Barclay’s Bank

Barclays is the third hugest curse in the United Kingdom. The bank can trace its roots back to 1690 in capital of the United Kingdom. The name Barclay offset arose in 1736. Today the bank is a global financial dish up provider operating in the UK, Europe, United States, and Africa. The banks headquarters ar at One Churchill Place in Canary Wharf, in Londons Docklands, having moved at that place in May 2005 from Lombard Street in the City of London. Barclays US headquarters are in Wilmington, Delaware where it acquired the former Juniper Bank (Answers Barclays Bank 2006).Barclays is a UK-based financial service of processs group, with a very large international front in Europe, the USA, Africa and Asia. It is engaged primarily in banking, enthronisation banking and investment precaution. In terms of market capitalisation, Barclays is one of the largest financial services companies in the origination (Barclays Newsroom 2006). Barclays has been involved in banking for over 300 years and ope appraises in over 60 countries with more than 113,000 permanent employees (including 33,500 at Absa). For the year ended thirty- runner December 2005, the group achieved a pre-tax pro tot of ?5,280 million, up fifteen per penny on 2004. In 2005 Barclays paid approximately ? 3 billion in taxes (Barclays Newsroom 2006). Customers are served through a variety of channels comprising the branch net fetch, miscellany machines, telephone banking, online banking and relationship managers. It is managed through two business surface areas, UK Retail Banking and UK stock Banking. In UK Retail Banking there are 14 million sell guests, including menses accounts, savings, mortgages, and general insurance (Barclays Newsroom 2006).Local trading provides banking services to 592,000 nodes UK Premier provides banking, investment products and advice to 286,000 affluent customers (Barclays Newsroom 2006). UK Business Banking provides relationship banking to larger and medium- sized businesses. 183, 000 customers are served by a network of relationship and industry sector specia contention managers (Barclays Newsroom 2006). Barclays strategical objective is to To deliver top quartile total shareholder return sex act to our peers, consistently over time (Barclays p 2 2004). The telephoner emphasises at one time on increasing shareholder honor rather than employee retention and morale.Barclays does non gull a makely available mission and take to be statement that is visible to the external surround. The internal environment at Barclays is one of traditional top-down forethought. The corporate market-gardening at Barclays maintains a hierarchy of experience and education, where the management team places a large amount of focus on meeting the shareholder schema. According to Barclays In recent months, we have taken a number of stairs to enhance further our corporate governance practices. We have expanded the send back of the Remuneration Commi ttee to cover strategic human resource issues (Barclays 2004 p 3).These strategic changes included continued and upgraded our investment in naturalised programs for the community, equality and diversity, and the environment built on our reputation as a pioneer and leader in the field of financial inclusion handsome terms and conditions for colleagues impacted by offshore outsourcing developed a absolve statement on human rights, and continued our participation in the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights and do good build up in adapting our branches and offices to be fully accessible to customers with disabilities (Barclays p 12 2004).Barclays did not, still, remunerate a corporate dodge or mission to delivery its near 20% turnover rate which has been continuous and barely ever-changing for the past three years, an indication that Barclays focus is on stakeholder value and not develop or addressing employee morale. However, Barclays does have a large focus on communit y service, receiving the 2004 National Business Award for Corporate social Responsibility (Barclays p 12 2004). Roadmap-Thesis The thesis statement is that the overlook of direct employee relationships may have a powerful impact on the manifestly high turnover rate.Personal interviews were conducted over the telephone with two Barclays employees, uncomplete of which are relatives. Saunders et al (2003) define an interview as a meaningful discussion between two or more people, and can pull data which is both reliable and valid. Saunders et al (2003) describe a structured interview as using questionnaires based on predetermined and shopworn or identical sets of questions a semi-structured interview as having a list of themes and questions to be covered and an unstructured interview as informal entirely used to explore in depth a general area of interest.The interviews conducted were unstructured, which is decidedly the best format for discussing the interesting concepts of Barclays organisational strategy and how it relates to the employees . question Results The organizational strategy at Barclays seems most non-existent to the participants, who each production line that while dedication to customer satisfaction is outstanding, manager and leadership concerns are impacting the employee morale. One interviewee even equated working at Barclays to a prison remains, which is a consultion of the top-down managerial strategy.This managerial strategy has not been forthcoming to create or enhance employee morale, in fact it almost seems as though the employees are afraid of, or diminished by, the current