The purpose of this research is to clarify the concept of Workflow Standardization it also shows the impact of Workflow Standardization on the employee productivity in the organization in a hand and in the other hand we have customer satisfaction about the product or service regardless of quality, quantity and cost
There's an interaction between the employee and organizational levels which make workflow standardization formalized at an intermediate level also it has consequences for making employees comprehend the specific dimensions of this standardization
In recent years, almost all researchers are talking about how could a company maximize profit and as long as we are talking about profit so we should take in our consideration ''customers'' it's not easy to attract customers or to make them loyal to your brand.
Customer satisfaction can't be achieved by only high quality but you should look deeps in organization rules and the way employees deal with customers that's why most of companies put workflow standardization and train its employees well in order to achieve company's vision and apply it's mission but regardless of whether the employee work hard or not some employees are flexible in applying rules and others are restricted and obviously from customer's perspective that the flexible employee satisfy him more than restricted employee without any doubt.
Arbitrariness in applying organization rules with customer is employee's right but some customers will not accept that specially when they notice that other competitors are more flexible or when employee asked them to do this rule for no purpose definitely they will get a disappointment because they will feel that this rule is pointless
Maybe some employees deal arbitrarily with customers because company limits his power maybe this rule is really important but the way employee dealing with customer make customer feel that this rule is pointless a lot of assumptions but it's obvious that there's an issue.
Numerous systems have been developed in order to analyze the workflows standardization data and they tried to make new approaches and upgrade it to balance between standards that been established by top management and the employee authority it's actually a hard achieved equation. Yes standardization limits employee's mistakes but also it limits employee productivity, innovation and we can count it as tools that demotivate the employee.
So here in this research we will try to find how could the workflow standardization could be useful because managers will make the employees work within a specific frame developed by top management but also it could be an effective way to eliminate employee's flexibility with customers which leads to make customers unsatisfied
Chapter 1
1. Problem Statement
There's a direct relationship between workflow standardization and the employee productivity and also this standards effect directly on the customer satisfaction and the more standards you put you will limit employee's power which will demotivate the employee also you'll make unsatisfied customers and if you didn't put standards you will be in a risk of how could employee deal with customers.
Important of the Study
The research is important because of the investigation and the analytical thinking which will show the relation between workflow standardization and employee productivity and customer satisfaction which will effect directly on the work efficiency with caring about the customer's satisfaction
1.2 Research Questions
* Is workflow standardization undermining employee motivation?
* Does Motivation associate customer Productivity?
* Does Employees Productivity influence Customer Satisfaction?
Research Objective
The research objective is to show the relation and the direct effectiveness between workflow standardization and employee productivity in terms of efficiency and effectiveness on a hand and on the other hand it shows the relation between workflow standardization and customer satisfaction regardless of whether the employee is flexible or restricted
Hypotheses
ï‚· H0 There is a relation between Workflow Standardization and Employee Motivation
ï‚· H1 There is a relation between Employee Motivation and Employee Productivity
ï‚· H2 There is a relation between Employee Productivity and Customer Satisfaction.
ï‚· H3 There is a relation between Workflow Standardization and Employee Productivity
And Customer Satisfaction
Chapter 2
1. The Definition of Workflow Standardization
Workflow standardization is simple the automation step of any business process that takes place inside the company or the organization , workflow standardization management is directly deal with 4 main elements starting with controlling then monitoring after those optimizing and finally supporting workflows, while most of the formal approaches to workflow modeling consider only the process perspective without paying attention to resources perspective also they don't put scenario about customer's issues also it's very hard to put scenarios about the employee who deal directly with customers so most of companies put a workflow standards and start to train employees how to work within this work frame then they let employee being flexible or inflexible it's up to him/her as long as the employee work within this frame and maybe also without any supervision. (Basu, A., & Kumar, A. (2002).
Workflow standardization management systems have been developed rapidly and of course the numbers of companies that use this system are increases fast. The workflow standardization is a complex process that consists of well organized activities in order to accomplish organizational goal so in general workflow is structured into numerous perspectives. (Pellicer, E., Correa, C., Yepes, V., & Alarcón, L. (2012).
workflow standardization put standards and it allocate responsibilities, duties for for employees according to the level in the matrix and every job has its functions and processes and also its different according to the branch or the department.
