Challenges Faced By Modern Enterprises While Managing Employees’ Behaviour

Factors influencing employee behaviour

Employees are an important asset in any organization. Therefore, it is important to ensure that employee behavior is effectively managed to ensure successful operations. Explain the challenges that managers are likely to face in the process of managing employee behavior. Suggest any five solutions to the challenges you have identified.

Organisations focus on implementing appropriate business policies for increasing employee satisfaction levels which assists them in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of their operations. In order to effectively manage the behaviour of employees at the workplace, the human resource department implements organisational behaviour strategies that assist them in determining the issues faced by employees at the workplace. By resolving such issues, the HR department is able to create a positive work environment in which employees can grow their abilities and improve their performance which ultimately benefits the organisation (Mcllwraith, 2016). In recent years, the advancement of technologies has increased the requirements of highly skilled and talented workers who are able to perform complex tasks due to their skills and knowledge. The companies which are able to retain highly skilled employees in the workplace are able to generate a competitive advantage in their respective industry through which they can increase their profitability. The statement that employees are a significant asset of companies has become true in past few decades which resulted in increasing the importance of managing their behaviour at the workplace. This report will evaluate the challenges which are faced by modern enterprises while dealing with employees’ behaviour. Furthermore, recommendations will be given which can be used by organisations for effectively managing the behaviour of employees.

Employee behaviour is referred to the way in which a specific employee or a group of employees responds to particular situations or circumstances in an organisation. There are a number of elements which determines the behaviour of employees at the workplace; however, these elements are generally affected by the cultural background of employees or the organisational culture. The corporate culture in which employees work or their personal cultures have a significant impact on the way how people communicate and interact with others in the workplace (Albrecht et al., 2015). It also influences the interactions between the management and employees at the workplace. Additionally, the ethical beliefs or sense of ethical responsibility plays a crucial role in influencing the behaviour of an employee at a workplace. Based on these factors, it can be seen that there are two ways of managing employee behaviour which include influencing personal and organisational culture. It is not possible for the management to influence the personal culture of an employee because each individual comes from a different background which affects their behaviour in the workplace. However, the management can influence the organisational culture which is a key factor that affects the behaviour of employees at the workplace (Mowday, Porter and Steers, 2013). Therefore, the HR department focuses on implementing appropriate business policies for establishing a positive work environment which positively affects the behaviour of employees as well.

Challenges in managing employee behaviour

While influencing the organisational culture or managing the behaviour of employees, there are a number of issues faced by the management which made it difficult for them to establish a positive working environment. One of the major challenges faced by the management in modern organisations is stereotyping at the workplace. A stereotype is referred to a fixed image of a person or group of people’s characteristics which is usually an oversimplified or exaggerated image of their attributes. Due to globalisation and digitalisation, the number of foreign workers operating in international corporations has grown substantially. The HR department faces new challenges because they have to manage people from different cultural backgrounds, races, religion and gender (Young et al., 2015). Due to racism and casteism, people who belong to minorities or different cultural backgrounds face difficulties at the workplace. They are continuously tortured or mocked by other people that made it difficult for them to do their work. Negative remarks and discrimination in the workplace made it difficult for them to be happy in the workplace which affects their mental health. It also affects their performance which is reduced due to the mental torture that they suffered at the workplace (Schmitt, Den Hartog and Belschak, 2016).

In order to avoid these issues, modern organisations are taking strict actions. For example, recently, the CEO of Google fired one of the senior developers of the company due to a controversial racist memo in which the developer had argued that men are more superior to women (Romano, 2017). Other organisations also promote diversity at the workplace for establishing a positive and supportive corporate culture. For example, 45 percent of Harley Davidson employees are women. However, there is still room for improvement, and most enterprises are not taking any steps to manage diversity in the workplace which adversely affects the behaviour of employees. One of the key reason due to which diversity issues increase in the workplace is lack of communicational channels between the senior level executives and employees. It is another challenge which is faced by the management while handling the behaviour of employees. In case there are no communications channels than employees are not able to tell their issues to the management due to their grievances remain unresolved. It also makes them feel that the management did not take appropriate measures to protect their interest which demotivates them to improve their performance.

