Managing Human Resources - Essay Example

Organization and needs Case-study The relationship between employer and employees are constantly changing in today's business environment. Global competition and new technologies such as Internet have changed the rules of competition and forcing many companies to become increasingly productive with smaller workforces. Now this situation leads to downsizing of work force by various means in the organization. Nowadays it has been often observed that more and more companies downsizing or layoff their workforce to become more and more competitive. But this trend induces certain problems in managing the relationship with the workforce, which has been laid off or survived (Gomez Mejia, Balkim, and Cardy, 2004). In the present case study of banking organization, the training dept, faces layoff/down sizing for the last 3 years continuously. Full time establishment in the Trg. Centre was 260 in 2003 but reduced to 136 in 2006. Further the budget of Trg. dept. has also been reduced drastically from 20 million pounds in 2003 to 11 million pounds in 2005. Apart from this reduction, management is expecting the same productivity and output. This situation put tremendous pressure on the remaining work force. Though the downsizing was not only in Trg. Dept. but spread over all the important departments such as Administration, delivery and line management. The workforce, who survived the downsizing, was in traumatic condition due to layoffs of their close colleagues. Not even this but the further announcements of reduction and restructuring of Trg. Dept. and senior managements ultimate of further restructuring and proposal of downsizing the organization Trg. Dept by further 14 in number after at least 3 weeks put additional pressure/stress on the remaining workforce. This announcement creates havoc to the trust of the workforce at workplace. Now the complete atmosphere of uncertainty was widespread and employees working in Trg. Dept. are certainly facing the traumatic, emotional uneasiness. Downsizing the organization basically results in very serious and painful conditions and that can have a profound effect on the entire organization and especially on the employees who looses his/her job or have the fear of loosing jobs in near future. Discharging or likely to be discharging from the job, generates high emotions basically negative emotions towards management and the organization. Though the management/organizations carry it out as a necessity and with all legality but the process of downsizing as a whole always creates an emotional issue with in the organization. Companies' downsizing/layoffs have always a powerful impact on the organization. They can affect the morale of the organization's remaining employees, who may fear losing their jobs in the future. Due to downsizing the first and foremost thing, which will get affected, are productivity, morale, trust and security. Due to downsizing the morale or motivation level of the remaining employees will be at the lowest level, his/her trust with the organization must be shattered and security about future get diminished. All these factors immediately affect the productivity of remaining workforce. So to survive these redundancy and uncertainty about future downsizing, one should not6 be passive and fatalistic but try to be more positive and pessimistic. Now in the position of redundancy, I as an individual and also with my team must priorities and follow certain rules, which has been enumerated below may help to assure us to be retained. Though it's not a guarantee but it helps us. The first and foremost thing is to look more professional rather than casual. Individually or as a team, we should never dress like a fashion model or look like unprofessional so that we could be easily identified separately. Looks always make difference in the perceptions and in the situation of redundancy; perception of unprofessional or non-serious team always goes in the negative way. During the situation of redundancy or within the process of downsizing, we must always remain a part of performing team (Soloman, 2002). Always accept the newer jobs and be proactive. This act of being proactive, ready to do new things, ready to change according to the conditions, ready to learn new things always create an opportunities to portray individually as well as a team, positively within the organization but if as an individual or as a team, a task which cannot be completed properly and cannot handle the workload, be honest about it. Always we have to point out what other projects or works, we could do as a team. Always be a team player in the condition of redundancy and pay adequate attention to everything and discussion of duties and priorities with other team members or workforce as well as with management shows that my team and I always take the responsibilities seriously. So adopting such an approach come off much better than generating an excuse that may appear lame and evasive. In the situation of redundancy performance of an individual as well as of the team matters the most. So I should ensure that my as well as my team's. Performance must be competitive. In these circumstances, individuals or teams must take up difficult tasks and must be detailed oriented. It the result of the performance of the team is not competitive enough, one has to change it and take the job in which team could perform competitively. Basically in the case of redundancy and future layoffs only the performance has to be taken into consideration not the difficulty of the job or complexity. So always try to improve the performance. Always be diplomatic in perusing the course of team. One should never be reactive in the redundant situations, through this process exerts more stress on the workforce and due to this stress and anxiety about uncertain future one may not be courteous. But if we have to survive these conditions, we must be courteous to all and thank people for their efforts. In the highly charged atmosphere always praise team members and provide all kind of assistance to them. This type of behavior and explanatory attitude always push workers towards positive attitude. In present condition, if individual or team makes any error, do not suppress it or blame anyone else but honestly take the responsibilities. It eventually pay and team must perform cohesively and trust will be improved among members. Finally as in the environment of uncertainty, gossips are bound to happen. So never conduct or perform anything, which gets noticed eventually to everyone. Always try to portray the team in a positive way. Always try to improve informal communication channels so that people with in the organization, communicate more and more. Informal communication will be helpful in rectifying the uncertain environment within the organization. Always be careful that never add anything negative to anyone. So through following the above-mentioned step, it may not be necessary but it is less likely for me or for my team to be downsized/laid