Dec 27, 2021

8 min read

Efficient Power Management

“We live in an age where corporations are people and employees are not.”

-Clifford Cohen

The most crucial issue faced by officials in the corporate sector is adequate manpower management. The thin line between availability and employability has become critical, especially during the regular reduction of operational costs. Although it has undeniable truth that a single old employee is much more beneficial concerning the efficiency due to elaborated experience in the organization in which one has worked for several years. However, top-level executives sometimes decide to replace such employee with 3 to 4 fresh employees. The new employees have been inducted with the reduced salary, sometimes one-fourth of the compensation paid to the old employee. Various volunteer retirement plans are sought, and employees are expelled just like an old cow that has almost ceased to give milk. The individuals in their fifties are also desiring to leave the job as they think that the pension and total benefits may cross the present salary income and happy to accept the offer. Issues of health at an older age are also responsible for choosing the existing policy. By the time, the children of such employees also grow up and start earning a

handsome salary. The older employees’ valuable and robust decision power is sometimes much more important and profitable compared to four-fold very fresh and newly employed young generations.

Contract staffing

With the studies of managerial issues of manpower and material, a new concept of contract staffing has popped up in recent times for more efficient use. The term is called contract staffing, in which corporate employs individuals on a contract basis instead of hiring them traditionally. As a result, the hiring is more straightforward, and the system is narrowed down, unlike the traditional long strenuous nature of induction.

As per the new acquisition method, only those workers are hired who are needed over a limited period and for a specific project. Companies need not keep them for longer in their payrolls when the work is finished for a predetermined target. It is also easy for employers to fire them at any time if the work specifications are not met as the standards desired by them, and even work unions and associations are also eliminated. The efficiency and targeted outcomes are considerably at an improved level due to such contracts. The sources of reliable and reputed service providers are readily available nowadays as the manpower outsourcing companies make highly talented professionals who are available with the shortest notices. Such working individuals’ standards are much higher for the required projects due to their efficient handling of projects over considerably reliable minds than the procurement of people from online job portals.

In the early days, large organizations used to employ few psychologists for efficient use of manpower. However, they had efficient skills and knowledge on ergonomics, which is the study of work and its efficiency reducing the wastage of energy and time. Moreover, it is a fact that when you do not have to put employees on the payroll, you are still able to manage elaborated infrastructure as you are not spending much of your valuable time on downsizing the staff strength and literally do not require aspects of human resource management.

Outsourcing of work

Large organizations are more likely to get the work done from outsourcing. The main benefit of outsourcing is the root cause of indirectly eliminating the need for manpower management. With outsourcing, not only the workload is being reduced for your business, but it can also complete the core responsibilities in time with a significant amount of efficiency. It is generally not liked by the present employees but outsourcing, as a matter of fact, is an ability to keep your day-to-day activities unaffected by workload or absenteeism. Running a business or a corporate office demands considerable time and therefore reducing stressful situations. Hence, it is helpful to delegate the tasks to outsourcing agencies to manage the work productively. Human resource employees leaving the organization suddenly may cause an unpredictable delay in the work and output. Outsourcing also reduces the cost of material, electricity, and system. Thus, the money is saved to a great extent.

Reward or punishment behind work

I had heard from an animal trainer that there are three kinds of horses.

1. First, who starts running after being beaten by a hunter.

2. Second, who starts running on the sound of a hunter.

3. Third, who starts running just on raising the hunter.

You and me, as employees, are just like them. I may be working due to the fear of fired up or may work hard on scolding. You may be working just because your boss was about to call you or predicted that you would be instructed in a lousy manner specifically for an issue. The third person may be working to accomplish the work as he heard the boss pulling somebody down to some employees at the office. These categories of ourselves are working on the principles of punishment.

But some people are working on the principle of rewards. The rewards may or may not be monetary. For example, a good word edified in front of people may result in an excellent output with an extended level of satisfaction. Humans generally desist from punished behavior and persist in rewarded behavior. Nobody likes orders, especially in front of their friends or relatives.