Demotivation is another factor which affects the behaviour of employees at the workplace. Motivated employees perform better, and they achieve the organisational objectives, on the opposite site, demotivated employees did not take initiatives to improve their performance while at the same time they adversely affect the performance of others as well (Temminck, Mearns and Fruhen, 2015). They are constantly nagging and complaining about the policies at the workplace which made it difficult for others to perform better as well. Another issue with organisational behaviour is that everyone is different and people have different behaviour, however, if the management treats everyone the same, then it makes it difficult for them to address the issues of each employee (Wilson, 2017). While implementing business policies, managers did not consider that each employee is different, and they have different needs which affect their behaviour, thus, failure to address the needs of employees negatively affect their behaviour. While working in the organisation, the conflict between employees is common, however, unresolved conflicts affect the behaviour of employees and their performance. Generally, the senior level executives did not take appropriate participation in the conflict of employees or take initiatives to resolve such issues due to which employees have a negative behaviour at the workplace. These challenges made it difficult for the management to effective manage the behaviour of employees at the workplace.

Recommendations for managing employee behaviour

Diversity Policies

In order to address the issue of diversity at the workplace, the management is required to implementing diversity policies at the workplace to avoid discrimination and ensuring that people from minorities or different cultural backgrounds are treated equally (Mcllwraith, 2016).

Motivation Policies

It is important that the management implements effective motivation strategy at the workplace in order to inspire employees to perform better and continuously improve their performance. The management should implement appropriate reward or incentive scheme for employees to inspire them in order to improve their performance (Temminck, Mearns and Fruhen, 2015).

Communication Channels

Effective communication between the senior level executives and employees is crucial for positively affecting the behaviour of employees at the workplace. It ensures that the workers are able to tell the management their issues which makes them feel like a part of the company and it resolves their issues which positively affect their behaviour.

Accepting the Differences

Every employee is different, and the management is required to accept such fact and implement policies by considering the difference between employees. The management should provide appropriate training to employees in order to ensure that they are able to understand the difference between employees and did not show disrespect to them (Wilson, 2017).

Conflict Management

The management should implement strict policies for managing the conflicts at the workplace because it affects the behaviour of employees. The senior managers should actively participate in the conflicts of employees to ensure that they are able to understand their issues and take appropriate actions to resolve such issues. Resolved conflicts create a friendly working environment in the workplace which positively affects the behaviour of employees as well (Albrecht et al., 2015).

Conclusion

From the above observations, it can be concluded that there are a number of challenges faced by the management while managing the behaviour of employees at the workplace. Lack of diversity policies creates different between people from different cultural backgrounds which negatively affects the behaviour of employees. Lack of motivation policies and communicational channels between the management and the employees cause issues of employees’ behaviour at the workplace. The managers did not consider the difference between employees, and they did not resolve the conflict of employees which negatively affect the behaviour of employees at the workplace. In order to resolve these issues, the management is required to implement strict diversity policies and implement motivational schemes for promoting the performance of employees and inspire them to perform better. They are also required to establish effective communication channels and accept the difference between employees in order to treat them equally and addressing their needs. The management should resolve conflicts between employees to creating a positive working environment which resulted in improving the performance of employees

References

Albrecht, S.L., Bakker, A.B., Gruman, J.A., Macey, W.H. and Saks, A.M. (2015) Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(1), pp.7-35.

McIlwraith, A. (2016) Information security and employee behaviour: how to reduce risk through employee education, training and awareness. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge.

Mowday, R.T., Porter, L.W. and Steers, R.M. (2013) Employee—organization linkages: The psychology of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover. Massachusetts: Academic Press.

Romano, A. (2017) Google has fired the engineer whose anti-diversity memo reflects a divided tech culture. [Online] Vox. Available at: https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/8/8/16106728/google-fired-engineer-anti-diversity-memo [Accessed on 24^th May 2018].

Schmitt, A., Den Hartog, D.N. and Belschak, F.D. (2016) Transformational leadership and proactive work behaviour: A moderated mediation model including work engagement and job strain. Journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 89(3), pp.588-610.

Temminck, E., Mearns, K. and Fruhen, L. (2015) Motivating employees towards sustainable behaviour. Business Strategy and the Environment, 24(6), pp.402-412.

Wilson, F.M. (2017) Organizational behaviour and gender. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge.

Young, W., Davis, M., McNeill, I.M., Malhotra, B., Russell, S., Unsworth, K. and Clegg, C.W. (2015) Changing behaviour: successful environmental programmes in the workplace. Business Strategy and the Environment, 24(8), pp.689-703.