In the case study, the social worker makes his own unethical decisions of reporting late or leaving early to find time to attend to his ailing wife who suffered a stroke that affected the neurological system. According to the principles of management as stated by Henri Fayol, all employees should subordinate their interest at the expense of the organizational interest. Apart from that, utilitarian theory of ethics stipulates that a moral action that seeks to benefit many and derives maximum utility should be adopted (Barsky, 2010). Accordingly, the social worker should have identified a relative or an alternative person to take care of the ailing wife and communicate his predicaments to his supervisor. This way, he could not have adopted an unethical style of backdating social work notes and placing them in the patients chart after the fact day. The healthcare standard of conduct stipulates that healthcare practitioners owe their professional care to those they serve and are supposed to follow an ethical process when attending to clients (Dunn & Haimann, 2010). In tight situations where his presence would have been required, he would have sought for some time off from his superiors so that he can attend to his wife as someone else execute his roles and responsibilities as a social worker.
Rodrigues (2010) elucidates that leadership is about change and in this case, leaders and their subjects should initiate the process of change in an ethical way. Although there is no universal standard of ethics, one is supposed to discern between right and wrong according to the professional code of ethics, organizational behavior, and culture. The social worker’s supervisor showed unethical practices by failing to document the issue in his personnel file and opting not to report the issue to the top management for further action or advice. The standard of conduct requires that the supervisor should have warned the social worker, document the issue in his personnel file, and inform superiors for further advice. The administrator should remind the supervisor about his roles and responsibilities and be informed to take control of his subjects to ensure realization organizational goals. On the other hand, the social worker should face disciplinary action upon noting that he has failed to refrain from the habit of backdating social work notes, reporting to work late and leaving early. Although no one is unfair to him, he should be informed to communicate with his supervisor about the issue of attending to his ailing wife so that arrangements can be made to secure him some time and have another social worker in his place to perform his duties.
In dealing with such a case, the administrator should adopt concepts of the classical management theory as developed by Henri Fayol. Evidently, the organization has adopted a centralized system of management evident by a hierarchical organization structure comprising of the top, middle level, and junior management levels. Despite the centralization of the organization structure, the CEO of the health facility is in-charge of the day-to-day running of all the decentralized departments (Rodrigues, 2010). Apart from that, the top management, CEO delegates power to other senior officials of the organization to deal with departmental problems affecting their dockets.
In his management concept, Henri Fayol advocated that the failure to delegate power might slow down the pace at which employees attend to various organizational activities. In the same analogy, the administrator should inform the supervisor to delegate the roles of the social worker in situations where the social worker should help his wife in attending to medical, physical and occupational therapy appointments. The administrator should develop a plan of training his staff so that they can understand organizational culture, practices, and ethics to avoid situations like those involved with the social worker. Moreover, the administrator should control human resources and ensure that their deliver on their mandate based on the acceptable ethics and standard of conduct (Nicolae, 2012). Ensuring high discipline standards for his employees is a core task the administrator has to undertake because it helps in making sure that employees respect the authority and in deed, the policies formulated.
Identifying with Fayol’s management concept styles
Henri Fayol’s principles of management and the functions of management stand the test of time because they were applicable since the development of the theory and are still applicable in the contemporary business society (Knights & Willmott, 2007). Despite the adoption of new technology, Fayol’s tenets of management remain to be key elements that drive the success of many companies. For instance, Fayol believed that employees should take part in decision making to sustain growth and development of the organization; this belief is adopted in the modern business society that is ever dynamic.
Management concepts of Fayol has not only been adopted in the business society, but has also been used to enhance knowledge. For instance, the concept of division of labor was later used to form the foundation of economic theory as developed by the Classical economics (Knights & Willmott, 2007). Currently, managers have the ability (authority) to empower their employees and later reward them based on their performance. For instance, in health care organizations that deal in production and distribution of medical equipment, sales employees have the power to influence the distribution process in order to increase their reward through commissions. This idea as developed by Fayol has improved the productivity per employee making firms to register high profits continuously. Employees training and job satisfaction was emphasized by Fayol and firm currently use this management concept to reduce employee turnover thereby reduce the cost of operation and increase profitability (Rodrigues, 2010). Currently, all employees in firm work towards the achievement of a common goal and subordinate themselves to the general interest of firms.
