Because their (front line employees) work is monotonous and their chances for advancement are limited, most

frontline employees work for a regular paycheck and nothing more; they never emotionally connect with their employers, let alone care about the companys long-term performance. Yet their impact on the customers experience, not to mention the companys profits, can be enormous Katzenbach & Santamaria (1999). Most of the organisations face a challenge to inspire front line employees. As noted by Katzenbach and Santamaria (1999), front line employees are often unskilled and are paid little and their work is very monotonous. To keep front line staff motivated, engaged and attached to their job is really a tough task. However, it is very important for an organisations long term success that its front line employees are happy and motivated. This essay will look into the front line environment of organisations and it will assess and review issues related to front line staff in Human Resource Management (HRM) and Operation Management (OM) context and come up with proposals to enhance the performance of the staff and organisation. Some of the concerned issues are low motivation, high employee turnover, no career growth, faulty recruitment policy c. Also, many front line employees are not happy with their working environment. Usually, line managers do not ask their opinion regarding their work. One another issue is career and development, employees do not take much interest in these jobs probably because they do not see any growth in their job. Essay will, first, define who comes under the category of front line staff, then it will look into the various issues related to the Front line staff, how they operate and how these employees are hired, then it will look into what standard HR and OM theories say about these and propose some solutions to the issues raised in the essay. Also, finally, this essay will attempt to propose an employee score card that will help in organisations to measure the success of managements various programs to improve employee engagement in front line environment. The front line staff consists of those employees who interact directly with the customers or the public; they could be service-desk staff, shop floor staff, and customer service staff, and branch staff, help desk or call center staff (Robertson, 2003). There is some other kind of front line staff like sales staff and those working out in the field, but these are not mainly considered in this essay. Before looking into the issues related to front line staff in human resource (HR) and operation management (OM) context, this essay will attempt to define HR and OM in the context of front line environment in organisations and why and how these two are interlinked with each other. Human resource management (HRM) has many forms of existence but HRM in the form of practice in organizations is the one that employ people and have employment relationships (Storey, 2007) and HRM in practice is mainly considered in this essay. HRM in practice includes planning, acquisition, development and utilization of manpower (Storey, 2007). HRM gives great importance to good people management and according to many like Arthur (1994), McDuffie (1995) and Huselid (1995) a particular refined and modified combination of HR practices can give quantifiable improvements in organizational performance. But, there might be some confusion among HR practitioners what are the best HR practices that drive organizational performance (Becker & Gerhart, 1996). HRM works closely with operation management. Operation management is about managing the operation processes i.e. how organisations produce goods and services. As slack et al (2007) mentions that even usual tasks like borrowing a book from library,

receiving treatment at the hospital and every service in any shop have been produced by operation managers, though they may not be always called by this name. So, operation manager is the one who mainly uses human resources that are employed by personnel department especially in the front line environment context. If operation manager does not understand the companys HR policies, it is very likely that HRM will not be able to meet its objectives to great extent. So, there is a natural link between HRM and OM. This essay will draw from various theories and concepts from HRM and OM to look into the issues related to front line employees and the environment in which these employees work. Looking at the issues related to Front line employees, these issues are mainly low motivation, working on low or minimum wages, few performance rewards, no or little career growth, lack of proper training, demanding work load and customers on the whole situation is very gloomy in the front line environment of the most organisations (Kliger & Twearser, 2007). This is reflected to some extent in high figures of employee turnover in call centers and retail sector. According to CIPD (2007) recruitment, retention and turnover survey overall employee turnover rate for the UK is 18.1 percent and call centers and retail sector in private sector saw about 36 percent and 31 percent employee turnover respectively. Retail sector and call centers are areas where the importance of front life staff is maximum as these are the two sectors where front line environment has huge impact on customers experience (Future Now, 2007). As the markets in all sectors are maturing, customer experience is a key driver for customer retention (Shaw, 2007). So, good front line staff management is not an option, but a necessity (ADSW & Scottish Executive, 2005). Companies find it very difficult to keep front life staff motivated, engaged and enthusiastic about their jobs (Kliger & Twearser, 2007). But, organisations that keep the front line staff motivated and equipped them with the right tools are most likely to enjoy long term superior performance (Rogers & Peccoud, 2005). Front line employees have the potential to contribute substantially in organisations success as they are the ones who are directly interacting with the customers. Hence, the challenge of creating a dynamic, enthusiastic, motivating front line environment is an opportunity in disguise for organisations. To meet the challenge of transforming a demotivating context into a dynamic enthusiastic environment and emotionally engaging front line employees, organisations should be ready to put lot of effort, resources, patience and time. To engage the frontline employees, organisations can start with thinking where they are and where they want to go. Other important questions are how to go there and how to measure success during this process. HR and OM tools, concepts and approaches like recruitment and selection, training, employee empowerment, reward and performance management, flexibility at work, work life balance, career growth, participation and involvement, job design, work place design, total quality management can be tailored according to the front line environment and used to transform the front line environment. Recruitment and selection process is first interaction of the organisation with its potential employees. Recruitment usually means short listing of candidates and selection means selecting some individuals from a pool of short listed candidates through interviews and group activities (Beardwell & Claydon, 2007). One of the most important objectives of this activity is to find right people who are most likely to fit in the job requirements and organisation culture (Ahmed and Schroeder, 2002). According to CIPD recruitment, retention and turnover survey (2007), 84% of the participant organisations face recruitment difficulties. This leaves HR managers to have very little choices while