Workflow standardization effects organization directly in two ways operating procedures and organizational hierarchy on hand and on the other hand it effects on decision making way. ( Maniha, J. K. (1974).
Workflow standardization is close somehow to bureaucracy and the main meaning of bureaucracy is referring to any organization or institution well organized by the top management with structure, normative and process also it talks about the rules, values and regulations which made by top management as a mix of advantage and patronage., talking about bureaucracy we have here at least 2 concepts that explain the ideas and meanings:-
Starting with ''ideal-type'' and talking about this concept of workflow standardization as the most efficient concept of the organization characterized by making a hierarchy and also unity of command then division of labor and finally the task specialization,
and the other is the ''merit-based'' and it talks about staffing and promotion on a hand and on the other hand it talks about rules and regulations universally applied in order to govern the system of the work. (Pires, R. C. (2011).
2.1 Workflow Standardization and Job Modification
Job modification is the alternative framework that made for understanding the relation between 2 concepts which will make the idea of job-modification framework clear the first concept is organizational structure and the second one is employee reactions of course on a way or another the structural properties of the organization influence directly on employee behavior by shaping a special characteristics that match with their jobs and tasks, workflow Standardization and organizational structure are perceived as a fundamental affect on work challenge and complexity in terms of independences, skills variation, task weight and finally feedback for more efficiency in the employees' jobs also work challenge and complexity are influence on the employees' behavior in their work particularly and generally in the organization. (Oldham, G. R., & Hackman, J. (1981).
Organizational structure is different from a company to another according to company's needs and company's condition and usually this structure should be suitable and matching with the required requirements.
Organizational structure is classified into mechanical structures and organic structures
*Mechanical structure: - is specified through some attributes just like complexity, centralization and programs for behaviors in the shaped regulations. In mechanical structure usually the manager is working within the organizations' structure and functions
*Organic structure:- is more flexible and the degree of employee influence in the company according on his knowledge, his previous experience and skills about duties in organic structure are also flexible and this structure is so sensitive with the surround environment the attributes of organic structure ''decentralized'' is fewer regulations and empower employees in empower employees in limited conditions (Sarros, J. C., Tanewski, G. A., Winter, R. P., Santora, J. C., & Densten, I. L. (2002).
Employee reaction is also built according to organizational structure and organization behavior because management should care about employees' perception and should take in consideration how to rewarding employees and motivate them and make them contribute and participate in decisions the management should be supportive because if the management didn't care about employee it could demotivate employees and developing a negative attitude in work which lead to lower satisfaction and don't want high performance with lack of satisfaction (Rhoades, L., Eisenberger, R., & Armeli, S. (2001)
2.2 Workflow Standardization and Decision Making
Talking about centralization it's actually related to the scope which leaders usually allowed to control and be independent to taking decisions that concerned the teams instead of taking decision by participation.
Workflow standardization decision making is actually always try to reduce employee's opportunities to participate and contribute thoughts or point of views and eliminate employee's right to discuss with the team about the issues and problem which face the team from his perspective also this way eliminate the team to get a chance in solving this issue by taking the employee's experiences also it'll reflect on the employee's motivation because this policy makes employee feel just like he/she is just a cog in the wheel. (Arnold, J. A., Arad, S., Rhoades, J. A., & Drasgow, F. (2000)
On the other hand we have the decentralized decision making which always try to encourage employees to contribute in the discussing and participate in decisions and provides employees latitude in order to express their opinion and to show their point of views
In decentralized team members share ideas and their point of view, which not only encourage a great variety of experience and ideas in solving problems but also it makes employees feel that they a value which will make them work harder as long as the employee will express his point of view
The autonomy is affording the decentralization also it supports the employee and increase empowerment and thus increases employee's enthusiasm, Intrinsic motivation, and decisions obligation. (Zahir Faridi, M., Sharif Chaudhry, I., Hanif, I., & Nuzair Ansari, F. (2012). )
2.3 Organizational Hierarchies and Organizational Corruption
The organizational hierarchy composed of a singular or group of authorities at the top with variety subsequent levels of authority beneath them this hierarchy is common among big organizations and most governments and this hierarchical is with different levels of authority and management
Organizational hierarchy established by organizational formative context and routine this hierarchy is formative context because it adjusts conditions by making employees have access between each others and report this routines and the required activities in order to interactions. (Crawford, J., & Mills, A. J. (2011).
