1. In present scenario majority of the organizations are struggling with economic downturn and its impact is visible on their balance sheets. Companies are focusing on cutting their cost and maximizing revenue. Companies are focusing on reducing their manpower and keeping very limited workforce. In such condition it is very important to utilize the manpower very effectively. Now the biggest challenge that companies are facing is how to effectively manage employees.
Organizational behavior is a combined form of psychological, social psychology, sociology and anthropological behavior sciences. Different behavior sciences deal with different factors which impact the overall performance of an individual.
When employees work in an organization there are multiple factors which influence the behavior of employees. The five major areas which impact the organizational behaviors are leadership, motivation, job satisfaction, organization culture and performance evaluation. All these factors play an important role in keeping employee motivated to perform their job in the best possible manner.
Leadership: A leader is a person who control group of people to achieve desired targets and goals. Leader can be defined in two ways one is formal leadership when leader is made by giving authority and power for example any higher rank in organization. Organization gives power to some people to manage a group of people and act like a leader. These people can not give assurance for a good leadership. Second is non sanctioned leadership, this type of leadership quality reflect even in absence of any formal power or authority. In an organization it is very important to have good leadership for effective management.
There are other various models which help in identifying right leadership style and right job profile for that leader. Situation leadership theory describe that a good leader select task that his team members wants to complete with interest. So selecting right job for right people is core task of leader. Another Path Goal theory describe the tasks of a leader is to provide all support, information and resources required to accomplish the tasks. The true meaning of this theory is to show right direction to team members so that they achieve the target finish the task. Another leader- participation model mentioned that for leader it is important to make right decisions. His contribution in making decision matter a lot and leader decision plays an important in achieving the desired goals.
Motivation: it can be defined as a process which helps any person to achieve the goal. It helps individual to increase the continuous efforts to achieve the task. Three main components of motivation are; persistence, direction and intensity. Intensity reflects how much efforts any person is making to achieve the goal. Only effort does not give the desired results. All efforts needs to be channelized in right direction and continuous efforts gives desired results. A motivated person put hard efforts to achieve the goals. There are various theories which suggest how organization can keep its employees motivated.
A. Maslow’s gives a theory on motivation in the form of hierarchy model. As per Maslow individual has a hierarchy of need which motivate person. Maslow defines psychological needs as most import followed by safety, social, esteem and self actualization needs respectively. He mentioned that if need is low the motivation to fulfill that need will also be low.
Another Two factor theory said that individual relationship and attitude towards the task determine success of task. Herzberg in his theory linked intrinsic factors with satisfaction and extrinsic factors with dissatisfaction. He further mentioned that managers are required to remove the factors that resulted in dissatisfaction to motivate the employees.
These two above mentioned theories are very popular but over the time they lost the importance. Currently contemporary theories are in practice. Some contemporary are;
Self Determination theory is based on self motivation. When a person himself wants to perform the task, he is self motivated. In organization if an individual given a task as per his choice he will perform the task very effectively. This theory defines the difference in something you want to perform and something you have to perform.
Another Goal setting theory focused on setting goals that are accepted by employee. Theory mentioned that when employee accepts the goal he is committed towards it and it is always better to have very specific goals.
Job Satisfaction: for healthy organization and to get best result it is very important to have satisfied employees. To have satisfied employees the first step is to measure the job satisfaction of the employees. To measure job satisfaction rating or summation methodology can be adapted. There are various factors that contribute towards job satisfaction like; pay, working condition, organizational culture, job design and working environment etc. satisfied employees are always lead to high productivity, good results, delighted customer and good growth and revenue to the organization hence it is important to keep employees satisfied. Managers should focus on making the job interesting, improving working conditions and implement other factors that raise the satisfaction level of employees.
Organization Culture: it is reflection of organization system that consist seven major characteristics; innovation and risk taking, attention to detail, outcome orientation, people orientation, team orientation, aggressiveness and stability. Organization formed by employees and organization culture reflect the system and how employee perceive the organization. Organization culture varies from one organization to another. In some organization it is uniform and in some organization sub culture can also be seen.
Organization culture differentiates the organizations and gives identity to its members. it shows overall objective and interest of organization. It provides uniform standards to all employee about the overall system. Healthy organization culture lead to satisfied employees. Organization culture prevents sudden changes, diversity, mergers and acquisitions.
