What Interpersonal Managerial Roles Should Be Developed by a Manager Confronted with the Employees - Essay Example

1. A re-organization will require that some employees are provided severance packages while other reassigned. What interpersonal managerial roles should be developed by a manager confronted with these employees? Explain. A manager has a significant role to play in the overall operation of an organization and needs to posses a higher level of skill sets. The Manager is responsible for planning, organizing, staffing, routing and management of the company. One of the core functions of a manager is to utilize the human resource of the company in an effective manner. Reorganization of a company is a sensitive step and the manager needs to have ultimate interpersonal skills in dealing with severance packages and reassigning works. The manager should be well prepared over the concept of reorganization and should be in a position to handle any type of questions posed by the employees related to the decision. The manager should be able to communicate the conditions and issues surrounding reorganization in an effective manner. Reorganization is not an easy thing to do and it will affect the employees and their families to a great extent and by commuting the problems and concerns effectively, the whole process of reassigning and offering of severance packages can be carried on smoothly. As a first step towards reassigning and layoff, the manager should call for individual meetings with the concerned employees. The change in title, department and work nature needs to be explained to them in an elaborate manner. Make the employee aware about the new reporting line, relocation, lessening of working hours and other issues that would affect their present status in the company. Situations like this demand excellent interpersonal skills which includes better management, organizing and communication skills. 2. A manager has decided to use the Hawthorne Studies to improve productivity in an office. How would she accomplish this? Would the results be short- or long-term? Explain.  Hawthorne Studies is a way to improve productivity levels of an employee by creating a psychological belief that they are more important to the organization. It is a form of positive management tool that increases work performance of an employee by letting the person think that they are being singled out and are important to the organization. Employees always like getting the attention of the employer and they like the feeling of being important. The researchers of Hawthorne Studies came out with four major conclusions: An employee may showcase good physical or mental potentials but social factor has a major impact on the productivity. The employee-supervisor relationship influences the ability of the workers to take orders. Productivity is affected by the norms of work-group. The whole of workplace is that of a social system that are interlinked or interdependent. The manager can accomplish the Hawthorne Studies by offering praise and expressing appreciation for the hard work put in by the employee. The key for effective Hawthorne effect accomplishment is to be aware about the circumstances when the productivity levels go up and when it comes down. Also, she should be aware of the limitations surrounding the study and should be careful in its application. If the supervision and attention gets overboard then it would affect the productivity adversely. The worker’s morale needs to be improved and the manager should keep an open eye as to why and how the productivity goes up. The results derived out of this policy are short-term. Over the time, the employees get used to the attention (Franke, R. & Kaul, J, 1978) 3. Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman argued that, “there is one and only one social responsibility of business— use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game” Do you agree with Friedman? Explain.  No, I do not agree with Milton Friedman’s statement. Though Milton Friedman’s ideology that a resource should be used solely for achieving profits and there is no requirement for a company to give back to the resources or community may seem to bring in profits for a shorter period but it would definitely not contribute to the business’s growth in the long term. Milton Friedman believes that the one and only responsibility for a company is to work towards increasing the profits and there is no need for any social responsibility to be played on the part of the company. He further asserts that trying to focus on the community development than generating profits leads to totalitarianism. A business will expand and grow only if it opens up to community problems and takes interest over the conditions of the resources working under its helm. Employees need attention and appreciation to keep them moving towards a higher point. Similarly, by contributing to the community effectively, a business creates a better place for it to operate and function. It creates a better platform for it to continue business and develop it into a long term venture. Also, company’s involvement in socially responsible activities acts as a branding and marketing tool for the company. By contributing to the society, the company grabs the attention of people all over, which leads to more business opportunities. Thus, Friedman’s theory of focusing only on profits is too narrow and not suitable for businesses which want to grow in a big way. 4. Please evaluate this scenario by detailing what the manager would do for each step in the decision-making process.  i) Two employees are blaming each other for a project they collaborated on which failed.  ii) The department’s last three hirers all quit within six months.  i) If two employees are fighting over a failed project, the manager should immediately act over it. The person should take immediate steps towards diffusing the situation and bringing it back to normal. As a first step towards ironing out the issue, the employees should be stopped from fighting in public and should be called to a private area. The manager should then call for individual meetings and let the employees share their thoughts and complaints on what led to the failure of the project and what role the other party has to play in it. Now, the manager needs to work towards sorting out the problem and let them know that fighting must stop. Finally, the manager needs to get follow up on how things are going between the two from other employers. ii) If three of the employees who have been hired recently quit in a period of six months from the date of joining then it is definitely a cause of concern and the manager needs to attend to the issue immediately. First of all the manager should be aware of the department’s operation and call for a meeting with the department in-charge to know how things are moving in the work front. The next step would be to sort of any issues or problem, if any. Issues may differ from work hours to reporting problem or simply nothing. The manager should set out a clear guideline and then set out on hiring new people, if required. 5. Competition with China has eviscerated many American industries, how can women’s clothing companies compete? Car companies? Please use Michael Porter competitive advantage categories: cost leadership strategy, differentiation strategy, and niche in your answer. Explain. With the world opening to globalization, a lot of things have changed in the America’s industrial front. The industries in America are almost in a deteriorating state and countries like China contribute towards it. In case American industries want to compete in the women’s clothing and car manufacturing space they need to take Michael Porter’s competitive advantage categories into serious consideration (Porter, M, 1998). 1. Cost leadership: This is one of the most crucial areas of all. American clothing and car industries should come up with lower operating rates that enable people to buy goods and products at reasonable rates. The lower the price, the more customers the business will get. Also, remember to keep the business standardized in the quality and service front. Using advanced technology, best techniques combined with considerably affordable rates would help the business achieve leadership in the space. 2. Differentiation strategy: Marketing a unique range of products to different line of customers by employing expensive marketing tools. 3. Niche marketing: Product or service offered to specific target groups within a particular area or region rather than going broad. Marketing costs are lesser in this case. Works Cited Franke, Richard. and Kaul, James. The Hawthorne experiments: First statistical interpretation. American Sociological Review, (1978) 43, 623-643. Porter, Michael. Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, Simon and Schuster, (1998) – 345 Read More