Critical Management Exam
Gender
Gender equality has been a subject of debates and long discussions of human rights protectors. Equal access to education, equal opportunities to professional growth and equal rights in advancing careers are the key goals of the governments of the most developed countries in the world. Gender inequality has been considered as the cause of many imbalances in society that often lead to decline of its overall level. Modern world’s conditions and technological developments allow women and men to leave gender stereotypes in the past and discover opportunities on the equal basis (Linstead, 2000).
Equal opportunities start with access to education. Girls and boys should be able to study what they are interested in and talented of the most. In the era of technological development, there is no sphere which men can be better than women or vice versa. Equal opportunities should be also related to career, which includes equal salaries and motivation. It is crucially important to ensure gender equality in opportunities as it reflects freedom of choice and respect of human rights in the society. At the same time, the career progression of women is a bit more complex than that of men. Women need to give birth to children, take care and raise them till the age that allows them to work again. Therefore, some companies prefer hiring men who are more reliable and can be considered as a long perspective employee. Moreover, maternity leave is additional burden for the company which has to hire additional employee and make payments to the woman on the leave. This creates some reasons for inequality in career progression (Ely, 1995).
Unfortunately, recruitment imbalances related to gender are common for all countries, except Scandinavian ones which appeared to be the most successful in battling gender issues. Gender imbalances affect economy very much, while comparative equality in distribution of labor between men and women brings significant benefit to the country’s GDP. Moreover, some gender stereotypes prevent talented people to do what they can do best. For example, people are used to think that teacher or babysitter is predominantly female occupation, while men are better managers and businessmen. However, it should be noted that currently some men develop unique and more practical approach to teaching process, while women are capable of good and successful management of people. Therefore, the balance can be found in allowing people do what they like and what they feel they are good at.
Organizational Design
Hardly any company in the 19th or 20th centuries considered organizational design as an important component of their success. However, in the 21st century it is a must. The most advanced and developed companies that emerged with the rise of Internet and modern technologies realized the importance of organizational culture and design for their performance. The reason of such changes is global penetration, multicultural staff, diverse audience and outsourcing. There is nothing bad in maintaining traditional design that existed years ago and proved to be effective. Some companies cannot afford innovative and extra contemporary features added to their organizational design due to the brand image or specifics of work. However, those companies, which work in different contexts, try to express their innovative approach in re-shaping organizational design and culture (Lefebvre, 1991).
Organizational structure depends on the specific of work of the company. If it is an international player, it must use complicated types of organizational structures that can make management of staff effective. There are functional, divisional and matrix structures that can be further modified to meet the needs of the company. Organizational culture is shaped accordingly. The code of behavior and ethics is formed on the basis of relations between top-management and staff as well as by the norms of the country in which the company or its division is located. It is pretty important to empower employees enough for them to be able to feel needed for the achievement of common goal, but at the same time, establish their relations with management team in the spirit of respect. For example, Google chose to combine divisional and functional types to empower their employees. Such innovative company could not use hierarchal type because it would prevent any innovation and advancement.
Design of the workspace is also very important for the overall productivity. Colors, light, conditioning and working materials should be arranged to ensure that an employee has everything he needs to perform his task successfully. For the companies oriented on the teamwork and creativity, it is important to make staff friendly and united. Open space is suggested for such purposes. Sometimes even managers participate in this initiative, leaving their places with open doors etc. Such approach can increase the level of trust between employees and management team as well as boost performance. However, supporters of closed spaces say that higher level of concentration can be achieved in the closed space workplaces. Employees can focus on the task that they are assigned with and perform it with a high level of efficiency. Moreover, it allows some kind of specialization that boosts the performance. Therefore, the choice is up to leaders of the organization and specifics of its work (Lewis, 2008).
High Performing Teams and Talent
Nowadays almost every employer stresses the importance of working in team. This is the top requirement in each job offer that appear in the Internet. Employers seek for people who will not make trouble in the workplace and have enough communication and interpersonal skills to respect and listen to the opinion of others. Team matters because team work allows elimination of mistakes and errors and self-correction of the project. Teams also promote creativity which consists of ideas and suggestions of a few people. Moreover, working in team demonstrates personal characteristics of staff such as diligence, discipline, responsibility, leadership and ability to work for the achievement of the common goal (Langfred, 2004).
Teams often demonstrate significantly higher performance. When project is shared among a few team members, it proceeds faster and more effectively compared to performance of a single employee. The concept of work of many companies changed to teamwork due to significant complication of the things they work with. For example, organizational performance of auditing companies could not be that successful, if they did not hire people from various filed of expertise and compose teams of different specialists. However, teamwork also faces challenges such as management. Significant leadership skills are required from those who head the team. Decisions and achievements of the team are barely calculated as someone’s personal contribution. Some people may be not satisfied and demotivated about this, so the biggest managerial task is to deal with this. Moreover, some leaders’ achievements also become attributed with the entire team work (Lewis & Heckman, 2006).
Recruiting and managing talented people are important challenges for the company as well. They are needed for the development and advancement of the organization, but they are difficult to manage. Some companies prefer hiring many great executives and one talent instead of having too many talented people due to difficulties in management. Organizational culture changes according to concentration of talented and creative people among the staff. They are difficult to be made to work under pressure of rules, so they often change those rules. Some organizations find it hard to bear such violations of its structure and culture. In general, recruiting talents depends on the policy of management towards this issue and the kind of work the organization is dealing with (Ashton & Morton, 2005).
Bibliography
Ashton C and Morton L (2005) Managing talent for competitive advantage: Taking a systemic approach to talent management. Strategic HR Review, 4(5): 28-31.
Ely R J (1995) The power in demography: Women's social constructions of gender identity at work. Academy of Management journal, 38(3): 589-634.
Langfred C W (2004) Too much of a good thing? Negative effects of high trust and individual autonomy in self-managing teams. Academy of management journal, 47(3): 385-399.
Lefebvre H (1991) The Production of Space. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Lewis P (2008) Emotion work and emotion space: using a spatial perspective to explore the challenging of masculine emotion management practices.British Journal of Management, 19(1): 130-140.
Lewis R E & Heckman R J (2006) Talent management: A critical review. Human Resource Management Review, 16(2): 139-154.
Linstead S A (2000) Gender blindness or gender suppression? A comment on Final Wilson’s research note. Organisation Studies, 21(1): 1-7.
