Trends And Issues In HRM In Modern Organisations

Stages of Team Work

Critically analyse trends and issues in HRM in modern organisations, and to identify how and why the organisation can benefit from applying best practice standards both financially and non-financially, taking into account stakeholder concerns.

Team work is a very effective way of dealing with a task. Cooperation and coordination among the members in a team oust the best result which a person cannot bring out individually. Efficient team working among the students is the best way to mutually analyse, understand and deal with a case study.

Functioning of a team requires some time. A team has to go through certain stages before it can be expected to deliver its best. The stages through which a team goes before functioning properly and cooperatively are as follows:

1. Forming: This is the first stage in which the students gather together and understand their tasks and role in the team.
2. Storming: This stage is an important stage in which the ideas emerge from the students’ minds. Students often come out with different ideas and in this stage there is a high possibility of conflicts and differences among the students. In this stage the students mutually eliminate the differences and agree on concurring suggestions.
3. Norming: In this stage the students divide among themselves the mutually agreed roles each has to perform while working in the team. They also decide upon what should be done and how it is to be done.
4. Performing: In this stage the students perform their roles efficiently and finally come out with positive outcomes through coordinate team working (Redick et al. 2014).

The skills required for performing well through a team work are as follows:

The students need to come out openly and communicate their ideas, doubts and clarifications openly and frankly. Once the students are able to overcome their hesitation to speak in front of their team members, they will be able to develop a good understanding among themselves which eventually will reflect in their results (Dietz et al. 2014).

Honesty is an important aspect of team working. The honesty of the members in a team helps to build a trust and belief among the team members and consequently they are able to perform better (Amos and Klimoski 2014).

Members may find it difficult to perform their individual roles while working in a group. Support from the other team members is essential to boost the performance of each other (Amos and Klimoski 2014).

Respect towards each other is very important to carry on the team work. Disrespect towards a member brings down his morale and eventually leads him to take an exit from the group (Dietz et al. 2014).

In the given case study relating to the Royal Thai Hotel, the students have formed into groups and undertaken their tasks in a well organised and systematic manner. The case involved a detailed study about the managerial functioning of the Royal Thai Hotel.  Though the students have been able to come out with positive solutions regarding the questions related to the case study but the method of team work has suffered from certain shortcomings as well.

Often certain members tend to dominate others in a group with their voice and ideas. The dominating members expect other to work in way according to their wants and wishes. This creates a situation where the other members do their tasks unwillingly and they fail to show their creativity and innovation. Eventually it has a negative impact on the result. Domination can never be entertained in a team as all team members are equal and they are ought to be treated equally. A good leader never dominates the other members but he is mostly soft spoken and give full liberty and opportunity to others to show their innovation and creativity (Janssens and Zanoni 2014).

Skills Required for Team Work

Equal participation by all members and equivalent level of dedication is mandatory for successful team work. The total burden of team work cannot be imposed upon few members and all of them are ought to share equal responsibility while working in a team. The reluctance of few members in a team may affect efficient team working and ultimately leads to negative outcomes (Tausczik and Pennebaker 2013).

Sometimes a member tends to outshine the rest and in the process end up attempting to lead all others to follow his ideas. The other working in the team may not welcome such attitude and ultimately it leads to clash of ideas. This creates a disharmony among the members and the members seem divided and separated from each other. In very unfortunate cases it may also lead to create some personal conflicts among the members. This is the worst thing that can happen in a team and it completely defeats the purpose for which the test was created in the first place (Sharma 2015).

While working in team a situation may come when things may get wrong. In such situation members tend to blame each other for the fault rather than finding out a mutual solution. These circumstances deteriorate the team value and members may also end up fighting with each other and denies to further work in the team (Maxwell 2013). 

While working in a team one has to leave his ego behind. It cannot be expected that an idea emerging from a member’s mind will be accepted by all. More ideas emerge with the inclusion of more members in a team. Listening to everyone’s ideas is essential for carrying out the team work. But the one with egos tend not to welcome the ideas of others and this cause problem. It breaks the coordination in the team and consequently the team faisl to achieve the end for which it was formed (Li et al. 2014).

Guide for every teams: There has to be a guide for every team who would solve the inner conflicts and grudges among the members in a team. Whenever a situation arise where members feel separated or disconnected from each other, it shall be the responsibility of the guide to immediately call a meeting and address all the issues of the members so that a common solution may be found. The guide needs to act impartially and give equal opportunities to all of being heard. This would decrease quarrels among the members and lead to a better team work.

