Managing People Issues - Essay Example

MANAGING PEOPLE By Presented to s One of the most significant human activities is managing. Since the time individuals started forming groups to achieve aims they could not accomplish as individuals, managing has been vital to make certain the synchronization of individual efforts. As society has come to rely increasingly on group effort, and as many organized groups have become large, the task of managers has been rising in importance (Northcraft & Neale 1990). Management is the course of designing and sustaining an atmosphere in which individuals, working together in groups, competently accomplish desired objective. Managers are charged with the responsibility of taking actions that will enable individuals to make their best contributions to group objectives. Managers must establish an environment in which people can accomplish group goals with the least amount of time, money, materials, and personal dissatisfaction or in which they can achieve as much as possible of a desired goal with available resources (Lippitt, Peter, & Jack 1985). Increasingly important organizational changes occur whenever there is a need. For instance, when an organization revolutionizes its overall approach for success by inserting or removing important parts or needs to modify the core of its operations. It also takes place when an organization develops through different life cycles and for organizations to evolve, they frequently go through significant transformations at various stages in their development. There are numerous approaches in bringing change-some of the changes are planned, other can be structured and precise, while others may be more natural, unfolding and implied. Some perspectives work from the future to the present, others might start from the present to the future. Bringing change is one of the major issues faced by managers. In order to bring massive change, a manager has to renew his or her vast organization (Recardo 2000). Organization renewal frequently starts with an adjustment in the firm’s strategy, mission, and vision alongside strategic change. Strategic changes consistently sets off effects throughout the organization. Firstly, there can be cultural alterations in which the employees have to accept new corporate values-new philosophies of what employees’ vision as what they should or should not do. Moving quickly, accepting technology, and keeping lines of communication open are a few of the novel values the management needs employees to agree to. In case of expansion, the management has to start structural modification as well which is rearranging company’s departmental structure, harmonization, duration of control, reporting relationships, duties, and decision-making measures, as well as technological changes in order to mechanize its value chain (Dove 1997). Of course, strategic, cultural, structural, and technological modifications, no matter how reasonable, will be unsuccessful without the active help of a motivated and capable labor force. Organizational renewal thus consistently engages in bringing about changes in the workforce themselves, and in their thoughts, skills, and behaviors. Managers play an essential role in organizational renewals. For example, structural change may necessitate performance reviews to make a decision on who stays and who goes, as well as job analysis, employee planning, and rework employee selection standards. Modifying the employees’ thoughts, abilities, and performance normally activates a broad range of new efforts-recruiting and selecting new employees, instituting new training programs, and changing how the firm appraises and rewards its personnel, for instance. The total outcome is that managers must be familiar with the method companies can use to bring organizational change. Frequently, the most complex part of executing an organizational change is conquering employees’ resistance to it. Change, defined as an attempt that consists of definite physical changes to operations and various emotional stimulation is painful in the place of work, departing from what is sure and known to the otherwise (Abrahamson 2000). The workforce loses the reassurance of the acknowledged and the known, the sense of capability they used to have, the status and the economical safety they once took pleasure in and contacts they had built over a long period of time. Since change is extensively accepted as it always start from top to bottom and is initiated by the management, those individuals being managed would also almost always refuse to accept change, imposing an imperative for managers to conquer the resistance before it could bring the change forward (Dent & Goldberg 1999). Resistance to change is often perceived from the management’s side as a supposed behavior of organization’s workforce who decline to believe an organizational change (Coghlan 1993). It is also defined as a comprehensive fact which initiates surprising hindrances, costs, and instabilities into the course of a strategic change. The change may need the assistance of dozens or even hundreds of managers and supervisors, many of whom might well view the change as damaging to their peace and mind. In order to bring successful change in the organization, the manager, acting as the leader needs to recognize that the organization is volatile and vulnerable to external environment and appropriate actions need to take place to smoothly implement the required change (Pietersen 2002). The stress should be on action orientated inferences to ensure that all issues and concerns are acted upon straight away without any delay. When a pronouncement to bring in affect