selecting candidates when recruiting from outside and also, there is usually a rush to recruit in short time. In many organisations, line managers are the one who are recruiting front line employees and many of them are not aware or had not formal training of standard HR practices to assess and even in many cases, they are not sure what they are looking in potential front line employees (Torrington et al, 2008). According to workplace employee relations survey (1998) (Cully et al, 1999 in Beardwell and Claydon, 2007), 80 percent of managers considered they had responsibility for employment relations matter, with 94 percent of these including recruitment and selection of employees. So, to recruit front line employees, organisations should use a right mix of some standard and innovative recruiting practices of HRM in front line environment. Organisations should consider using a combination of the job and the person oriented approaches while recruiting front line staff (beardwell & claydon, 2007). Potential candidate should have the right core psychological skills and motivation for the job (Price, 2004). Psychometric tests can also be used to recruit front line employees. In fact, many organisations like Mark and Spencer (Chowdhary, 2007), TESCO (Sharma, 2007) are using these tests .But, personality tests are only useful when these are used carefully and are not taken to be the main predictors (Price, 2004). Online recruitment like Mark and Spencer (2008) does could be also a very effective and time saving tool to recruit front line employees (Choudhary, 2008). In selection process, group discussions, role playing activities and individual interviews could be very important. At times, there is too much stress on some person specific qualities like those who have good appearance, manners, speech and communication skills are usually chosen over the candidates who lack these skills (Price, 2004). This practice could be discriminatory and organisations could ignore a huge pool of talent by following any such approach. Looking beyond the usual pool of employees like ASDA has been recruiting many front line employees whose age is more than 50 years, calling them goldies, could be very useful as well (Telegraph, 2002). Peters (2006) further notes that recruiting older employees have been very beneficial for some companies like B & Q, ASDA. TESCO has started recruiting from EU member countries like Poland (BBC News, 2005). The manager who recruits and selects has a very vital role to play in this process and after this, in training and induction of new employees. Once, a candidate has been selected to work in front line environment of the company, it is essential that employee is inducted into the company in a right and patient manner. Training should be given regarding their jobs, company procedures, and organisations work culture. Trainee employee should get sufficient time to understand about the organisation and his job requirement. Innovative training tools like using cutting-edge technology for example iPods and online resources are very useful when used with traditional methods for training (Johnson, 2007). This way new and even old employee can access learning anywhere, anytime they need it. This kind of innovative training makes employees not only learn about their jobs and organisation but also engage employees with their jobs and company (Koenig, 2007 in Johnson, 2007). Quality training is first steps towards making new employees involved and empowered in organisations. Empowerment of employees in front line environment is very important as rapidly changing environment has shortened the window for the data to be useful to the organisations (Coleman, 1996). Idea about empowering front line employee is that they act like self employed, perform better and make middle managers redundant (Coleman,

1996). One example of such strategy is at ASDA that equipped its front line employees to deliver and this resulted in reducing middle managers by 1400 and hiring additional front line staff (Rogers & Peccoud, 2005 and BBC News, 2006). But, as Argyris (1998) mentions, it is not easy to implement empowerment concept into organisations as this requires total commitment from top management and may require a significant change in the organisation structure. Organisations need to delegate authority to make front line employees empowered and this requires trust (Coleman, 1996). Once this concept is truly implemented, organisations can have really committed and motivated front line employees (Argyris, 1998). Empowerment is very important requirement to have motivated front line employees. Other measures to keep them motivated are setting a clear vision, realising the importance of personal touches, listening and communicating with no agenda. Along with these measures, it is important to give front line employees a sense of achievement as it is an important factor according to Herzberg (1960). Also, according to a research, what keeps self employed people motivated who run their own successful business is the need for achievement, the desire to do something better or more efficiently than it has been done before (McClelland & Burnham, 2003). But, is it really practically possible to give a sense of achievement in front line environment where most of the jobs are routine and require very low skills? It is a challenge for any company to implement such measures, but it is possible as in the case of company Standard Parking. It has implemented a program called Strive of Excellence and backs up its training program with over 40 different rewards, recognition and communications programs (Standard Parking, 2007).These different programs include mission possible during which employees receive information about his mission and objectives. A is for Accuracy program recognizes employees who complete accurate daily revenue reports. Frontline Jeopardy a month-long game led by facility supervisors to encourage employee knowledge of operational and customer service policies and details. Employees who answer 12 questions correctly in a given month receive a prize such as a gift certificate. Another such program is "Awesome Attendance" rewards team efforts at being on the job every day for a month and several other programs like Beat the Clock, Looking Good, I have got the Drive, Perfect Paperwork, If I were boss etc. at Standard Parking that helps the company front line employees to have a sense of recognition and achievement (Standard Parking, 2007).The result of one such initiative for Standard Parking was that Customer service complaints were reduced to one in 27,500 transactions at Newark International Airport. This reflects that companies those try to engage front line employees using some common sense, innovative and creative programs like at Standard Parking, it is possible to a large extent they can drive their front line employees to deliver best customer services possible. Another important factor for motivating front line employees is to provide a career structure for them. It is human to look for a career growth and it is very important for most of the companies to provide a well defined career path for their employees within the company. This is also important because most of the employees who quit job they do so because they are getting outside promotion (CIPD, 2007). Most of the new vacancies should be well advertised internally in the companies and front line employees should be given training how to apply for the new vacancies (ADSW & Scottish Executive, 2005). Other growth opportunities in the form of corporate training programs, higher education can also be considered by the companies. An example of such an incentive is at GE Capital in India where front line employees are given an opportunity to attend management classes and

