ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Organizational behaviour is the field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behaviour within organizations. An organization follows a set of principles that it seeks its employees to follow to make it succeed. However, these rules can be modified from time-to-time to adjust to external threats and competition. Today, most companies believe that employees should perform in groups or teams to enhance production and create a healthy work environment.
Working in groups can be beneficial to employees. What is important though is how and what kind of role will each member of the group will carry out and this is where a group’s technical skills and interpersonal skills assumes significance. While technical skills are necessary to perform individually, this issue can be overcome if the group manages to perform as a team and support one another. Many employees are scared to accept the fact that they are unable to perform a particular task. They find it very difficult to say ‘I can’t do it’, or ‘I’m not sure I can do it’, out of fear. Managers find this quite a problem to handle as it could have severe repercussion on production. This is where interpersonal skills can help. By encouraging employees and supporting them through training, skills can be developed. What is most important though is the need to communicate personal problems. According to Green (1992), “performance can be enhanced through skill building measures. These include, training and working simultaneously, combining the work experience with coaching, and finally, combing training, work, and work experience together.” Team work is what can help overcome individual skill deficiencies. It can be a case where one member of the team knows a particular skill that another member of the team does not know. Therefore, by communicating within the group, there is always the possibility that such deficiencies can be overcome.
The regulation of motivation by setting goals is a healthy phenomenon. Bandura in Locke and Latham’s (1990), A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance, gave evidence of laboratory and field studies involving heterogeneous task domains which showed that goal setting had a highly reproducible effect of substantial magnitude on individuals.
Managers often express their desire to ‘light a fire’ under someone not performing well. This is not the solution to counter those who under-perform. This jibe will only serve to create uncertainty among the workforce who may then see this attitude of their managers as threatening and see insecurity creeping in. Once this feeling creeps in, employees are bound to under-perform. They will shun responsibility and work under the constant fear that they are being observed and fall apart. To overcome such predicaments, managers should build the fire within the people concerned so that the organization profits from optimum performance. “Motivation through purpose, building confidence, and maintaining a positive attitude and thought are what managers need to inculcate in their workforce” says English (2004, p.33-34). Instead of blaming them for their mistakes, managers need to develop strategies where positive feedbacks are looked at and applauded so that employees will improve their performance. Ultimately, what employees look for in their workplace are, like Hodgson, in Langton (ppt.3), says, “dignity of life, autonomy, honesty, loyalty, fairness, humaneness, and common goal.”
It is for this reason that I disagree with managers who say that, “thirty-five years ago, young employees we hired were ambitious, conscientious, hard-working, and honest, and today’s young workers don't have the same values.” This is far from true, as today, young workers are ambitious, hard-working and conscientious in comparison to those thirty years back. With so much attitudinal changes happening in organizational circles, where hard and quality work are rewarded, there is no way that young workers will let go of these motivators. Organizations need to compete in a highly competitive global market and because of this; they go out of their way to make their employees more responsible and accountable for their actions. Employees are given all sorts of incentives to make them perform and because of this; young workers have become more responsible. This was not the attitude of workers thirty years back when there was hardly any competition. As Langton and Robbins (2007) say, “workers born in the mid-60s to early 1980s were, “Thrill-seeking materialists, aimless dependents, social hedonists, new Aquarians, autonomous post-materialists.” Today, young workers are “proud of [the company’s] aspirations, accomplishments, and legacy; they share its values, they know what each person is expected to do, how performance is measured, and why it matters, they are in control of their own destinies, and they savour the high-risk, high-reward work environment, know that they are recognized for the quality of their individual performance, and have fun and enjoy the supportive and highly interactive environment.” Considering these, there is absolutely no truth in saying that the workers thirty years back were more ambitious or hard working.
When one member of a team continually arrives late for meetings and does not turn drafts of assignments in on time, it is because he/she has lost interest in working with that team or organization. A reason for this could be because that particular member must have felt that he/she was being overlooked by the management and not been given his/her dues. Such situations arise when managers overlook the work or performance of a particular member of a team and instead shower someone else for the outcome of the work. Effective communication is the borderline to a good relationship between company managers and their employees, and also in imparting training. Interpersonal communication, as the name suggests, is the communication between individuals to share and understand information. According to Greenbaum, in Barrett’s (2003, p.64), Vocational Business Training, Developing, and Motivating People, organizational communication is built around four principles, “Regulate employees to conform to organizational instructions and requirements, promote changes to improve performance and production, develop an identity among the workforce and raise morale, and pass on information to ensure better performance.”