Shortcomings of Team Work

Team should be composed of less members. This would lessen the number of ideas emerging from the team members and eventually there would be less possibility of clash among the members. In a team with less members, all would be able to work more efficiently because they would be aware of the fact that the roles which have assigned to them have to be done by them only. Inclusion of more members in a team make some members reluctant and less hard working because they form a belief that if they do not perform their roles, the same roles would be performed by someone else in the team. Therefore less members in a team would obviously persuade the members to undertake their tasks more seriously and efficiently (Belbin  2012). 

Team leader has to play a vital role for proper functioning of the team and leading the members towards yielding a good result. The success or failure of a team depends on the kind of team leader it has. A good team leader bears responsibility for the direct outcome of a team effort, he motivates his members for giving their best efforts. He stands by the members and inspires them to work with utmost sincerity and dedication. If any conflict arises between two members, a good team leader reconciles the issue and restore peace in the team. Without a good team leader, good performance of a team is not expectable (Schaubroeck et al. 2016).

The members in a team need to maintain a healthy relationship with each other. Team effort bring colour only when everyone works together. A single member cannot do the work entirely. The members in a team need to share responsibilities among themselves. A proper planning and a proper division of work would undoubtedly yield the best result. For that purpose it is important to identify the strength and weakness of each member. Once the work is divided and the members are given their responsibilities, it becomes easier for them to perform their respective parts and come out with positive outcome (Belbin  2012).

Conclusion

Team work is the best way to perform a given task. A group has the potential to accomplish more than what an individual alone can accomplish. Team work also helps to save time, since a team performs work more quickly than an individual takes in doing the same work. In a team work, more thoughtful ideas come from the minds of different members which consequently produces a better quality of work. When a team of students undertakes a case study, different students apply their different minds and view the case from different angles. It helps in understanding all aspects of the case study and eventually the students come out with effective solution. But there are some negative aspects of team work as well such as conflicts among the members and unequal participation by the members. The need of a good team leader and proper division of work would definitely combat such challenges and help the team to come out with effective results.

References:

Amos, B. and Klimoski, R.J., 2014. Courage Making Teamwork Work Well.Group & Organization Management, 39(1), pp.110-128.

Belbin, R.M., 2012. Team roles at work. Routledge.

Boud, D., Cohen, R. and Sampson, J. eds., 2014. Peer learning in higher education: Learning from and with each other. Routledge.

Costa, P.L., Passos, A.M. and Bakker, A.B., 2014. Team work engagement: A model of emergence. Journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 87(2), pp.414-436.

Dietz, A.S., Pronovost, P.J., Mendez-Tellez, P.A., Wyskiel, R., Marsteller, J.A., Thompson, D.A. and Rosen, M.A., 2014. A systematic review of teamwork in the intensive care unit: What do we know about teamwork, team tasks, and improvement strategies?. Journal of critical care, 29(6), pp.908-914.

Janssens, M. and Zanoni, P., 2014. Alternative diversity management: Organizational practices fostering ethnic equality at work. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 30(3), pp.317-331.

Li, N., Kirkman, B.L. and Porter, C.O., 2014. Toward a model of work team altruism. Academy of Management Review, 39(4), pp.541-565.

Nancarrow, S.A., Booth, A., Ariss, S., Smith, T., Enderby, P. and Roots, A., 2013. Ten principles of good interdisciplinary team work. Hum Resour Health,11(1), p.19.

Redick, A., Reyna, I., Schaffer, C. and Toomey, D., 2014. Four-factor model for effective project leadership competency. Journal of Information Technology and Economic Development, 5(1), p.53.

Schaubroeck, J., Carmeli, A., Bhatia, S. and Paz, E., 2016. Enabling team learning when members are prone to contentious communication: The role of team leader coaching. Human Relations, p.0018726715622673.

Sharma, R., 2015. TEAM CONFLICT: IMPACT AND RESOLUTION FOR ENHANCING SUCCESS OF ORGANIZATION. Journal Impact Factor, 6(1), pp.733-739.

Tausczik, Y.R. and Pennebaker, J.W., 2013, April. Improving teamwork using real-time language feedback. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 459-468). ACM.