Decision-Making Process in the HR - Essay Example

?“In some decision making situations going through the process of consultation will waste time and add little value”. Discuss this ment with reference to Vroom and Yetton’s (1973) decision model and other styles of managerial decision making. Leadership involves conceiving a vision, setting up goals in line with that vision and laying paths to achieve these goals that have been set. In a business, goals cannot be achieved without consolidating the efforts of subordinates. Leadership at this juncture would involve making of decisions such as deployment of resources, roles of subordinates and so on. However, it is vital to note that the decisions taken under particular situation may not hold good for all situations, in fact they may give negative results under different circumstances. This implies that effective leadership calls for consistently making situation based decisions. From literature, situational leadership advocates for greater participation of employee in decision making on the premise that the more employees participate in decision making the more they will accept the decisions taken. It with this line of thought that Vroom and Yetton (1973) proposed a Situational leadership model called the normative decision model. The normative model identifies five different decision procedures that range on the situation and level of involvement from autocratic to consultative to group-based decisions. Even though, situational leadership advocates for greater employee participation, Vroom and Yetton (1973) identified that not all decision making situations need to go through the process of consultation. To enable leaders isolate the instances where decision making would require consultation from those where consultations would add little value, Vroom and Yetton (1973) formulated seven questions which leaders can use to determine the level of subordinate involvement in decision making. The seven questions touch on problem information, commitment, and decision quality and acceptance. Putting Vroom and Yetton (1973) normative model to use it can be discovered that consultation would be a waste of time in the following circumstances: (1) where the leader has sufficient information to make a high quality decision and acceptance of the decision by subordinates is not critical for its implementation; (2) where neither the nature of the solution nor the acceptance of the decision by subordinates is critical to the implementation of the decision; (3) where the nature of the solution is not critical and whatever the leader decides it is reasonably certain that his / her subordinates would accept; (4) where the nature of the solution is critical but the leader has sufficient information to make a high quality decision. In this instance even though the acceptance of the decision by subordinates would be critical to its implementation, if the leader is reasonable certain that he / she has sufficient influence over his / her subordinates to the extent that they would most certainly accept his / her decision then consultations would be a waste of time. In conclusion, to enable effective decision making a leader would find using Vroom and Yetton (1973) seven questions and normative model a critical tool that will save him / her time, effort and likelihood of success for the decisions that he / she takes. Identify the potential difference in human resource management (HRM) policies between two organizations where one follows a low-cost strategy and the other follows a differentiated, quality enhancement strategy. Alignment between HRM systems and an organization’s strategy is critical if the business is to meet its strategic goals. HRM systems and business strategy are interdependent. In strategic HRM organizations seek to link human assets to the strategic needs of the organization. HRM policies need to align the human resources to either of the kinds of competitive strategies that a business may employ namely: differentiated / quality enhancement and cost reduction strategies. Additionally, it is important to note that this relationship between an organization’s HR policies and practices and its competitive advantage changes over time. As the firm seeks to deepen its current advantage or build new competitive advantage, it has to change the way it deploys its resources. The distinction between organizations that practice cost-reduction strategy and those that pursue differentiation strategy can be witnessed through the organizations architecture, culture, and routines. For example businesses that implement cost-reduction strategies are focused on creating and sustaining operational efficiency. This implies that such businesses must aim to use fewer resources than their competitors to deliver the same or better quality product. Cost-reduction strategy implementers focus on understanding more about an established terrain and therefore tend to display lots of incremental innovation in products and processes. On the contrary, differentiation-strategy implementer companies tend to give employees the time and resources to experiment, learn, research, think, and reflect. The rationale for this kind of investment is that it will eventually benefit the firm, though perhaps not in a way that directly affects its current performance. HR policies and practices follow entirely different patterns for different strategies. For example, in case of differentiation-based strategy, impetus is to be given for free thinking and bringing in new ideas. Entrepreneurship / intrapreneurship is recognized and rewarded, in both monetary and non-monetary terms. In organization’s that have adopted differentiation strategy performance appraisal focuses on long-term results and has a long-term focus. Development of a cooperative culture is encouraged as employees are given the opportunity to learn across functions. The compensation is also offered in more variety in terms of benefits such as stock options to create within the employees a sense of ownership. On the other hand, for an organization that has implemented a cost reduction strategy the focus is on making employees to work harder and smarter to enable them discover more cost-reducing process innovations. Also the training and development programs for organizations focused on cost reduction strategy aim at increasing staff efficiency, instilling a service-oriented mindset and reducing operational costs. Rewards in these companies are pegged on sales volumes, so that the firm can take advantage of savings associated with economies of scale. In conclusion, an organization’s HR systems need to reflect the company’s strategic focus. HR systems guide the human resource coordination issues and the incentive issues which are critical in enabling an organization realize its mission and