Organizational corruption is actually a phenomenon that came from abusing organizational power, misuse position, misapply rules or authority for employee's personal benefit or collective benefits.( Anand, V., Ashforth, B. E., & Joshi, M. (2004).
Talking about bureaucratic because it has an effective control on standardize work and standardize its processes including formalized rules, applied policy and routines also bureaucracy has its hierarchical system and centralized structures and specialization at work and of course thus structures control employees' behaviors on a way or another and the top management try to apply that in order to predict the employees' behavior and direct the employees' tendency into the organizational goals and objectives.( Johnson, P., & Gill, J. 1993)
Talking about organization-level corruption and of course that the individual-level corruption is as important as the organization-level corruption and actually the organization-level corruption is usually made by executives and employees at different levels, on a way or another some employees do that on behalf of their organization.
Corruption has a market in all big organization that has a lack of transparency between employees and customers in practice and also has lack strong and independent department that combat corruption. (Luo, Y. (2005).
Chapter 3
3. Introduction to Employee Productivity
Employee productivity is the quantities of goods and or the number of services that employees produce there's numerous measurements to measure employee productivity because measurement could be according to efficiency or quantity or quality but any measurement for the productivity should consider the time and the final output in order to can measure it according to standards. (Mark, J. A. (1972).
productivity that comes from job performance has been proved that there's a strong relationship between performance and happiness because we can count happiness as a motivation to employees especially when your job require social interaction with customers also unhappy employees can effect negatively on the other employees performance.( BÃ-CKERMAN, P., & ILMAKUNNAS, P. (2012).
About motivation of course organization's top management have a great influence on job satisfaction but about employee commitment and involvement they have a less influence and this influence could motivate employee on a hand and could keep employees demotivated managers suppose to understand how to motivate employees because you can't motivate all employees by one way but you should follow studies and analytical ways to motivate employees well motivation leads to satisfaction and satisfaction leads to productivity.( Ahmadi, F., & ahmadi, Y. (2011).
Then to increase motivation managers suppose to establish a motivational environment in the organization for the employee in order to enhance employee performance and increase productivity and make employee care about the required outcome regardless of whether efficiency or quality or quantity and participate with employees issues and future plans and take their feedback also rewards could be a good motivation for employees.
(MARIN, I. (2012)
3.1 The Value of Customer Satisfaction
customer satisfaction without any doubt is the primary determinant to any company because it effect directly on company's profit and its market growth as long as satisfaction related to loyalty and customer satisfaction isn't only in cost or quality or if it's a service and not only good services but there are other factors and top management should take that in consideration (Budhwar, P. S., Varma, A., Singh, V., & Dhar, R. (2006).
customer satisfaction is understanding customer needs and try to match your service to customers needs in order to keep your customer satisfied and keep customer retention and you can't gain satisfied customers without gaining their trust and this trust only based on expectation and when expectations match with perceptions it means that customer will be satisfied but you will be in a trouble if expectations are higher than perceptions so you should match expectations with perceptions. (Danesh, S., Nasab, S., & Kwek Choon, L. (2012).
lately most companies consider customers as kings and queens because its very hard to please them that's because customers are smarter they need more price conscious they ask for more demanding and sadly they are less forgiving because they are aware with competitors that offer equal or better offers and the hard challenge today is not only caring about customer satisfaction as numerous competitors do that but the real challenge is to gain delighted customers and increase customer loyalty because the more satisfied customers you have the more profit you will gain which lead to minimize operating costs which be called economies of scales.( Unnikrishnan, A., & Johnson, B. B. (2012).
3.2 Job designs and Productivity
3.2.1 Job Enrichment
From organizational perspective job enrichment is looking at employee's needs top management should enhance employees' planning and also let employees control their business with less supervision from manager's side and increase employees self-evaluation and it'll lead to increase employees' decision which lead employees to bear responsibility and it's actually make employees more independent in order to achieve company's goals and support employees with feedback in order to prevent mistakes which will enrich employee's job. (Monczka, R. M., & Reif, W. E. (1973).