A highly motivated team can raise their performance to enhance production levels significantly to the point that many employees may well go beyond their leaders’ expectations, individual accountability, financial results and short-term market objectives. The most noticeable difference between a high-performance workforce and an average workforce is their energetic and emotional commitment. Maslow (2001) is of the opinion that people have five levels of needs. The basic need is survival; have enough money to buy food, shelter and clothing. The second level is security; job security. The third level is social, followed by status, and finally, the pinnacle of them all; the level of self-actualization. We see that for an individual to go from one level to another, he/she needs to be motivated. Unless there is sufficient motivation, one would remain content with the basic level. It is therefore important to ensure that employees are always motivated. Motivation can be either, “Financial, which includes bonus, commission, profit sharing and piece sharing, and/or non-Financial, which includes, job rotation, job sharing, team work, status, consultation, quality circles, and fringe benefits” (Maslow, 2001).
Many organizations, in order to sustain or counter competition, make changes to their manufacturing or production structures, these could include the acquisition of new machines to enhance production. When such an event occurs in an organization, a lot of effort and time is lost in training the employees on how to run these new machines. However, those organizations that continue to use the existing machinery and manufacturing processes and followed the punctuated equilibrium model witnessed their employees continue to share common scripts and understandings of the group’s work processes followed the punctuated equilibrium model, where they began to work on their task without personal supervision. From this it can be said that “as long as a shared script is available with a team, they will perform their work without external interference or supervision most competently” (Dennis, Garfield and Reinicke, n.d, p.1). Therefore, punctuated equilibrium model best fits groups whose members have shared scripts for working together.
Whatever be the stage of performance, it can be said that everything goes well as long as communication lines are open and effective. This is where channel richness can be highlighted. Channel richness is the amount of information that can be transmitted from one person to another during any given communication. The more the information, the better is the communication. The best mode would be through face-to-face communication where a dialogue can be created to make a communication effective. For example, when there is a ne product launch or production unit commissioning, meetings between the concerned people can lead to a communication channel where all forms of information can be exchanged and understood. Emails are written communications and it is not as effective as face-to-face communication. Emails are short simplified forms of information transmitters. They have to be specific and short, to the point. For example; please see that you are available in the office at 8.30 for the next session. There could be a lapse in time as the other person would have to log in to his email to see if any messages are there or not and then, if available, reply to it. The company bulletin board is also a useful source for communicating information. However, not too many people take notice of information put up there as they are rarely removed or changed. However, for the employees, such bulletins could serve as a message board that gives instructions or conveys messages like holidays and so on.
Politics is inherently bad for business. Trade Unions gained immense importance in negotiations for the working class and this hampered any positive development. There is no doubt that Trade Unions are the representative class of the workers and try to work for their benefit, but in most cases, they are self-indulging, which can harm both, the working class and the organization. According to Brimo (2005, p.18-19), “The Marxist/radical perspective sees worker and business relations as a class war and recognizes inherent conflicts while advocating an over-through of the power base, which in contemporary business circles is destructive .”
When it comes to successful businessmen, “Kevin Sharer, the Amgen CEO, is a fine example of an executive who has worked out how to balance this tone of respect with the need to move forward and get to better decisions and actions. He will be the first to tell you how important mutual respect is in his organization” Ferrari (2012, p.35).
Conclusion
Of all variables, values like trust and respect between employees, is the most important significant predictor of labor turnover. Contrary to an organization’s belief that when corporate values are practiced more, employees are more likely to stay working for the company, the result could be just the opposite. When the level of trust and respect between employees develop, the level of labor turnover will increase. As respect increases, there could be heightened recognition that colleagues could find better opportunities elsewhere. Employees are more likely to enjoy working for a company where managers attend to their needs. Managerial roles or behaviors such as providing good pay and benefits, praise and encouragement, support and training are necessary for enhancing employee performance.
References
Barrett, R, (2003), Vocational Business Training, Developing, and Motivating People, Nelson Thornes
Brimo, Adam M, 2005, HSC Business Studies, Web, Accessed December 2, 2013, from http://brimonet.com/hsc-business.pdf
Dennis, A, R, Garfield, M, J, and Reinicke, B, (n.d), A Script for Group Development:
Punctuated Equilibrium and the Stages Model, journal, Web, Accessed December 2, 2013, from http://misrc.umn.edu/workshops/2006/spring/alan.pdf
English, G.C, (2004), HRD Products, Managing Information and Human Performance: Strategies and Methods for Knowing Your Workforce and Organization
Ferrari, B, T, (2012), Power Listening: Mastering the Most Critical Business Skill of All, Penguin Group, Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data, ISBN 978-1-101-56054-9, p.7-42
Green, T, B, (1992), Performance and Motivation Strategies for Today’s Workforce: A Guide to Expectancy Theory, Praeger/Greenwood
Langton, N, and Robbins, S, P, (2007), Fundamentals of Organizational Behaviour, Chapter 3: Values, Attitudes, and Their Effects in the Workplace, Third Canadian Edition, Pearson Education Canada, 3-13
Langton, N, (2014), Chapter 3: Values, Attitudes, and Their Effects in the Workplace, Pearson,
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990), A theory of goal setting and task performance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Maslow, (2001), Motivation, Web, Accessed December 2, 2013, from www.hoddersamplepages.co.uk/pdfs/cceabus4.pdf
