What Are the Considerations of Managing Corporate Culture, Employee Motivation - Example

Student Name: Tutor: Title: Management Assignment Course: What are the considerations of managing corporate culture, employee motivation and workforce diversity effectively? Introduction This essay discusses important points that have to be put into consideration in the management of corporate culture, employee motivation and workforce diversity. The first section discusses various theories of motivation and how they have been applied at the workplace in order to attain employees’ satisfaction. The argument draws from the essence of meeting the needs and the desires of the employees at the workplace in order to provide a working environment that is comfortable. Adams equity theory, Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Herzberg theory X and Y have been used to demonstrate the considerations of motivation at the workplace. The second part discusses the management of corporate culture and its importance to the organization. As Dipboye and Halverson (2004) explain employees have to be treated equitably without discrimination to feel fairness. Various considerations when recruiting employees to the organization have been put forward. Corporate culture has to be incorporated in the strategic plan of the organization in order to make sure the operations of the firm revolve around its culture. Organization have to consider the attitudes and values of the employee since it is to increase skills that to change pre-set beliefs and values. The third part explores the management of workplace diversity and how relevant is diversity to the modern organization. Diversity creates variety within the workforce that enables the meeting of different needs of the organization. Different cultural and social backgrounds create diversity in the workplace. The need for transition or change calls for reversing the mindset to embrace new ideas. In order to manage people from different ethnicity, religion, race, gender, sex and nationality requires tolerance and creating an accommodating environment as observed by Ackroyd & Crowdy (1990). Diversity offers an opportunity of bringing in new talents and making new recruits learn the culture of the organization from secondary socialization. This essays winds up with a brief recap of the main points discussed in the conclusion. Discussion Management of corporate culture, employee motivation and workforce diversity is important in enabling the implementation of the strategic plan of any organization. The management has to realize the need for a corporate culture that distinguishes the organization from the rest. The corporate culture has to define the patterns of operations, values, attitudes, and approaches that are used in the organization. Corporate culture has to be incorporated in the strategic decisions of the organization. During recruitment organizations have to consider the ability of the employee to adapt or embrace the corporate culture of the organization (Conrow, 2003). Without motivation employees are not challenged to give their best. Discrimination and unfair treatment results into demoralizing the employees. Equity has to be applied in the entire of the organization to ensure a balance between the input and output of an individual employee in order to create fairness. The management has to understand what motivates the worker. The needs and the desires of the employees have to be met. Section one: management of motivation Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory suggests that human needs are arranged in a particular hierarchy where physiological needs come at the bottom. Such physiological needs include sleep, drink, and food. If these needs remain unsatisfied, human beings remain preoccupied with them until they are satisfied. At the time other needs become marginalized and unimportant. Once the lower level of needs is met another levels emerges and dominates. Meeting a need is important in allowing other social needs to come out. However, a need that is satisfied no longer motivates an individual. The second set of needs in the hierarchy is referred to as safety needs. Reaction to these needs is always to the unknown, psychological dangers in a world that is viewed as overwhelming, hostile, and dangerous. Once the safety needs are met they cease to be important and dominating (Weightman, 2004). The next set of needs in the hierarchy of needs are referred to as love, affection, and belonging. Whereas some of these needs may be found in relationships outside work, within Maslow context it referred to the ability of a person to find his or her place within a group. It is the ability to establish friendship and contact with colleagues. The fourth set of needs is referred to as esteem needs. Everyone in the society has a desire or a need for a stable, firmly based high regard or evaluation of themselves for self-esteem, self-respect, as well as for the esteem for others. This has to be based on real achievement, capacity, and respect for others. Even with the meeting of esteem needs a new restlessness and discontent will soon develop that is driven with what is at the top of the hierarchy. The following set of needs was referred to as need for self-actualization. This is the desire for self-fulfillment; the desire to exploit the potential within an individual (Weightman, 2004). A healthy man is basically motivated with the needs to actualize and develop his fullest capacities and potentialities. Managers in the workplace have to understand what will motivate their workforce and what has stopped motivating them. Managers have to aim to improve the working environment always. Equity theory put forward by Adams suggests that a major driver of demotivation and motivation is the perception of equity or fairness within work relations. Unfairness or unequity is perceived to exist when the balance of output and input is not equivalent to another worker’s balance of output and input. Individuals are alert to the treatment of themselves relative to others. Equity perceptions are very important. A worker that senses unfairness may decide to put in less effort or demand more from his effort. Workers are motivated if they feel their input is proportionate to their output and what they earn from it. Not long ago unfair discrimination in the place of work was open, tolerated and encouraged. Blatant discrimination directed towards minorities, women, older folks and disabled only began to reduce in the United States following the civil rights legislation that was witnessed in the 1960s. Differential treatment is not always necessary unfair but translates to being unfair when it is based