Influence on the Culture of an Organization and the Way in Which Employees are Managed - Essay Example

Introduction Human resource management has taken strategic imperative since recant past in the organizations. Importantly, human resource management encompasses wider areas in addition to the traditionally presumed recruiting, selection, hiring, and training (Bratton, & Gold, 2009). An organization being a group of people working together towards common goal and certain environment requires effective management of people in way that effectively and efficiently contributes towards the goal and vision of the organization (Bratton, Sawchuk, Forshaw, Callinan, & Corbett, 2010). Moreover, organizations are nowadays more inclined towards horizontal structure such team as compared to the traditionally preferred vertical hierarchy (Jackson, Schuler, & Werner, 2009). Change trends and patterns have led to the increased emphasis on the effective management of people. With these changes and patterns at affect, academics and the practitioners have increased attention towards the developing systems for the effective management of working groups and teams (John, 2002). Importantly, as a consequence of the teams and working groups, organization also increases the chances of the conflicts that require negotiations for resolution (Maybey, Salaman, and Storey, 1999). All this is critical in maintaining a healthy organizational culture in an organization. With this backdrop of the human resource management and the organizational culture with role of teams and working groups as well as conflicts and negotiations in an organization, this report is aimed at developed review of these aspects on theoretical grounds and its organizational implications. Teams and Working groups In groups individual task is important but in team to achieve the goal of overall team is more important, which means everyone’s outcome is more important as compare to individual outcome (Kramar, Mcgrew, & Schuler. 1997). In group individual was accountable for his performance but in team, every team member will be held accountable for the performance. For the guidance of the team so that it works in a flow and with high productivity team leaders are being selected from the senior managers. Types of Teams: Work Group: A work group consists of two or three people who belong to same department but divided to achieve different task of that department (Newman, & Hodgetts, 1998). For example, one employee is assigned to conduct marketing research; another employee is assigned to do a marketing campaign of their product. Although it is a group work but in this an individual is responsible for his own act and every group member is concern with its own outcome. The goals, target and decisions are directed by the manager. There are 2 types of groups: Formal Group: Formal groups are those groups which are formed by the managers to achieve the organization goals. These groups are either establish permanently such as senior managers or either temporary (that groups are form for some specific project and after the completion of that project group work is done) (Redman, & Wilkinson, 2009). Informal Group: Informal groups are social groups within the organization. These groups are made naturally on the basis of the interaction and friendship of the employees. For example, two or three members of different department do lunch together so they formed there informal group (Price, 2007) Impact of Teams and Groups on organizational culture Groups and teams are made by the organization for achieving some organization goals. Team’s culture is a mirror of organization’s culture (Salaman, Storey, and Billsberry, 2005). If the organization selects those employees who are more productive, flexible and can easily adjust themselves then organization can easily achieved the complex task (Levi, 2011). Organizational culture and Groups and Teams work together, Norms set the standard and rules which tell the employee that what sort of behavior is expected in the organization and Groups and Teams are made so that organizations with the help of different department achieve its goals which are the mutual goals of the employs as well. If we merge these both then we can say achieving the organizational goal by the keeping the norms of the organization in mind. Every organization has different culture depending on the characteristic of its work (GE, 2012). Employees impact culture as much as culture impact on employees. The team behavior and the expectations from them make the organizational culture more critical. Organizations which have victorious norms, they encourage the employee engagement and innovation. When employees interact with each other in groups and teams they start maintaining friendly environment in the organization. Employees share different abilities like risk taking and leadership which can help other employees in growing in their career. When organization culture merges with the team leadership then it results in team pro-activity (Erkutlu, 2012). Employees, who share the same interests, make that interest the core culture of the organization. Teams also provide the way out for many problems within the organization. Many organizations have problem solving teams for example, everyone knows that Google is well known for its innovation; Google did survey which they name ‘Googlegeist’, the purpose of this survey is to give a feedback for problems and then Google join up some volunteer employee teams within the company to solve those problems (He, 2013). Team members have a very powerful impact on employee behavior. While working together, team members manage the employee denouement and then use that denouement to control the resulting behavior. If the groups and teams are formed for the benefits of the organization and for achieving the tasks then they can also disturbed the organization culture. While working in groups and teams they can also make hostility to the person who is against them, this thing makes the environment of the organization unfriendly. People from different department become a team then the decisions which they make can also make the culture diversify, Culture diversity is a factor which shows a positive outcome in decision making but a negative outcome in communication (Shachaf, 2008). When teams decisions are accepted by the managers that will surely has an impact on organizational culture, some people of the organization will accept it some will not; those who do not accept it they built the conflicts among them (Werner, & DeSimone, 2011). If there are formal groups in an organization then there are informal groups as well and if that informal relationship among employees is appropriate for the organizational culture, then those behaviors serve as a guideline for suitable and acceptable behavior (DeSimone, Werner, & Harris, 2002). Employees who are dominator, blocker, aggressor and avoider play as a role of negative team member in this case top managers who work well in their achieving the organization goal, the often get failed when it comes to team management and managers get anxious that they will be insulted by the employees for not achieving the goals and if the manager get de-motivated then it will also affect the teams and groups (Friday, 2003). Organization missions should be clearly described to the Teams and Groups because when the team members will believe in organization mission then they will give a potential growth to the organization. Many organizations are away from building the culture of the organization on the basis of the standards of the teamwork. The organizations should focus on the communication with the teams because the team