Man and Organization Three Problems in Human Relations in Industry by Foote - Essay Example

?Man and organization: three problems in human relationship organization and environment. According to the American heritage dictionary of business terms, human relations is the understanding and enhancement of how individuals work together to achieve success and fulfillment, it is very vital in the sustainability and continuous development and success of companies. In his book man and organization three problems in human relations in industry Foote identifies the three major problems in human relations and organization environment in the factors; culture, work flow and organization culture. This will include a summary of his book and further discussion on the school of human relations based on these three problems. These problems are not clear cut as they tend to be mutually dependent. Culture “Culture is defined as ideas, customs, skills, arts etc. of a people or a group that are transferred or communicated or passed along as in or at succeeding generations” as defined by the American heritage dictionary. Culture can be stratified into organizational and indigenous culture. According to Everett Hagen (Whyte 1959 pg. 8)“in Latin America we find a much greater emphasis upon line of authority and a lesser development of staff organizations than we see in comparable companies in the united states. Its union management relations and grievance procedure as we know it in the US is little in evidence in Latin American plants”. This shows that the Latin American society is more stratified with greater emphasis upon family and community which makes it difficult for people in different status level to express themselves freely and frankly in discussions and arguments. In this kind of culture people tend to congregate into social groups and networks in which they interact and seek acceptance and also give approval to fellow workers, this is where members form their goals, attitude and ideals. They have virtually elected leaders who they always tell to air their grievances. George Elton Mayo of the Hawthorne experiment (Accel team 2010) says that “change from an established society in the home to an adaptive society in the work plant resulting from the use on new techniques tends to continually disrupt the social organization of a work plant and industry generally”. This shows that indigenous or national culture influences workers even in the work place. The institute of work psychology university of Sheffield 1998 describes organizational culture as “the aggregate of an employee’s perception of an organization e.g. quality of communication, level of supervision and support for innovation”. When an employee joins a new organization, s/he is matriculated into the culture and practices of the organization. If there is a lot of bureaucracy in the operations of a firm or stratified culture, members are not able to communicate their problems freely especially to higher authority. For centralized organization especially in supervisory and decision making, lower management tends not feel very accountable or responsible because they only carry out orders as received from above and thus they are not able to influence performance as they should in their individual field. Herzberg’s motivation theory (Accel-team 2010) says that “the motivation for maximum productivity of an employee is recognition, achievement, growth and advancement and if these lack even if the hygiene factors are present the individual finally loses interest and is not maximally productive.” Therefore if an organization lacks to the right practices to motivate their workers they do not achieve maximum productivity. Organizational structure The business dictionary.com defines it as “a framework typically hierarchical within which an organization arranges its lines of authority and communications and allocate rights and duties.it determines the manner and extent to which roles, power and responsibilities are delegated, controlled and coordinated”. Every organization has both formal and informal structures. Formal structures are a fixed set of rules intra-organizational and structure procedures. Formal structures facilitate goal accomplishment, coordination, authority relationship, specialization, labor division and group cohesiveness. Informal structures on the other hand are social structures within an enterprise. They are based within the formal groups they serve the sole purpose of controlling members and protecting them from management. Depending on the formal structure and the feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction the informal structure may or may not work to the detriment of the organization. The organizations management needs to be well aware of the workings of the informal and formal structure and be sure to establish a good working relationship with the informal structure because it affects most of the workers decisions and how they work in the organization. Centralization and decentralization of decision making in the organization also plays a big role in the motivation of workers. “Centralization of decisions means that the workers do not have much say in the running of an organization” (Leopold and Richardson 1977). However decentralization of decision making e.g. allowing lower management to make some decisions in the departments they are running gives them a feeling of responsibility, power and appreciation, allowing the employees to participate in the organization decision making process also plays the same role. Work flow According to the business dictionary “it is a progression of steps, tasks, events and interactions that comprise a work process” It is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person, a group of persons, an organization of staff, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms. Workflow may be seen as any abstraction of real work. While work flow management as defined in wise geek.com “as a system of overseeing the process of passing information, documents, and tasks from one employee or machine within a business to another”. Through proper workflow management, each of these employees or machines will pass the work on according to a predetermined procedure. As technology advances, much workflow management has become automated and takes