The utilization of Furlough days to combat budget issues Research Paper

The utilization of Furlough days to combat budget issues - Research Paper Example From the research it is clear that the organizational practice involves forecasting and determining the major drawbacks that may hinder effective performance of employees and finding a lasting solution. Human resource management entails measures for improving the workplace environment, recruitment, performance and reward management among other activities that enhance the productivity of employees. Organizations maintain competitiveness through inventiveness and uniqueness in their operations. These are accomplished through maintenance of a committed and competent work force. High commitment among employees is important in ensuring customer satisfaction. When an organization succeeds in maintaining competence and satisfaction among employees, it is able to maintain strong customer relationships as well as a strong brand image. These are among the aspects that determine an organization’s productivity since happy employees are satisfied employees, who are able to own the organiza tional goal. Strategic human resource management involves supporting the employees to help in establishing organizational goals. Organizations that engage in employee training and supporting innovative ideas are usually competitive in the market. Strategic human resource management helps in accomplishing employee satisfaction. More over, it helps in maintaining skilled workers in the organization. However, an organization may be faced with budget issues that may hinder the accomplishment of human resource management strategies. This paper presents a critique of the utilization of Furlough days to combat budget issues. Utilization of Furlough Days Furlough days negatively affect the morale of employees due to the breaks in their day to day activities as they are ordered to take compulsory unpaid leaves. Even though employees maintain permanent employment in an organization, the practice may be frustrating to many since it decreases their income. Depending on the nature of the budget deficit, furlough days may be scheduled for a number of days per month or one day per week until the financial shortfall is dealt with. While an organization focuses on the shortfalls in its budget, the workload increases and employees have to be overworked to cover the days that they do not work (Whitfield & Poole, 1997). Schrader & Lawless (2004) observe that while losing the job completely may be more frustrating to the employees, the regular loss of income and employment benefits through furlough days may cause resentment and the urge to look for an alternative job and hence a high employee turn over. High employee turn over is detrimental to an organization’s productivity and reputation. It is usually costly to hire and train new employees to become competent in the workplace. The organization looses skilled employees to competitors, and more so, skills attained from the organization (Buller & McEvoy, 2012). It may be a great loss to the organization especially when an e mployee exposes company information to competitors (Luthans & Stajkovic, 1999). The future projections may not be realized if the organization relied on training an employee to attain a particular goal in future. Customers may loose confidence in the organization due to disruption in service delivery especially when the departing employees were at strategic positions of service delivery. Other customers build their trust on particular employees especially for the services that require one-on-one relationships (Huselid & Becker, 2011). Human resource managers need to ensure that the employee turn ove