Organizational Justice and Human Resource Management - Case Study Example

Organizational justice is a condition of employment that leads individuals to believe they are being treated fairly or unfairly (Robert Folger, Russel Cropanzano, pg. 12). Organizational Justice motivates people to put in a greater effort for the progress of an organization. Yet, when this organizational justice is found lacking then people feel unsatisfied and think of moving on to another company. To nurture a happy and satisfied work force a company should work towards practicing good organization justice, otherwise its resources in the way of employees starts to minimize and this affects the working of the institution. People like to be appreciated. They want to know that the hard work they put in is duly recognized by the concerned authorities. The workers desire fair treatment and assessment for their work. This motivates them to put in more efforts towards their vocation. They want acknowledgement of the hours that they put in. Thus, they look forward to the promotions as timely rewards that are awarded to them for the efforts that they have shown for the association’s growth. Hence, if we find that an employee is dissatisfied by his work and is thinking of moving on then the company should take immediate action so as to stop this draining away of company’s resources. Now let us look into a case to determine who was at fault and what could have been done to rectify the situation. The case study of Anderson, Nguyen and Kelly studies the work approach followed by two different individuals- Kate and David. Both these individuals are fresh graduates from the college and are also undergoing the study of Chartered Accountant (CA). These people are full of high ambitions and goals. They are furthered motivated and impressed by the inspiring speech of the CEO of the company. Each get assigned to two different work groups and are immediately handed out tasks. Kate gets appointed to a smaller group of 5 people where she gets instant attention. David gets attached to a larger group of 10 people and has difficulty in making his presence felt. Kate does a brief ethics blunder by wearing revealing and improper clothes to the workplace. This gives her instant attention from everyone. She is also reprimanded by the human resource representative on the advice of a senior male partner. On the other hand David is trying to pull attention to him by putting in extra hours but feels that only the team leader is getting the credit for the entire job done. Both Kate and John share the same counselor, Tom, who is a senior manager in the company. While Tom discusses job problems and other work related details with Kate, he only discusses sports and other unrelated topics with David. David finds it confusing but shows off his knowledge of sports in the hopes of impressing Tom and getting more interesting projects. Five years later both Kate and David have progressed in their jobs. After completing their CA they are engaged into other activities. Kate is interested in a charitable institution run by the company and devotes most of her free time in making contacts. She is reproved by her seniors for this who think that she could utilize her time in a more fruitful manner. But, Kate finds that her growing network of contacts due to the charity work is actually helping her with her job. She is getting insights and suggestions into areas in which she had no previous expertise. Hence, she is able to serve her clients in a better manner. On the other hand, one of David’s tasks includes training the new recruits. This is a job of responsibility. David fulfills his new role with pleasure. The only drawback is that the job cuts him off from everyone leaving his clients bewildered about his whereabouts. For his only selfish needs David does not assign his client oriented jobs to his colleagues thinking that they will receive the credit for something on which he had worked. Thus, he remains highly unreachable to everyone while on these training periods. Finally, we see that Kate has been promoted to the designation of a manager while David is not. This leaves David highly unsatisfied by the organization and he even thinks of quitting his job and finding a new one. Now, let us analyze the situation and look into the problem areas wherein one person gets promoted while the other is not. First of all let’s see the different areas where one scored on top of the other. Kate got lucky to be assigned to a smaller group where she got more recognition unlike David who got allotted to a larger group and had difficulty in making his presence felt. One thing that Kate unwittingly did to her benefit was draw attention to her. She wore highly inappropriate attire to work- a mini skirt and a low cut blouse. This got her instant attention from all the people at her floor. Even the senior manager noticed her (though he disapproved of her dressing). Once reprimanded, she immediately rectified her mistake and started dressing appropriately. But, the ice had been broken. Kate got the attention that is very rarely given to a new comer. Secondly, Kate had the advantage of drawing upon the goodwill of the counselor, Tom. He briefed her about her work and warned her against all the disadvantages that she was going to face in the near future. Kate was grateful for this heartfelt advice and was encouraged to work hard to become a success at the firm. David could not draw out the same sympathy in Tom. Tom, the counselor was always discussing sports and the upcoming weekend event with David. David should have dealt with tact and brought back the discussion back to work. This would have helped him to get a better insight about his company and work. But, instead trying to impress his counselor, he showed off his sports knowledge in the hope of extracting more exciting project from him. Third thing that went in favor of Kate was her increasing social circle. As her division’s representative in the firm’s charitable foundation, it was Kate’s responsibility to contact other member requesting their time or money. In doing so Kate developed a large social circle. She was even reproved about it from the senior members of the staff, but Kate continued in her mission. She was clever enough to realize that this extended social circle was giving her professional help too. Whenever she had any problem with her work then she could take the help from her social circle. Again, if a client presented her with a query that was beyond her present expertise then she tackled it with the help of her colleagues from the foundation. In this way her extended social circle was helpful with her work too and it complimented rather than imposed on her work. Thus, her reputation as an employee who solved all sorts of problems grew. She was also easily accessible to her colleagues and her clients. But, unlike her David was a little defensive about his work. He concentrated more on his job putting in long hours every day. He had little time for social contact and devoted all the extra time towards furthering his career. He also gained a reputation as a person who was easy to work with. But, sometimes he was inaccessible to his clients. This happened usually when he was giving training to the young recruits to the company. These training periods happened without his prior consultation and went on for two to three days. During these periods David was totally cut off from everyone else. David knew that his clients could want him in the case of an emergency. Still, being defensive of his work, he shied away from passing on the responsibility to others. While on the training periods David did not ask anyone else to supervise his jobs or to look over his clients as he thought that he will be losing out credit for any good work done. This showed a selfish attitude of David whose only concern was for himself with little regard for his clients’ problems. Thus, Kate bags away the promotion while David is left fuming behind. In this case analysis we see that David