Background
Meeting the needs of employees and maintaining their engagement levels high is a crucial step toward improving the overall performance quality within an organization. In the case under analysis, the threat to the retirement plan can be viewed as a significant obstacle on the way to building trust-based relationships between the organization and its staff members (Blasi, Freeman, & Kruse, 2017). Therefore, a reconsideration of the present-day strategy toward managing corporate resources, in general, and the introduction of evidence-based management (EBMgt), in particular, will have to take place to embrace the needs of stakeholders and develop an elaborate assessment technique for judgment and expertise.
Proposing Research Study
It is assumed that, once the members of the organization under analysis are provided with adequate explanations about the rationale for changing the existing pension plan, the threat of a drop in staff retention levels will be avoided (Yadav & Saxena, 2015). Therefore, a study of possible effects that the suggested innovative approach toward managing the company’s human resources will have to be conducted (Creswell & Creswell, 2017). Seeing that insight into the nature of changes in employees’ attitudes will be required along with the further quantification of the research outcomes, a mixed design is recommended.
Ethics and Stakeholder Concerns: EBMgt Perspective
The case features the importance of retaining loyalty rates among employees high. For this purpose, the company will have to ensure that its current ethical standards are relevant and efficient. As long as the corporate ethical system embraces the needs of staff members and is focused on creating the environment for each member to feel comfortable, one will be able to contribute to the faster development of their understanding of the identified change (Morrel & Learmouth, 2015). If the employees in the case study are certain that they are valued and that their contribution to the company’s development is appreciated, they are likely to view the pension issue with understanding and will not experience concerns for their well-being. The EBMgt technique, in turn, offers extensive opportunities for shaping the current approach toward managing employees’ needs based on their unique characteristics (Briner & Walshe, 2014). Thus, the chances of introducing a stakeholder-specific approach are increased.
Practitioner Judgment and Expertise: EBMgt Perspective
Research that will shed light on possible changes in the employees’ attitudes toward the issue will help determine the company’s options and possible outcomes after adopting a change in the pension plan. Since none of the people arranging the research process has the experience associated with the identified change, it will be crucial to use an evidence-based framework to monitor the slightest alterations in the employees’ attitudes and report the identified changes appropriately. Practitioner judgment and expertise will also imply using the opinions of employees as the foundation for the decisions that will have to be made in the future (Gamble & Jelley, 2014). Indeed, given the number of years that some of the staff members have devoted to the company, they must be aware of the gravity of the issue, possible implications of the proposed solution, etc. Therefore, considering their opinion is crucial to the further management of the problem.
The Equity Theory: How Can an Increased Understanding Make the Transition Smoother?
Implying adequate management and, particularly, the distribution of corporate resources, the equity theory can be used to encourage a change in the organization’s system of values and corporate strategies. With a closer focus on the needs of employees as a crucial group of the firm’s stakeholders, one will be able to shape their current approach toward managing their responsibilities. The resulting gradual rise in their loyalty levels to the organization will help enhance their performance.
The Equity Theory, therefore, will help employees build relationships with each other based on the principles of respect and trust. Seeing that the theory implies that every single member of an organization should be treated based on the merits of their work, the specified philosophy will become the cornerstone for building an EBMgt approach toward managing HRM issues (Daniels, Wang, Lawong, & Ferris, 2017). The focus on the Equity Theory as the platform for structuring the corporate philosophy will encourage staff members to accept the corporate values based on the importance of responsibility and integrity, the organization will be able to introduce changes to its design successfully.
Seeking integrity and fairness, as the Equity Theory suggests, the members of the firm are likely to accept the standards that will create the platform for a fair and biases-free environment (Daniels et al., 2017). Therefore, the ideas of corporate integrity will become self-sustained since the staff members will support them as part and parcel of their organizational philosophy and behaviors. Thus, the transition from one set of corporate values and standards to another will occur smoothly. For these reasons, one must explore the implications of changes to the current pension plan, as well as the attitudes that staff members may have developed toward the subject matter. As a result, the foundation for making a sensible decision will be created.
References
Blasi, J. R., Freeman, R. B., & Kruse, D. L. (2017). Evidence: What the U.S. research shows about worker ownership. In Oxford University Press handbook of mutual, cooperative and co-owned business (pp. 1-27). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Briner, R. B., & Walshe, N. D. (2014). From passively received wisdom to actively constructed knowledge: Teaching systematic review skills as a foundation of evidence-based management. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 13(3), 415-432.
Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Daniels, S. R., Wang, G., Lawong, D., & Ferris, G. R. (2017). Collective assessment of the human resources management field: Meta-analytic needs and theory development prospects for the future. Human Resource Management Review, 27(1), 8-25.
Gamble, E. N., & Jelley, R. B. (2014). The case for competition: Learning about evidence-based management through case competition. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 13(3), 433-445.
Morrel, A., & Learmouth, M. (2015). Evidence-based management. In A. Wilkinson, S. J. Armstrong, & M. Lounsbury (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of management (pp. 419-436). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yadav, P., & Saxena, S. (2015). Interrelationship among employee retention strategies adopted by corporate sector: An empirical study. International Journal of Research in Management, Science and Technology, 3, 196-201.