Organizational Behavior Paper Assignment: Influence Situation Analysis Paper
A brief description of the incident
The incident took place during a project in an organization where all of the employees in the team had lost interest as well as faith in the management because they did not believe that there would be sufficient rewards for the efforts that they would put in this project. Moreover it was Christmas time and motivating the employees to put in extra hours at work was extremely difficult. I could manage to get only 4 out of 10 employees to stay back and work for the project at the cost of not spending time with their families on Christmas eve.
A critical analysis of the incident
The major cause of the issue was lack of motivation and morale among the employees. Their lack of motivation was because of the fact that they believed that they were not sufficiently compensated and rewarded. To handle such a situation in the short term, it to get them come for work on Christmas eve, I handled this situation through using power. There are three bases of formal power. It includes coercive, rewards and legitimate bases. Coercive power refers to authority or power that depends on fear. There is use of threat and fear of punishment. A reward is an incentive offered for doing something well. Legitimate power is the one that exists due to the position of a person in an organizational structure. These are forces that can only make a person work harder in order to keep his job. It does not lead to sustainable motivation. There are two bases of personal power. It includes expert and referent bases. Expert power is the power yielding as a result of knowledge on a particular subject. Referent basis is the power exercised due to identification with a person who has he desirable resources. I used coercive power as a temporary alternative to ensure that the employees work on the project.
Organizational factors related to political behavior includes organizational values, counter norms, ambiguity and competition. Organizational values, if strong enough then they can help curb political behavior in an organization. Counter norms which refer to organizational standards and practices have a great influence on the political behavior in an organization. The ambiguity of the policies and functions in an organization are greatly responsible for political behavior as they lack clarity and create situations where political behavior can arise. Competition is also another factor which gives rise to politics in an organization due to friction between employees. It leads to hostility between employees and causes political behavior. This was the end result of my efforts of ensuring that the project was completed based on power.
An action plan for handling future incidents
Organizational behavior theories are of great use in practical organizational situations. Learning theories and motivational theories have been the two major theories applied in practical situations of this kind.
Herzberg’s motivation theory also has an important role to play. He classifies all factors into just 2 categories – one being the satisfiers and another being the dissatisfiers. The satisfiers if increased would lead to employee motivation. In order to increase employee motivation the dissatisfiers should be reduced.
The goal setting theory of Organization Behavior is widely used to help employees perform better and to their fullest potential. Goal setting provides direction and path to an employee. It defines success and failure. It motivates him to work in a particular direction in order to achieve his goal. This has led to a very popular concept of Management by Objectives (MBO) where in the supervisor as well as the employee set the target goals together. It helps set specific and realistic goals. Employees are more willing and motivated to achieve jointly set goals.
Leadership theories of Organizational Behavior can also be observed in practice in organizations. These can be keenly observed in the top management officials. We can notice that some leaders are autocratic and are not preferred by subordinates. The leader uses reward and coercion powers to motivate employees. This type of leadership is effective in solving a problem or an issue when the situation involves new and untrained employees. Whereas participatory leaders are enthusiastic people and are preferred by the team mates. They motivate people, are good at problem solving and are liked by others.
I would try and use these theories to develop the action plan for the future in order to ensure that there is motivation among work groups rather than coercion and help them perform better. Some of the action plans are as below.
- Education and Communication:
The situation can be improved through communicating with employees to help them see the logic of the activities of the company. If employees receive the full facts and get any misunderstanding cleared up, his resentment will subside. Communication can be achieved through one-to-one discussions, memos, group presentations, or reports. It provides the source of resistance adequate information and that management-employee relations are characterized by mutual trust and credibility (Hao, et.al, 2012). This will apply the theory of motivation.
- Participation and Involvement:
The management needs to encourage a design and implement the strategies in a way that can help them encourage employee engagement. Participation increases understanding, enhance feelings of control, reduces uncertainty and promotes a feeling of ownership when change directly affects people. In this way participative leadership needs to be practiced.
- Facilitation and Support:
If employees are provided with encouragement, support, training, counseling and resources adapt to new requirements easily. By accepting people’s anxiety as legitimate and helping them overcome their grievances, managers have a better chance of gaining respect and the commitment to make it work. These would be ways to motivate the employees.
- Rewards and recognition:
Employees clamour for recognition. They want to be emphasised about the fact that their work is noticed, their contribution makes a difference and someone senior in the organisation recognises these facts. Timely rewarding of employees with cash or gift certificates, a personalised note of thank you, bonus etc. acts as motivators. More independence to work, more responsibility or a new job role can be rewards to recognise an employee’s good performance. So by rewards and recognitions employees would feel values and they would not feel that their efforts are not rewarded. This will motivate them to work on Christmas eve because they would know that their efforts will be valued by the company.
- Performance management:
Performance management is a cycle that begins with planning the annual and business goals, followed by checking in i.e. review meetings round the year through training and mutual feedback and finally assessing the performance of the employees against the objectives set in the beginning of the year. Understanding the performance management process and the recognition is well connected to the contribution have a strong influence on employee motivation. The perception of fair and effective performance management increases the level of commitment of the employees and improves performance. This would reflect the application of Management by Objective theory and encourage them to work on Christmas eve.
Conclusion
The steps to be taken if the agency couldn’t supply the necessary resources for the group include contingency planning. This makes it extremely important for managers to focus on contingency planning in case of measuring and managing risk. It helps manage risk efficiently as contingent plans help managers reduce risks and provide for in case of emergencies and thus help save a project. They can then be enabled to function within the limited resources and also form sufficient activity plans. The resources needed to run this group consists of time and efforts from each of the members of the group. It also includes skills for representation and knowledge for being able to pursue the members of the group.