was not offered Organizational justice. The organizational justice is defined as the study of people’s perception of the fairness that they receive in an organization. In David’s case the organizational justice was missing to a great extent. Hence, David is thinking of moving on to a different firm where he could expect a better treatment from his employers. From the first day itself, David had been trying to make his presence felt. He is putting in hard labor, depriving himself of social pleasures- All just for a single goal. He wants to be a success in the organization. Success means getting recognition in the way of timely promotions. But, David was stopped at his first promotion whereas Kate, who worked fewer hours than David got it. It was an organizational injustice in the eyes of David. David was accused of having more interest in the sports topics than in talking about his work. Well, David did talk more on sports with his counselor, but that was only to impress the latter as he had thought that the counselor was more interested in sports topics than in giving out any work related information. If David had had more interest in sports then he would have devoted more time in catching up with the hobby and not on working late hours at the office. A counselor’s job is to give good counseling to the newcomers so that they feel inspired and work expertly for the company. But, Tom was lacking in this quality. He showed partiality in his work. He performed his role well with Kate, putting her on the right track of work commitment, but this was not the case with David. Tom should never have started his discussion on sports, and if David had shown interest then he should have gently reprimanded him (as Kate was reprimanded for wearing improper clothes). He should have given the same good counseling that he had given to Kate. And now five years later when he says that David seemed more interested in sports that in work, then it is he who is at fault and not David. Again, David was said to be inaccessible to his clients when he was busy training the newcomers. We agree that this was David’s mistake. David should have assigned someone else to his case while he was busy with the newcomers. But, in this regard also the company seems to be at blame. David was filled with insecurity. This insecurity arose from the fact that in his early days of work David had work diligently on several projects but all the credits had gone to the team leader. Therefore, David was insecure. He thought that if he assigned the case to someone else in his absence then they would take away all the credit for his hard work. Hence, the organization and not David is to be blamed for the faults levered on him. Thus, we could say that this is a case of organizational injustice as perceived by David. David puts in the theory of Distributive Justice with regards to Kate’s promotion and finds that he has been given a wrong treatment. Distributive Justice involves the receiver’s views on how their outcome compares to a referent’s outcome, the outcome of other employees (Richard Koopman Jr.). Since, David is feeling that he is a victim of organizational injustice; hence he is thinking of changing jobs and moving on to a new company. David is a hard and sincere worker. If he moves on to a different company then the organization will lose one of its devoted employees. What is more, David has acquired a good circle of dependable clients who like working with him. Hence, if David will leave Anderson, Nguyen and Kelly then he will also take away his clients with him. Therefore, the company will lose valuable customers too. Thus, it is important for the company to follow organizational justice and keep secure its loyal staff. In David’s case the company did a number of faults. First of all David was put in a large group. Here, David had some difficulty in assorting his bearings. No one in his group encouraged him or devoted any sort of assistance to him. That is there was no team work commitment. The team was loosely tied where no one cared for the other. When David worked hard then he got no approval and all the appreciation went to the team leader. This was discouraging to a newcomer who was getting no recognition for his work. David took on all types of projects even the most boring ones still he was not given any words of approval. His team leader or any other senior person should have supervised his work and given him their valuable comments to motivate him into working harder. Tom, the counselor was partial to him. He did not give him any advice or counseling as his job proclaimed but instead engaged him into sports talk. All through five years David continued to work the hardest, letting go of his social life or any other pleasure just to be a successful person. All his hard work go unnoticed by the company and not one senior come up and pat him on the back for doing a great job. Justice in organizational justice research is examined through the perceptions of the employees in organizations who make judgments about the actions of organizational leaders (Croopman and Greenberg, 1997, Pg. 3)). David is given the job to train the new employees. These training periods are held without any previous notice. David is a busy person. It should have been the ethics of the organization to consult with David before organizing these training camps. They should have been help during periods when David is more available and not impromptu at whichever dates that suits them. He should also be given access to his mobile phone so that clients could contact him during time of emergency. The company cuts him off from any outside contact during these training periods so that he is able to concentrate fully on the programs. Hence, his unavailability to the clients is company’s fault and not his fault. David did a mistake of not passing on his responsibility to his colleagues in the fear of giving them the credit for all his hard work. He was cut off for only two or three days and again resumed his duty diligently once back in his office. His seniors should have talked with him at the first instant that there was a complaint from the client about his inaccessibility. It could have acted as a timely warning and David could have become more responsible towards his work commitment. Hence, keeping all this in view we find that the organization is not very employee friendly and needs to pull in several strings to make the employees work more securely. Finally, we can summarize that there are several organizational problems in Anderson, Nguyen and Kelly. The organization should take more care of the employees and make a check regularly on who is more committed to the work and who not. It should give credit even to the new members if they show a tendency for hard work. The team leaders should bring more closeness in the team so that each member feels a sense of belonging. It is the responsibility of the team leaders to encourage leadership and work responsibility in each member of the team and give apt credit to the deserving member. The counselor should perform their duty in an honest and unbiased manner so that each new member feel motivated in working for the firm. Each member should be continuously and yearly be appraised about their work and told about their short comings. The counselors should regularly meet with the employees and upraise them about their work. They should point out all the follies in a gentle manner while lauding the good deeds. The promotions should also be handed out in a timely manner while notifying the employees of their faults and expecting a better behavior in the future. Bibliography Robert Folger, Russel Cropanzano. Organizational Justice and Human Resource Management. Richard Koopmann Jr. The Relationship between Perceived Organization Justice and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: A Review of the Literature. Wandy L. Poole. Organizational Justice as a Framework for Understanding Union- Management Relations in Education. University of Columbia. Read More