Job enrichment is related directly to motivation which assume that employees behavior toward the job is in two factors 1) employee satisfaction comes from the job itself when he achieve a task or when he achieve progress and we can count it as intrinsic Factor 2) employees dissatisfaction comes from the other factors away from the job itself and it's the extrinsic factor just like the company's policy or the supervision so they should focus on the other factors in order to motivate employees. (Norton, S. D., Massengill, D., & Schneider, H. L. (1979).
But actually this point of view isn't right some how because some employees get bored of their job they need to change their job tasks also about motivation there's no a special theory about motivation because motivation is not only different from an employee to another according to their needs but also if we are talking about an employee it could be different from time to time that's why a lot of theories started to appear in order to satisfy employee just like job enrichment and job enlargement
3.2.2 Job Enlargement
Job enlargement is to redesigning the job in order to making employee see the job outcome by increasing activities in his job and this kind of design is far away from specialization but it could motivate employees on a way or another because it makes employee accomplish new activities then the here's the top management turn to analyze if job enlargement motivate employees or not. (Raza, M., & Nawaz, M. (2011).
Specialization and making job standards of course will increase production and efficiency on a hand and sadly on the other hand it could make employees unsatisfied and dissatisfaction will make employees not motivated and without motivation employees will lose efficiency by time but a lot of employees have residence to change their job also they will be afraid because they don't know this job well and its rules. (Reif, W. E., & Schoderbek, P. P. (1966).
3.2.3 Job rotation
Job rotation is to move employee from a position to another or to give the employee different tasks in a specified period in order to support employee obtaining competency or gaining new skills also job rotation made to deal with unsatisfied employees to find the problem then working on solving this problems.( Kaymaz, K. (2010).
Changing job design to employees frequently in terms of job activities or tasks affect directly on employees productivity also making employees gain new experience within the same industry will motivate him to work harder than before because boredom is a big barrier in employees' progress so top management should care more about employees and motivate them. (TAKAHASHI, S. (2011).
Volvo Case
About job enrichment equation Volvo had solved this problem years ago professionally by defining job enrichment simply and clearly they worked on creating jobs without any deficiency but they try to enhance employee satisfaction and they believed that employees have a need that they want to feel that they are related to a group which allow them to identify themselves by the product which lead the employee to appreciate the organization and this appreciation will lead him to work harder and its different from job enlargement because job enlargement expands in employee's duties in order to make employee see the outcome from his work to motivate him Volvo management changed employees also from a team to another they gave more responsibility to employees individually and to the team in order to motivate them
After survey there was a good indicator that the employees' responses are positive which mean the job enrichment success because of the job variation made them feel satisfied after gaining more experience not only in different work places but also in how to work with a team experience increasing satisfaction equal increasing in productivity which lead to reduce absenteeism and eliminate turnover. (Gibson, C. H. (1973).
3.3 The Relationship between Employee's Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction
Talking about satisfaction we should mention ''expectation'' and ''perception'' as long as there's matching between expectations and perceptions that's mean that you will keep your employees and customers satisfied
Companies should provide customers with the expected quality and reasonable cost in order to keep customer satisfied that's why research and development department should always go with the flow and provide services with all required technical support and soft skills support in order to enhance customer satisfaction and attract new customers. (Pantouvakis, A. (2011).
Customer satisfaction comes from numerical factors and talking generally every customer has his own priorities regardless of whether services or products but the most effective thing is '' the way that employees follow during dealing with customers'' this employee could make the company's image in the customer's eyes good and could make it bad could attract customer to come again and on the other hand could drive customer not to come again specially when you have a lot of competitors that's why by logic companies know how could employee satisfaction reflect directly on customer satisfaction
Employee satisfaction stems from numerous factors and the most effective factor is the job satisfaction so company should always make new studies and new researches about employee's satisfaction and how to reduce boredom in order to satisfy customer to increase productivity also they should enhance employee's training to make them more professional and increase efficiency and to reduce errors. (Ram, P., G., S., & Prabhakar, G. V. (2011).
employees can move their satisfaction on a way or another to customers by delivering to customers the most valuable services or product to them however there are some organizations believe that employee satisfaction only effect when the job is require dealing with customer directly they are alright somehow because employee who deal with customer directly should be satisfied but the employee who doesn't deal with customer directly his satisfaction could effect on the outcome regardless it's a product or a services and the outcome is very important to customers as well that's why company should understand customer's needs and wants also should develop it's researches and its products or services on a hand and on the other hand they should train employees to work efficiently and effectiveness in order to serve customer perfectly, help them as possible then take customer's feedback to report it to R&D in order to develop the outcome to match with customer's needs and so on that's how should company perform. (Baruah, P., & Barthakur, B. (2012).
