Managing Employees at Work - Assignment Example

Running Head: MANAGING PEOPLE AT WORK Managing people at work Name Institution Introduction In any human resource management process, organizational behavior is important i.e. people are resources and are treated as important assets by organizations. Therefore, it is important for a manager to understand people and the way they work. In order to manage people, the manager should understand areas like; change management and conflict management. These are behavior-related areas. One can manage people well if he or she understands the above areas. This essay is going to evaluate the need to apply these different principles at workplace. These principles can help managers to know how to deal with change i.e. conflict and stress at work. Q1. In the case study, Deborah was not happy when Melinda was promoted. This showed that Melinda became more powerful than Deborah and Debora showed low esteem, lack of tolerance and other negative reaction. This promotion made Deborah to react the way she reacted because Melinda had been given a high post i.e. Melinda could use her new position to give Deborah orders (Tee & Ashkanasy, 2011). Deborah knew that Melinda was going to introduce strict rules at work. We can say that Deborah reacted by showing dislike for Melinda, disagreement for her promotion, refusal to accept change, mistrust and low self esteem and jealousy. When Melinda was promoted, Deborah felt bad because she used to come at work late, leave early before time and working the way she wanted. For example, Deborah was taking lunch for two hours. That is why when Melinda was promoted by the director, Deborah knew that her days are counted i.e. she may be sacked or punished for not working the way it was supposed to be. The HIA limited policy allowed workers to have a one hour only for lunch. When Melinda realized that Deborah was not happy because of the new structure, she advised with Deborah to accept the changes. Melinda used two managerial powers i.e. the power of persuasion and consultations. After she did this she was liked by other workers at last including Deborah (Tee & Ashkanasy, 2011). The case study teaches us that people will work depending on the way a manager like Melinda uses power (Robbins, 1999). The best way to manage people, therefore, is to make sure they contribute their view in decision making. We see from the case study that Deborah complained when Melinda was given a higher post i.e. was promoted. However, the two ladies were supposed to work together. A conflict of people who are supposed to cooperate at work is put in the class of interactionist point of view. Interactionist point of view treats conflict as a good thing i.e. it can make people work in a team. At first, the conflict between Melinda and Deborah was affecting the performance of the group in a bad way (Tee & Ashkanasy, 2011). Therefore, it is right to conclude that the conflict was not good at all. Deborah was wrong when she reacted in a simplistic way against Melinda because Deborah had worked in the company for many years. She was supposed to apply “conflict management techniques” instead of refusing to agree with Melinda’s promotion (Bowen, Galang & Pillai, 2002). Deborah was doing wrong when she refused to talk to Melinda. Melinda was willing to communicate and discuss the problem, but Deborah refused. It is, therefore, clear from the case study that Deborah wanted to be transferred so that she would not be working under Melinda or meeting her. This shows that Deborah was not ready to accept negotiation as an option in conflict management. Generally, we see that Melinda was using an integrative bargaining approach, but Deborah wanted a distributive bargaining. Therefore, Deborah was unhappy when Melinda was promoted although she was employed before Melinda. This is seen by the way Deborah talked badly to Melinda and this affected communication between the two persons. At last Deborah agreed to engage in integrative bargaining and negotiation when she realized Melinda was willing to solve the conflict peacefully and with understanding. Although we can argue that David should have promoted Deborah, Deborah was wrong to react in the manner that she did because she could not understand why she was not promoted herself. The reason as to why she was not promoted was may be because she was not performing well at work i.e. she arrived late, she left work earlier and took long in lunch than the company allowed her. This way, Deborah did not use her management position to bring change to the company and, therefore, she was not promoted. She did not have the company at heart when working, but her own interest in all what she was doing. Q2. In order to resolve the issue with Deborah, Melinda was supposed to take a total interactionist view of the conflict. Instead of looking at the conflict as the power and politics within the conflict, Melinda should have taken her conflict with Deborah as a positive force that is necessary for the organization to perform better. Melinda was not supposed to let her anger rise during the first stages of the conflict when she recognized that Deborah was not happy. In this case was supposed to Melinda could have identified the dimensions of conflict handling i.e. competing, collaborating, compromising, and accommodating (Robbins, 1999). She could have used these techniques in settling for the best solution to the problem. Moreover, it can be seen from the case study that neither Deborah nor Melinda tried to look for options to resolve their conflict. The conflict was of a destructive type i.e. eventually, there were dissatisfaction, reduced unity, and broken down communication as a result of the conflict. Since Melinda had already received the promotion, she should have used a reasonable decision-making approach to handle the situation at hand. Immediately, Melinda needed to handle Deborah’s resistance to change in a more sober and simple approach. The promotion had already defined her responsibility and what she needed to take was the challenge without hesitation and ensuring that the objectives of the change process are achieved. Melinda’s failure to do this consumed more time than if she had immediately began to address the issue at hand from an interactionist point of view. Q3. Organizational change gives team leaders more headache than the team members. According to the case study, the burden on Melinda was to work with her team members to improve performance. At the same time, she had a desire to prove to the director that she was not the wrong person for the job. Balancing the two (team