Solving a Business Problem

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Grading Comments click on A1 above or read below:

You’ve addressed sustainability very well in the notes of your presentation.

You did an excellent job integrating the text in your slides with the information in your notes.

It appears you’ve taken this information out of your presentation, which was a good decision.

Slide Formatting Tips

Your slides are attractive, clear, and effectively draw attention to key words and phrases. In addition, the well cited notes you included make the presentation a valuable resource for colleagues attending your presentation (additional comments about citation are located in slide 10 notes).

As you create presentations in the future, distribute text over several slides so that it isn’t crowded on one slide. A better option is to include information in slide notes.

Generally, the content on slides is limited to key points in the presentation. Expanded information should be located in the notes section. As you develop presentations in the future consider reducing the text on slides. This will make slides readable to your audience, and encourage them to view the notes.

Again, your presentation is attractive, informative, and substantial.

Solving a Business Problem

AThompson48 (A) - 1. You’ve addressed sustainability very well in your notes. 2. You did an excellent job integrating the text in your slides with the information in your notes, excellent work. 3. It appears you’ve taken this information out of your presentation, which is a good decision. Slide Formatting Tips 1. Well done! Your slides are attractive, clear, and effectively draw one’s attention to key words and phrases. In addition, the well cited notes you included make the presentation a valuable resource for colleagues attending your presentation. 2. You’ve addressed sustainability very well in the notes of your presentation. Again, well done! 3. As you create presentations in the future, distribute text over several slides so that it isn’t crowed on one slide. 4. Your presentation overall was very visually attractive. Again, your presentation is very attractive, informative, and substantial.

Introduction

What is a business problem?

What is problem-solving?

Why is effective problem-solving important to a business?

Problems are an everyday part of any business.

In business, a problem is defined as “a perceived gap between the existing state and a desired state, or a deviation from a norm, standard, or status quo” (Business Dictionary, n.d.).

Creating and managing a business requires effective ‘‘problem-solving.’’

Failing to address business problems effectively can complicate matters and prove to be detrimental for the stability of a company (McFarlin, n.d.).

Problem-solving is the process of defining a problem and creating solutions to the problem. It includes decision-making and critical-thinking.

Problem-solving begins with thoroughly defining the problem before investigating the cause of the problem. Designing and implementing solutions are the next steps of the process.

Successful problem-solving results in enhanced productivity and increased profit (Marone & Blauth, n.d.).

Solving a Business Problem

Employee Retention: A Business Problem

Human resources are valuable assets that can make or break an organization.

The demand for skilled and talented human resources makes it difficult for organizations to retain and satisfy their employees (Das & Baruah, 2013).

Most employees leave an organization because they are frustrated or constantly in conflict with their superiors or colleagues.

Low salary and lack of growth opportunities and motivation also force an employee to look for other jobs (“Employee Retention,” n.d.).

Employee retention is a process that involves motivating employees to stay with an organization for a longer period of time (Narang, 2013).

Majority of organizations consider satisfying human resources to be the toughest task.

Workplace factors such as rewards, leadership style, career opportunities, the training and development of skills, physical working conditions, and the balance between professional and personal life have an indirect influence (Das & Baruah, 2013).

Every organization constantly tries its best to provide necessary facilities to its employees.

Encouraging employees to remain in the organization for a long period of time can be termed as employee retention (Das & Baruah, 2013).

Grading Notes for Slide 3

Use consistent type font throughout your notes.

Use highlighting consistently in your slides (e.g., two of the bullet points do not have the same highlighting for emphasis that the other three have).

Use complete sentences in the information you include in notes.

Re: notes point #2: what types of indirect influences are you referring to?

Re: notes point #3: what types of facilities are you referring to?

Solving a Business Problem

Why Is It Important to Retain Employees?

Retaining valuable employees is essential for an organization because:

Hiring is not an easy process as it involves high costs resulting from advertising, interviewing, re-training, and loss of productivity (Smeaton, Ray, & Knight, 2013);

Long-term health and success of any organization depends upon the retention of key employees. (Das & Baruah, 2013);

Employees may join competitor’s company after quitting. This may result in loss of employee loyalty.