the organizational change, managers as being in charge for the success of organizational change should give attention to their communication approach with employees, employees’ attitude, and perception of managers’ actions, employees’ motivation and continuous improvement of the working environment. Psychologist Kurt Lewin gave the classic explanation of how to put into practice change when facing resistance (Cheng & Sonja 2005a). Implementing change thus meant either weakening the status quo forces or building up forces for change. Unfreezing means decreasing the forces that are determined to preserve the status quo, generally by presenting a challenging problem or affair to get people to be familiar with the need for change and to look for for new solutions. It can be start by creating a sense of urgency which often takes creativity. For instance, the manager might put forward the CEOs with a report explaining the firm’s lack of competitiveness. Secondly, activate dedication through identification of problems. Once the sense of urgency has been established, the manager may then create teams to identify the problems facing the organization. Such task forces can produce a combined understanding of what they can and must improve, and thus activate commitment (Dyer 1989). The managers should comprehend the worth of effective employees’ collaboration, teamwork and motivation in the workplace (Ivancevich & Michael 1990). Before putting into practice a change, managers should understand that different individuals hold different views about change. Furthermore, not all employees are frank and eager to be truthful with their managers. Consequently, managers should take the initiative to work together with employees and keep them knowledgeable about any organizational change taking place. By keeping the communication lines open and carefully listening to employees, managers can comprehend their unfulfilled needs and resistance to change (Harris 2002). Moving means the developing of innovative behaviors, values, and attitudes, sometimes through structural changes and sometimes through shifting people’s behavior (Gibson, Ivancevich, & Donnelly 1994). The managers should then be able to grasp employees’ attitudes and as leaders, managers should lead and direct employees alongside organizational change process, be alert of significance of employees’ motivation to continue with change, and be open to new ideas that come from employees (Bemmels & Reshef 1991). Listening and explaining to employees is a compulsory process to encourage them about the likely benefits that are estimated from the initiated change. A guiding coalition also needs to be created. No manager can apply the changes alone as managers most managers create a guiding coalition of influential people so that employees listen to them. They work together as a team to act as missionaries and implementers. Develop and communicate a shared vision throughout the organization (Rima 2000). Organizational renewals entail a new leadership vision stating that there is a general statement of the organization’s intended direction that should bring to mind emotional feelings in organization members (Yukl 1998). The key elements in communicating the vision are: Keep it simple: Remove all jargons and wasted words. This means that while communicating the vision, the language should be kept simple and no extra words should be added which might confuse the employees. Use multiple forums: Try to use every channel possible-big meetings and small, memos and newspapers, formal and informal interaction-to spread the word. In-house posters can be used to communicate and motivate the employees to push forward the change. Use repetition: Ideas sink in deeply only after employees have heard them many times. This suggests that if something is said once and not repeated again, then there is a chance that it might be forgotten in the chaos. If it is continuously repeated, then the employees will have it embedded in their minds. Lead by example: The managers should make sure that their behavior and decisions are consistent with their vision and are not sidetracked. Furthermore, the idea of ‘walk tour talk’ should be followed suggesting that the words should be put into actions. The managers need to help employees make the change. Possibly a lack of skills stands in the way; or policies, procedures, and the organization chart make it difficult to act, or some inflexible managers inhibiting employees from acting. The management should consolidate gains and produce further change. They should also aim for achievable short-term accomplishments, and use the reliability from these to change all the aspects, structures, and policies that do not fit well with the company’s new vision. Leaders persist to create more change by employing and promoting new people; by spotting selected employees to take forward the continuing change; and by providing supplementary opportunities for short-term wins by the employees. Refreezing suggests that organizations tend to relapse to their former ways of doing things unless change is enforced. This can be done by refreezing the organization into its new balance. Support the new ways of doing things with changes to the company’s systems and procedures. Use new assessment systems and incentives to enforce the desired behaviors. Change the organization norms and values by ensuring that the firm’s managers take appropriate measures, role model and communicate the company’s new values (Walkup 1997). Finally, the managers must keep an eye on and evaluate the progress. In brief, this involves comparing the company’s present situation and where it