leadership strategy. Customer service metrics are vigorous known, however it is the organization strategy to continue team training that focuses on the uniform customer service strategy and not on new information, such as training opportunities or key technological concerns of the employees.This creates an atmosphere where the employees may feel constricted, rather than encouraged, by internal training and education. The organizational strategy may be clear to stakeholders, investors, and corporate government, but there seems to be a distinct overleap of information dissemination to the ground scandalise employees, which makes it hard for employees to follow a strategic vision and pull in their underlying role in the organization.The organizational culture at Barclays seems another(prenominal) sore point with the participants, who explained that there is a concern with office politics. both employees examined that within the organizational culture, there is a strong adherence to management rule where favoritism is accepted. The other disheartening view of the organizational culture is that one participant was made to feel frequently inadequate for communicate questions.Another concern about the organizational culture is the manner in which management responds to employees needs, which seems seriously lacking in its exe cution. Both employees made statements regarding lack of quality leadership motivation and that managements utilisation with employees and their customer service does not fit into the employees need for motivation. Both interviewees mum the importance of customer service and were able to relate customer service quality to their functional roles.They did not state that leadership has offered a undecomposed measurement of customer service or employee motivation, because neither participant made any positive statements regarding motivation as an organizational strategy. Based on these interviews, the concern with organizational strategy is not simply turnover rate as noted before, but that employees are not offered constant educational information about the organization, its values, mission, goals and opportunities. Academic Research Recommendations for ImprovementIn human capital management, organizational changes should be administered by a general framework match to Dreher and D oherty (p 16-17 2001) make change requires that the people within the organization understand and commit to the change creating vision in employees is a continuation of commitment where employees know where they fit into that change developing political support means that stakeholders-from employees to HR professionals-have been assessed according to their place and function in the change managing the transformation must be set by parameters and adequate available technology as well as an understanding employee wide of how the parameters and technology work towards the goals the momentum is continue by (1) providing resources for change, (2) building a support system for the agents of change (3) developing related competencies and skills among those charged with administering and using the modified process and (4) reinforcing new conducts called for by the changed environment. To this effect, Barclays must alter their strategy towards change and not the change itself by adequate communication and technology as well as transition training and reinforcement of change strategies amongst employees to foster a positive environment and develop open lines of input and communication. Incentive programs involve a system of rewards and recognition. There is a distinction between recognition programs and reward programs. learning is acknowledgment, appreciation and approval, and targets the psychological need of the individual. Reward, by definition, is normally something given in return for good or evil done or received, especially that is offered or given for a service. Rewards focus on the physical benefit, usually financial, however self-esteem, respect, intrinsic motivation and dignity are not guaranteed by a competitive salary (Glasscock and Gram 1995).Both recognition and rewards are all important(predicate) in reinforcing intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, and provide positive reinforcement for in demand(p) behavior effect. Employees allow for differ on which has the greater personal impact, but ultimately both reward and recognition programs affect an individuals self esteem. The value an employee has on an incentive program is therefore exceedingly correlated to the employees engagement in customer service. According to Dr. Mohammed S. Chowdhury of Monroe College, Bronx, New York and Mohammed Nurul Amin of the atomic number 74 Virginia University of Technology Employee values, attitudes, and leadership behavior play a very important role in enhancing employee work motivation and procedure.Employee work values, attitudes and leadership behavior can carefully be adjusted to produce a strong impact on employee work motivation (www. sba. muohio. edu). A customer-focused culture is deepen when employees understand that the organization will reward them for exceptional feat and customer service. Research shows that employee motivation and engagement is greatly enhanced when employees clearly understand the link between organizatio nally desired behaviors and rewards. It is important to recognize that an employee focus and a customer focus are complementary. It is noted that the importance of employee engagement in a sales environment to diminish the amount of capital spent on