Some of the effective methods of employee retention include employee recognition, work–life balance (WLB), and organization culture.

Employee retention is vital for any firm’s performance. If the organization is not able to retain its employees, it will not be able to benefit from the human assets trained within the organization (Narang, 2013).

Grading Notes for Slide 4

Use consistent type font throughout your notes.

Solving a Business Problem

Solution 1: Employee Recognition

Employee recognition “is the timely, informal or formal acknowledgement of a person’s or team’s behavior, effort or business result that supports the organization’s goals and values, and which has clearly been beyond normal expectations” (Harrison, n.d.).

Recognition in the form of monetary benefits such as attractive remunerative packages and non-monetary incentives like awards motivate employees to stay longer in a firm (Narang, 2013).

For example, American Express Incentive Services’ (AEIS’) introduced an employee recognition program “The Max!” in 2006 to create a high performance culture. Employee satisfaction surveys indicated an increase of score from 3.2 to 4.25 after the program’s inception (Employee Rewards & Recognition, n.d.).

However, recognition and reward programs can create unhealthy competition among employees (Hays, 1999).

Also, employee recognition programmes can result in attitude problems and selective praise and can also lead to a decrease in productivity due to overconfidence (Lewis, n.d.).

Recognizing people for their good work sends an extremely powerful message to the recipient, their work team, and other employees through formal communication (Harrison, n.d.).

Employee recognition acts as a catalyst for a firm’s growth. When employees are praised for their performance, it boosts their confidence and in turn helps in increasing overall productivity of the organization (Harrison, n.d.).

Human resources are any organization’s competitive advantage and its means to grow and sustain. Top-performing employees who fit the culture of an organization are invaluable. They are the ones who will raise the bar to a level that will drive and sustain performance excellence throughout the business (Smith, 2012).

Grading Notes for Slide 5

Use consistent type font throughout your notes.

Again, the content on slides is limited to key points in the presentation. Expanded information should be located in the notes section. As you develop presentations in the future consider reducing the text on slides. This will make slides readable to your audience, and encourage them to view the notes.

Re: slide point #5: Use an in text citation formatted for a quotation if you are directly quoting a source.

Solving a Business Problem

Solution 2: Work–Life Balance

Work–life balance policies include flexible working opportunities, such as flexi-time, working from home, reduced hours, and job sharing, potentially available to all staff. It also includes policies specifically directed at families like parental leave/pay and childcare support provisions such as onsite nurseries.

Apart from improved corporate reputation, reduced level of stress, and absenteeism in employees, WLB policies also ensure improved retention rates (Smeaton, Ray, & Knight, 2013).

A study by the Australian Telework Advisory Committee (2006) indicated that 70% of businesses that offered telework options demonstrated a number of positive benefits such as reduced costs, increased productivity and workforce participation, and improved employee flexibility and work–life balance (Das & Baruah, 2013).

However, a challenge associated with the implementation of WLB policies is the difficulty of administering and monitoring the flexibility (Smeaton, Ray, & Knight, 2013).

Working for long hours and during weekends could result in heightened stress and emotional exhaustion among the employees, making work–life balance for employees all the more necessary.

If companies take on the responsibility of providing healthy lifestyle training and education to employees, they would be able to reap immediate productivity benefits. Companies should not only talk about business sustainability and using resources more efficiently, they also need to apply the same principles to their most valuable resource—their employees (Lanthois, 2010).

Telework refers to work completed in an environment other than the employer workplace. Telework options include working from home or any other place such as hotel, beach, in transit, etc. (“What is Telework?” n.d.).

Loss of clients and decreased employee productivity could be other reasons adding to the limitations of policies related to work–life balance (Das & Baruah, 2013).

Grading Notes for Slide 6

Use consistent type font throughout your notes.

Solving a Business Problem

Solution 3: Organization Culture

“Organizational culture is a shared set of beliefs and values, reinforced by an organization’s symbols and structure, and manifested in the way people think and act” (Organizational Culture and Retention, n.d., p. 2).