Performance Evaluation: as we have already discussed the importance of employee satisfaction, performance evaluation plays an important role in employee satisfaction. If performance evaluation not done right it de motivate the employee and lead to job dissatisfaction. In present scenario there are major factors that denote employee performance in organization; task performance, citizenship and counter productivity. Task performance is directly related with the goal employee is achieving and task he is performing. Citizenship reflects his contribution towards forming organization culture and contribution in developing healthy environment. Counter productivity reflect those task that harm the organization any form like monetary loss, damage to property, harm to coworkers and environment.
There are various methods organization may adopt to evaluate employees. Some methods are; 360 degree appraisal – in this process not only senior management but co-workers, customers, suppliers and other departments do the appraisal. Rating scale and forced comparison are also very common methods companies used to evaluate the performance of their employees. Organization should adapt effective appraisal technique to do justice with their employees and also to make them satisfied. Use of multiple evaluators and trained evaluators are recommended.
Above mentioned concepts are imperative for any organization. They help in building strong culture and successful organization. Employees are major part of any organization and if employees are satisfied and happy, it is not difficult to achieve any task even when economy conditions are not favorable. High productivity will give good results and even less number of employees can perform the tasks of higher number of employees.
2. Communication plays an important role in the organizational behavior. It helps in making of the various strategies of today’s world and its role in day to day life is also very important. Researches on the subject show that key people in an organization spend a large amount of time in communication. Effective communication helps people in maintaining a good understanding between the management and the employees. Further it contributes in making of a good environment within and outside of the company. On the other hand, a poor communication may infuriate people and it is found that communication is one of the main causes of bad relation between people, if not done in a proper manner.
The importance of communication lies in the fact that however big idea one possesses but it has no importance unless it is communicated to the people for whom it is meant and accepted by them. There are several modes of communication and all kinds of communication pass through a communication process. In this process, the sender sends his thoughts in a form of a massage after encoding it which passes through the ascertained channels. The receiver receives the massage after decoding it and gives his reaction on the massage.
Organizational communication is a complicated process with hundreds of people in an organization, large number of various transactions and different levels of hierarchy. In an organization, there is an internal chain network that controls the whole process of communication which is a formal communication method within the organizations. In this communication process and the network, there is a key person who is responsible for circulating the information in the communication network.
In an organization, the informal communication network is known as grapevine process. This process is also known as word of mouth process and is considered very important in today’s perspective. This process is not controlled by the management and holds a larger amount of employee’s faith because it is not issued by the management of the organization. This informal communication network is believes to serve the interests of the people of a group better than any other process.
The process of selection is very important for a company; it is performed in various stages. The process of selecting the employees is not only a big decision towards the operation of the company but also since it affects the lives of employees; there should be a transparent process of selection. In the first stage of selection, the application form is issued and after receiving the applications, the same is scrutinized by the company. A number of things are taken into consideration and if the applicant is fulfilling the said requirements, the candidate is called for the next step which is the interview of the applicant. Companies are also taking the written tests these days and assess the talent of the candidates. Written tests are very important in the assessment of the candidates. The questions in the written test should be relevant, focused to judge the abilities and to assess how knowledgeable and fit a candidate is for the post.
The interview is a very important step to analyze the overall personality of a candidate. In the current scenario, it is imperative to select a candidate who is almost perfect for a position and not only knowledgeable but also very sharp to handle the odd conditions also. Interview analyzes the complete personality of a candidate and helps the company in assessing the candidate’s value and importance for the company. The random questions asked by the interviewers can easily judge how competent a candidate is and how valuable he could be for the company.
Checking the background is an important part and companies take the help of various methods to check the background of the candidates. They come to know the past performance of the candidates, their strengths, weaknesses and behavior. Checking the background of the candidates also help a company in knowing the credit and criminal record of a candidate. In this process, letter of recommendation and references from the previous employees is very helpful.
Several companies have started work assessment tests and assessment centers to assess the quality and ability of a candidate. The tests examine the managerial qualities of the candidates and also show the prospects of a candidate.
Having observed the abovementioned requirements and several aspects of an organization and organizational behavior, it is good to say that the above mentioned requirements play a major role in the organizational behavior. Today the competition is very high, each and every day we will find a new competitor in the market, things are in a very complicated stage and these are some tools to make the things easy. Organizational behavior and its various components can do a great job if performed effectively. For a company to sustain in long run it is very important to manage its employee effectively and keep them satisfied. A satisfied employee takes companies goals as his own goals and performs his duty very effectively even if he has to work very hardly, late hours with extra responsibilities.
Work Cited
Stephen P. Robbins and Timothy A. Judge. Organizational Behavior. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2010.
