Finding Certain Solutions for an Organization Drugs Incorporation - Essay Example

Individual Case Study Report Introduction This paper aims at finding certain solutions for an organization Drugs Inc. in terms of motivation of employees, productivity goals, employee behavior and finally organization development. In any organization, success is contingent on how well its employees perform. Although the activities like Job analysis, proper recruitment and selection techniques are critical for an organization, it cannot be assumed that they will give out the desired result - highly energized employees. An organization can hire individuals of different nationalities with extraordinary competencies, adapt them to the organization and its culture, and further develop their abilities. But this will not assure satisfactory performance. Recruitment, selection and training typically focus only on the ability side; thus a major missing ingredient is one's willingness. Motivation then becomes a process of activating this potential in all the employees. While motivation refers to the drive and effort to satisfy a want or a goal, satisfaction refers to the contentment experienced when a want is satisfied. From a management point of view, a person might have high job satisfaction but a low level of motivation for the job, or the reverse might be true. Understandably, the probability is that a highly motivated person with low job satisfaction will only express poor quality in his job. The yet another factor affecting the productivity of an employee is his attitude. Attitudes and values differ among workers and employers, rich and poor people, accountants and engineers. This variety makes it difficult for managers to design an environment conducive to performance and satisfaction. We shall discuss the impact of motivation levels of workers in an organization, its impact on productivity, the attitude levels of workers which play a vital role on the motivation levels and finally how to achieve the best performance out of an employee by highly motivating him. "Organizations today are recognizing the importance of having a highly energized work force. To bring this about, they're using more self-managed work teams, allowing for more worker participation, and empowering their employees". ("Motivating Employees to Excel", Incentive (October 1997), pp.3-8). The significant workplace issues of the present day require different kinds of solutions. Some of these include flexible work hours, pay for performance and Employee Stock Ownership Plans. These may vary with people and organization based on the problems faced by them. Case Description According to the case presented by Drugs Inc. older males occupy the top management. The rest of the work force also seems to have a majority of males. There seems to be a minor note on female staff that the clerical staffs are females. The company finds it difficult to compete with the overseas companies who manufacture the same kind of products on a lesser cost. Thus the company's business is not doing well in the recent years. As a cost cutting measure, the company is looking for a downsizing of its employees and is trying to set up an alternate marketing facility through Internet business. In the given case, we find that the business of Drugs Inc. suffers due to high cost factors compared to its competitors who use low cost manufacturing techniques. The major issue we find here is the productivity. If the productivity goes up, there is every possibility of meeting out the cost and making a good profit. Productivity is a major concern of managers. It implies measurement, an essential step in the control process. The productivity measurement of skilled workers is generally easier than that of knowledge workers such as managers. Yet managerial productivity is very important, especially for organizations like Drugs Inc. operating in a competitive environment. The improvement in productivity is brought about by the improvement in performance of employees. The performance of an employee in turn depends upon his motivation levels. The fact that the employees have the ability to do the job does not ensure that they will perform satisfactorily. "Theoretically, as supervisors we should be interested in ends, not means. In other words, we need to ensure that the job gets done". (McCarthy, 1991). Thus, from a performance perspective, employees need to have the appropriate skills and abilities to adequately do the job. As a part of the study, the work situation at Drugs Inc. has to be analyzed to determine what causes the workers to act the way they do. In Drugs Inc., the possible cause for the attitude of workers could be their dissatisfaction. In other words, when individuals have unsatisfied needs they cause them to behave in a certain manner, which is unproductive. We come across the goal setting for cost cut down decided independently by the top management in Drugs Inc. This might be a regular happening in every goal set. Perhaps lack of workers' participation in goal setting might be a cause for the attitudinal problem of workers. Without such goal setting, there will not be any measurement of performance too. With performance evaluation, there is no recognition or praise for the employee. On the other hand, such participatory goal setting also helps by providing people the full information on a company's problems, especially those in which they are involved. Attitude plays an important role as to whether an individual has the propensity to work. While trying to improve the organizational behavior and achieve an improvement in productivity, as in the case of Drugs Inc., it would be helpful to have more knowledge about the attitudes, values and beliefs of employees which form the base for motivation. It is true that when people's standard of living improves, their expectations for a better life tend to increase faster. Although there may be core values in a society, different times bring different concerns to the forefront. Societal values are often reflected in the corporate concerns. Many companies of the present day come out with services like child - care facilities, in addition to opportunities for job sharing and flexible working hours with an aim to boost the morale of the employees. Accordingly, to increase productivity, an employee's attitude must be changed or increase the morale of the employee. Therefore, the cause for low-productivity in Drugs Inc. could be attributed to the low level of motivation of its employees. The situation at Drugs Inc. can be related to the Reinforcement Theory of Motivation developed by B.F. Skinner of Harvard to analyze the problem. "This approach, called positive reinforcement or behavior modification, holds that individuals can be motivated by proper design of their work environment and praise for their performance and that punishment for poor performance produces negative results". (Luthans and Kreitner, 1984). Secondly, leadership of an organization plays a vital role in the performance of an organization since the top management should contain good decision makers. We see that older males occupy the top management in Drugs Inc. Also majority of the workforce consists of male population. There is not much note added regarding the female population in the workforce but for the 4 female clerical staffs. "Women as