Undeniable Role of Work Environment in Manufacturing Sector

Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labour to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale. Such finished goods may be used for manufacturing other, more complex products, such as aircraft, household appliances or automobiles, or sold to wholesalers, who in turn sell them to retailers, who then sell them to end users –the “consumers”.

The manufacturing sector plays a catalytic role in the modern economy and has many dynamic benefits crucial for economic transformation and it is the basis for determining a nation’s economic efficiency. A vibrant manufacturing sector is a sure means of boosting economic growth and raising the standard of living. Industrial development policies, perspective plans and medium-term economic plans acknowledged the importance of the manufacturing sector in the economy.

The industrial sector and in particular manufacturing sector is considered as the heart of any economy as it is often seen as a sine-qua-non for breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and for achieving dynamic and self-reliant economies. Furthermore, it creates investment capital at a faster rate than any other sector of the economy while promoting wider and more effective linkages among different sectors. Manufacturing involves the process of transforming raw materials into finished or intermediate goods. Various categories that than be considered in the manufacturing sector are:

• Chemical Industry
• Pharmaceuticals
• Construction
• Aerospace Manufacturing
• Tyres & Automobiles
• Electronics & Engineering
• Energy & Industrial Designing
• Metal working & Metal casting
• Textile & Telecommunications
• Plastics & Jewellery
• Food and beverages, etc.

All these industries have requirement for employees with some specific skill set. Different departments would also have different skill requirements. The HR function is to take care of all the aspects possible that might affect the employees. Human resource management in these industries involves several processes. These processes can be performed in an HR department, but some tasks can also be outsourced or performed by line-managers or other departments.

Human Resources may set strategies and develop policies, standards, systems, and processes that implement these strategies in a whole range of areas. Some of them are:

1. Recruitment, selection, and on-boarding (resourcing)
2. Organizational design and development
3. Business transformation and change management
4. Performance, conduct and behaviour management
5. Industrial and employee relations
6. Human resources (workforce) analysis and workforce personnel data management
7. Compensation, rewards, and benefits management
8. Training and development (learning management)

Implementation of such policies, processes or standards may be directly managed by the HR function itself, or the function may indirectly supervise the implementation of such activities by managers, other business functions or via third-party external partner organizations. Now let's analyse the evolution of employee experience.

In the utility phase, employers will provide only Bare-bones, essential tools and resources which employees need to fulfil the organisational needs. The main objective of this phase is to get the job done from the employees.

The second term is employee productivity. The term productivity was described in the literature as a measure of the amount of output that is obtained from an employee over a period of time. Productivity is an important factor for building organizational competitiveness, sustaining its strategic and financial performance, attaining the desired goal, and meeting the value propositions of its stakeholders. In the productivity phase, Employees are given tools and processes which will help them to work better and faster. The main objective of this phase to increase the productivity.

Employee engagement is defined as “a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organisation and its values. An engaged employee is aware of the business context, works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organisation. The Organisation must develop and nurture engagement, which is a two-way relationship between employer and employee”. In the engagement phase, Organisation came out of their comfort zone to make employees happy so that they can perform better. The main objective of this phase is to make the employees engaged which will be beneficial for both employee’s career and organisation’s growth

Employee experience is a set of perceptions that employees have about their experiences at work in response to their interactions with the organisation.  In the experience phase, Organisation’s had successfully created a culture in which employees want to showcase their talents, not just want to work for a paycheque. Experiences are considered to be inherently personal, an outcome of one’s feelings, belief, cognitive perception and emotions about inwardly directed external stimuli. Experiences that are targeted towards the actualization of specific needs or emotions result in higher loyalty and stronger bonding.

Today, organisations are facing a dramatic change in their culture, working environment, peer groups, values, compositions, expectations and suggested ways of working of today’s workforce has been a major challenge for framing sustainable norms and workplace practices in order to create a positive Employee experience. Organisation has to respond to these changes, should come out of their traditional mindsets and approaches to accept the current trends which will help the organisation to provide more meaningful work experiences for their employees and also to achieve the status of Exponential organisation.

The concept of employee experience has been considered to be way ahead of employee engagement practices in the organisations, leading towards a purposive direction to achieve the highest level of employee engagement through an ultimate experience provided by the organisation to its workforce. Employee experience was theorized based on customer experience management, which begins at the heart of an organization.

Employee experiences are the views or opinions of employees during the entire stay in the company, and the experiences that was acquired through interacting with the organization. Positive employee experience also improves work performance, retention, and discretionary effort. Employee engagement and experience are linked together because when employees are more engaged and have more positive experiences, they tend to be more passionate about work. Employees who have positive experiences are more likely to perform at higher levels and contribute ‘above and beyond’ expectations. Better work performance and greater retention rate of employees can be yield through positive experiences. 

