Working with Employees - Research Paper Example

Working with Employees; An I/O Commentary on Real World Problem Greg Hunter is the general manager and the president of Hunter Company in California, United States. He was a bachelor degree graduate holder from Cornel University in Engineering and the founder of neither USAwatchdog.com, a site that is neither pro-Democrats nor Republican. The site keeps an eye on the government, financial interests and provide relevant media reports. Before founding the site, Greg worked for various organizations including his work as network correspondent and investigative for nine years. He also worked for ABC News and Good Morning America for six years. Greg is recognized as leading various successful innovation researchers that have changed lives. In Hunter Company, he oversees various operations, among them being related to employees hiring and management. In the interview, the focus is the problems that he experiences as a manager, in relations to his employees. Summary of the Interview The interview focused on the problems associated with employees at the workplace. Greg noted that there is there are two major problems associated with employees. These can be categorized as discipline and personality problems and secondly, professionalism problems. Apart from these, other challenges exist such as lack of motivation among other challenges. Discipline and Personality problems Control and personality problems take varied forms as noted by Greg. Various discipline cases make dealing with employees be very difficult. Among the indiscipline cases associated with the employees includes failure to follow the prescribed order in carrying out their tasks and lack of punctuality. In some cases, employees engage in unauthorized activities such as smoking at the premises. Greg notes that indiscipline may lower the employee performance and damage the image of the company if not managed appropriately. Other indiscipline cases among employees, Greg notes, are lack of commitment and failure to comply with the prescribed order of the company’s operation also constitutes indiscipline. Employee Personality challenges Greg also notes that individual employee personalities pose a significant challenge to workers management at the workplace. Some employees show anti-social personalities such as rudeness and impoliteness. Such employees prove cumbersome to manage and to work together. Certain other characters are not also in line with one career causing serious job dissatisfaction and poor performance. Greg explains that one’s personality proves quite difficult to change, and, therefore, such employees find it difficult to fit in the company. The employee’s personality also may cause serious conflict and disunity among employees and lead to business failure. Employee Professionalism Challenges Professionalism defines how fit an employee is to perform a particular task. Some employee, especially from colleges may bring profession related challenges due to lack of due experience. Under qualified staffs recruited in the company may cause serious losses to the company, especially those in charge of sensitive operations in the company. Other employees may fake their resumes and work experiences and fail to meet the professional demands. Breach of professional codes of ethics also remains a grave concern for his company. As a consequence, many employees are lost due to cancelation of their certifications. Employees Recruitment Challenges Greg notes that his company experiences several recruitment challenges. He says that there is a large pool of workers in the United States, and employee selections become a problem. In the presence of such a vast pool of qualified employee, search for the most qualified employee becomes tricky. There is also the problem of fake documents. Some employees present false resumes and work experience. As a consequence, poor employees might be selected instead of the qualified ones. Recruitment of fresh graduates also proves challenging as there is no track records of their performances. Employee Motivation Challenges Low employee motivation is a challenge for every company. It leads to employee under-performance and may be due to lack of job satisfaction. In Hunter Company, there is an active attempt by the company to keep its employees motivated and ready to work. Most employees’ responds well to such incentives and improve their performance and thereby enhancing the productivity of the company. Some employees, however, may lack motivation due several personal and professional problems. The employees may require concentration at work due to low motivation and makes various operations not work well as speculated. Challenges in Managing Conflicts among Employees Conflicts often arise among employees in any setup. There are significant challenges in handling such kinds of conflicts. Conflict may occur due to differences in personalities of employees. Other conflict results from professional discourse among other reasons and employee conflicts may paralyze the company operation if not well managed. Conflicts arising from personality differences are most commonly occurring in Hunter Company. Most conflicts are resolved within the company without external interventions. Employees also engage more often in conflict with their supervisors and other top management officials. Other issues such as political differences are among reasons for conflict among employee at the workplace. The company, therefore, has a role to ensure peaceful co-existence of its employees. Solution to Some of the Problems Employee Motivation Greg Hunter explains that the company has come up with various procedures to enhance its employee motivation. The most commonly applied incentive is the promotion of highly performing employees. The company also rewards its well-performing employees through increasing their salary. Other performing employees are also given an opportunity to advance in their education and advance their skills in their area of work. The motivation of the employees has worked well for the company. The employees improved morale has led to high-quality performance and job satisfaction. As a result, the company has developed in performance over time leading to high-profit margins. Employees’ motivational incentive as played a significant role in the development of Hunter Company (Langhan, 2007). Recruitment In solving recruitment related challenges, the company has formed a recruitment panel concerned with scrutinizing potential employees during the recruitment process. The panel is tasked to analyze suitability of an individual to the applied post. Various documents presented are also confirmed for validity. As results, there has been improved ease in hiring qualified staff into the company. The idea has worked perfectly well for them (Dibachii, 2003). Scholarly Commentary in Perspective of I/O Psychology The solutions adopted by the company are in perfect agreement with the I/O psychology research. The employee will tend to perform well and cause fewer challenges when handled in a professional way (Riggio, 2008). Overall, we can conclude that, hunters company has efficient solved their employee related challenges at the work place in accordance with I/O psychology. The company enjoys high productivity due to effective motivation strategies and due recruitment procedures (Reggio, 2008). Appendix What are some of the challenges that you experience with your employee at workplace? How specifically are the employee discipline and personality a challenge to your company? Apart from discipline and personality, which other challenges affect your employees? Which procedure, as a company, have you devised to solve motivation and recruitment challenges? References Dibachi, F., & Dibachi, R. L. (2003). Just add Management: Seven Steps to Creating a Productive Workplace and Motivating your Employees in Challenging Times. New York: McGraw-Hill Langan-Fox, J., Cooper, C. L., & Klimoski, R. J. (2007). Research Companion to the Dysfunctional Workplace: Management Challenges and Symptoms. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Riggio, R. E. (2008). Introduction to Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson Education/Pearson Read More