Question/Problem Definition
In a global and competitive world of corporation, each organization aims to acquire a significant share of market and earn lucrative profits from loyal customers. On the contrary, the customers want products and services from organizations that ensure their quality at least possible price. In order to produce and deliver a quality product and/or service to the customers, it is important to have an in-depth customer orientation and standardization in production processes. The two aspects need a strong synchronization with the organizational culture and strategic decision-making.
Organizations need to sustain a strong compliance with quality guidelines and factors that an industrial regulatory dictates. It must be notified that this compliance brings significant changes within operational framework and influence decision-making processes of a corporation simultaneously. Hence, organizations need to bring changes internally in a manner that manufactured products and services are capable of fulfilling external changes.
In order to minimize integrated complexities related to quality and quality assurance, organizations of the modern era tend to follow a phenomenon called “Total Quality Management (TQM)”. After the period of Civil War, North America has witnessed a noticeable change and infrastructure development within the region. Over the decades, these transformations and technological enhancements have provided mass awareness to customers and changed the perception towards consumption. People in North America have innumerable alternatives and ability to evaluate for accurate decision. Over the period, the economic development in the region has equipped the consumer market with bargaining power. The bargaining power has enforced each organization subliminally to consider TQM in their production processes.
Considering the management phenomena and practices in context to North America, can TQM prove to be an effective implication within the region?
Labor Market Performance
The labor market performance is a percentage that indicates the rate of employment and unemployment within the economy. The concept is to determine the tendency and performance of national skills in order to produce gross domestic product (GDP) within a specific fiscal period. The phenomenon is responsible for forecasting the industrial performance of a country in long run (Brada & Signorelli, 2012). In the United States of America (USA), the labor market has improved in 2015 due to an addition of 229,000 jobs in the period. The major segment of working population of USA, which is between the ages brackets of 16 years to 64 years, is employed at various organizations (OECD, 2016). Hence, it is assumed that the labor market performance subsequently influences the talent acquisition of an organization, which has a significant impact on organizational TQM.
Labor Union
Another ruling phenomenon in North America is labor union, which is an organization that negotiates between employee and employer to strengthen the relationship. The primary function of labor unions is to protect the means of employees from exploitation. These organizations tend to negotiate wages, working hours, working conditions, health and safety, and related grievances. They penetrate in the organizational conducts are arbitrators and tend to create a win-win situation. Precisely, the union tends to represent innumerable employees and bargain with the management. The process is prominently known as collective bargaining, which also caters the management of organizational politics (Grimsley, 2013). In context to interventional culture within the conducts of management, it is assumed that TQM is influenced by the existence of labor union.
Employee-Employer Relationship
The relationship between an employee and employer plays a significant role in productivity and cultural outcomes of an organization. A strong relationship defines adequacy in role definition, leadership suitability, strength of talent retention, loyalty and prioritizing organizational objectives, and quality outcomes. The phenomenon needs a proper and an in-depth nurturing in order to extract maximum benefits for both stakeholders. An employee-employer relationship defines the familiarity and association with organizational culture and frameworks (Halsall, 2014). These elements are essential to follow the integrated guidelines and defined code of conducts. Moreover, the strength of relationship between the two entities define tendency of conflicts and autonomy while executing operations (O’Brien, 2014). Over the period, the disciplines of management such as organizational behavior and human resource management (HRM) have found a direct association between employee-employer relationship and quality outcomes of aimed production. Considering the important element of management, it is assumed that TQM is strongly subjective to the strength of relationship between employees and employers.
Work Life Balance
The work life balance refers to the association between professional and personal commitments, which are affected by each other subsequently. Due to a widespread access of technology, the professional engagement has surpassed the personal affairs of an individual, which significantly raises question on health and career sustainability (Lee, 2014). It is assumed that work life balance has a significant impact on organizational productivity and TQM.
Distribution of Work and Income
The work and income distribution is a critical factor to consider in management. Usually, employers do not pay adequately as compared to the workload, which results in disloyalty and loss of interest in work. Hence, TQM is also influenced by the work and income distribution within an organization.
Gender Differentiation and Discrimination
The gender differentiation around the world can be measured through allocation of managerial roles and differences in pay scales. These differences and role definition communicates the level of importance that an organization has towards their employees. Hence, the tendency of gender differentiation has the significant impact on TQM of production processes.
