Factors Affecting Productive Performance In The Workplace – Organisational Behaviour

Impact of Workplace Factors on Productive Performance

In order to encourage productive performance from employees, care needs to be taken with the design of jobs, working conditions, setting of goals, motivation and rewards.  Explain how and why all these factors impact upon productive performance and evaluate how a manager may be able to impact upon the processes across the organization.

Organisational behaviour helps to study the behaviours that are undertaken by individuals in an organisational setting. This helps managers to manage the employees in an effective manner by implementing strategies required to meet the demands of the employees. The essay focuses on the managerial issues that are common in an organisation. The fact that every organisation faces these issues at a certain time makes it possible for scholars to develop theories that highlight mitigation strategies to the issues (Reeve 2014). Hence, the issues in focus in this essay include job satisfaction, motivation, rewards, goal setting and workplace condition. The effect of the continuity of these issues is examined and the manners in which managers respond to the issues are provided. Furthermore, an example is provided that highlights the positive aspects achieved by an organisation after mitigating the issues.

According to Pinder (2014), a healthy workplace environment consists of supportive co-workers and employers along with resources required for the continuation of work. In this regard, it can be said that the management of organisations need to take care of the fact that the policies and rules set during the establishment of an organisation are maintained. Some of the factors that cause issues in organisations include the improper motivation of employees, job dissatisfaction, lack of goals and poor working conditions. It has been stated that these factors are related to one another and solving in one of the problems automatically helps in mitigating the rest of the problems (Small 2017). For example, often it has been seen that due to lack of financial stability, organisations fail to provide the necessary motivation to the employees. Consequently, the workplace environment also is hampered. It is to be noted that the workplace environment consists of both the employees as well as the machines required for conducting the work.

Hence, without proper financial condition, organisations cannot motivate employees by providing them with the necessities required for efficient work. Lack of job satisfaction also denotes a key concern for the employees. This is because employees expect to be rewarded for the talents that they possess. The manner in which these talents can be exposed is by providing the employees with an opportunity to bring their talents into the limelight. Hence, it can be said that managers need to assess the conditions that are necessary for maintaining an effective workplace. As stated by Robbins, Judge and Campbell (2014) the primary step for maintaining a proper workplace is to set up goals for the benefits of an organisation. This can help the employees to understand the manner in which work needs to be approached.

Analysis of Employee Motivation

Currie et al. (2017) stated that it is necessary for an organisation to follow a systematic approach that can help in managing the issues. Managers need to analyse the situations that lead to the cause of the issues. The systematic approach can help in building the confidence of the employees and better productivity can be obtained by providing the exact guidance required for success. In this regard, an example can be stated that signifies the importance of systematic working. For an organisation to work well in any given condition, it is necessary to set up goals that help in analysing the target. The goals need to be set by the managers keeping in mind the potential results and the manner in which to achieve. Hence, this can be considered as a first step towards working for improving the productivity.

After this, the managers need to ensure that the goals are met by providing the employees with the necessary resources for fulfilling the goals (Nuttin 2014). These resources can be in the form money, material and man that contribute to gaining effective progress in the organisation. Managers need to support the employees and work hard to make them gel as a team so that critical tasks can be achieved without any hindrance. This involves improving the working environment in which managers and employees work together for attaining the goals. As stated by Robbins, Millett and Waters-Marsh (2014) the improved working condition can get employees to be motivated by the ability to show their skills can be exploited. Furthermore, providing job and tasks based on the skills of the employees can get managers to ensure that employees find it suitable to work in the organisational setting.

Employees with good performance need to be rewarded so that they continue to work efficiently and try to improve the condition of the organisation. However, it is to be kept in mind that the motivation can come in the form of monetary or non-monetary rewards (Wood et al. 2016). The monetary rewards can be in the form of incentive or bonus while the non-monetary rewards can be in the form of recognition and promotion. Hence, in this regard, it can be said that managers need to provide an appropriate response that can help an organisation to ensure that the rate of employee turnover is reduced.  To do so, it is necessary that managers adopt Maslow’s need hierarchy theory to ensure a systematic working of an organisation. According to Maslow (2015), this theory can help to conduct a systematic approach towards motivating employees by understanding the needs.