on attributes that are irrelevant to judgment of a person’s worth or competence. Dipboye and Halverson (2004) that unfair discrimination becomes illegal when it happens on the basis of attributes covered under the civil right laws such as religion, race and ethnicity. Blatant discrimination is open while subtle discrimination is not easy to decipher since it is hidden. An organization has to suppress discrimination since it kills the motivation and morale of workers. Hertzberg made the important that is often the manager as opposed to the employee who is motivated. Hertzberg posed a question to a variety in different jobs on what job events had occurred in their workplace that hard occasioned extreme dissatisfaction or extreme satisfaction. Answers indicated that factors that occasioned dissatisfaction are not similar to those that caused satisfaction. The conclusion was that job dissatisfaction and satisfaction involve different feeling and not necessarily polar opposites. Two different needs are involved in this perspective. Herzberg observed that if organizational policies are not fair, they can stand in the way of employee satisfaction, as well as overall productivity. People worked harder if such job features such as recognition, support, self-expression, and challenge are practiced. Accommodating the beliefs of the employees can have serious influence on the most basic operations of the organization, including schedules setting, dress codes enforcement, and calling upon employees to undergo peripheral studies (Abrahamson, 2002).Religion is part of people and who they are. Religious discrimination involves discounting religious beliefs, failure to provide alternative services, and exclusionary prayers. In order to avoid discrimination the management has to cease from judging religious beliefs of other people, make effort for religious accommodation request from employees, and offer reasonable demonstrations that the employer has put in place for accommodation of religious beliefs of employees. Section two: management of culture Organization corporate culture are the shared values, commitments, attitudes, beliefs, as well as overall patterns of thinking socially formed in the members of the organization that have a great impact on its long-term performance and effectiveness. Culture is the sum total of behavior patterns, shared values, normative ways, symbols, and attitudes of carrying out business that distinguish the organization from others. Culture can influence the selection of strategies in the organization as well as their success. Prevailing cultural orientations can be compliment the mission and success of the organization but this is not the case when strategic change is implemented. Culture has a long time recognized as a consideration in the process of strategy implementation. Culture explains the success of some organizations; act as determinant of strategy, represent an important element in the effectiveness of organizations, or influence the strategic decisions implementation. Many companies that are successful consider their corporate culture as a source of competitive advantage (Conrow, 2003). There is deliberate effort to integrate the stated sore values and business principles into talent management processes like leadership development activities, hiring methods, compensation and benefits programs, and performance management systems. For instance, while companies have traditionally emphasized on job-related experience and skills in selection of people, some multinationals have expanded their criteria for selection to comprise cultural fit. These companies evaluate values and personalities of applicants to determine whether they can be compatible with the company’s corporate culture. The vital assumption is that formal qualifications are not necessarily the best determiners of retention and performance, and skills can be easily developed as compared to personality attitudes, values and traits. Emphasis on values and cultural fit is common among global companies that are successful. Rather than basing selection of employees on cultural fit and attitude, a common approach is to promote the organization’s behavioral standards and core values through training and secondary socialization. Standardized induction programs together with individualized mentoring or coaching activities are broadly applied many companies. Leading companies use training and development not only for improvement of employee skills and knowledge but also in the reinforcement and management of culture (Ackroyd & Crowdy, 1990). Companies have to provide training programs to impact their employees with the background on the company’s values, philosophy, employee ethics, and management principles regardless of the location of the employees. The objective of the management is not normally to freeze the prevailing culture but to have an effective way of supporting change. Culture results from a reaction between purpose, people, and the environment. People are not an exhaustive view of culture and it is vital to understand that people are not only limited to employees; they include those present in the interaction like customers, management, vendors and employees. Immediate family and labor unions are included by some organizational behaviorists. The people component sets the stage for the environment, purpose and the chemical reaction. In the modern world services and products have ceased to be the long-term brand differentiators. Experiences have become an important market differentiator. Experiences provide a broader output as compared to products or services, and they are strongly guided by the purpose of the organization. The environment refers to the sum of all variables that create the condition for a chemical reaction (Pfister, 2009). The variables have to be manipulated in order to improve daily performance hence form part of the environment. Hidden assumptions portray the fundamental values or beliefs behind action and decision. These relate to a large extent to the managers and decision makers of the firm who guide the culture of a company. The assumptions are a major guide shaping strategy in that they relate to the nature of the environment, the needs and wants of various stakeholders, the stakeholders’ decision making process, and the actions that the stakeholders are likely to take currently and in the future. However, these assumptions are mostly likely to distort reality to the level that they guide perceptions and assumptions concerning the condition of the firm and the external world. The deepest level of organization culture is normally the collective demonstration of human nature, i.e. the collection of human