Organizational Issues and Trends - Essay Example

Change is a part of life that affects all people during different stages in their lives. The life of a business organization behaves very similarly to our lives as far as the need of them to adapt to the environment around in order to keep moving ahead in their existence. There are trends and issues which managers of business organizations must closely track and plan for in order to ensure the long term survival of the business entity. It is a part of a manager job to forecast the environment and the variable that may affect the business in the future and of course in order to be able to predict tendencies the managerial staff has to be on top of the topic in the present to know how are these areas affect the business in the present and how they have influenced in the past to learn from the victories and the mistakes. Three topics or issues of great importance which are studied in this essay are global ethics, stress in the workplace and organization politics. The paper analyses these three issues from a current perspective as well as looking at the tendencies in these issues a decade from now. Stress is a mental and emotional condition that affects the behavior of humans in all facets of life. It is a condition that is not healthy and organization must recognize its existence and ensure preventive measures are in place to minimize its occurrence. If stress is identified among a group or individual worker the company must also have a way to litigate with the problem on a personal and confidential matter to ensure the employee or employee get the help needed to deal with the problem. Since stress is a human condition spark by a variety of factors in a person’s personal and work life it will always be present among some members of the staff. A company first of all has to take measure to ensure the work conditions of the company do not contribute to a stressful work environment as well as having protocol measures in place to identify employees suffering from this medical condition to provide them with the counseling the person needs to help them deal with the situation. Stress in the workplace is an undesirable condition because it leads to lower productivity, a higher incidents of human error, unnecessary tension, a lack of group synergy and other negative factors for an enterprise. The factors or categories that lead to stress in the workplace include bad economic trends in an organization, interpersonal relationships, organizational culture, lack of promotional opportunities for qualified candidates and other job specific conditions (Careervision). Tough economic cycles in a firm make an employee feel there is no job security in the workplace and the possibility of work dismissal is imminent. An organizational culture that does not promote team work, empowerment, and professional opportunities alienates the employee and creates a stressful environment because the employees do not feel comfortable and happy working for these types of companies. The levels of responsibility of an employee and the amount of workload are two other factors that can lead to stress in the workplace. The future forecast for employees during the next ten years and beyond paint a picture of greater stress related issues rising in the workplace. Globalization and the higher levels of international competition from foreign and virtual companies in all industries have force businesses to become more efficient. In order for a business to increase its efficiency to lower its cost and increase its output the employees must make these things happen. Downsizing business practices force employees to produce more work for the same pay which frustrates workers since they feel there are being exploited by the employer. The movement towards greater online integration and web-centric strategies frustrates workers not prepared for the changes to come as we move further into the 21st century (Cornell, 2000). The aging global workforce is a trend that will affect workplace relations more and more as the decades in the 21st go by. The needs of the older worker are different and companies must adapt to this tendency to ensure stress at work does not spread further when the average age of workers increases because the lifestyles, work expectations such as total workload, and work-life balance of older workers are not the same as in a workforce of younger more enthusiastic beginner workers who are willing to sacrifice themselves more since they have not yet suffered the long term effect many of the older workaholic generation endure for many years of sacrifice in the workplace. The meat manufacturing firm I work for has been operating for decades, providing employment for people in the community and serving the meat demand of the local market. The company has a corporate culture of valuing its employees, but power is clearly visible in the workplace with a large amount of line managers and supervisors looking over the employees in the company. The employees work in a tough environment that requires physical force and resistance. Safety is extremely important since employees are working with machinery to cut meat that can seriously injured or even kill a person. Safety protocols are one thing, but the overall environment and utilization of power and politics within the company has to change to adjust to the reality of the 21st century. Power is a measure of influence a person or authority figure has over a group of people (Standifird). In the workplace managers are the employees that are given the power to direct others. An employee can also gain power by becoming a leader among the group by displaying leadership skills. Organizational politics is defined as the management of influence to