Introduction
The success of any organisation depends solely on the contribution of the employees. Employees are the most essential element of an organisation, and thus managers should put the needs of the workers ahead of theirs in order to ensure smooth running of an organisation. Motivating employees is the first step to ensuring that they give maximum contribution to the growth of an organisation.
There are various ways of motivating employees, which include good salaries and remunerations, promotion, recognition and rewarding, leadership style, and off-duty times among other benefits. However, different cultures dictate different ways of motivating employees. Diversity in the world cultures directly relates to differences in the organisational cultures in different parts of the world.
For instance, the workaholic Japanese culture is different from the American working culture of almost eight hours a day. Hence, a Japanese employee is motivated in a different style from an American employee, who does not work for long hours.
Employees are human beings and so are the organisational managers; therefore, managers should always respect their rights at all cost for the benefits of the organisational success. According to the international labour treaties, employees have the right to demand better working conditions, and if not provided by the employer, they can take the matter to the industrial courts.
However, some nations do not adhere to that legal requirement; instead, they have their own labour laws that deprive employees of the right to demand better working conditions. Such nations put much attention to economic growth, which they achieve while retaining poor GDPs for employees are economically poor. Among such nations are China and the UAE that stress on employees’ contribution while on the other hand they pay low salaries and deprive them the right to ask for more from their employers.
Literature Review
According to Lipman (2013), a management and corporate life writer at Forbes, there are five ways to motivate and five ways to de-motivate employees. Factors that motivate employees include aligning employee’s economic interests with the performance of the organisation. Daft (2008) notes, managers should understand that an organisation achieves good performance from employees’ contribution, and thus the management team should offer incentives for workers’ contribution.
Lipman (203) feels that this move would allow employees to feel part of the company’s success and hence motivate them to work harder in the future. In addition, managers ought to take interest in the future growth of the employees’ career. Employers who mind about the direction of career of their workers makes them feel motivated.
According to the Kuwait Times (2013), most of employees in Kuwait offer career development programs that motivate employees and make them feel part of growing organisations. It is interesting to know that organisations that offer career development programs to their employees give way to innovation and quality production, and hence are more competitive than those that do not offer such opportunities to their employees (Kuwait Times 2013).
Willmore (2009) is of the opinion that managers and employers should uphold work-life balance in their employees’ lives. This factor reminds the employers that employees are humans with greater life responsibilities beyond their contribution to the organisations that they work for, and thus their lives should be respected. Doyle (2005) adds that respecting employees’ lives requires that they have enough time to spearhead other responsibilities that lie ahead of their lives.
According to Podmoroff (2005), this move may appear as a small gesture to an organisation, but it has a remarkable impact to the overall growth of an organisation that depends on the contribution of the employees. Kehoe and Alston (2007) emphasise that employees appreciate working with an employer who understands their lives beyond the scope of the organisation. For instance, managers should send representatives to employees’ family functions such as weddings or funeral ceremonies.
Managers and employees should have effective industrial management skills in their organisation for this requirement, according to Lipman (2013) is a crucial element of ensuring good relationship between employees and their employers. Kehoe and Alston (2007) add that industrial management offer platform for dispute management within an organisation and emphasises on the establishment of effective communication channels in an organisation.
In any working environment, there has to be issues that demand deliberation between employees and their employers. Hence, it is important for employers to listen to employees whenever they have issues that call for attention. The most effective way of ensuring effective communication, according to Daft (2008), is the establishment of flat communication structure that does not demand hierarchical protocols.
Protocols often frustrate employees’ efforts to have managers listen to their grievances and thus it is prudent for managers to lessen them for communication purposes. Employers and managers ought to treat their employees in a respectful way, as they would like to have them treat them back (Doyle 2005).
Employees are often very respectable persons and hardly do they offend their managers and employers. On the other hand, managers and employers are not often respectful to employees and they often mistreat them. This factor requires that managers and employees be respectable persons to their subordinates, who in this case are employees, and treat them in a respectable manner.
On the other hand, according to the Lipman (2013), factors that de-motivate employees include abuse of managerial or supervision positions by managers and supervisors over their subordinates.
This trend has an inverse relation with the fifth factor of motivating employees. This analogy applies in all areas where human relations apply and especially in the working conditions. A humble supervisor gets along well with his or her subordinates, and on the other hand, an arrogant supervisor always has problems with subordinates (Daft 2008).
Arrogant supervisors and managers do not take matters related to their subordinates seriously, and hence thus they annoy the employees. On realising that they ignore their matters, employees tend to use other ill mechanisms for retaliation, which include go-slow protesting and striking among others that lead to poor performance of an organisation. Hence, managers and supervisors should avoid abusing the powers bestowed to them over the rights and needs of their subordinates.
