Going forward in writing our blog, we will be making connections between employee reliability and managerial ethics and how liquor corporations and in store businesses are applying these to their companies and business models in order to survive financially in the midst of a pandemic. We’re also focusing on how liquor corporations are offering a helping hand during the pandemic, and how this relates back to organizational behavior. Ultimately, we can tie these skills back into our professional careers when we are navigating unpredictable situations.
Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Akhtar, R. (2018). Motivating Your Most Creative Employees. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 1–6.
This article covers a range of ideas on how managers can motivate the most innovative employees. It starts out by discussing how there are employees that are more creative and bring more ideas to a business than others. Due to a lack of leadership and poor management, creative employees will not be fully utilized resulting in the business not running at full potential. Managers should put employees in job positions in which their creativity can be maximized. The article states that creative employees are not the same and do not fit the same job positions. Furthermore, when a manager correctly assigns jobs positions to an employee it makes a strong business team, which is why having diversity is important in a business organization. In continuation, the article states that once there is a strong team it is equally important to reward innovation. To further reward innovation you must challenge creative employees, so they do not become bored and useless. In continuation, making sure that employees’ morals and ethics align with the company will result in motivated employees and drive their creativity even further. This article is important to our blog because it tells managers how to reach optimal business performance, which is essential during a recession or difficult time such as COVID-19. As a group we can take this article and see how liquor store managers are motivating a team of employees and harnessing creativity at the same time.
Hogan, J., & Hogan, R. (1989). How to Measure Employee Reliability. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74(2), 273. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.wwu.edu/10.1037/0021-9010.74.2.273
This article related to our topic of Employee Reliability lays out the different factors that come into play when analyzing employee reliability. The article says that employers typically only look at one or two aspects of employee reliability due to looking at the issue very narrowly. The typical employer will only look at employee theft rates but in the article it points out the commonly ignored indicators of employee reliability. Employers must look at all the different aspects that play into knowing if their employees are reliable such as absenteeism, insubordination, substance abuse, bogus worker compensation claims and more mention in the article. Overall the article describes the development and validation designed to assess a construct called organizational delinquency. The way that this all ties back to our main topic is by assessing how managers of liquor companies should measure employee reliability as a whole during the time of this pandemic.
Britner, Lucy (2020). Distilled Spirits Council launches COVID-19 hand sanitiser online hub. Aroq – Just-Drinks.com (Global News). 3/25/2020, pN.PAG-N.PAG. 1p. http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.wwu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=4a3f6f40-6c09-4d20-8d06-e9530aafdbcf%40pdc-v-sessmgr05&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=142619846&db=bth
This article describes how the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) has decided to launch an online portal to help increase the number of distillers producing hand sanitizers due to high demand . Corporations within the liquor industry are offering a helping hand amidst the pandemic by displaying good ethics, increased productivity, and a boost in employee engagement. Due to the high demand for hand sanitizer DISCUS launched an online hub to increase the number of distillers producing hand sanitizers. Holladay Distillery is producing “1.75 liters of hand sanitizer that meets all current FDA regulations and will be donated to healthcare facilities and first responders in the Kansas City area and throughout Missouri. They are also producing 200ml bottles for sale to consumers at $2 per bottle, the proceeds from which will be used to fund the continued production of the 1.75 liters for donation”(DISCUS, 2020). President and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, Chris Swonger stated “This new portal will serve as an important resource for the hundreds of distillers who are stepping up to produce sanitizer. This is not only the right thing to do for their communities, but also allows some of these craft distilleries to keep their stills going, maintain their employees and stay afloat during this crisis.”(Swonger, 2020). Managers have helped employees, first responders, and people within the community stay healthy and safe by providing utilitarian benefits through the implementation of strong business tactics.
Holcomb, K. (2020, March 16). Two Seattle businesses making their own hand sanitizer to give away. https://www.king5.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/hand-sanitizer-diy-free-seattle-lake-city/281-35097c45-ea15-4348-92a5-2370bb125fe4.
This article focuses on the ethical side of organizational behavior, by taking a look at what some local liquor companies are doing to help out their employees as well as the community. Two Seattle distillery owners have been able to keep their doors open and allow their employees work as well as an opportunity to help the community. Both Ian MacNeil and Brent Enloe have decided to make a change in production and start producing hand sanitizer for the local community due to the recent shortage. Both business owners began to grow frustrated at the lack of hand sanitizer available at stores so they took it upon themselves to make a change and start offering hand sanitizer free of charge to whoever needs it. Their employees also reap the benefits by being able to take home hand sanitizer for themselves and families. Both business owners have been able to stay in touch with their ethics as owners, making sure their employees and community come first.
Santhanam, N., & Srinivas, S. (2020). Modeling the impact of employee engagement and happiness on burnout and turnover intention among blue-collar workers at a manufacturing company. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 27(2), 499–516. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.wwu.edu/10.1108/BIJ-01-2019-0007
This article focuses on the idea of worker engagement and job burnout leading to turnover intention of blue-collar workers. This includes a study done to model the impact of employee engagement and happiness and how that affects turnover intention and rates. This study is important to our blog topic because blue collar workers make up a majority of liquor store and corporation employees, and employee engagement and happiness relate directly to the reliability of employees. The results of the study done in this article show the “importance of engagement and happiness on reducing burnout and turnover intention”. Employees who are happy and engaged in their work are less likely to leave the company when unforeseen circumstances arise, such as Covid-19. Employee engagement and happiness lead to having reliable employees.
By: Kaci Vandall, Jada Rennes, Andy Brauser, Gemma Gibbons, Riley Gosney