Highly motivated workers contribute more to bottom line

Profitability and sustaining it in the highly competitive global market is a function of highly motivated workers, as the burden to improve bottom line shifts from machines to people.

This is how the Personnel Management Association of the Philippines views the challenges human capital management faces in the growing responsibility in motivating people to make a difference in the corporate profitability.

PMAP president Ramos S. Medina said business leaders now recognize the importance of a highly motivated and technically prepared workforce in the improvement of financial performance of any company.

"Decades past, companies pampered production lines in a period of sellers’ market, when competition was low," Medina said, explaining further that when other products rolled into the market and competition picked up, the corporate attention shifted from production lines to higher support to marketing to protect if not improve market share.

PMAP calls it cyclical shifting of attention in corporate priorities responding to challenges of the situation. But companies that seek stability give equal attention to both cost and profit centers, production being cost center and market response being profit center.

"These companies who are able to effectively balance the importance of the two critical centers now recognize how people in these centers contribute to creating the correct balance," Medina said.

According to Gerry Plana, PMAP executive director, top companies place a high premium in motivating people to do their job and making sure they are prepared for their assignments.

He said the most important investment in any company is people. "They now make important decisions and push the buttons that make the arrow rise in financial graphs," he added.

The PMAP executive director candidly defined the importance motivated and technologically prepared manpower play in creating market edge for leading companies.

"Machines depreciate, technologies get outdated while people who push the buttons advance in learning, grow and can outperform machines," Plana said.

He said preparing the organization for the rush to better corporate performance is making sure learning processes and education are in place. "It is in recognition of this basic requirement that PMAP is pouring most of its effort in education," Plana said.

PMAP, since its creation had always made education the bedrock of creating enthusiasm and interest in the association among members. "Fellowship was even part of the education process," Medina pointed out.

Medina’s term, however, takes education a notch higher, the PMAP president claiming that he has erected the first stone in the creation of a CHED sanctioned academy on human resource management.

As the PMAP school building rises in its old offices in Mandaluyong, Medina has signed up with online graduate studies program specialized in human resource management.

Last month, PMAP entered into an agreement with American City University-Southville Foreign Colleges for an online Masters in Business Administration (MBA) specialized in human resource management.