performance versus personal ambition) can be very stressful for the Melinda (the team leader) who carried out change management within the organization. In addition, the team leader in a change process has to handle a number of issues. The general understanding is that resistance to change is a common occurrence, and it appears in two forms. One form is when the staff or team will react openly and immediately to the change; the way Deborah did (Robbins, 1999). The other form is when these reactions will be unspoken and not immediate, the way other team members reacted by silence. Whatever the form, the team leader must look for ways of handling this outcome so as to fulfill the objectives of the team. In this aspect, the team leader has more difficulty in initiating the change within the team; unlike the team members, who are prepared either to resist or to cooperate. Wilson (2011, p.41) tells us that to manage change effectively, the team leader must be keen on “identifying the likely causes of the resistance” when change is taking place. After the change is identified, the leader can use some of the tactics in practice to overcome resistance to this change. Here, the seven most important key factors to consider are important. The tactics include being reasonable with those affected by the change process, using communication and education, and allowing the team members to take part in active decision-making. These tactics are achieved through role-playing and participation (Richard, Devinney, Yip, & Johnson, 2009). Other tactics may include fair implementation of the change without any unfairness and applying the change tactfully and procedurally. Building support and commitment, use of force, and selective initiatives are the other tactics commonly used to deal with resistance. It is true that change brings strain on team members or team leaders depending on the responsibility bestowed on them. Yeung and Berman (1997) assert that “the team leader has more responsibility and therefore encounters more stress during the change process” i.e. the leader must act urgently while experiencing pressure (p.323). These points are seen within the case study and relate to the challenge stressor category. Looking at the case study indicates that Melinda is in a situation where challenge stressors i.e. pressure to complete the change and time urgency are actively stressing her. Deborah’s resistance prevents Melinda from achieving her primary goal to bring a change in her department. This is a characteristic of hindrance stressors. Melinda has been in the organization for two years and the demand on her new appointment has a mixture of anxiety and uncertainty. This is likely to increase the stress she is currently experiencing. Generally, the potential sources associated with stress that Melinda may be undergoing come from her role, interpersonal demands, and personality. Other factors that contribute to the conflict come from individual differences with Deborah i.e. perception, job experience, and social support. These many factors are seen in the way Melinda and Deborah react to one another (Carmeli & Schaubroeck, 2005). In the long run, the productivity is low and tensions are high at the work place. Q4 Members of an organization have a general opinion, which is called organizational culture. This opinion can affect the organization positively and negatively. In this case study, it appears that Deborah likes to work the way she want i.e. taking two hour during lunch, arriving at work late and leaving early. For the time she has worked with the company, she has worked by believing that it is okay that way until change came. This shows that habit is a barrier to change. Deborah did what she did because of the routine she was used to for 15 years in the company. When Deborah says that, she was used to doing the things she did in her own way, it shows that she had developed a culture. Her actions also influenced the way other people looked at her position. May be, some of the staff may have also shared their hatred for Melinda’s promotion with Deborah. In the case study, most staff members questioned the promotion of Melinda and sympathized with Deborah. That shows that other workers were also not willing to accept to break the culture that existed before Melinda’s promotion. However, the staffs’ resistance was not spoken i.e. it was only Deborah who was open (Van Der, et al., 1997). As we know, national and organizational level culture works to make sure that change is successful. One way of reducing the resistance to change is emphasizing on an organizational culture that recognized change and innovation (Schneider, 1995). On the other hand, the director of the company may have assumed that the company was wiling to accept change as he suggested. He should have prepared the staff on Melinda’s new responsibility i.e. he should have explained Melinda’s promotion to other serving staff. This is because, if the organization did not have a policy on change, this process was most likely to fail or face resistance. Typically, this appears to be the main reason as to why the staff did not accept the change (Raduan, Rose, & Kumar, 2008; Mansor & Ali, 1998). Conclusion This integrative case study is a good example of how people react at work when change is brought to them. Change is related to other aspects, for example, stress and conflict management that always require the attention of the company managers. If one does not apply these simple principles, the people working there, the organization and everything is badly affected. Finally, proper management employs clear guidelines in promotions and appointments. When things are done this way, every employee is satisfied and the work environment becomes with harmony. References Bowen, D., Galang, C., & Pillai, R. (2002). The role of human resource management: An exploratory study of cross-country variance. Human Resource Management, 41(1), 103–122 Carmeli, A., & Schaubroeck, J. (2005). How leveraging human resource capital with its competitive distinctiveness enhances the performance of commercial and public organizations. Human Resource Management, 44(4), 391–412. Mansor, N., & Ali, M. (1998). An exploratory study of organizational flexibility in Malaysia: a research note. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 9(3), 506- 515. Raduan, C., Rose N., & Kumar H. (2008). Organizational Culture as a Root of Performance Improvement: Research and Recommendations. Contemporary Management Research, 4(1), 43-56. Richard, J.P., Devinney, M.T., Yip, S.G., & Johnson, G. (2009). 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