Discuss about the Contemporary Issues in Management and Organisational Behavior.
Managers get work done through other people. Human resource is an important asset in an organization. Currently, the business environment keeps changing and demanding more concentration by managers to enhance improved productivity. However, various conflicts between the organization and the employees or between the employees themselves hinder an organization from achieving the set goals and objectives (Bartol et al., 2008). Organizational behavior studies the manner people interact with each other while in the workplace. The study of organizational behavior assists managers to effectively manage workers and hence creating more efficient business organizations (Murray, Poole, and Jones, 2006). In an organization, managers are tasked to make decisions, direct subordinates activities, and allocate sufficient resources so as to achieve the overall goals of a company.
This report seeks to address organizational behavior challenges that face an organization. The change of demographics in today’s workplace has made managerial roles keep on changing (Mintzberg, 1993). In particular, this report analyses poor staff behavior as the primary challenge facing the productivity of Wesfarmers, an Australian based company where one of our group members was working a few months ago. The stiff competition in the Australian supermarkets and hotel sector, accompanied by underproductive employees of Wesfarmers creates a challenge to the managers (Mintzberg, 1981). This report analyses the approaches taken by the company’s managers in addressing and resolving staff behavior to establish a competitive and healthy work environment for the enterprise.
In the past, managers had only five roles to undertake within the workplace, planning, organizing, coordinating, staffing, and control of work operations (Nelson et al., 2012). As discussed with our group mate, Wesfarmers has been a victim of poor production due to the employee’s poor behavior while at the workplace. Poor staff behavior is a broad term and entails a lack of cooperation, arriving late to work, inter-personnel conflicts, disrespecting the management, and poor communication skills (Davidson & Griffin, 2006). As a result, the employees have turned to be less productive due to poor performance. The managers in the company have had a lot of pressure exerted on them since the workers have been unable to cooperate with all processes and operations of the firm.
When a challenge is identified, it needs to get solved immediately to avoid poor productivity and loss of public image to the customers. In this case, the primary challenge is known, poor staff behavior. Therefore, the management should respond and resolve this menace. Managers are skilled people with expertise in conflict solving and will use their knowledge and skills to bring discipline to work in this company (Gettler, 2005). A good manager does not sack all personnel of the firm. Instead, they use their managerial skills to human, conceptual, and technical expertise in resolving the present challenges. This report shows the applicability of two topics in the class module; one, attitudes and job satisfaction and two, group and team behavior.
Organizational behavior concepts require organizations to maintain a good relationship with its staff. For an organization to meet its set goals, employee behavior needs to be invaluable. Employees react differently to a given situation at the workplace. To maintain a healthy culture, employees need to behave sensibly in the workplace (McAdam, 2002). However, the case at Wesfarmers during our friend’s tenure of working with the company was different. The employees there behaved insensible to such an extent that they could not adhere to the rules and regulations set by the corporation. The employees there shout to the fellow workers the way they want, extremely criticize their supervisors and managers ability to run the firm, and always spread rumors and propaganda. The employees disclose the company’s strategies to other competing companies; this remains to be a significant challenge for the enterprise.
The behavior of employees in Wesfarmers is completely unprofessional. Most of the personnel take drinks and foods within the workstation. Whenever one is giving an idea or opinion to the managers, they make the suggestions harshly in a nonpolite language. The communication skills are poor, and ideas are passed as if it was mandatory for the management to implement or consider them in decision making (McAdam, 2002). The male workers have no respect to their female counterparts and sexually harassed them in the workplace, this is unethical and against the professional codes. Individual behavior matters a lot in the workplace. Some other times, the finance department employs unethical practices by stealing the office money and use creative accounting to balance the books of accounts. Further, theft of stationery is at a high rate within the workplace, and this needs to be stopped with immediate effect.
Human resources personalities differ, and these differences affect the manner they react to both internal and external pressures existing within a firm. The work environment also influences their mental framework and job performance. This report has identified that have an adverse effect on the performance of employees in the workplace.
Ego or personality clashes
Normally, people have different personalities, and this affects their behavior in the work environment. The employees have opposing personalities with the management of the company, and this forms a ground for arguments between the conflicting parties. The motives of the business differ from the purposes of the employees (McShane and Travaglione, 2007). Wesfarmers seeks to maximize profitability and productivity, while the employees strive to get a better take home pay. In a recent case, the employees requested for salary increment, but the company was not in a good position to offer the necessary wage increase because this was not budgeted. The employees reacted disruptively to the management by despising their managerial skills, and this resulted to decreased staff morale hence poor productivity.