“The employee journey has many milestones and interactions, and the quality of employee experience has a direct influence on employee satisfaction, engagement, commitment and, in the end, performance”. The experimental design thinking procedure has five steps as follows:

1. allow employees to learn by observing, listening and engaging with others;
2. synthesize their learning to define opportunities;
3. generating idea for addressing those opportunities;
4. developing experimental versions and implementation;
5. enhancing the opportunities and put it collaboratively with agility.

By involving employees in the process, they feel that they can voice together, build a relationship, develop understanding, and create ownership. Positive employee experience is linked with better workforce outcomes such as individual and job performance, intention to stay (loyalty) and discretionary effort.

There is definetely a role for a workplace environment. The competitive environment in the workplace is constantly changing and there appears to be an absolute basis for an individual worker to be present or absent during the work day. Many workers especially those in industrial sectors find that their workplace is no longer a second home for them although much of their time is spent in the organisation, and thus leads them to resist or feel forced to accommodate with the uncomfortable environment. Absence from the workplace can occur for many reasons such as official leave (training), medical reason, annual leave, emergency leave and so on. Often these several of reasons of workers to release themselves from the hectic working place to the place that can soothe their burden not on the work load, but on the stressful condition. Some of the workers at industrial sectors are exposed to hazardous environment at their workplace such as construction worker, factory worker, highway worker, bus operator. The exposure to the hazardous environment can make the workplace uncongenial and thus, might affect their concentration and attention. Hence, the uncongenial workplace environment might reduce the efficiency in performing daily tasks by reducing employee’s attention span to the tasks assigned to them. 

The ability to share knowledge throughout organizations depends on how the work environment is designed to enable organizations to utilize work environment as if it were an asset. This helps organizations to improve effectiveness and allow employees to benefit from collective knowledge. work environment designed must be able to fulfil employee’s satisfaction and free flow of exchange of ideas which is a better medium of motivating employees towards higher productivity.  A work environment can be identified as the place that one works, which means the milieus around a person. It is the social and professional environment in which a person is supposed to interact with a number of people. The work environment also includes policies, rules, culture, resources, working relationships, work location, and internal and external environmental factors, all of which influence the ways those employees perform their job functions. The environment that people are required to work in can have a significant impact on their ability to undertake the tasks that they have been asked to do. This can affect productivity and employee health and well-being. 

Work environment when appropriately designed, motivates employees toward higher productivity. There are six factors which contribute to a toxic work environment hence contributing to low productivity of workers. The factors are: opaque management, biased boss, and company’s policies, working conditions, interpersonal relationship and pay. The factors of workplace environment give an immense impact to the employee’s either towards the negative outcomes or the positive outcomes. The connection or relationship between the work, workplace, tools of work had become the most important aspect in their work itself. There are key factors in the employee’s workplace environment that could give a great impact towards the motivation and performance level. The factors of workplace environment also have a great impact towards the changes of lifestyle, work-life balance and also the health fitness whether towards the positive or negative impact. Over the last decades, the factors of work environment of the office workers had changed due to the changes in several factors such as the social environment, information technology and the flexible ways of organizing work processes.

The environmental comfort can be classified into three categories: physical, functional, and psychological. Physical comfort in the workplace environment includes hygiene, safety, and accessibility without which a building is uninhabitable. These are considering as basic human needs, especially in the organisation. Functional comfort refers to the ergonomic support for user’s performance of activities and work-related tasks. Hence, a proper lighting illumination for screen-based work, ergonomic furniture size, enclosed room for privacy meeting and discussion, and partition for individual work station might help to ensure the functional comfort. Moreover, psychological comfort basically results from feelings of belonging, ownership and control over workspace. Positive work environment is the feeling of the employee about the mood and tone of the workplace. It may also be about the physical perks that the organization provides which shows the humanistic workplace that the organization provides, and also the culture and work environment that helps develop and enhance employee experience.

In conclusion, manufacturing sector plays an important role in economic growth and development. The sector is considered as a engine of growth because of its high potential for increased productivity, higher technological progress, increased capital accumulation, economies of scale has a potential to create employment, produced varied and quality products due to technological advancement, generates income to households and revenue to government through taxes and also helps in reducing trade deficits. Furthermore, countries with vibrant manufacturing sectors are less impacted by global economic shocks because of diversified export products. Factors regarding work environment have a huge impact on job quality of people who work in the manufacturing sector. Therefore, it also shows that workplace environment factor has a very strong relationship towards the health, facilities and performance.