employees.Accordingly, research has shown that improving the employee engagement will make up employee retention. Kenexa. com states that Research has shown that fully engaged employees tend to be more productive, careful and have higher levels of organizational commitment. In addition, research has shown that an engaged work force tends to stay employed longer, miss work less often, have higher levels of customer satisfaction and service quality, attain and surpass organizational goals more regularly, are more productive and have comparatively cut back workers compensation and accident claims (2005). To measure constructs of employee engagement, benchmarks would be an above average rejoinder of high values.A supremacyful research would develop an increase in value rating per employee per category. In essence, the purpose is to develop employee engagement in confederacy with the benchmarks and defined constructs according to the majority values of tenured employees. Benchmarks for evaluation of success can be defined by an organizational increase in retention of employees compared to past trends in the adeptness, with increase in employee engagement of facility compared to past trends. The recommendation is to focus on team and individual development to ensure that employees become fully engaged within their function and as team members. According to David Beswick of the University of MelbourneMangers generally, and anyone formally or informally responsible for superintendence of others who are engaged in work or learning tasks, will be aware that some people are participating more out of interest in the task than others are. Others gain their satisfaction principally out the way in which their mathemat ical process on the task leads to rewards homogeneous pay or status or good grades in a course. But typically there is a mixture of motives for which a value of different incentives is relevant. (www. beswick. info 2004) Any recognition program will reflect an organizations culture and values. Increasingly, recognition programs are part of companys total quality program.Recognition programs may take several forms, from exceedingly formalized programs induced and implemented by management to informal, spontaneous ceremonies arising from better half co-workers. Recognition and celebrations are a ways of reaffirming to people that they are an important part of something that matters. Conclusion Engaged employees receive training for necessary skills and are on board with the organizations goals. Employees will be unable to perform if they lack the skills inevitable for their roles, so organizations need to position employees with gaps in their training. Formal surgical process judgement presents a good opportunity to do so.Research shows that organizations with good performance idea systems have significantly higher levels of employee engagement that those with a ugly performance estimation system. However, for performance appraisal to notice employees with specific needs, managers prototypal need to have a good understanding of the performance appraisal system. Therefore, the training needs of managers should not be overlooked. Managers should be trained to identify performance weaknesses as well as how to effectively tie performance to recognition and rewards. Engaged employees receive training for necessary skills and are on board with the organizations goals.Employees will be unable to perform if they lack the skills needed for their roles, so organizations need to identify employees with gaps in their training. Formal performance appraisal presents a good opportunity to do so. Research shows that organizations with good performance appraisal sys tems have significantly higher levels of employee engagement that those with a worthless performance appraisal system. However, for performance appraisal to identify employees with specific needs, managers first need to have a good understanding of the performance appraisal system. Therefore, the training needs of managers should not be overlooked. Managers should be trained to identify performance weaknesses as well as how to effectively tie performance to recognition and rewards. ReferencesAnswers Barclays Bank 2006 Barclays Bank Barclays plc Type Public Founded 1896 Location London , United Kingdom Key 2006 Answers Corporation . Retrieved September 15, 2007 from www. answers. com Barclays Bank PLC (2006) Barclays Newsroom. Registered in England. Registered No 1026167. Registered authorisation 1 Churchill Place, London, E14 5HP. . Retrieved September 15, 2007 from www. barclays. com Barclays (2004) Annual Report 2004. Registered Office 1 Churchill Place, London, E14 5HP. Retriev ed September 15, 2007 from www. investor. barclays. co. uk Beswick, David (2004) of the University of Melbourne. Copyright David Beswick 1997-2004. Retrieved September 15, 2007 www. beswick. info Chowdhury, Mohammed S. (n. d.) Relative enormousness of Employee Values, Attitudes and Leadership Behaviors in Employee Motivation. Monroe College, Bronx, New York Retrieved September 15, 2007 from www. sba. muohio. edu Dreher & Dougherty. (2001). Human resource strategy A behavioral perspective for the general manager. New York McGraw-Hill Glasscock and Gram (1995) Secrets of a Successful Employee Recognition System. BT Bastford. LTD. 2000 Kenexa. com (2005) 650 East Swedesford Road 2nd Floor Wayne, PA 19087 Retrieved September 15, 2007 from www. kenexa. com Saunders, M. , Lewis, P. and Thornhill, D. (2003), Research Methods for Business Students, 3rd Edition, London FT scholar Hall.