Shallal (2011) notes that managers often take advantage of a successful project of an employee, which often takes place in innovative projects, whereby employees work tirelessly in ensuring that they develop a product that will boast competiveness of an organisation.
After a successful breakthrough, the project receives credit and often some managers take credit as theirs, which really should not belong to them. Willmore (2009) warns that such an action is humiliating and unethical, and often demoralises the employees hence they fail to exercise their innovativeness for fear of denial of their credit by their bosses.
In addition, managers and supervisors often lose temper, hence de-motivating their subordinates. Willmore (2009) holds that loyalty belongs to the persons that are capable of retaining their temper even at difficult situations. Losing temper is a clear indicator of dictatorship and pride and thus managers and supervisors should avoid it at all cost.
It is difficult for an individual to think outside the box after losing temper and thus difficult to develop solutions to the pressing problems. Employees feel humiliated and demoralised when associating with a tempered boss as it is difficult to reason with him or her when a problem arises (Migrant Forum in Asia 2009). The failure by managers and supervisors to stand up for their subordinates or organisation when under an external attack causes de-motivation to employees.
Employees should enjoy the protection of an organisation provided the threat under question is beyond the control of an employee. For instance, an organisation should take responsibility of an accident case involving its vehicle, but not leave it on the hands of the driver. Failing to take responsibility would de-motivate the driver and worst still the reputation of an organisation to the public.
Lastly, failure by managers and supervisors to praise their subordinates after doing a commendable job causes de-motivation. Kehoe and Alston (2007) posit that human beings like praises when it is due and they work hard to achieve it whenever there is an opportunity.
Working environments offers numerous opportunities for praises, and thus employees work hard for praises from their bosses after making great achievements. After great achievements, bosses’ failure to recognise and praise the workers greatly-demoralises them and worst still leads to inferiority complex. Therefore, Podmoroff (2005) insists that it is important to acknowledge employees’ achievements for it motivates them to work harder for more praises, which translates to improved performance of an organisation.
Immigrant Women Employees in UAE
Policies governing rights of women immigrants
Over the recent past, there have been numerous cases of poor working conditions of women immigrants and abuse by their foreign employers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The introduction of the international law in 2004 intended to curb the ill behaviours of employers who abused the rights of immigrant women workers. The UAE is an Islamic cultural region and thus its culture does not allow women to exercise some rights as men do; hence, conflict between employers and immigrant women workers, especially those belonging to different religions and cultures.
The UAE Ministry of State and Federal Council Affairs (2008) published a report on the development of the UAE in the handling of women in social affairs after the region ranked 29th among 177 nations. The report titled “Women in the United Arab Emirates: A Portrait of Progress” outlined the developments and challenges that faced status of women in the region (Omair & Katlin 2009).
According to a report, by Migrant Forum in Asia (2009), submitted to the Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women, more that 70 per cent of women workers in the region are immigrants with Philippines leading with the highest number. The majority of migrant women secure employment as domestic staff in the UAE region. However, the secluded environment that surrounds their work exposes them to the abuses of their employers.
Their employers often abuse them “sexually, withholding their passports, physical abuse and assaults, mobility restrictions, and deaths in the worst-case scenarios” (Migrant Forum Asia 2009, p.7). Victims lack access to justice due to lack of a legal frameworks that deal with such cases in the region.
The aforementioned report, acknowledged some notable progress in the way government dealt with cases involving abuse of women immigrant workers by their bosses. However, foreign states had pressured the government to offer legal mechanisms that offer protection to their citizens who worked in the region. Since the introduction of laws that allowed women immigrants the right to transfer employers under valid contracts, cases of abuses have reduced significantly.
Issues surrounding women migrant workers in the UAE
Exclusion from labour law
Unfortunately, the UAE labour legislations do not recognise migrant house servants. However, they fall under the Ministry of Interior, in the Department of Immigration. The exclusion from the labour laws deprives them of the right to demand labour justice in the industrial courts, which seems as slavery for employers take matters on their hands without fear of the law.
Domestic workers are important employees for their services allow employers to attend to other economically positive affairs. Hence, employees need the government’s protection just like their employers (Dhal 2012).
The government ought to ensure that domestic workers have access to good working conditions. The Migrant Forum Asia (2009) suggests that employees should have good houses, access to communication facilities, mobility rights, and regular inspection of their working conditions. These elements would motivate domestic workers to give their best to the needs of their bosses for there would be a good working relation between the two parties.