off. B. As we had gone through the various literature and researches as well as from our general experience, it is imperative that downsizing creates trauma to all parties involved, whether laid off employees, or surviving employees or the management. During the downsizing process in the bank's Trg. Dept. and also in other dept. of the bank I easily identify the two main issues, which has to be managed before during and after layoff process. Basically the layoffs processes create a traumatic fear among employees and have profound emotional impact on the employees, whether they are laid off or in the process or survivors. During this period of uncertain future, employees thought of worst cases such as joblessness, homelessness, inability to care for self and family, potential illness etc. Due to downsizing, the laid off employee immediately loose the status of belonging to the particular organization. This situation hurt the person and a person engulfed of helplessness, sadness, rage or anger. The uncertain future always affects the behavior of an employee. The person who survive also face different kinds of problems major disruptions in the equilibrium situation. Confusion and uncertainty about job's future always leave a worker feel shaky, low confidence, rejected and more and more negative in his/her attitude. Due to uncertainty of future, during layoff, before or after layoff, more and more psychological issues have to be crop up. During downsizing morale and productivity goes down drastically which results in the loose of focus on the customer. Another important issue will be the financial situation of an employee who has been laid off. Downsizing directly affects the people's lifestyle. Due to loss of jobs, greater depletion of saving and inability to maintain their earlier lifestyle, as well as negative impact on social life frustrates laid off workers and this severely and adversely affect them and their families. It has been very clear that any issue whether it has been financial or psychological have been negatively affected by downsizing. Now if we have to maintain the productivity of the bank and performance of an employee, we have to manage downsizing continuously and effectively so that the negative impacts of downsizing could be minimized. C. During the downsizing process, through it is more distracting and disturbing but we must focused on raise in performance goals and rewards to avoid distractions. It is always important to open all the communication channels (formal and informal) within the team or organization so that uncertainty could be minimized. One should always talk to remaining workforce and they must always know that what are the reasons behind laid offs and about the colleague, why they had been chosen for laid offs. One should not feel that those laid offs were made victims and the remaining workforce have perceptions that they also be made victims in near future. Basically the surviving workforces always have a close eye on the colleagues who had been laid off and the treatment by the management (Brockner,1992). This treatment by the management basically decides the future course of action of the remaining employees. So as a team member and as an individually, we should effectively address the needs of the remaining workforce, devote more time and energy to facilitates them to recover from the downsizing shock. As a leader, I have to reassure the employees time and again and make them feel that they are more valued and asset to me and to the organization. Their contributions should be praised and make them feel proud that they contributed effectively to the team and other organization towards improving working environment. Through it is well known fact that downsizing mostly affect the trust of employees with the organization/management, but time-to-time reassurances about their performance, effectiveness and their security boost the morale of the team and improve productivity. After the downsizing, workforce must be motivated enough to take up more responsibilities, learn newer jobs and skills and must have a broader view. So as a team leader I must try to boost the morale to recover from the downsizing shock and trust in the workplace to improve and enhance productivity. Providing psychological space to the workforce to accept the situation, discussions and professional counseling will ultimately help them to deal with the new condition much better. And a team, we have to look for the better processes to work, streamline the current work processes. Now with fewer people to perform the same level of jobs, we have to identify the different work processes and the less valued processes to the customer must be eliminated to improve the efficiency of the remaining more valued work processes. As a team leader one must always be available to the team and this act actually alleviate some of the fears and the environment of uncertainty. Now to manage downsizing and its impact on the workforce as well as on the organization as a whole, one should behave properly and always respond to the queries put up by the workforce. One should deal with empathy and behave properly. After downsizing, the external images of the organization, in general becomes negative. To deal with this image one has to come up with more and more information about the positive changes within the organization. If as a manager, we treat out laid employees properly, put the actual situation in front of them and always tell the employees much before downsizing and make them aware of downsizing criteria are the few important steps which satisfy the laid off employees as well as the remaining employees. The feel of uncertainty must be removed with more and more open communication through formal and informal channels. Basically downsizing is the most traumatic condition not only for employees but also for managers. In such a condition, management of the impact of down sizing is one of the tedious jobs. But as a team leader/manager in the said organization, I must have to take care off all the effects/impact of downsizing on the remaining employees and to follow the above path through which the impact of downsizing could be minimized in the workforce as well as on the organization. In these challenging circumstances I have to communicate more and more within the team, share our views excellent reward and counseling system could prove to be morale boosting, avoid turnovers and enhance and maintain productivity. ******************************************************* References: 1. Gomez Mejia, Luis R., Balkim, David B. and Cardy, Robert L. (2004), Managing Human Resources, Pearson Education Inc. ISBN 81-7758-938-5. 2. Soloman, G. (2002), How to keep your job in a tight market: May be you cannot make yourself indispensable, but there plenty you can do to ensure that colleagues and staff like having you around. Medical Economics, 79, 104 (2) 3. Brockner, J. (1992). Managing effects of lay offs on survivors. California Management Review, 34 (2), 9-28. Read More