vision statement. Use the job enrichment model of Hackman and Oldman (1980) to explain what steps you might take as a Manager to evaluate and increase the motivating potential of a job. According to Feder (1999) job enrichment is the qualitative change to a job, which increases the job’s significance, degree of autonomy, and feedback, which enables employees to have greater control and feedback in their work environment. Also, different job characteristics have different weighting when it goes down to their impact on increasing the motivating potential of a job. This means that careful analysis has to be done to first identify the specific characteristics of a job. If I was a manager I would take the following steps to evaluate and increase the motivating potential of a job: 1. The first step is to perform an organizational diagnosis to identify the specific problematic characteristics of the job within the context of the organization. While conducting the organizational diagnosis we will generate a score for each of the following job characteristics: skill variety, task significance, autonomy, task identity and feedback. The score being used will be the motivating potential score (MPS), an index of how likely a job is to affect an employee's attitudes and behaviors. From this step we will be able to identify those jobs that already have some significant levels of individual enriched job characteristics and those without. 2. The second step is to improve the intrinsic factors of the given job. This is guided by Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory which postulates that extrinsic / hygiene factors have less effect on motivation than intrinsic factors / motivators. And our aim is to increase the job’s motivation potential. Some of the motivators that we could add to the job include increasing learning opportunities, accountability, and recognition. Also, Feder (1999) reminds us that one should introduce motivators differently for different populations for instance motivators should be introduced singularly in populations having low growth-needs. 3. The third step is to factor in the two major challenges to increasing the motivation potential of a job, namely (1) the relationship between the supervisor and the subordinate after the job has been enriched and (2) access to the requisite resources for the newly enriched job. Enriched jobs require that employees have access to greater quantity and quality of work information which may lead to conflict with between supervisor and subordinates. The above three steps are generic strategies that I could implement as a manager in order to increase the motivating potential for a job. However, according to Feder (1999) individuals who take up the job may differ in terms of how much enrichment they need in order for them to be motivated by the job. Some people may require enrichment of a single characteristic while others may require comprehensive enrichment of the job. This problem may not be solved even by a thorough organizational analysis in step 1 because of the singularity of individuals. However, if conducted diligently the above three steps should increase the motivating potential of a job by some appreciable degree. Buchanan and Huczynski (2010) argue that ‘reducing the resisting forces against change is preferable to increasing the organizational forces driving change’. Analyze this statement with reference to force field analysis. To understand change in organizations two issues need to be distinguished. The first issue deals with any actual change conditions observed. The second issue concerns any resistance to such change. These two issues define a force and counter-force to change. Driving forces are those forces which initiate change or keep change going while restraining forces are forces acting to restrain or decrease the driving forces. A state of equilibrium is reached when the sum of the driving forces equals the sum of restraining forces. Kurt Lewin developed a model that could be used to visualize the forces that are pro- or anti-change. Lewin’s model, referred to as Force Field Analysis, is based on the concept of forces a term which refers to the perceptions, customs, habits, and attitudes of people in an organization that drive and restrain change. Lewin formulated three fundamental assertions about force fields and change: (1) Increasing the driving forces results in an increase in the resisting forces; the current equilibrium does not change but is maintained under increased tension; (2) Reducing resisting forces is preferable because it allows movement towards the desired state, without increasing tension; (3) Group norms are an important force in resisting and shaping organizational change (Iles & Sutherland, 2001). According to the Force Field Analysis, change is affected by two things: (1) the absolute strength of the driving and restraining forces involved, and (2) the slope of the gradient associated with those forces. The notion of gradient arises when one pictures the resistance force occurring along a gradient for example, an organization could be expected to offer much greater resistance to a 50% increase in workload, compared to say the resistance offered against a 5% increase. This phenomenon of weak resistance when the driving force increases are small, that grow increasingly strong as driving force increases grow larger gives credence to the argument by Buchanan and Huczynski (2010) that reducing the resisting forces against change is preferable to increasing the organizational forces driving change. A better explanation is that when one attempts to implement change by strengthening the forces promoting change, one shifts the organization’s equilibrium to one with more tension. The greater the equilibrium tension the greater the slope of resistance (forces gradient). However, when the reverse, reducing the restraining forces is done, the net effect is that the system balance is shifted towards the promoting forces, enabling movement of the process in the desired direction / change. Reducing the resistant forces creates equilibrium with less tension, in which case the changed process is more likely to move beyond the range of the original system to establish a new local equilibrium at a point closer to the desired change (Iles & Sutherland, 2001). References Feder, I. (1999). Customized job enrichment and its effect on job performance (Dissertation). Baruch College, New York. Iles, V., & Sutherland, K. (2001). Managing Change in the NHS: Organisational Change – a review for health care managers, professionals and researchers. London: National Coordinating Centre for NHS Service Delivery and Organisational R & D. Vroom, V. H., & Yetton, P. W. (1973). Leadership and decision-making. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press.  Read More