Población Ocupada por Rama de Actividad

“When it comes to building great companies the most urgent business challenge is finding and keeping great people” (Zeithaml et al).

As Looy et al (2003:187) recalls that, before the 1970’s employees were treated as costs, but after the advent of human capital theory in the 80’s, it was seen that human resource management could, and should be tied into a company’s business strategy. Since committed personnel were shown to make a substantial difference in an era of increasingly stiff global competition.

Considering the role of employees in service organizations, they need to be equipped to carry out their functions successfully. Technically and otherwise, they need to be reinforced and motivated to be able to span boundaries. According to Looy (2003:179), “the simultaneity of services leads to an inherent link between employee’s behavior, their motivation, competencies, satisfaction, and commitment.” As Looy et al(2003:190), in citing Schlesinger et al(1991), revealed that two thirds of employee satisfaction levels were caused by (a)latitude given to employees by their management to meet customer needs(b)authority given to them serve customers(c) and possession of knowledge and skills needed to serve customers.

As a result the human resource practices play a crucial role in the management of service operations. Zeithaml et al (2006:366), suggests that a complex combination of strategies is needed to ensure that service employees are willing and able to deliver quality services and that they stay motivated to perform in customer-oriented, service-minded ways. Looy (2003:190), further argues that paying attention to competencies and their continuous development, establishing collaborative relationships, and empowering service employees should be reflected in Human Resource practices for services.

Zeithaml et al (2006:366), also further suggests four basic themes required to building a formidable customer oriented work force:

(1) Hiring the right people: In order to effectively deliver good service quality, considerable attention should be given to hiring and recruiting service personnel. Contrary to traditional and professional practices of recruiting cheapest labor and technical expertise in the service industry respectively, many organizations are now looking beyond and above those criteria to assessing customer and service orientations of applicants. Through:

• Competing for the best people in the industry, competing with other organizations to hire them. By acting as marketers in pursuit of the best employees the same way they use their marketing strategies to compete for customers in the market.

• Hiring for service competencies and service inclination: recruit applicants on a basis of their service competencies, which are the skills and knowledge necessary for execution

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of the job, and are not necessarily degree related competencies but physical and basic intelligence skills. Beyond their service competence skills, management should screen for service inclination skills, which is their interest in doing service related work, reflected by their attitudes towards serving customers and others on the job.

• Being the preferred employer: attracting the best employees, requires earning a reputation of being the preferred employer in the industry or in the location. This can be supported by, including (a) extensive training (b) career and advancement opportunities(c) excellent internal support (d) attractive incentives (e) and quality core products that employees are happy to be associated with.

(2) Develop people to deliver service quality: To grow and maintain a workforce that is customer oriented and focused on delivering quality requires the firm developing and investing on the right employees to deliver service quality. Through:

• Training for technical and interactive skills: for employees to deliver service quality they need an ongoing training in the necessary technical skills and knowledge and in- process or interactive skills. The technical skills as related to the core of the job and the interactive skills that allow them to provide courteous, caring, responsive, and emphatic service.

• Empowering the employees: organizations have truly discovered that to be truly responsive to customer needs employees need to be empowered to accommodate requests and to recover on the spot when things go wrong. This means giving the employees the desire, skills, tools, and authority to serve the customer. Empowerment alone is not enough as Grönroos (2001:346), puts it empowering cannot function without simultaneously enabling employees so that they are prepared to take the responsibility that goes with the new authority .Enabling means that employees need support to be able to make the independent decisions effectively in the service process. • Promote teamwork: A healthy cooperation amongst employees enhances customer satisfaction. A teamwork environment is a boost to the performance of employees following the challenging, frustrating, and frequently demanding nature of many service jobs. The stresses and strains encountered by the employees are alleviated by their team cooperation. By promoting teamwork an organization can enhance employees’ abilities to deliver excellent service through (a) encouraging the right attitude amongst employees (b) creating team goals and(c) rewarding teamwork. To eliminate competition and encourage team spirit.

(3) Provide needed support systems: efficiency and effectiveness at job requires that employees be supported internally with systems that align with their customer -focus needs. The absence of customer focused internal support and customer-oriented systems, service quality delivery would be impossible. Ensuring that employees have adequate back-office staff, supportive customer oriented supervisors, and supportive teammates. Through:

• Measuring internal quality: a way of encouraging supportive internal service relationships is by measuring and rewarding internal service, and acknowledging that

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everyone in the organization has a customer. Measuring customer perceptions of internal service quality and making improvements where necessary thereby developing an internal quality culture.

• Provide supportive technology and equipment: without the right technology employees can get frustrated and confused and as Grönroos (2001:347) explains, will eventually make bad decisions. To carry out their jobs effectively and efficiently service employees need the right equipment and technology. There should be congruence between the service procedure and the supportive technology.

• Develop service oriented internal processes: quality service performance should be supported by internal procedures. The design of the internal procedures should align with the drive to provide quality service and not by the bureaucratic internal processes. Which means that companies need to transit from operational driven management systems to customer focused driven management.

(4) Retain the best people: organizations should not only focus on hiring the right people but also on retaining them. Employee turnover is a major setback to service organizations, as it can be detrimental to customer satisfaction, employee morale and overall service quality especially when the best of the employees are the ones leaving the organization. “Also with the exit of employee might follow the loss of customers especially in hospitality services like hairdressing, tailoring services, hospitals etc due to the attachment the customers may have with that employee”. However there are means by which companies can avoid these things from happening viz:

• Including employees in the company’s vision: employees need to share in the vision of the company so as not to feel like outsiders, not knowing how their contribution to the organizations success fits into the big picture. Proper, frequent, and clear communication of organizational objectives and goals by especially top managers breeds commitment from employees aside from motivations of paychecks and other benefits.

• Treat employees as customers: with the feeling of being valued and needed in the organization coupled with needs being taken care of, employees are more likely to stay with an organization. Also, with the cultivation of a service culture that benefits both customer and employees, other external manifestations of success like market valuation and revenue growth are likely to follow. Organizations that make employees feel that they are customers of the firm by directing basic marketing strategies on them where the product offered is the employees job(with assorted benefits) and quality of work life and periodic internal marketing research assessment to evaluate levels of employee satisfaction and needs are conducted are more likely to retain their employees. Extending the relationship with employees beyond office lines, into their private lives and families, are efforts that employees appreciate, and which would further keep them committed to an organization.

• Measure and reward strong service performance: by extending the criteria by which employee performance is judged, beyond the common and traditional methods of using sales, productivity and other dimensions. Organizations can encourage, measure and

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reward employees based on their excellent and strong service performance. For organizations where customer satisfaction is a goal in every service encounter excellent and strong service performance and other dimensions should be measures of employee performance and a basis for reward. Employees may still leave after all these measures taken to keep them back, but the firm can avoid the attachment of customers to more than one employee by occasionally rotating their roles to ensure that customers have maximum exposure and comfortable with more than one employee.

Considering that many services are delivered in real time, Zeithaml et al (2006:381) infer the human resource strategies of an organization is responsible for closing the gap (the difference between the customers’ expectations of the service and the actual experience) in the service performance. Whereby a careful implementation of strategies implied is the way to delivering service quality through people.