Effects of Managers Perception of Workforce - Assignment Example

Operations Management Name Course Name and Code Instructor’s Name Date Table of Contents Operations Management 1 Introduction 3 Effects of manager’s perception of workforce 3 Knowledge management 5 Current situation 6 Recommended Knowledge management strategy 7 Implementation 12 Sustainability of the strategies implemented 13 Performance indicators 14 Conclusion 14 Reference 15 Introduction Operation management is one of the most important areas of management. It entails the employment of one or more technology in the process of projects operations (Robert & Graham, 2008). The main aim being to improve the way in which an organization or a business responds to the operations objectives which are as follows; flexibility, speed, quality, dependable and cost. Project management is a very important aspect of any organization. It entails a discipline that deals with the organization, plan resource management and security. All of which is geared towards the accomplishment of the organization’s objectives, goals and mission. Project management works hand in hand with the programs management but it is technically ranked higher than the project management because it entails a group of so many but related projects that are under one management in a certain project. This paper provides an analysis of the technology used in different areas of operation as well as an improved commentary on how the goals of the companies are achieved. Effects of manager’s perception of workforce There are so many factors that influence the attitudes of the managers in dealing with the employees. The perception of the managers towards the workforce is the factor that greatly influences managerial behaviours in terms of the styles of management and their attitudes in dealing with the employees. The manner in which the manager in an organization treats the employees will influence their productivity towards the organization. This is because they are likely going to react according to the way the managers react towards them. On the other hand, the managerial styles used by the managers will also greatly affect their behaviour (Robert & Graham, 2008).The perception could be positive or negative. This means that the attitude that the management as well as the styles of management that he managers uses will greatly contribute to the output of the employees in the organization. There are three ways in which this will affect. It is very important for the management to recognize the human resource in the organization, the importance of knowledge management and the importance of motivation and reward systems in the organization. Human resource management is one of the most important activities as far as the success of any organization is concerned. This is because it entails the management of the employees in the form of recruitment and management (Scott, 2009). It also deals with all the other issue that involves the employees in the organization. Some of these issues are like the hiring, compensation, management of the employee’s performances, development of the organization, wellness of the employees, motivation of the employees, training, administration communication and the employees’ benefits among others. If in any organization, the above factors are well taken care of, then it is very definite that the organization’s performance will improve (Robert & Graham, 2008). Organization’s performance refers to the status of the organization measured in terms of its output. It should be noted that this output is because of the employees work. The more the employees work the better their work performance while the lesser they work the less the performance in the organization. Knowledge management Knowledge management in any kind of business is very important because it is one of the ways through which any business can attain business excellence. There are number of factors that still lead to a slow knowledge sharing and management in the organizations. They include increase in the turbulence level, growth in the globalization, dispersion geographically and finally the localized movement. There is need for increase in the area of business knowledge sharing. This means that there is need for involving the employees in the process of knowledge sharing through involving them in meeting sharing the objectives of the business (Mintzberg, 1991). Knowledge sharing at each level f the organization is the best tool to enable the business work better. Apart from the businesses focusing on competition with their rivals, it is also very important for it to think beyond the existence problems and try to improve the company’s ways of operations by ensuring that the employees are getting the knowledge they need especially on what is happening in the market at that particular point. This is where the issue of knowledge management comes in (Gottschalk, 2005). There are a number of advantages of sharing knowledge in an organization which are as follows. It leads to improved level of creativity at a personal level hence leading to the creation of a room for innovation It leads the organization to a point of realizing economy of scale and so lowering the production costs. It ensures the company maintains consistency in terms of the quality of its services and products. It also enables the organization or the business repeating the mistakes it had committed. Improves responsiveness in terms of competition Current situation The following are the issue that has been discovered on the process of knowledge management in the companies. Most of them are actually the challenges that are faced on the process of business management in terms of the transfer of knowledge internationally. New initiates have been under resistance. This is because of the fact that the company is composed of very talented and skilled professionals who feels that their work is very sufficient. They are very good in work but the problem is that each of them feels that their skills are sufficient hence spending much time in coming up with new innovations rather that getting to response to the customers needs (Scott, 2009). A strong culture of self