A630.4.4.RB - How Companies Can Make Better Decisions

Decision-making is valuable in a company, especially now that companies are becoming more complex and difficult to organize. If companies begin to understand the correlation between employee engagement and decision-making, the success of the company would most likely continue to improve. (Greenfield, 2004) I feel like from my personal experience, there is a definite direct correlation with decision effectiveness and employee engagement.  When employees are engaged, they tend to be more excited and enthusiastic about their work and the goal of their work.  They seem to ask more questions, become more involved, and be interested in sharing ideas.  According to Marcia Blenko, companies that are generally more stimulating places to work tend to have higher employee engagement, resulting in better performance both financially, and with decision making effectiveness.  What makes employees more engaged can be difficult to determine; however, research suggests that companies that have a strong, ethical company culture generally end up with superior financial performance. (Greenfield, 2004)

I feel like it starts with the company culture when working on building employee engagement and positive decision-making.  There are potential difficulties that can make working toward this goal more challenging however.  Some of the obstacles that get in the way of decision-making surround the complexity of companies today.  Companies are working in a way that makes it more difficult to solve problems and come up with effective decisions company wide.  Developing a decision-based approach can help to cut through the complexities of companies by helping the organization clearly establish what decisions really matter and what needs to be done to make those decisions work. (Blenko, 2013)  Other potential areas that could pose a challenge to decision-making also include not having the right talent or leadership working on the decision-making process and figuring out who needs to be involved in the process.

Blenko suggests that there are four elements to good decisions including quality, speed, yield, and effort.  While these elements are crucial to the process, I do think that they are only crucial if the foundation of the company is already set up for success.  Because of that, elements that I think are missing include the development and cultural norms of the company culture.  The culture needs to be set up in a structure that is conducive to developing employee engagement.  I also think that strategy and priority needs to be worked into the elements as well because each company is structure differently, so having a personalized strategy that fits with the company can help to prioritize and determine the more important decisions that needs to be made. 

I never really realized just how important employee engagement was to building a successful company.  It’s interesting because I have worked for very large companies in the past and have seen many unengaged employees, but I never recognized the impact it had on the culture, creating a domino effect on the whole company.  Employee engagement and having a successful company culture is critical to the company because it not only creates an engaging, positive atmosphere, but it helps to keep employees at the company and it also makes outsiders want to come to the company, bringing with them new ideas and perspectives. This helps the company gain new insights and develop new ideas. 

References

 Blenko, M. (2013). How Companies Can Make Better Decisions, Faster. Retrieved September 3, 2015, from https://youtu.be/pbxpg6D4Hk8 

Greenfield, W. (2004). Decision making and employee engagement. Employee Relations Today, 31(2), 13-24.