Managing the Behavior and Attitude of the Business Workforce - Essay Example

Managing the Behavior and Attitude of the Business Workforce I. The Business Workforce: Concept and Dynamics Any business organization is composed ofhuman beings whose origin is varied and diverse. People who make up organizations exhibit different actions and reactions to certain stimulus because they come from different background, culture, and environment. While these people have been working together in a particular organization to achieve a common set goals and objectives, their primary reason for working in such organizations may be varied. In other words, their motivation to work may be different from one another. Hence organizational goals towards business success may be achieved or hampered due to the varied personal motivations and personal goals of people working in such organization. II. Managing the behavior and attitude of the workforce Managing the workforce’ behavior and attitude in today’s modern times still reflects the influence of at least six major schools of management thought. These are the influences of Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management, Henri Fayol’s Management Process School, the Human Relations School by Mayo, the Quantitative Sciences School, the General Systems Theory, and the more modern Management and Culture school of thought (Rodriguez, 2001). But the growing complexities of the modern organizations, even becoming global in character, have necessarily required the evolution and development of other perspectives to deal with people. In one article over the internet, one management consultant even declared that “classic management theory dies” (Joffinza, 2007). Modern times have brought the classic management theory into a challenge. New perspectives which emerge from the growing multi-cultural nature of organizations are borne, thus new paradigms are developed either to complement or replace the classic management theory. Since an organization is composed of individuals with varying personalities converging together to achieve organizational goals, it is inevitable that conflicting interests and clashing personalities will slow down organizational momentum in achieving previously set goals. This is due to the fact that individuals have their own personal agenda that may be different from other co-workers. It is thus necessary to manage such varied behavior and attitude in the workplace in order to promote a harmonious inter-personal relationships in the workplace, thus minimizing any disruptive behavior that can affect the operations of the business. Managing the behavior and attitude of the workforce is so important in every organization that its study has already evolved as a formal discipline. Organizational behavior, as a discipline, has been defined as the “study and application of knowledge about how people, individuals, and groups act in organizations” (Clark, 2004). Organizational behavior must be thoroughly studied by managers and leaders of organization in order to effectively manage human resources to be able to contribute to the organizational goals. III. Elements of organizational behavior According to Clark, the nature of organization is largely shaped by over-all management “philosophy, values, vision, and goals” which in turn define the organizational culture. Furthermore, this brings about all sorts of configuration and relationships in the organization, whether formal, informal, and social relationships. When an effective culture has been brought about by the management’s own philosophy, goals, and objectives, it follows that the people working in that organization has a good perception of their work environment, “quality of work life”, bringing about personal satisfaction and a heightened individual motivation to contribute to organizational goals. Managers have to work along these elements of organizational behavior in order to determine the most ideal framework to promote harmonious inter-personal relationships in the work environment. Fayol’s Process View of Management has outlined several management principles that are valuable in promoting a smooth working relationship in organizations. Some of these principles include the following: unity of command unity of direction concept of authority and responsibility principles of specialization and centralization principle of esprit de Corps IV. The public sector: How civil servants are directed to achieve organizational goals. In the public sector, individuals working for public institutions are referred to as civil servants, who pledge allegiance to the state and swear to work for the common public “good”. Formal management structures, such as organizational hierarchy, organizational policies, rules and regulations, and systems of rewards and punishments are determinants of organizational behavior that contribute, ideally, to the stability and predictability of the bureaucracy. While serving the public interest is the main motivating factor in public sector organizations, formal management structures assure an impersonal moving force to keep the workforce at bay and in harmony with one another. There are civil service laws instituted by the governments to ensure that the public workforce has a career and promotion system, is constantly motivated and dedicated to serve the public, has merits and reward systems, has disciplinary rules to punish erring employees, and a code of conduct necessary to rule the day-to-day