advantage of special software to make the process much smoother.” For workflow to be effective there should be clear cut guidelines as to whom to report to and when and how. If there is confusion as shown in Edith Lentz study of work flow a restaurant in Foote’s book, we find this causes friction and delays affecting quality of goods produced or of services offered. This in turn often leads to customer dissatisfaction thus loss of customers. RECOMMENDATIONS. The human relations school e.g. Mayo, Likert (Accel team 2010) emphasized the importance of informal relationships among people and individual, needs, motivations and attitudes. Therefore the organization needs to come up with a structure where they include and make every worker proud to be part of the organization. Hawthorne’s experiment shows both hygiene and motivation factors can be carried out simultaneously to provide extrinsic and cultivate intrinsic motivations for organization employees. George Homans contributions as discussed in Foote’s book (1959 pg. 54) to human relations says that there are three concepts to be looked at; interaction, activity and sentiment which are mutually dependent. The top management should come up with a way to increase social interaction with the staff at all levels for example team building activities. This helps all the members of the organization feel equal in importance in that every activity they do in the firm counts for the whole. management close interaction with subordinate staff eliminates fear of authority thus opens communication lines, improves staff morale in that for the boss to take time to interact with you makes one feel valued in the company. When there are positive sentiments and positive culture in the company people tend to be productive. On the other hand the organizational decision making schools e.g. Simon 1976, Cyert and March, 1963(Wei, 1991).Emphasize that information processing can only occur when there is rationality to make decisions in an organizations context of goals and standard procedures. Even as we bridge the gap between the management and other staff there still should be respect of authority, friendship should not come into play when discussing serious matters at hand. This also means that everybody should be held accountable for outcomes on decisions made. There should be no cover ups or passing of blame and praise should be accorded when deserved and to everyone deserving. This will help proper integration of different culture in the work place and form a workable organizational culture; people also tend to be careful when making decisions to avoid making bad and nonviable decisions. Work flow organization should be done in a way to avoid overtaxing the social and technical capacities of different people to avoid friction, delays and complains. Effective work flow management makes it easier to track machine and human performance and when there is a break or problem in the chain it is easily spotted and rectified. It also helps to standardize methods such that every employee in a certain level is performing the same functions. This ensures that no one is overworked while others are underworked. Good workflow management also ensures consistency in quality and production thus gaining the trust of a costumer and thus repeat business. There should be departmentalization of decision making in order to make sure that therein maximum production in each department and also ensure that problems within the department are solved as soon as they are sported. However the lower level and middle management should always consult with upper management and also interdepartmentally as the actions of every department influence the outcome of production and profits. CONCLUSION Managers should keep in mind that people working in an organization determine its failure or success. Therefore organizations should effectively manage, develop, motivate and engage their staff as this is the key determinant of the outcome of their performance. “Human relations is widely considered as four areas; individual worker, the whole group, the working environment and the leader responsible to overseeing accomplishment of tasks. If one part of the four is not right the outcome is not as expected”.(Hodgetts and Hegar 2007).Therefore make sure that every individual worker is properly reimbursed and is well motivated, there is a firm and well defined organization structure, there is proper work flow, equipment in good conditions and other factors necessary for a comfortable risk free working environment and finally the person in charge should be able to associate with every worker depending on their different personalities, able to lead and motivate the workers instead of bullying them to get results. In the current complex organizational world, we are dealing with work flow, technology and organizational structure. We cannot change the pattern of any of the above without changing the other. “The biggest task lies with the relations manager as he must parallel the needs of a changing organization effectively manage work place diversity in order to competitively compete in an everyday changing world”(Khan ,A. 2005). Adaptable, resilient agile and customer centered organizations are the most successful today. The Human resource manager should ensure that the human resource is well motivated and every mechanism is in place to accomplish these organizational goals of success and prosperity. REFERENCES Whyte, W.F. Man and organization; three problems in human relations in industry. Illinois: Richard D Irwin Inc.1959. Walker, R.C. Richardson. and Leopold, F. Human relations in expanding company. New York: Arno press inc.1977. Hodgetts R. M. and Hegar, K. Modern human relations at work.10th Ed. USA: Thompson higher education.2007. Khan, A. Matching people with organizational culture. Newport: Business management Group Inc.2005. Institute of work psychology University of Sheffield and center for economic performance London school of economics. Impact of people management practices on business performance. Great Britain: Cromwell press.1998. Accel team. Employee motivation. 2010. Web 12th March 2011. http://accel-team.com/motivation Chun Wei. “Towards an Information Model of Organizations.” The Canadian Journal of Information Science. 16.3 (1991):32-62. Read More