Utiliscan

Utiliscan, a company that deals with the making of software for utility companies has been experiencing a minimum growth rate of between 15 and 20%, contrary to the expectation of the management. The company conducted a survey on some of the issues that affected its performance.  This is due to the fact that the company has been unable to recruit skilled workers who are experienced due to the financial constrains that the company has been facing. The purpose of this work is to identify the options in terms of the changes to be made on processes, current systems, activities and policies based on the survey results.

Methodology

A survey was conducted on all the 240 employees of Utiliscan Software Company, whereby they were given questionnaires and filled in their responses on how they felt about their working conditions, their safety while at work, working skills and promotion opportunities, performance reviews and salary. The data was then recorded and analyzed as shown in the findings below.

Findings and discussions

It was found that 78% of the employees were contented with their working conditions, 70% felt their workload was average, 55% felt they were safe working in the premises while 45% felt insecure. When they were asked about promotion and other opportunities, 89% of the employees responded that the company did not give them opportunities to improve on their working skills, 87% felt that the company did not offer promotion opportunities, 74% said their performance did not match their pay, with numerous complains that there was some favoritism towards some employees and that the company has not been conducting reviews on performance. Consequently, 56% of them said that their benefits were very minimal. It is therefore evident from the findings that the Utiliscan was not very strict on the workers; workers were given enough freedom and worked with very minimum supervision, thus they enjoyed working with Utiliscan. The company also showed concern on the amount of work it gave to its employees. This is due to the fact that most of them responded that their work was at average thus they could comfortable do it without straining.

However, the company to some extent showed some negligence on the safety of the employees as well as their general welfare, something that would have contributed greatly to the lower performance of the company. If 45% of the workers worked under unsafe environments then it means that most of them did not concentrate on work instead they were uncertain about their lives. This therefore lowered their productivity and as a result, affected the general performance of the company (Amos et al, 2009, p. 52). Another area that the company under looked is on the issue of promotion. Most people are motivated to work if they are convinced that something good will come out of their effort. Thus if they are not motivated in any way, very few if any will work to achieve the company’s goals (Amos et al, 2009, p. 299). Performance evaluation is also another area that the company has been showing some negligence. If the performance of the employees is not evaluated, most of them will tend to become lazy because they will be discouraged when working hard and the company does not recognize their effort; after all the benefits are meant to be for the entire company and one employee neglects his/her duties then s/he will in turn affect the whole company (Amos et al, 2009, p. 90).

In the same line of thought, most of the employees appear to be affected by the fact that they feel they perform much and earn very little. The wages and salaries that the company is offering to the employees do not match. The company has never taken time to review the packages it offers to its employees. Other benefits such as allowances, insurance, leaves etc are some of the things that motivate employees to work faithful and with passion, if such things are not included in their packages then it will be difficult for them to even have confidence in the company (Pride, Hughes & Kapoor, 2008, p. 327).

Since Utiliscan has been facing a very minimum growth rate, 15-20%, because it can not make quick adjustments on recruitment since it is experiencing some financial constrains, the following are steps and priorities that the management should consider as arranged in the order of least expensive  to the most expensive. Since only a few, approximately 22% of the employees are not satisfied with their current working conditions, the management should call all the employees to a casual meeting where they will feel free to discuss the pressing issues. Several meetings can also be held once in three months so as to ensure that all the worries of the employees are adequately addressed.  The management may also consider improving the flexibility of the working schedule and become less strict but attentive on supervision so as to ensure that the workers do not work under high pressure. This will cost the company very little yet it will have a great impact on its performance and growth.

The next step that the management should consider is to check on the security of the workers. This would be possible if the company ensured that all the equipment and machinery are well installed and that there are no hanging objects in the working rooms. Security can also be improved by making sure that there are adequate emergence-doors through which workers can escape incase of any danger such as fire outbreak (Amos et al, 2009, p. 62).  The management should also consider having frequent servicing and checkups of the machines so as to ensure that any faults are detected before they become critical. After the company has confident that workers are working under safe environment, the next priority it should consider is to organize for employees’ training since they complained skills improvement opportunities (Amos et al, 2009, p. 98). Since the employees are few in number, it will be wise for the management to train them all as a group in one session or at most three groups so that it may cut on the cost. Once they are trained, their performance will improve and this will be for the better of the company at large.

The promotion of employees will depend on the category of work and their skills. It is therefore mandatory for the company to carry out performance evaluation often so as to identify the employees who are competitive and fit for promotion. The management should however have in mind that promotion comes with other packages such as salary increase, improved working conditions, allowances etc (Pride, Hughes & Kapoor, 2008).  The number of people to be promoted should be minimized in a given period so as to ensure that the company does not run in a loss as all the resources are channeled to promoting employees.  Since only 20% of the employees complain of having much workload, the company should consider employing new workers so as to reduce on the work that is overweighing on the few available workers. However, the recruitment should not be exaggerated since this means that the new workers will come with extra expenses in terms of salary, opportunities and other benefits just as the existing workers are.

The next step that the company should put into consideration, though expensive, is the issue concerning salary increase. This is one of the motivations that most workers will tend to look into when deciding which company to work for (Amos et al, 2009, p. 299). However, increasing salaries for approximately 240 employees may prove to be very expensive for this company. What the management should do is to declare an increase based on the departments. Salaries should be increased from one department to the other starting with the key or the most essential department and then to the next departments after some given time interval. This will cost the company a good amount of money but the workers will be motivated to work even harder.  Last is the issue of benefits. In as much as the employees may appear to be few, catering for each and everyone’s needs may not be that easy. Some of the benefits that these employees are looking forward into obtaining include life insurance, house, travel and medical allowances, overtime allowances and leaves among others (Pride, Hughes & Kapoor, 2008, p. 327). Providing all these benefits for the 240 may prove to be very expensive since several logistics have to be put in place before these benefits are allocated to the beneficiaries.

Conclusion

In conclusion, for Utiliscan to improve its performance and the rate of growth the management should make adjustments and changes on the priority of the least expensive to the most expensive as recommended, starting with improving working conditions to employees’ benefits. The management should also avoid being bias on some of the employees and discriminate others. Opportunities should be given equally to the employees regardless of their gender or status.