it is sponsored by the company (Mehra, 2004). Companies should be creative and innovative while designing these schemes and should consult with front line employees before implementing them as these programs directly affect them. Other important factors related to performance of front line employees are the way job and shop floor is designed. Job design and shop floor design are two important parameters that define the way front line employees go about their working lives (Slack et al, 2007). Working temperature, illumination level, noise levels are very important factors to consider while designing job and shop floor. As the job of front line staff is very repetitive, it is very important to use behavioural approaches to job design. Behavioural approach takes into account the desire to fulfil individual needs for self esteem and personal development (Slack et al, 2007). Other concepts of operation management like job rotation, enlargement, and enrichment are also very important to keep front line employees motivated. Work flexibility is another way to improve employee motivation in front line environment. Flexibility, from an operation management point of view, has three aspects. These are skill, time and locational flexibility (Slack et al, 2007). Flexibility allows organisations to retain experienced and talented employees who otherwise would have left in absence of these flexible work options (Apgar, 1998). Flexibility also helps employees to achieve good work-life balance (ADSW & Scottish Executive, 2005). Organizations shall provide enough flexibility to front line employees so that they could choose their work hours to a great extent according to their own convenience. Flexibility at work is very likely to improve employee motivation. Training programs, career growth, employee motivation, reward programs, job design, flexibility are very important for driving performance of the front line employees. But, it is also very important to measure the effectiveness of these programs using various performance indicators. Most of the companies need to have balanced performance framework like balance score card (Kaplan & Norton, 1992) to measure the effectiveness of their various policies and linking front line performance to corporate strategies and objectives. Companies can think of having a front line employee score card (Davis, 1996) measuring performance indicators that are important for front line employees, line mangers and human resource department. As Davis (1996) mentions that result of implementing such a scorecard at companies like GE and Ohio Lamp Plant were encouraging. An example of such a score card in the context of front line employees is discussed here and most of the performance indicators are designed keeping in mind a retail organisation. But, this score card can be used for any company by making some changes specific to the company and sector to measure the performance of front line employees and link their performance with corporate objectives and strategy in an organisation.

Objective

Performance indicator

Measured Value

Targeted Value

To provide growth opportunities to front line employees

Number of frontline employees promoted in house Number of front line employees who attended corporate training programs Number of employees having formal career development plans. Employee turnover Percentage of articles in media about working conditions writing favorably about the company Result of mystery shopper survey about general working conditions and motivation of front line employees. Number of ethnic minorities represented in the staff. Number of minor accidents Number of major accidents Number of employees availing sickness, maternity and paternity allowances. Participation in social activities in the company Work is well organized and employees know what they are supposed to do (through surveys and feedback). Initiatives taken to address issues related to employees. Number of employees recognized for their excellent work. Funds spend on employees social activities. Funds spent on employees reward and bonus. Customers feedback on the services provided by the front line staff.

To provide good, safe, healthy and flexible working conditions

To provide motivational working environment

The front line employees are essential and integrated part of an organisation. They are also very important as they are directly in touch with organizations most important stakeholder i.e. its customers. But, the work environment of front line employees is such that they are likely to get bored with their jobs and feel demotivated for it. Organisations need to put special efforts to keep them engaged with the job and the company. Rewards of this engagement could be huge for companies. Also, it is equally important for managers to measure the success of their efforts and various programs through many surveys, regular feedback and measurement tools like balanced and employee score cards. Front line environment can give a company unique long term competitive advantage. Investment in front line employees is most likely to result in a growth of both employees and organisation in the long term. Many of the organisations understand the issues and solutions required to improve front line environment. But, there is a difference between knowing and doing things. Many organisations now need to implement rigorously what they know and want i.e. seeing enabled, empowered and motivated front line employees.

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