Chapter 4
4. The Effects of Workflow Standardization on Employee Productivity
Workflow standardization is the limitation on employee's authorities in order to confirm that employees achieve the required performance also to put the relation between customers and employees in a clear frame from customer perspective and train employees well in order to applying organizational restricted rules professionally to keep customer satisfy on a hand and on the other hand apply organizational profit this equation isn't hard to apply it however there's a big number of organizations don't apply it in order to saving organization's money yes they save money on the short term however on the long term you will have unprofessional employees which will lead to making goals ambiguous, uncertainty in decision taking and self-demotivation. (Reis, D. A., & Betton, J. H. (1990).
Customer services who deal with customers directly this kind of work needs more intrinsic motivation in order to balance between applying the organizational structure and be flexible with customers in order to accomplish required tasks easily
obviously that this kind of job needs more workflow standardization and this kind of tasks needs more intrinsic satisfaction to achieve efficiency and overcome challenges which increase performance while extrinsic motivation is caring more about managing employee's stress which influence directly also on performance
This kind of job is so sensitive because employees are dealing with customers directly so employees should control their emotions which cause another stress
Employee's soft skills are more required than technical skills as long as they only need skills how to deal with customer how to satisfy him while they apply organizational restricted rules. (Adomaitiene, R., & SlatkeviÄienÄ-, G. (2008).
4.1 The mutual commitment between employee and organization
Organizational commitment toward the employee as long as the employee produce the required tasks the organization in return is obligated to enhance job satisfaction and motivate employees which will reduce absenteeism also it'll increase productivity which will eliminate turning over which is not good from organizational perceptive as organizational see it as expenditure and not good from employee's perspective as long as they see it as insecurity. ( Sahoo, C., Behera, N., & Tripathy, S. (2010).
Job commitment stems from the work satisfaction that's why by logic there's a strong relationship between employee's commitment and performance also it's different back to its level where you put commitment in high levels that will lead to employee's satisfaction which will leave to increase productivity and on the other hand employee's commitment could be an effective organizational tool to enhance increasing employee's performance. ( Kelidbari, H., Dizgah, M., & Yusefi, A. (2011).
Commitment is required during implementing new ideas and human resources suppose to work with a high level of commitment in order to increase employee's efficiency by making them feel save when they provides a healthy organization environment as long as employees achieve organization's goals commitment as an approach is classified according to its usage that's play a main role in increasing efficiency, enhance employee's productivity also encourage employees.
Organization is committed to suppose to train its employees, upgrade them, making a good working atmosphere and provide them with all required tools just like computers, machines, offices, cars and all required tools and assets in order to helping employees to work efficiently and effectiveness toward organization's goals. (Owoyemi, O., Oyelere, M., Elegbede, T., & Gbajumo-Sheriff, M. (2011).
Once there's a defect in this required elements from the organization's side don't wait an efficient work from employees because it's a simple equation but if organization responds all employees' requests and provided them with all required elements and didn't gain the required outcome. It means that there's a problem and they should analyze flaw aspects and find the deficient aspect
Beside achieving organizational current targets and making daily tasks of course there's an important commitment from employee's side this commitment could be mentioned in the contract and if the company didn't mention it in the contract it will be an ethical commitment which is keeping organization's secrets and about customers they should keep and save customer's secrets as well. (ÇERRI, S. (2012).
4.2 The impact of Workflow Standardization on the Employee Productivity
Employee empowerment is an authority stemmed from management to its employees in order to increase flexibility to make employees able to take the most suitable decisions before empowering employees the top management should analyze the job and make standardizations to make measuring performance more easy and as long as the top management will increase employee's authorities it'll reflect on employees' responsibilities which will drive employees who are risk avoidance to avoid taking decisions which will reflect on the organizational performance because employees don't want to bear responsibility over a wrong decision taken in a time to make work more flexible
Empowerment is a way to make employees contribute in decision making and it's important to take employee's feedback as long as employees are the direct communication with customers. (Manzoor, Q. (2012).