Although there is no definite “best culture,” employee loyalty and retention are greater in companies where people are highly valued (Organization Culture and Retention, n.d.).

Companies with generous human resource policies, have a good chance to satisfy and retain employees by providing them a suitable level of privacy and control on their work environment, which enhances the motivation to commit to the organization for a longer period (Das & Baruah, 2013).

Google, for example, stocks its kitchens with free gourmet food and provides on-site laundry service for its employees. Its culture and environment is one of the reasons it is consistently ranked a great place to work (Smith, 2013).

93% of CEOs view sustainability as crucial for their firm’s future success.

In the current business environment, sustainability is something that many companies are trying to achieve. One key component of this process involves integrating sustainability into organizational culture.

A culture of sustainability refers to one in which organizational leaders and employees hold mutual beliefs and assumptions about the importance of balancing social equity, economic efficiency, and environmental accountability.

Organizations with strong cultures of sustainability support a healthy environment and improve others’ lives while continuing to function successfully in the long run (Bertels, Papania & Papania, 2010).

Grading Notes for Slide 7

You feature sustainability in all three of the statements in your notes. Since it is a dominant aspect of your presentation, refer to sustainability on the slide. You can then elaborate on this in your notes, just as you have done. For example, how does is profitability related to sustainability?

As a reminder, the content on slides is limited to key points in the presentation. Expanded information should be located in the notes section. As you develop presentations in the future consider reducing the text on slides. This will make slides readable to your audience, and encourage them to view the notes.

Solving a Business Problem

The Most Suitable Way to Retain Employees

Work–Life Balance:

Among the various solutions available, ensuring WLB among employees is the most effective way to retain employees and their valuable skills in a firm.

Employees who effectively balance the demands of work and their personal life are motivated to give their best work.

Work–life strategy can sync the corporate and individual goals to achieve a win-win situation for everyone by addressing the needs of both the employees and the organization (The Benefits of Work–Life Balance, n.d.).

Overall, the direct benefits of WLB include improved productivity and profitability, enhanced retention, reduced absences, and other benefits such as lowered costs (Smeaton, Ray, & Knight, 2013).

A healthy work–life balance is a lifestyle where an individual’s habits and actions result in the sustainable growth and development of his/her own health, wealth, business/career, family relationships, social relationships and fulfilment and enjoyment of his/her life (Lanthois, n.d.).

Grading Notes for Slide 8

Use a correct and complete in text citation when citing an article that doesn’t have an author.

Solving a Business Problem

Conclusion

Long-term health and success of any company depends upon the retention of key employees.

Retaining valuable employees will also add to any organization’s goodwill (Das & Baruah, 2013).

Therefore, organizations should treat their employees as the most valuable assets and have to take care of them to achieve organizational goals.

Organizations need to provide their employees with:

Adequate career growth opportunities

Suitable working environment

Rewards

Sufficient work–life balance

When a talented employee expresses his or her willingness to change his/her job, it is the responsibility of the management and the human resource team to find out the exact reasons leading to the decision (“Importance of Employee Retention”, n.d.).

Managing and retaining employees is a fundamental means of achieving competitive advantage.

Therefore, appropriate strategies for employee recruitment and retention are indispensable for the enhanced performance of an organization (Das & Baruah, 2013).

Grading Notes for Slide 9

Use consistent type font throughout your notes.

Re: slide point #3: Review and revise the structure of this sentence.

Re: notes point #1: Use a consistent form when referring to “his or her;” that is write either “his or her” or “his/her.”

