain. HR juga perlu mengetahui cara atau gaya berunding pihak lain dan sedia memberikan latihan kepada pasukan perundingna jika diperlukan. Dalam proses integrasi kebanyakan daripada M&A gagal dan ini sebenarnya boleh dibantau dengan sumbangan daripada HR. Di antara masalah yang wujud ialah kegagalan dalam proses pemilhan dan kenaikan pangkat pekerja disebabkan oleh politik dan kegagalan untuk menyepadukan budaya di sekitar kriteria penting yang berasaskan pasaran.

HR boleh membantu dalam proses menyepadukan budaya yang kritikal untuk kejayaan organisasi kepada keseluruhan sumber manusianya, lebih-lebih lagi perbezaan budaya yang ketara 2 buah organisasi yang melalui M&A. Langkah yang pertama ialah menganalisa secara terperinci keperluan pasaran organisasi unruk modal, produk dan servis. Kedua ialah mengetahui sumber kelebihan daya saing yang perlu ada, tindakan taktikal yang perlu diambil dan dan ukuran yang relevan. Ketiga ialah mengenalpasti cultural mindset yang kedua dua firma perlu ada untuk dilaksanakan strategi dalam keperluan pasaran. Keempat ialah kedua-dua firma perlu membandingkan andaian persekitaran, strategi perniagaan dan budaya yang diperlukan untuk menentukan mana yang perlu menjadi dominan.

Faktor ketiga (3), HR perlu mengaitkan kepentingan strateginya dengan secara langsung kepada faktor pasaran luaran. Apabila HR memberikan sumbangan kepada sumber manusia dalam organisasi, secara tidak langsung ia akan memberikan impak terhadap pasarannya. HR memainkan peranan dalam menggalakkan budaya korporat yang berteraskan kepada pelanggan dan aspek penting HR ualah meningkatkan pemahaman dan penilaian pekerja terhadap realiti pasaran. Maka apabila HR cuba mengaitkan realiti pasaran dengan keupayaan dalaman, seseorang profesional HR perlu mempunyai pengetahuan yang mendalam tentang isu-isu pasaran, pemasaran, tren sosial dan cabaran-cabaran yang ada dan sebagainya. Maka di sini penting sekiranya ada integrasi di antara fungsi pemasaran dan HR. HR yang strategically proactive adalah bersifat “market atau customer oriented” yang mementingkan pelanggan atau pasaran syarikat.

Kesimpulannya, dengan mengalihkan peranan HR kepada tahap strategik dan proaktif, HR boleh memberikan nilai yang lebih kepada organisasi. Ia akan membantu dalam meningkatkan kelebihan daya saing organisasi. Dua pendekatan yang diberikan perhatian ialah strategically reactive dan strategically proactive HR. Bagi strategically reactive, 3 agenda utama ialah menghubungkan taktik HR dengan strategi perniagaan, mewujudkan budaya yang pentng untuk melaksanakan suatu strategi perniagaan dan membekalkan proses dan teknik pengurusan perubahan. Artikel ini memfokuskan hanya kepada strategically proactive di mana bagi strategically proactive, 3 agenda utama ialah mewujudkan budaya korporat yang inovatif dan kreatif, sumbangan kepada setiap peringkat M&A dan usaha untuk menghubungkan keupayaan dalaman dengan keperluan pasaran luaran. Dengan membina strategi proaktif, HR dapat membantu organisasi untuk meningkatkan kelebihan daya saing untuk kemandirian jangka masa panjang.

Good job design

Five-core characteristic of a good job design can be referring to the study by Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham. They can up with a concept called Job Characteristic Model. According to Hackman and Oldham, the characteristic of job is important because it will give a psychological impact to the person and leading to the specific outcomes in the work environment. In the study, there are 5 important characteristic that must be there during designing a job which are skill variety, job identity, job significance, autonomy and feedback. According to Tammi Sufficool, job design can impact in term of job satisfaction, influence performance, and affect both mental and physical health.

Skill Variety
Specialization maybe good to improve productivity by having workload divided into several task and each employees working on the small portion of repetitive task. However, as we know in the end boredom may occur and employees may have potential to feel demotivated or worst case high turnover rate in the organization. Therefore, it is important to build in skill variety characteristic when designing a new job. Skill variety refers to degree which the job requires an employee to use varieties of challenging different skill, knowledge, abilities and talents. A good job design must contain skill variety characteristic so the employee can feel the challenges and motivation, trying out something different to discourage boredom and which the outcomes can be higher productivity and lower turnover rate or absenteeism. Skill variety incentives can be from job rotation, job enlargement or job enrichment depending on the suitability in the organization.

Job Identity
Job identity concern on doing a complete set of job from starting until the end by the person or employees rather than completing a small-small incomplete task which they may not see the outcomes. It is also the degree to which a job requires completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work. Employees may not like to be jack of all trade which at the end they cannot master skills, knowledge, and have recognition from the completion of the job. If the job is separated and manages by different party, employee cannot hold the responsibility and they perceived that their job function or scope is very small. In summary, good job design must have the clear job identification to all people in the organization. According to Tammi, separation of specific job duties and creation of well-written job description (JD) helps to promote better job or task identity in the organization.

Job Significance
Job significance sees to what extent the job or the outcome of a specific job can influence or influencing others. Job or task significance also sees the degree to which the job has a perceivable impact on the lives of others, either within the organization or the world at large. If the job is very important and can affect others significantly or can contribute to the organization or team tremendously, the employees will feel that they are very important person and what task or job responsibilities they do is very important in the organization.

Autonomy
Autonomy as a characteristic is job design means incorporating of freedom to do the work as one sees fit as long it follows the general guidelines and the outcomes is as expected. In the job itself, it is the degree that the job gives the workers freedom and independence in managing their work, setting the course and determines how the work will be carried out to accomplish the main objective. Autonomy in job or what we called empowerment can help to create job satisfaction because employees feel that they have responsibility to ensure the outcomes are congruent to the goals and they will own the final results of their task whether it is positive or not. Higher satisfaction level will reduce the potential turnover rate and absenteeism in the organization, so these characteristic is very important in the modern job design.

Feedback
Last scope or characteristic in job design is there must be a feedback as a mechanism to provide information to employees on the outcomes of their job or performance. Without feedback employees will not know what level are their outcomes of the work they perform, what is the improvement needed and what their future directions are. He or she must be able to get this feedback either from the job itself or through others and understanding of one’s capabilities is important for their personal gratification and satisfaction. Monetary feedback and positive feedback will help to motivate employees to perform more in the organization.

In conclusion, there are five major job characteristic that we must consider when designing a task or job in the organization. This is because our main goals for effectively designing job is to create job satisfaction, create and maintain job performance, reduction of negative side impact such as turnover rate, absenteeism and sickness in the organization that can deter its productivity and progress as well.