Critic of Fayol’s concept of management style
Even though Fayol mentioned in his management concepts that employees should be answerable to one leader, the situation seems to be changing because currently employees report to many bosses in the organization, a move that proves the impracticability of some of the management concepts as proposed by Fayol (Knights & Willmott, 2007). For instance, in modern healthcare facilities, a medical practitioner may be answerable to more than one supervisor (quality assurance supervisor and operations supervisor) both who ensure than the medical practitioner executes his roles diligently, competently and in a timely manner. Fayol’s concept of management focused much on employees in such a way that strong management teams can be enhanced when employees have a harmonious relationship. This is an indication that, any fault or error committed by an employee might undermine the strength and in turn the success of the entire organization.
Applicability in Fayol’s management style
Tata group of companies was founded in the 19th century, but since then, the company has been struggling to enhance its businesses in the dynamic world. It was until the 20th century when the management of Tata group adopted Fayol’s management style. Since then, the company managed to expand its operations and managed to acquire firms in the related line of business in the 21st century. The company’s profitability has been increasing tremendously making it to be ranked position 11 among the top 100 companies as evaluated by Forbes magazine (Dunn & Haimann, 2010). Evidently, the firm has embraced the concept of division of labor by ensuring that employees of specific skills and knowledge work in their respective lines of production or service delivery such as finance, medicine, marketing, hospitality, automotive, Information technology, engineering among other sections.
Since its inception, Tata has maintained a unit of command, which has ensured effective communication and problem solving among its employees and for that reason, it has been able to manage the operation of more than eight different lines of production of goods and services. Tata group adopted the concept of Espirit de corps and it helped in enhancing teamwork, creativity, and innovation. Apart from that, workers are rewarded based on performance as opposed to the reasonable payment system adopted during the 19th century. The group management is employing the five functions of management as proposed by Fayol in ensuring that it fights stiff competition in the market.
Reduction in force
Based on Fayol concept of management reduction in force is essential for any company striving to be efficient thereby gain a competitive advantage over its rival firms. Even though Fayol’s principle of Espirit de corps emphasize on the need to increase employee morale, firms are currently evaluating job profiles of their employees to flatten the organization structure for easier decision-making, problem solving, control, planning and forecasting (Rodrigues, 2010). The idea of reduction in force seeks to eliminate employees who are resistant to change or those without multiple skills to operate in various jobs capacities.
In order to decide on which jobs to be eliminated, it is important for the director of Tri-county Home Health Agency to conduct job evaluation of all employees with a paramount goal of merging roles and responsibilities of given job profiles. Conducting a research will be vital in establishing the impact or the risk involved in eliminating specific employees and it would help the company to eliminate employees whose skills are irrelevant or can be provided by others who are multi-skilled. Employees whose productivity does not contribute in increasing returns of the company should be laid-off.
The process of decision making according to Fayol’s concept of management should involve all employees; however, the director, top management, and technocrats ought to provide direction as to which line of employees ought to be eliminated. Fairness, a managerial concept as proposed by Fayol requires that leadership decisions should be fair to subordinates; employees should be evaluated based on their qualifications, skills, and competence (Rodrigues, 2010). Those with more than one skill or technical skills are supposed to remain while those with common skills should be eliminated because experts or technically skilled employees can execute more than one role. Apart from that, employees who are less committed towards the achievement of organizational goals should be eliminated because they contribute to the increasing cost of production, which in turn weakens the firm’s financial position. Upon the arrival of the decision to downsize, the director should organize for meetings and communicate to group leaders or supervisors who will in turn communicate to their members. This should be followed by official communication to individual employees through letters or official memos.
References
Barsky, A. (2010). Ethics and values in social work: An integrated approach for a comprehensive curriculum. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dunn, R., & Haimann, T. (2010). Dunn & Haimann's healthcare management (9th ed.). Chicago, Ill.: Health Administration Press
Knights, D., & Willmott, H. (2007). Introducing organizational behavior and management. London: Thomson Learning
Nicolae, C. (2012). Management of the public health care management of the public health care management of the public health care system reform. Management in Health, 16(1), 4-13.
Rodrigues, C. (2010). Fayol's 14 principles of management then and now: A framework for managing today's organization effectively. Management Decisions, 39(10), 880-889.