should have a clear idea about where the company stands. Top managers should show the loyalty to the team members’ work and giving them the freedom to express so that team members get motivated to work and come with the innovative ideas. In this way organization can have successful teams and it will impact the culture in a way that employee behavior becomes friendly and they will accept the organization culture because; Culture is more a property of teams than is of entire organization (Levi, 2011). Conflict and Negotiations From the last few decade organizations are transforming their structure. The change in the organization structure and culture might be good for achieving the mission but it can bring so many controversies and conflict within the organization. Conflict is something which is unavoidable either it is in our normal life or in an organization. It is a natural and unpreventable result of people’s interaction that has diverse opinions and moral principles (Daft, 2005). A research was conducted which showed that 21% of the managers spend their time in coping up with organizational conflicts (Lippitt, 1982). According to L. Donaldson (1995), Employees don’t want the happy ending of the argument but they want a return to stability. Change in an organization and the menace of it can provoke uncertainty which give rise to conflicts. There are many events occurring in the organizations which take place from the causes of conflicts and the controversies are rise because; some employees has goal differences and their way of doing work might be differ from others, sometimes managers have good relation with workers so they favor the employees, people from the different ethnic background, difference in nature among employees etc. all these are the reasons which initiate conflicts. Organizational conflict might not be reduced but it can be managed by negotiating it. The most common way to reduce to a conflict is by simply avoiding the issue (I lose, you lose); another way is by doing the compromising (if I win/lose something you will also win/lose something). Conflict can also be negotiated by collaborating (win-win situation) that both parties mutually agree on single point and they both also do not have to give up their conditions. Accommodating is the best way to finish conflict in which one party agree on (I lose, you win) conditions (Cobur, 2010). Impact of conflict and negotiations on organizational culture Organizations are complex mix of individual and groups in which every employee share different interest. Conflict begins in the organization when there is a poor communication, inefficient management style and lack of openness. Around 1/3 people account that sometimes the outcome of the conflict is that employee start leaving the organization (Lawler, 2010). Organization’s Loyalty and conflict are intrinsic issues of any organizational agreement (Panteli, & Sockalingam, 2005).Successful companies has high cultural level of trust but the conflict among departments or within the group or with the top managers increases the chances of lack of trust in the organization. Conflict at the workplace affects the organizational culture by increasing the absenteeism, grudges, hatred and violence. It results in workplace incivility which means employees show impolite and discourtesy in shared interactions (Simmons, 2008). Goal incompatibility conflict create disagreement among the departments, the achievement of one department’s goal disturbs the other department’s goal. For example, university security is responsible for taking care of university building and if the people of science department come and go all the time then guards will not be able to achieve their task and conflict will rise among them and it will disturb the university environment (Daft, 2009). Employees who are having conflicts with each other they behave rudely or sometimes reject their ideas because of conflicts which increase the hatred and aggression in the organization. While in a group project, task of one person is depends on the other person and if that person does not work efficiently then it will affect the performance of the others and that conflict will disturb the organizational culture. For instance when financial manager give the estimated budget of marketing a product after that marketing manager will do promotion of that project according to the budget but financial manager estimates minimum credit to customers but on the other hand, marketing department will use the credit policy according to market requirements (Vashisht, 2005; Vashisht. 2006). Conflict is not negative all the time; it changes the culture of the organization in a positive way as well. Many organizations have a culture that they do not give importance to the employee they consider them as they are on contract only. When the conflict arises among employee organization negotiate by changing its culture and build a relationship with them to retain the employees in this way conflicts and negotiation both positively affect the culture. Conflicts which remain unsettled decrease the productivity of the organization and also distract the culture of the organization. Top managers should work on conflict management by looking at how they can negotiate and cope up with the conflicts which organization is facing. Managers or leaders should understand the problems and try to resolve it for making the organization a safer and enjoyable place of work. Negotiation attitude plays a vital role in dealing with conflicts. Managers and employees both can negotiate either by compromising (if I win/lose something you will also win/lose something) or by collaborating (win-win situation). The best way is collaborating with each other. Many Japanese firms consider collaboration as perfect negotiation strategy and rely 100% on this negotiation strategy (Salacuse, 2005). Communicating with the employees and understanding their problems will also help in improving the organization culture and reducing the conflicts. . If culture is having an impact on the negotiation then the negotiation practices are also having an effect on culture, people with self-face or dignity effect positively on the culture because they start avoid arguments and integrate more to resolve the problem (Oetzel, & Ting-Toomey, 2003). The cognitive thinking, how to negotiate with the other party also influences the culture. While negotiating conflicts manager should consider ethics, if negotiation is done in a formal way and less emotionally then in future other employees will also negotiate formally If the employees are affecting the organization culture then managers can apply the negotiation policy by power or threat but to some extent point otherwise employees will be start leaving the organization. Negotiation can make employees to understand each other’s ideas and try to solve the problems. Sometimes the problem-solving teams also take part in resolving the conflict and suggest suitable solution by keeping the organization’s culture in mind. Interpersonal and inter-organizational trust plays a fundamental role in negotiation procedure and maintaining the organizational culture. Solution to conflict is not long-term because with the passage of time organization deal with different problems which bring new conflicts among employees but it can be repress and can be solved for temporary period of time. Conclusion: Human Resource managers are responsible for maintaining the organization culture which defines the traits of the organization. In the internal environment maintaining groups & teams and reducing conflicts can directly affect the organization culture. 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