Stress and heavy workloads
Wesfarmers diversifies its operations to supermarkets, hotels, and warehousing. The workplace is full of high demands and deadlines, and this requires the employees to tolerate this high pressure in the market and from the company. Some of the managers act unethically and force employees to work under this pressure at the actual pay. Some of the personnel succumb to this mounting pressure and a conflict between them and the managers arise. This leads to the establishment of stress, and this proves to be detrimental to employees performance (Hannagan, 2005). The quality of work done by employees under high pressure from the management is poor. The workers differ in their suggestions from the instructions given by the Directorate when they do not get paid their requested salary increment. To some extent, most of them steal from the company to compensate for the job done or even fail to report to the workplace.
The work of a director is to instill confidence to the subordinates by motivation, enthusiasm, and training them the right skills of getting the job done. In Wesfarmers, some of the supervisors engage in punitive behavior which results to harassment of employees by the top management in the workplace. Aggressive behavior by the supervisors hinders maximum productivity and achievement of the set goals by the company (Davidson & Griffin, 2006). Casual workers lack skills and knowledge deemed relevant in the execution of their duties. The failure of a supervisor to train them what to do hinders their efficiency, and this leads to poor production. Giving incompatible responsibilities to the interns and management trainees without clarity of duties creates tension between the employees (Mintzberg, 1990). When employees are not welcomed to the firm as they expected, they form a negative attitude towards the management and hence poor employee behavior in the workplace is build from the first day.
Group and team behavior is key to organizational behavior success. Personnel tied with partners who possess different skills proves detrimental to the overall productivity of Wesfarmers. Clash of inter-personnel values brings animosity and intolerance between individuals since everyone comes with their ideas, principles, values, and perceptions. This poor team selection establishes an environment for conflicts, insults, and disrespect amongst the workers in a given setting (Daft, 2014). Whenever a conflict exists within a team, poor results follow since gossiping, abuse, and discipline exists. The team members are unable to listen to each other’s ideas, opinions, or suggestions since they already formed a negative attitude towards them. Gossip creates a loss to Wesfarmers and affects individual productivity since most time is lost discussing other team members.
Change management in the workplace needs to be executed thoughtfully and carefully. Poor employee behavior at Wesfarmers has established a huge gap between the current state of affairs and the targetted objectives of the company as defined in its strategic plan (Gulati, Mayo, & Nohria, 2014). This problem needs to be resolved to establish quality management and bridge the gap that at the end employee behavior would be made positive. The management of Wesfarmers should adopt the following intervention programs to establish an excellent organizational behavior.
Training and development programs play a significant role in enacting the right skills and knowledge to employees. Wesfarmers managers have been very slow and ignorant when it comes to organizing training and coaching programs to their newly recruited staff and casual workers. Their ignorance results in the formation of the wrong attitude to the management of employees from their first day in the company (Drath, 1993). The management should, therefore, organize training programs for the personnel to equip and nurture them with the right skills of undertaking their roles. By this doing, the employee’s morale and commitment would get raised and thereby establishing a positive work behavior whose end results is profitability and maximized productivity.
Communication is the most important tool of conflict resolution within the workplace. Every challenge at the workplace is resolvable. The initiation of an integrative communication program by the management would lead to positive work behavior. For example, one cause of poor workers behavior is their being overlooked when it comes to making crucial decisions under pressure demands by the company’s clients (Campling et al., 2008). The management should employ an inclusive and participatory program where every stakeholder within the workplace has a right to give their ideas, opinions, and thoughts towards a particular issue. Participation of every employee in decision making avoids disagreements, gossip, indiscipline, and disrespect of the set decisions since everyone’ idea has been put into consideration.
There is need to bring poor employee behavior to an end. First and foremost, the manager must understand employees personalities and values since as seen from the above, this is the mother of poor employee attitudes within the workplace. The managers need to listen and understand the situation facing the organization as per the employee’s ideas and thoughts (Belbin, 1993). The supervisors of groups in the company have forgotten this aspect whenever in challenging situations. Addressing workers complaints requires the practitioner to understand the source of criticism that leads to poor behavior. When they stop to listen and understand the cause, they will come up with the right decision to end this challenge.
Conclusion
Organizational behavior keeps on changing, and these changes affect the organization’s structure, processes, and decision-making processes. Effective conflict resolution is vital in today’s organizational behavior. Job satisfaction, workers attitude to the management, and team behavior affects the overall productivity and profitability of a company. Employee behavior and values significantly determine whether the goals of a firm will be realized on not. Poor employees behavior adversely affects an organizational performance since the personnel act disorderly, disruptively, and harshly to each other and the management as well. Therefore, business managers must design change programs which seek to control employee behavior. The management should develop an integrative communication program whereby each stakeholders idea gets considered in the decision-making process by the firm. Maximizing stakeholders wellbeing within the workplace results in maximized productivity of the company and thus maximum care should be taken.
References
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