standard performance of the workforce. In a way this code of conduct by public servants relates to Frederic Taylor’s thoughts on Scientific Management, wherein he espoused the “combination of attention to work planning, methods design and time study, better inventive systems, and careful selection of workers to achieve dramatic improvements in efficiency and productivity” of institutions, whether public or private. Taylor advocated for productivity through “work methods and output standards”, tools which he himself developed to better achieve organizational goals through the workforce. Accordingly, the executives at the top of the bureaucracy are thought to be men and women governed by “rules and laws”, based from the hundred of experiments, and “where the standards developed are equitable” (Accel, 2008). V. The private sector: How are private employees directed to attain organizational objectives? In the private sector, the organizational profile of companies most closely resemble the personal attitude, behavior, line of thinking, and cultural behavior of company owners and stockholders. Whatever the company represents reflects the owners’ and stockholders’ values and attitudes towards certain things. In other words, the company is the owner, and the owner is the company, where culture and organizational structure have evolved or have been determined to a large extent by the personal or private motivations of the owners and stockholders. This is in great contrast with the public sector, where the public interest is the sole determinant of the rules and laws governing the bureaucracy. Taylor’s work on Scientific Management has largely been adopted by the private sector in increasing the productivity of the workforce. For example, he developed the piece rate systems wherein employees were given incentives for extra product produced beyond the targets. This has helped motivate employees to work for higher outputs for higher pay. Thus in such a case, the organizational objective of higher productivity is achieved, while at the same time meeting the personal objective of the worker for higher monetary benefit. Another classical management thought came from Fayol who was the first to define management as consisting of “planning, organizing, staffing, developing, and controlling” (Rodriguez, 2001). His theory has been referred to as the Process View of management, wherein he identified 14 principles of management that have influenced the way organizations are being managed today. For example, one principle that is best analyzed in order to dramatize its contribution to manage the workforce effectively is the principle of unity of command. In this principle, it is said that there should only be one superior from whose command the subordinates get instructions. A particular employee cannot and must not get orders from two superiors. Any person in an organization must only have one person to report to and to whom “he or she is directly responsible” (Power, 2007). Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger, on the other hand, are two experts associated with the Human Relations Movement. They have studied the previous management principles and believed that there could be more factors other than the physical factors studied by Taylor that could also contribute to an improvement of workforce productivity in the organization. Such factors, they argued, included “social and psychological factors, e.g., giving workers a sense of importance, overcoming worker suspicions about management, the influence of the informal groups to which workers belonged” and would probably be more important in influencing the workforce to act accordingly to achieve a desired outcomes. This school of thought has put an importance on the role of informal groups, those social groups that have been formed through friendship or common need to bond together, in any organization. Such informal groups can exert undue influence over its members towards the achievement of organizational goals, or towards the non-achievement or slow achievement of such. Informal groups have become a channel by management for informal talks to resolve conflicts since they have become a proven influential force that command respect among its member peers. References _____. 2003. Elton mayo and the hawthorne studies. Available: http://www.revision-notes.co.uk/revision/795.html [03 December 2008] _____. 2008. Informal organizational structure, the hawthorne studies. Available: http://www.analytictech.com/mb119/Hawthorne.html [03 December 2008] Accel Team. 2008. Historical perspective on productivity improvements. Available: http://www.accel-team.com/scientific/scientific_02.html [01 December 2008] Clark, D. R. 2004. Organizational behavior. Available: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadob.html [01 December 2008] Fayol, H. 1916. 14 principles of management. Available: http://www.12manage.com/methods_fayol_14_principles_of_management.html [01 December 2008] Joffinza. 2007. Classic management theory dies. Available: http://www.xomba.com/classic_management_theory_dies [01 December 2008] Power, D.J. 2007. Unity of command. Available: http://planningskills.com/tips/31.php [03 December 2008] Rodriguez, R., Echanis, E. 2001. Fundamentals of management. Diwata Publishing, Inc. Manila, the Philippines. Taylor, F. 1911. The principles of scientific management. Available: http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/scientific/ [02 December 2008] Read More