Practical Strategies for Effective Management of Workplace Productivity

The first priority of an individual is to ensure that the job that they are doing is enough to get them the basic needs of life. However, this factor has changed in the modern day, as people believe that a security of job can easily provide them with the basic needs required for survival. Hence, it is important that managers provide job security by proving job satisfaction before moving on to other motivational factors (Stoyanov 2017). Once an employee is satisfied with the work, they tend to improve and improvise so that they can attain greater things. This gives rise to the need for attaining self-actualisation and self-realisation, which helps employees to understand the potential factors required for success. Thus, it can be said that the use of Maslow’s need hierarchy theory provides employees and managers with an opportunity to improve in a steady manner in an organisation. However, along with these motivation factors, managers need to ensure that the workplace harmony is maintained by getting employees to collaborate and work together.

Zablah et al. (2016) countered that cooperation between employees is not the only workplace satisfaction that can be provided. It is important for the managers to be supportive of the work was done by the employees. Proper guidance needs to be provided so that the employees are motivated to work hard. Involving them in the decision-making activities can help to make the employees feel that they are an important part of the organisation (Robbins, Millett and Waters-Marsh 2014). Hence, it is necessary that the managers adopt a democratic approach so that the efficiency of the employees is hindered. However, Small (2017) argued that the adoption of the managerial style needs to depend upon the type of work done by employees. Hence, in this regard, an example can be provided which highlights the implication of maintaining proper workplace condition along with a delegation of jobs. The incident described also sheds light on the type of motivation that is provided to the employees for their performance.

In the quest to motivate employees and rewards them for their hard work and dedication, Walt Disney provided every employee with a Ferrari. The suggestion to make money out of Disneyland initially came to mind after his brother refused to pay him to see a movie. However, with fewer employees to work, the park was opened only on Wednesdays through to Sundays. One of the team members suggested that the park is opened on Mondays and Tuesdays as well and the people visiting during those days are given a discount. It was seen that people turned up during these two days as well to get the discounts. This proves as a strategic plan adopted by Walt to increase the finances from the park. Thus, employees were given jobs that helped them in using their skills at the same time; the workplace environment was such that interactions with different people were made possible. Providing the employees with Ferrari indicates the motivational step taken by Walt Disney in order to retain the services.

Thus, it can be concluded that mere motivation of workers by providing them with benefits cannot help an organisation to gain success. The contribution of the managers, as well as the employees, can help in improving the issues that arise in a workplace. Managing the employees need to be done in a systematic manner so that every factor of an organisation is also improved in the process. Inspiration needs to be drawn from leaders that have shown the proper implementation of the motivational factors to help in improving the workplace. The application of related theories can help managers to identify the correct manner in which organisations can be improved. The issues are basic in nature and solving them requires basic managerial skills and competence along with the cooperation from employees.

References

Currie, D., Gormley, T., Roche, B. and Teague, P., 2017. The management of workplace conflict: Contrasting pathways in the HRM literature. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(4), pp.492-509.

Maslow, A.H., 2015. A theory of human motivation. Classics of Organization Theory, 50, p.142.

Miner, J.B., 2015. Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. Routledge.

Nuttin, J., 2014. Future time perspective and motivation: Theory and research method. Psychology Press.

Pinder, C.C., 2014. Work motivation in organizational behavior. Psychology Press.

Reeve, J., 2014. Understanding motivation and emotion. John Wiley & Sons.

Robbins, S. P., Judge, T., and Campbell, T. T. 2014. Organizational behaviour. Financial Times Prentice Hall.

Robbins, S., Millett, B., and Waters-Marsh, T. 2014. Organisational behaviour.

Small, A., 2017. Attennn-tion! Steps and skills to ensure discipline in the workplace: management. Red Meat/Rooivleis, 8(1), pp.44-46.

Stoyanov, S., 2017. A Theory of Human Motivation. CRC Press.

Wood, J.M., Zeffane, R.M., Fromholtz, M., Wiesner, R., Morrison, R., Factor, A., McKeown, T., Schermerhorn, J.R., Hunt, J.G. and Osborn, R.N., 2016. Organisational behaviour: Core concepts and applications. John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd..

Zablah, A.R., Carlson, B.D., Donavan, D.T., Maxham III, J.G. and Brown, T.J., 2016. A cross-lagged test of the association between customer satisfaction and employee job satisfaction in a relational context. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(5), p.743.