Solving a Business Problem

References

Bertels, S., Papania, L., & Papania, D. (2010). Embedding sustainability in organization culture. Network of Business Sustainability. Retrieved from http://nbs.net/wp-content/uploads/Systematic-Review-Sustainability-and-Corporate-Culture.pdf)

Das, B. L., & Baruah, D. (2013). Employee retention: A review of literature. IOSR Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM), 14 (2), 8-16. Retrieved from http://iosrjournals.org/iosr-jbm/papers/Vol14-issue2/B01420816.pdf?id=7915

Employee retention. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://managementstudyguide.com/employee-retention.htm

Employee rewards & recognition case study AEIS - Max! Employee reward & recognition program. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/incentivemarketing.org/resource/resmgr/imported/AEIS Max.pdf

Harrison, K. (n.d.). Why employee recognition is so important. Cutting Edge PR. Retrieved from http://cuttingedgepr.com/articles/emprecog_so_important.asp

Hays, S. (1999, February 1). Pros & cons of pay for performance. Workforce. Retrieved from http://workforce.com/articles/pros-cons- of-pay-for- performance

Grading Comments click on A2 above or read below:

Grading Notes for Slides 10, 11, and 12

Required references should include between 3-7 resources. You’ve used a number of references (19) in your presentation. While it is a good practice to integrate sources in academic writing, they should be used sparingly and only to the extent that they enhance your own analysis of your argument. Your writing should reflect your own original ideas. If paraphrasing the words of sources, your writing should reflect your original interpretation of sources’ writing.

Double-check the formatting of your reference list entries, eliminating unnecessary spaces.

Continue to review the resource you’re using to guide your use of APA style as I noticed some inconsistencies in your in text citations (i.e., in text citations for quotations have 3 elements: author’s name, publication date, and location of cited material).

Solving a Business Problem

AThompson48 (A) - Required references should be between 3-7 resources. Using a large number of references can lead to plaguerism and loosing your own voice or findings based on the supporting resources.

Lanthois, P. (2010). Workforce sustainability – the untapped source of productivity in your business. Retrieved from http://worklifebalancefoundation.com/wlbf/resources/work-environment/135-workforce-sustainability-the-untapped-source-of-improved- productivity-in-your-business

Lanthois, P. (n.d.). Work life balance: The key to a sustainable business and a sustainable life. Retrieved from http://evancarmichael.com/library/dr-paul-lanthois/work–life-Balance-The-Key-To-A-Sustainable-Business-and-A-Sustainable- Life.html

Lewis, J. (n.d.). The disadvantage of giving too much verbal praise to an employee. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/disadvantages-giving-much-verbal-praise-employee-18231.html

Marone, M. & Blauth, C. (n.d.). Creating a problem-solving culture. achieveglobal. Retrieved from http://rpi.edu/dept/hr/docs/Creating%20a%20Problem%20Solving%20Culture.pdf

McFarlin, K. (n.d.). How to address issues & problems in the workplace. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/address- issues-problems-workplace-10186.html

Narang, U. (2013). HRM practices – Its impact on employee retention. IRC’s International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Social and Management Sciences, 1(4), 48-51. Retrieved from http://ircjournals.org/vol1issue4/48-51.pdf

Solving a Business Problem

Organizational culture and retention, (n.d.). Retrieved from http://uwo.ca/faculty_staff/img/documents/culture.pdf

Problem. (n.d.). In Business Dictionary online. Retrieved from http://businessdictionary.com/definition/problem.html

Smeaton, D., Ray, K., & Knight, G. (2014, June). Costs and benefits to business of adopting work life balance working practices: A literature review. Department for Business and Innovation Skills. Retrieved from https://gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/323290/bis-14-903-costs-and-benefits-to-business-of-adopting- work–life-balance-working-practices-a-literature-review.pdf

Smith, J. (2012). Sustainability through employee recognition. Peoria magazines. Retrieved from http://.peoriamagazines.com/ibi/2012/sep/sustainability-through-employee-recognition

Smith, S. V. (2013, August 14). How the best places to work are nailing employee engagement. Forbes. Retrieved from http://forbes.com/sites/sylviavorhausersmith/2013/08/14/how-the-best-places-to-work-are-nailing-employee-engagement/#2fbd319538aaa

What is telework? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://nradigitalkits.com/telework/what-is-telework/

The benefits of work–life balance, (n.d.). Retrieved from http://greatworksolutions.com/work–life-benefits.html

Solving a Business Problem