The Retirement Decision
The retirement decision is the age bracket where employees decide to quit job permanently. The retirement would create positions for acquiring newer talents and/or offering career growth to existing employees. The change in organogram would bring changes in organizational cultures and TQM of an organization.
Analysis
Labor Market Performance in North America and Effect on TQM
The labor market performance in Canada has been an element of consideration for the entire region. The real GDP growth within the country has fallen unprecedentedly since 2008, which led the entire economy towards recession. Since the year of economic fall, the country failed to recover from the effects on labor market, while the organizations have driven towards downsizing the organizational structure (CSLS, 2012). The poor economic performance has paralyzed the labor market and industries, which raises a significant question on application of TQM within the country.
On the contrary, USA has shown a positive sign in labor market performance. As discussed earlier, the country has seen a significant growth in employment due to introduction of mass scale job opportunities. Unlike Canada, the USA signifies the adequacy of organizational resources in context to talent acquisition. The organizations that are currently operating in the USA are experiencing benefits of positive economy. As evidence, Apple Inc has acquired an additional eighteen thousand employees approximately in 2015. This signifies that implication of TQM in the USA is feasible since appropriate talent acquisition is a necessity.
The labor market in Cuba has its own integrated challenges that restrict the country from applying TQM with feasibility. According to Lopez (2012), a significant lacking of talent and specialized workforce is measured. Moreover, the country does not demonstrate active labor force participation simultaneously. Hence, organizations in Cuba do not have feasibility with application of TQM in their framework since the phenomenon demands continuity and integration with the culture.
In context to Mexico, International Labor Organization (ILO; ILO, 2012) claimed that the forecasting of talent availability and labor force participation is extremely promising. The country has witnessed an increase in labor force participation by 60.3%, which provides an opportunity to employees to shortlist and acquires talent in order to create a new culture. The effectiveness in applying TQM in Mexican industry is feasible as compared to Cuba and Canada. Considering the entire region, the effectiveness of TQM has 50% probability in context to labor force performance.
Employee-Employer Relationship in North America and TQM
In order to study the employee-employer relationship in North America, the aspect considers corporate publications and legal market overview of countries. In Canada, the net worth of legal market was recorded $122 billion during the first half of 2015. These cases were registered as per the disputes between employees and employers throughout the nation. By the conclusion of 2015, the net worth of Canadian legal market increased by 35% of the recorded value. However, the figures were reduced as compared to prior years, which recorded $203.1 billion in 2014 (Garson, 2016). As per the evaluation of the labor law cases, the Canadian industry has immense level of disputes between an employee and employer. This denotes that the requirement of cultural sustainability in order to apply TQM is not possible in Canada, which leads to inefficiency in organizational structure.
On the contrary, the USA has experienced a 1% fall in administrative court filings. The administrative appeals had a 0.5% reduction since 2004, which is not a pleasing figure. This shows the weaknesses in the relationship between an employee and employer in the USA. Taking Apple Inc again as evidence, O’Toole (2014) claimed that the organization had more than 20,000 labor lawsuits due to violations in working hours and on job mistreatments. Hence, the negative relationship between the two core entities within an organization suggests that the USA is not suitable for applying TQM in their industrial practices under this context.
Unfortunately, the Mexican labor market and national legislation is not developed for adequate monitoring of justice like the USA and Canada. Hence, the employee-employer relationship is not considered objectively but an individual can assume the justification through poor monitoring procedure of law enforcements. Considering the region collectively under this context, the North America is not feasible for application of TQM due to widespread disputes between employee and employer.
Labor Union in North America and TQM
As previously stated, the intervention and existence of labor union would have adverse effect on application and effectiveness of TQM. Considering the influence of labor union in the USA, the nation has experienced as significant reduction since 2014. According to Aneja (2015), approximately 11% of the total labor market was recorded as the member of unions since 2014. The core reason was enhancement in social class and living standards of American people over the decades, which were recorded positively. According to Bryan (2015), labor unions are strengthening in nations that comprise with mass segment of lower class and middle class people. However, the American economy has 50% population that belongs to upper-middle class. Based on the weaker influence of labor unions in American and stronger economic conditions, the USA could expect positive efficiency after the application of TQM in organizational culture.
Similar to the USA, the influence of labor union is also shrinking in the Canadian labor market. However, approximately four million labors were found as the members of different unions but the bargaining power of these organizations is losing its grip with passing intervals. Instead of convincing the authorities on negotiations, the labor unions in Canada are subject to accept wage freezes and work conditions that are proposed by corporations and government (McFarland, 2012). In context to the application of TQM in organizations, the phenomenon would be effective due to weaker role of labor unions within the country.