Temporary labour migration
The international labour law allows for easy transfer of employers without deportation; however, the UAE banned the law claiming that domestic workers could become intolerable if allowed to transfer freely from one employer to another.
The argument is valid for the sake of security of both the employee and employer, but places a domestic worker at a highly vulnerable position to the abuse of an employer (Suliman & Al-Sabri 2009). The government ought to find ways of regulating the movement of domestic workers and allow them to change their employers freely in case of dispute. A corporate employee has the freedom to transfer at will regardless of the nature of existing relationship between him or her and the employer.
Hence, the government should extend the same requirements to a domestic worker who is equally important as the corporate worker for the development of the region. Shockingly, skilled domestic workers such as teachers, nurses, and graduates are exempted from some restrictions, which indicates a high level of discrimination and worst still a growing level of slavery in the region.
Human Trafficking and Illegal Recruitment
There has been a rise in the number of unscrupulous employment agencies associated with the UAE employers in third world countries across Africa and Asia. These agencies take advantage of the economic status of women and promise good working conditions in Dubai and Kuwait among other prestigious parts of the UAE.
Worst still, these agencies do not comply with the international labour movement agencies that require them to undergo safety screen before conducting their business. Human trafficking is a serious crime across the UAE; hence, those agencies do not assure their victims of foreign safety, and thus they simply damp insecure workers at the hands of employers and never care about them afterwards.
Regrettably, those agencies pressure the migrant women to surrender their travelling documents to their bosses, and thus losing contact with their contact individuals and embassies. Additionally, there have been cases of illegal border crossing into the UAE whereby illegal employment agencies channel their victims through into the region.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Workers require motivation for them to give maximum contribution to the welfare of an organisation. On the other hand, employers should not consider efforts that would motivate their employees as a burden, but rather as an investment worth venturing for the benefit of an organisation. Employees are human beings and just like their employers and bosses they deserve human respect and dignity at all cost. In addition, employers should ensure that employees have a sense of belonging to the welfare of an organisation.
Hence, they are part of an organisation’s success, and thus the employers should reward them for contributing to the success of an organisation by offering them incentives among other benefits. Such a move would enhance employees’ motivation and hence they will offer greater contributions to the success of an organisation.
In recommendation, employers should value their employers in the same way that they want to be valued. Governments also should contribute in enhancing good employee-employer relationship by introducing laws that prohibit discrimination and abuse of employees’ rights. The governments, at all levels of employments, should enhance industrial relations so that employees may have a right to demand their rights through legal framework mechanisms.
In the case of the UAE, migrants need protection through legal mechanisms, and thus respective governments across the region should enact laws that govern workers’ rights at the hands of local employers. For employers who defy labour laws, the government should punish them decisively for they do not only tarnish the image of the UAE in the international arena, but they destroy international relations with the countries where migrant workers belong.
Reference List
Daft, R. 2008, The leadership experience, Cengage Learning, Mason.
Dhal, S. 2012, Employees who employ dirty tricks. Web.
Doyle, S. 2005, The manager’s pocket guide to motivating employees, HRD Press, Amherst, MA.
Kehoe, D. & Alston, D. 2007, Motivating Employees: 25 action-based articles showing you how to engage your people in peak performance, McGraw Hill, New York.
Kuwait Times 2013, Work life balance ‘most motivating factor’ for employees in Kuwait. Web.
Lipman, V. 2013, 5 easy ways to motivate- and demotivate- employees. Web.
Migrant Forum in Asia 2009, Women Migrant Workers in the UAE: not quite in the portrait. Web.
Omair, C. & Katlin, G. 2009, ‘Women executives; Gender; Clothing; Middle East. Gender in Management’, An International Journal, vol. 24 no.6, pp. 412-431.
Podmoroff, D. 2005, Three hundred and sixty-five ways to motivate and reward your employees every day– with little or no money, Atlantic Publishing Company, Florida.
Shallal, M. 2011, ‘Job satisfaction among women in the United Arab Emirates’, Journal of International Women’s Studies, vol. 12 no.3, pp. 114-134.
Suliman, A. & Al-Sabri, N. 2009, ‘Surviving through the global downturn: Employee motivation and performance in healthcare industry’, The open business journal, vol. 9 no. 2, pp. 86-94.
UAE Ministry of State and Federal Council Affairs 2008, Women in the United Arab Emirates: a portrait of progress. Web.
Willmore, J. 2009, No Magic Bullet: Seven Steps to Better Performance, American Society for training and Development, Alexandria.