wants, dynamics, motives, and desires that make a human work group stand out (Jackson & Carter, 2007). Groups will show some kind of features that are collectively created through years and years of interaction. Culture can develop a common language and ways of thinking which unconsciously direct each activity that is performed by members within the culture. Human nature is significant to corporate culture because understanding how group functions it is essential to comprehend issues that it is likely to ignore or emphasize, kind of information likely to be retained or selected, and the way it is likely to distort information. Section three: management of diversity A workforce that is diverse is a reality in the current world. Organizations have to capture and utilize the people that they employ. Diversity refers to the co-existence of individuals from many socio-cultural backgrounds in an organization. Diversity comprise of cultural factors like gender, race, age, colour, ethnicity, and physical ability. Diversity comprises of all groups of people at different levels in the company. Management has to ensure a cultural environment where every employee can pursue his career aspirations without being derailed by race, gender, religion, nationality, and other factors that are not relevant to performance. Managing diversity translates to enabling diverse workforce to operate its full potential in an equitable work environment whereby no one group possesses an advantage or a disadvantage other the other. A diverse workforce may foster bringing in different interests, talents, as well as viewpoints. Any organization that is not committed to effectively embracing diversity and does not adopt a holistic approach to eradicate discrimination and injustice will greatly affect both customers and employees (Pfister, 2009). Organizations have to emphasize holistic strategies that address human resource issues that are broader and value diverse employees. Diversity revolves around the uniqueness of individuals. No one person is the same as the other. Many changes at organizational level are largely conditioned by the dynamics on the field that the organization operates in. A field comprises of organizations that in the aggregate, are made of a recognized area of institutional life: resources and product consumers, key suppliers, as well as other organizations that produce similar products and services. One of the forces that play an important role in instigating change is management consultancies. They offer advice, expertise and legitimation for many organizational change processes. Consultancies offer support for change processes via enacting and developing categorization, measurement, as well as technologies to support change programs. Managers have a role of convincing members of an organization to accept the advantages of change (Martin, 2005). The gurus draw the limits of the acceptable performance and promulgation of a specific message. They are the enthusiasts, proselytizers, and the extremists. They are followed by disciples, organizers, missioners, armies distinguishing themselves by their translation of the message of the evangelizer into a language which is useful, precise and practical. Many changes in organizations, identities, and inter-organizational fields are entrenched in the broader societal change processes. Widespread social transformation has been demonstrated in the changing dynamics of capitalism. New ways of organizing capitalist accumulation have resulted in the broad organizational change within organizations. Managers can encounter problems if they attempt to alter the culture of an organization without gneric guiding framework. The need for an organization to go through significant strategic change can be occasioned by poor performance, resource shifts, environmental uncertainty and turbulence, risk reduction, or simply as a result of managerial preference. The change process is a controlled and gives consideration to the cultural aspects. In spite of the initiator of such change, the desire to align all aspects of the organization with the new strategy is very critical to the overall effective performance and survival. Perceptions of organizational control and environmental uncertainty influence the strategic choices (Pfister, 2009). Cultural disparities can affect the understanding of strategic issues and the needed response to strategic changes. Consultants, academics and practitioners have agreed that the diversity in organizations can be used to benefit organizational effectiveness. Studies concerning organizational effectiveness have established that one major element for success is essential at achieving productivity consequently depends on the effective management of diversity that has become a big challenge to managers. Many benefits have been reaped from effective diversity management. Conclusion There are many challenges in organization when it comes to management of corporate culture, employee motivation and diversity effectively. It is crucial to know what motivates employees at the workplace. Corporate culture, diversity and motivation management provides an avenue where a company can set itself from the group to standout. Employees have to feel motivated to continue working hard in the organization. Corporate culture has to be embedded in the strategic decisions of the company to make sure the organizational objective is achieved. The essay discusses the considerations that have to be made for effective management of diversity, motivation and corporate culture. The three aspects are interrelated and boost the performance of the organization if they are managed well. References Abrahamson, L. (2002), Restoring the order: Gender segregation as an obstacle to organizational development, In Applied Economic Journal, 33, 6:549-558. Ackroyd, S. & Crowdy, P. (1990). ‘Can culture be managed? Working with “raw” material: the case of the English slaughtermen’ Personnel Review 19, 5: 3-12. Conrow E.H. (2003). Effective Risk Management: Some Keys to Success, ALAA. Dipboye, R. & Halverson, S. (2004). ‘Subtle (and Not So Subtle): Discrimination in organizations’ in Griffin, R. and O’Leary-Kelly, A. (Eds). The Dark side of organizational behavior, Wiley, San Francisco. Jackson, N. & Carter, P. (2007). Rethinking organizational behavior, second edition, Prentice Hall, London. Martin, J. (2005). Organizational Behavior and Management, London: Cengage Learning EMEA. Pfister, J.A. (2009). Managing Organizational Culture for Effective Internal Control: From Practice to theory, New Mexico: Springer. Weightman, J. (2004), Managing People (2nd ed), Chartered Institute of Personal and Development, London. Read More