should be in the future, based on measurable occurrences. As soon as the change is applied, managers should persist to communicate with employees about the changes taken place (Goett 1999). This will encourage an open exchange of ideas and information among all parties. By being considerate, managers can determine to what degree change affects employees and take curative actions right away to support them. For example, managers should know that although organizational change brings positive results but they do not essentially bring positive effect on the employees. Change of an operating system may increase employees’ income but it also may bring additional workload resulting in fatigue and low spirits (LeBlanc & Mills 1994). Managers being inspired to boost organizational effectiveness should commence change with the anticipation to encourage others to do more than they initially anticipated, and frequently still more than they think is likely (Cheng & Sonja 2004). In an organization, as leaders, the managers should set off the particular relational and collective identity of the employees to clarify the fundamental influence processes caused by change. They should not decide on how to lead, but, perhaps more importantly, at how the employees are prepared to be led. Effective communication plays a major role in making sure an organization’s successful change process which in turn influences the employees’ productivity. Communication is imperative amongst managers to employees, and moreover in employee to employee relationships (Bernerth 2004). It is jointly agreed that listening skills, as part of effective communication, is one of the key requirements that a manager should have to possess at all times. Before, all through and after the implementation of change, managers should listen to employees’ opinions and understand their standpoint and feelings on the imposed changes. This would further help managers to introduce future organizational change. An effective change management model ensures that the end objective is achieved with proper planning, testing and implementation (Goodstein & Burke 1991). Without the measurement of success, there is no way of the organization knowing how successful the management proved in their efforts. Anything that is measurable, there is a chance of improvement. Furthermore, by measuring the organization would know that they are taking the right path. Even though organizational change is very hard to measure, but there are some ways in which the change can be easily measured (Harper 1998). With today’s emphasis on measuring the changes being implemented in the organization, it is crucial for the managers to evaluate the change process. The first step involved is the employee’s reaction towards the program, secondly, is the change brought long-lasting or not, lastly, to what extent has the change in the organization changed the organization. Firstly, through structural contingency theory, statistical data can be gathered on a wide scale throughout the organization to check the change in the performance of the employees and any modifications that might have taken place in the productivity level. Furthermore, surveys can also be conducted throughout the organization by distributing self-administered questionnaires among the employees to gauge the effect of the changes. These questionnaires can include questions related to the vocabulary of managerial practices. Moreover, interviews can be held to measure the diffusion of the new managerial implementations. According to management, organizational change is correlated with performance improvements (Cherrington 1994). Therefore, if there is an increase measured in the performance, then the change process has proved successful. On the other hand, if there is no change in the performance of the employees, then the whole process is of no use. Another method of evaluating the organizational change is the use of human resource score card. The HR scorecard is a concise measurement system, often summarized on a computer screen in a ‘digital dashboard’. It shows the quantitative standards or metric the firm used to measure its HR activities (Anonymous 2003). It can also be used as a tool to measure the organizational change as it measures the employee behavior resulting from these activities, and it further measures the strategic outcomes of these behaviors. Furthermore, a balanced scorecard can also be used which not only indicates how well the change has been doing but also how well the change is doing. This means that it gives the current indicators along with leading indicators. It measures an organization’s or a department’s success. Moreover, it gives a clear picture of different measures of success in the financial, customer, internal operations and the human resource system. It also helps in tying strategy to measures to action. It can be concluded that before the change occurs it seems important for managers to have thorough analysis of the implementation of organizational change to be able to determine to what extent the change is beneficial to both organization’s performance and employees. As nearly all organizations require labor input, managers should pay attention to different kinds of impacts imposed on employees. They should, in particular, keep in mind employees’ motivation and create an environment that encourages employees to accept change and sustain organization’s competitiveness. REFERENCES Abrahamson, E, 2000, Change without pain, Harvard Business Review, 78(4): 75-79. Anonymous, 2003, Making change work – for real. HR Focus, 80 (1): S1-S2. 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