obtain ends not sanctioned by the organization or to obtain sanctioned ends through non-sanctioned influence means (Schermerhorn & Hunt & Osborn, 2003). Power and politics in the business world is going through a transformation process and new tendencies are influencing the way it will be manifest itself in the near future. The new firm of the 21st century and beyond single power will not longer be an efficient way to exert power. The manager will no longer be the one control things since there will systems in place that the employee may follow and the decision making will be in their hands as well, a condition called empowerment. Firms will not longer need managers to baby-sit the staff; the manager’s job will concentrate more on strategy, planning, risk management and other managerial functions not related with direct supervision. Companies will rely more on teamwork and more firms will utilize corporate structures such as matrix structures in which people work in projects based on teamwork to accomplish the work required for the company. The company of the future will utilize marketing techniques based on the product or service; instead the firms will deploy a customer focus strategy that concentrates on adding value to the customer through customer attention and service. The whole enterprise, not just the marketing department will focus on the needs of the customer. There will be greater work life balance in the future and alternative work arrange such as flex-time will become the industry standard. More telecommuting jobs will be available in the marketplace and technology will further integrate itself into the operations of corporations. The global integration of market forces created a new global economy in which business worldwide compete against each in a single marketplace. Multinational firms deal with different issues related to doing business oversees either by exporting products or by establishing themselves physically on foreign soil. Since the beginning of the globalization movement companies began to encounter a new dimension of organizational issues related to ethical practices of doing business overseas. Ethics is the rules of conduct between what is right and what is wrong (Webster’s II, 1984). Ethical implications have influenced the business environment in the past and will continue to be a critical success factor in the future. The culture of nations differ from region to region, thus things that are socially acceptable in one place may not be correct in a different culture. For example the US is one of the world’s leader exporting fast food industries such as Burger products worldwide. Killing cows is a perfectly normal socially acceptable ethical business practice in North America, but in India the cow is sacred and killing a cow is a sacrilege and a crime for the Indian people. Cultural relativism is the position that there is no universal right way to behave and ethical behavior is determined by the cultural context (Shermerhorn, et al. 2003). Ethics might be relative to the nation a company is operation in, but companies are judged based on what are the practices of their home country where corporate headquarters are located. Large deviation from the acceptable standards in your area will hurt the reputation of a company. A few years ago the giant apparel manufacturer who specializes in athletic shoes, Nike, was in the middle of a controversy based on bad ethical judgment on part of the company’s decision makers. Nike opened up many manufacturing operations in third world countries to cut down on operating cost and to obtain cheap labor. The company had a legit strategy, but the company got greedy and sloppy and began to abuse the scenario to squeeze out more profit. The places the company created establishments had very poor human rights and labor rights to protect the workers. Nike created abusive work conditions referred to as “sweetshops” which are places in which human work excessive hours, with very low pay and under bad working conditions. Ethical consideration will affect companies a lot during the next decade. There will be more business integration between local and international firms. Mergers will continue to integrate workforces with different organizational cultures among international firms. The management has to know how to deal with the integration process of different workforces and the situation must be handled dedicatedly. As China continues to open up its market and encourage foreign investment companies can not fall into the trap of entering corrupt governmental entities such as China’s and get involved in unethical practices such as governmental bribes and payoffs. The environment is key global ethical concern for the corporate world. Companies that have process that contaminate the environment know there are standard to keep the environment safe. These firms can not fall into the temptation of establishing themselves in third world market without environmental regulations to save money by not complying with the known industry standards. Change is not easy, but it is a necessary action that must occur in order for society to move on and become a single integrated world looking for the common good of the people of earth. References Careervision.org. Stress in the Workplace. Retrieved November 28, 2007 from http://www.careervision.org/About/PDFs/StressInTheWorkplace.pdf Cornell.edu (2000). Workplace Strategies for Dynamic Organizations. Retrieved November 29, 2007 from http://iwsp.human.cornell.edu/research/wsfne.html Schermerhorn, J., Hunt, J., Osborn, R. (2003). Organizational Behavior (8th ed.). New York: Wiley. Standifird, F. Power and Politics in Organizations. GSBA 594. Webster’s II (1984). New Riverside Dictionary (Office Edition). Read More