Self-Motivation

One more group of people work beyond the categories of reward and punishment; they are self-motivated people. The work drive is generated from within. They love to do what they do. They feel more fulfilled and improve their overall quality of life. These are minorities, but there are minorities of 20% who do 80% of the total work. These are reliable people. They work even when they are not observed, controlled, or instructed. I recall a story of three people working on a building. One trespasser asked the first man,

“What are you doing?”

The first man replied, “Can’t you see; I am laying bricks and doing my labor job?”

Trespasser asked the second man, “What are you doing?”

The second man replied, “I am constructing a house and earning my bread.”

Trespasser asked the third man, “What are you doing?”

The third man replied, “I am fabricating one of the most beautiful monuments.”

After few years, the first man was still doing a labor job, the second man was still working for his bread, but the third man was a millionaire.

Earl Nightingale has rightly said, “You become what you think about.”

Training of Employees

Training of employees in the organization is necessary for enhancing the skills needed to carry out a particular job. The training leads to higher proficiency. The quality of performance is commendably increased, higher profits are achieved as a whole. Planning of work becomes very easy when individuals are trained for specific tasks. The particular knowledge of skills saves time and energy.

I would like to explain it with a simple example. I had to write few letters to the highly paid executives of the leading chemical industry. I had a database of 253 such salaried employees. I would have taken few days to write them the information regarding their taxes, but as I had undergone the training of mail merge technique, I could write the letter with full-fledged individual data within few minutes. In the same way, I could have never managed my communications to my readers and authors without the specific training of an automated email system.

Types of Training

I broad sense that the training can be categorized in two types:

a) On Job Training

It is simple and imparted to employees with a concept of actual work environment period. It is completed by learning things while doing. For example, as a supervisor, when I was teaching adjustment of RPM (Revolution Per Minute) on turbine wheel of aero-engine to my subordinates, 80% of them did not get the idea, but when I took them to the helicopter and ask them to make the adjustment while the engine was in running condition, 98% of them learned the skill in one attempt. I had never had to repeat the training to the same individual.

b) Off Job Training

It is also called vestibule training. The training is imparted in a place where no actual site is in the picture. This training is useful when there is a large number of individuals. Workshops, seminars, and conferences include this training in which large gatherings taught the skills. For instance, we used to call joint custodians of currency chest branches under the Reserve Bank of India at one particular place and imparted training on software meant to use daily to manage remittances issued to various banks.

Transfer of Training

According to psychologist BF Skinner, the transfer of training is defined as follow:

“Transfer of training is concerned with the question of whether or not the learning of material A-say Mathematics — aids, hinders or does not affect the subsequent learning of material B — say Physics or Chemistry.

There are three types of transfer of training

(A) Positive Transfer Of Training

The degree to which trainees successfully apply their job skills gained in training sessions is considered a “positive transfer of training” (Baldwin & Ford, 1980).

(B) Neutral Transfer Of Training

Neutral transfer of training occurs when the previously learned skill has nothing to do with the skill that one is trying to learn now. In simple words, it neither hinders nor facilitates the learning of a new skill. For example, knowing car driving has nothing to do with playing or learning piano.

Sometimes the effect of transfer of training hampers effectiveness in subsequent activity. When I approached the master to learn keynotes of musical instruments, he asked whether I had any instrument experience. I told him, “I know almost everything.”

He said with sighed expression, “Oh, then I have to charge double!” Sometimes it is easy to teach when the slate is blank.

After my formal interview when I was induced in a public sector bank, I formally asked the interviewer, who was a psychologist, what is the preference of defense personnel over the fresh candidate or why the posts are reserved in the organizations for the military. She said humbly that the defense personnel have good physical health and fitness. Also, they are disciplined in their approaches to working style due to their formal training and education in Armed Forces. Therefore, as a whole, the trained manpower is not only helpful for managing work, but they are also helpful for better outcomes and profitability.