Employees’ and employers’ expectations

As Armstrong (2014) notes, employees mainly expect a ‘fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work’ and they want a say in their terms and conditions of the employment plus how the work is organized for them. Other expectations included but not limited to employment security, good working environments, health and safety of the workplace and the possibility to raise and resolve conflicts (Armstrong, 2014). Gennard and Judge (2005) state that employees always lookout for the best available package of monetary and non-monetary conditions available in the market.

Accordingly, the monetary components include,

• Salary rates
• Hours of work
• Paid holidays
• Pension schemes
• Sick pay arrangements
• Incentive schemes
• Childcare facilities and flexible working arrangement opportunities

According to Gennard and Judge (2005), the non-monetary elements include items such as,

• The employment safety
• The ability to work in a friendly environment with good coworkers
• Possibility for career progression and promotions
• Opportunities to upgrade skills and gain new skills through training and development
• Being treated by the employers as a human being, not merely as a commodity
• The level of control over the job and job satisfaction in related to job design
• Employment policies that are family-friendly and allow work-life balance
• Fair and steady treatment by managers comparative to other employees
• Being able to make an influence on the day-to-day operations at the workplace and at policy level

As per my own experience over the past few years in interviewing people for various posts, people tend to ask questions about both monetary and non-monetary topics. However, I noted most of the junior people are more concerned about monetary questions, but more experienced people always check about the non-monetary aspects as well.

In terms of employers’ expectations, it’s basically the employers want employees to perform what they are being advised without costing too much for them. Also, employers usually define their own terms for how they want engagement and commitment to be with employees (Armstrong, 2014). For example, the company I work for is an Australian based IT company and we always issue clear instructions about what’s been expected from an employee in their appointment letters. Also, there are common guidelines and terms defined for everyone in the office which is accessible through our company intranet portal.

Further, Gennard and Judge (2005) explain employers expect their employees to provide below in return depending on their talent and nature of the job,

• Flexibility between their work tasks
• Minimum standards of capability in the task for which they are being hired (as expressed in qualifications, training received and employee’s experience)
• A willingness to change in terms of aptitude and adaptability
• Capability to work as a member in a team environment
• A capability to show inventiveness with work when needed
• Ability to give discretionary effort
• A provable commitment to the organization’s objectives

According to Mullich (2019), employers and employees are regularly on different pages when it comes to workplace expectations. Employees are much less overwhelmed by the efforts they put in while employers believe they are doing a good job managing that. For example, only about a third of workers in the United States give their employers high marks for career development (Mullich, 2019).

Mullich (2019), further explains that HR professionals can tighten employer-employee relationships by leaving a one-size-fits-all method used to manage talent, this approach could humanize the real work experience. For example, large multinational companies can adapt talent management based on the needs of their local/regional workforce. Also, they highlight the fact that they need to stress why employee’s work matters which will also help close the gap. One other important thing is keeping your hiring promises (Mullich, 2019). For instance, salary or rewards will concern the employees to a certain level where they will need to find better tools or resources to understand what’s been offered in the market. However, when it comes to attracting and retaining exciting talent, money won’t be the only factor because organizations also need to recognize the importance of work done by the employees as well as the relationship with direct managers (Mullich, 2019).

Xesha et al. (2014), described the factors affecting job satisfaction vary from day to day and from one employee to another, but include the following,

• The nature of the job (the activities involved, and the work creates excitement and challenge)
• The compensation levels
• The perceived equality of the company's promotional system
• Working conditions quality
• The style of management
• Workplace social relationships 

In addition to contributing to a general sense of personal well-being, job satisfaction is perceived to be associated with a positive attitude towards work and increased productivity (Xesha et al., 2014).In a country that makes up its culture, the powerful values and beliefs are also considerable influences on the expectations and behavior of both employees and management. Such assumptions influence the nature of the psychological contract and the employment relationship and some management strategies will be considered legitimate in this context while others are not (Leat, 2007).

Research report done on Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement by (SHRM, 2017) is listed below in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement

Source: (SHRM, 2017)

As per the research report, employees believe “respectful treatment of all employees at all levels” is 65% very important but compensation/pay is only 61% very important. 

References

Armstrong, M. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. 13th ed. London: Kogan Page, p.406.

Gennard, J. and Judge, G. (2005). Employee relations. 4th ed. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, pp.14-16.

Leat, M. (2007). Exploring employee relations. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, pp.309-310.

Mullich, J. (2019). ADP BrandVoice: How To Close The Gap Between Employer And Employee Expectations. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adp/2018/03/27/how-to-close-the-gap-between-employer-and-employee-expectations/#6dec207f20cf [Accessed 02 October 2019].

Shrm.org. (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/research-and-surveys/Documents/2017-Employee-Job-Satisfaction-and-Engagement-Executive-Summary.pdf  [Accessed 02 October 2019].

Xesha, D., Iwu, C., Slabbert, A. and Nduna, J. (2014). The Impact of Employer-Employee Relationships on Business Growth. Journal of Economics, [online] 5(3), pp.315-316. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271849361_The_Impact_of_Employer-Employee_Relationships_on_Business_Growth [Accessed 3 Oct. 2019].