managers may use a different leadership style than men. One study found that women see leadership as changing the self-interest of followers into concern for the total enterprise by using interpersonal skills and personal traits to motivate subordinates". (Rosener, n.d). This "interactive leadership" style involves sharing information and power, inspiring participation, and letting people know that they are important. Men, in contrast, are more likely to see leadership as a sequence of transactions with their subordinates. Moreover, they more often use control of resources and the authority of their position as in the case of Drugs Inc. to motivate their people. This does not mean that all successful women and men use the respective leadership styles. But majority of men use the traditional command structure in directing their followers and majority of women use interactive leadership in guiding their subordinates. Now that the senior managers at Drugs Inc. have found some strategies to cut down the cost, there could be certain possible outcomes in response to the decisions. Firstly, downsizing of the workforce could increase the displeasure of the employees. This could further decrease the level of motivation in them. "By the mid-1990s, nearly every major corporation in the United States had trimmed its work force". (Templin, 1991). Cutting employees doesn't always produce the results the companies look for. There may not be any decrease in the operating costs most often. Mostly, under such circumstances, the organization thrusts the entire work load on the fewer workforces available. Consequently, there is a fall in the productivity. "Many companies didn't look at the long - term effects of downsizing". (Gutknecht and Keys, 1993). "The recent trend of downsizing organizations and mergers of enterprises have had a traumatic effect on middle managers in many organizations". (Byrne et al. (1988)). In the drive to improve efficiency, middle-level manager jobs have been eliminated. The drastic reduction in personnel in many U.S enterprises has had unexpected consequences. For example, it was assumed that the working life of the remaining managers would be enriched by more meaningful jobs. The reality is that many managers now feel that they are overworked and that their contributions go unappreciated. The restructuring of organizations has resulted in great job insecurity and low morale. Middle managers are often reluctant to share information because they want to protect their jobs. Moreover, they hesitate to speak freely in the meetings because they do not want to risk crossing their boss. Whatever the reason cited, the end result of downsizing in any organization affects the morale and productivity among the employees. Recommendation Considering the fall in productivity at Drugs Inc., the primary need suggested to solve the issue would be to motivate the employees. The motivation of employees would boost their morale and change their attitudes and make the downsizing unnecessary. One of the most interesting approaches to motivation is Quality of working life program (QWL), which is a systems approach to job design and a promising development in the broad area of job enrichment, combined with grounding in the socio-technical systems approach to management. QWL is not only a very broad approach to job enrichment but also an interdisciplinary field of inquiry and action combining industrial and organization psychology and sociology, industrial engineering, organization theory and development, motivation and leadership theory, and industrial relationship. QWL has received enthusiastic support from a number of sources. Managers have regarded it as a promising means of dealing with stagnating productivity, especially in the United States and Europe. Workers and union representatives have also seen it as a means of improving working conditions and productivity and as a means of justifying higher pay. In the development of a QWL program, certain steps are normally undertaken. Usually a labor management steering committee is set up, ordinarily with a QWL specialist or staff, which charged with finding ways of enhancing the dignity, attractiveness, and productivity of jobs through job enrichment and redesign. The participation of workers in the effort is thought to be very important, not only because of the exercise of industrial democracy but also because of the great practical advantage it offers. People on a job are the ones who are best able to identify what would enrich the job for them and make it possible for them to be more productive. This typical QWL technique would be appropriate to solve the problem encountered at Drugs Inc. as compared to the techniques suggested by Maslow's model or Herzberg's or Vroom's theory of motivation. This would in fact, avoid the downsizing of employees. Instead of a downsizing plan, the company could look at right sizing. In the year 2000, more than half of the companies that lay off employees had simultaneously hired. This is because of the fact that the companies are refocusing on those things that meet their strategic direction. "For instance, ten years ago, AT&T employed fewer than 60 people outside the United States. However, with its strategic direction to go global, the company has increased staffing levels to over 70,000 employees". (Byrne, 1994). It indicates that companies are more consciously linking their employee needs to the organization's strategy. Those jobs that are not directly linked to strategy can be eliminated. So in the case of Drugs Inc., instead of downsizing, it would be appropriate to right size. This would avoid any displeasure on the part of employees. Also this would share the workload among the entire employees rather than dumping it only the existing handful of employees. Such rightsizing helps to improve the productivity of the organization. Finally, the leadership of an organization is also a major factor that would play a role on the motivation levels of the employees. In the case of Drugs Inc., older males who are the decision makers occupy the entire top management. As the interactive leadership is a style expressed by majority of women leaders, it would be more appropriate to have some female directors in the top management level which would end up guiding the subordinates. Reference 1. "Motivating Employees to Excel", (October 1997), Incentive, pp.3-8. 2. Joseph P. McCarthy, (Feb.1991), "A New Focus on Achievement", Personnel Journal, Vol.70, No.2, pp. 74-76. 3. Fred Luthans and Robert Kreitner, 1984, "Organizational Behavior Modification and Beyond: An Operant and Social Learning Approach" (Glenview, I11: Scott, Foresman and Company. 4. Judy B. Rosener, "Ways Women Lead", Harvard Business Review, pp.119-125. 5. Neil Templin, (March 1, 1991), "Ford to end some benefits to Executives, Cut Payroll", The Wall Street Journal, p.A-1. 6. John E. Gutknecht and J. Bernard Keys, (1993), "Mergers, Acquisitions and Takeovers: Maintaining Morale of Survivors and Protecting Employees", Academy of Management Executive, Vol.7, No.3, p.26. 7. John. A. Byrne, Wendy Zellner and Scott Ticer, (Sept.12, 1988), "Caught in the middle - Six Managers Speak out on Corporate life", Business Week, pp.80-88. 8. John. A. Byrne, (October 19, 1994), "Why Downsizing Looks Different These Days", Business Week, p.43. Read More