Analyzing the Mexican labor market, the country has 40.1% of the total labors with the membership of different labor unions. The role and influence of labor union was observed with a sharp decline in the current era, which is a positive sign of applying the concept of TQM with efficiency. Labor union has lost the credibility in the Mexican market, as the organizations could not negotiate with regulations effectively. The labor union in Mexico was subject to decrease in size, strength, and influences over the period as the Mexican government controls the affairs through the Institutional Revolutionary Party (IRP; Botz, 2016). Commenting on the entire North America, the application of TQM is justified, while evaluating the association with labor unions.
Gender Differentiation and Discrimination in North America and TQM
Gender inequality in the workplace has remained a serious concern for organizations throughout America. According to an article published by Harvard Summer School in 2016, women in the current era tend to earn 70 cents in contrast to each dollar earned by male American employee. The major reason quoted by the American regarding this dilemma was educational disparity between both genders (Harvard Summer School, 2016). However, Meister (2015) claimed that the probability of attaining college degree is 33% higher in contrast to men but the successful labor force penetration is 47.5% higher for men rather women. In the American workplace culture, the gender inequality is still greater regardless the social and infrastructural developments over the decades. Under this context, the efficient application of TQM is impossible. TQM is an ongoing and long run process of cultural implementation that demands coordination and trust of each employee. The trust and valuation of employees lack in organizational culture of the USA due to gender inequality.
On the contrary, the Canadian culture has the similar workplace attribute when it comes to gender equality and/or inequality. The female segment has been penetrating into the labor market for a past century. However, the political and corporate affairs have kept them in minority on constant basis. According to Pearson (2014), women acquire only 10% of seats during board meetings that are conducted in corporations of political platforms. It was also claimed that more than 40% of the Top 500 Canadian corporations do not have any female employees within the organizational structure. The application of TQM, which is extremely dependent on equal participation of each employee, is absent within Canadian boundaries. Collectively, the North America is not fit to apply and expect efficiency from TQM in the corporate world since the countries fail to define justified gender roles and participation.
Recommendations
The concept of TQM aims to achieve customer satisfaction by providing excellent products and services on economic price. However, the quality can only be achieved through active participation of each member (employee) that serves an organization and communicates with customers, both directly and indirectly. In order to apply TQM effectively in organizations that are operating throughout the North America, few elements of internal management need prompt transformation and enhancements.
First, there is a significant need of minimizing workplace inequality based on genders. The prominent, literate, and developed nations of North America namely Canada and the USA are subject to huge gaps regarding workplace equality. Affirming the suggestion proposed by Trachsel (2014), organizations in the North America need to be proactive, while entertaining women during interviews. The corporations should evaluate talents based on skills and credentials rather gender. Providing equal opportunities and training sessions to women would increase total employee involvement, which is essential to apply an effective TQM in the workplace.
Employee-employer relationship was subjected weaker in the work culture of North America. In personal opinion, the prominent cause for the weaker relationship and constant disputes is lack of work autonomy and absence of adequate work life balance. The reason for quoting Apple Inc under few contexts of analysis was the industrial leadership of the corporation. If the industrial leader has zero control over the disputes between employee and employer, the expectations could not be higher from other industrial participants. Hence, organizations in the North America need to provide work flexibility and should discourage the practice of overtime hours. This could be achieved by minimizing the gap between workload and acquired human resource. Moreover, the organizations should arrange teambuilding activities in order to reduce on-job stress and workplace alienation. Teambuilding activities and work flexibility are strategic management approaches that are essential for applying efficient TQM systems.
Conclusion
After conducting the analysis, it was found that application of TQM in the North American region is not a feasible decision. The management practices in North America fail to comply with the essentials of efficienct application of TQM. The lack of work life balance, weaker employee-employer relationship, and equality in gender roles ensures that application of TQM in the North American organizational culture would not be process-centered. The process-centered factor of TQM aligns the internal traits with external sustainability. In context to the application of TQM, the internal traits are not promising to synchronize with external dynamics successfully.
Further, the weakness in core management phenomena denotes that organizations would not be successful in directing efforts of each employee towards customer-orientation. Since, the roles and participations are unjustified within the North American organizational culture, extracting effective results from the application of TQM is least expected. Hence, the organizations in that region are provided with significant recommendations that would minimize the tendency of non-compliance with the core requirements of effective TQM.
References
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