containment, whereby due to some of the experts in the company believing in themselves too much, they are out of touch to the new innovations or rather the possibility of embracing new innovation. There is lack of enough trust with the communication system though there is a continuous process of knowledge sharing within the organization. However it has not been efficiently transmitted within the organization due to the fact that the employees do not have trust in each other. This means that there is gap that has to be filled up so that people can freely share their concepts, ideas and experiences all in the effort of making the production better. High rate of turnover, whereby many employees come in the organization and before there has been sufficient time for them to share the knowledge they have, they leave the company and join the competitors. There is poor motivation to share the existing knowledge due to improper incentive systems to encourage the employees to share their knowledge with other. Work pressure experienced by the most expert in the company who have so much work to do such that they do not get enough time to share the knowledge and skills that they have. This is because at some time they have a lot of questions to deal with hence interfering with their performances in the organization. This has ensured the professionals don’t have much time to share their knowledge. Much focus on the issues of IT whereas People are the main determinant when it comes to the success of the knowledge management (Scott, 2009). In the organization there is little focus on the people but much on the technology hence getting very little success in terms of knowledge management from people. Focus on the theories of production is greatly in use in the company. This does not mean that the employees having known them use them. This leads to much time wastage since they focus on the theory and not the practicality. Recommended Knowledge management strategy Due to the problems that are facing the knowledge management process of the companies there is a great need for coming up with a strategy that will help solve the problems. I. Setting up a committee for the purpose of knowledge management. This is a group of people that will be there to review all the laid down issues and also carry out further research to affirm the truth of the matter. The following are the duties of the committees a. To give proper support as well as initiate learning, practice and communication b. To offer training to the employees on the issues of knowledge management as well as expose them to the experience of the same. c. To come up with a proper approach as the best tool for promoting knowledge management in the organization II. To come up with a strategy that transforms knowledge management into the context of business. This is whereby the committees or rather the people responsible draw a framework that will accommodate knowledge management in the form of the kind of the business the companies is involved in (Gottschalk, 2005). it entails a. Creation of knowledge to the subordinate staff especially the new areas that are coming up so as to ensure the company employees are up to date with the new technology. b. Assimilation or dissemination of the knowledge through connecting the consumers, the employees and the other stakeholders to get to share information, learn from it and then transfer the knowledge to each other. This can be through forums. c. Exploitation of the knowledge. This involves the maximum use of the knowledge gained in the process of making decision, solving problems, planning of scenarios and finally the creation of value of the products in the market. d. Review of knowledge. This is whereby the company must ensure all the processes towards knowledge management are business oriented so that the issue of profitability does not get forgotten. III. Sharing of knowledge, motivation and convergence of learning The knowledge locus and knowledge level are very important factors as far as effectiveness of knowledge management is concerned. There is a need for the structuring of knowledge management in such a way that it will encourage motivation of the workers to share their experiences for the purposes of convergence learning. IV. Alignment of the value adding and knowledge processes with all of the strategic objectives. There is a very important connection between the cycle of knowledge and the cycle of strategy (Gottschalk, 2005). The strategy is to be the best any company in the whole world can use. This means that there is a need to measure the gap that currently exists between the efforts the company is putting to achieve it and the effort that the company must put. The gap that is realized must be transformed in terms of knowledge management. This means that new ways of introducing the knowledge in the form of a business strategy V. Reinforcing and rebuilding of the enablers (William, 2008) This involves the following a. People and the culture. i. This involves the change of cultures of the top management not paying much attention to the subordinate staff. There should be a creation of such a chance for the managers to get to listen to the lower level of the employees. It is the high time the junior employees get a forum to get to talk about what they think could improve the production of the Company in terms of knowledge management. ii. The process of knowledge management must also be translated into the process of performance appraisal. This is not necessarily in the form of finances. It can be in the form if training and education for the employees so as to encourage the process of knowledge sharing as well as the innovative skills they all have. iii. A common sense in terms of community sharing must be greatly encouraged. This means that there should be a creation of conducive environment for the employees to persuade other to work towards the management of knowledge. iv. Enforcement of trust amongst the employees. Trust enables the people to be able to freely share among themselves whatever knowledge they have. This ensures that there is a strong relationship that has been created among the employers to be able to share the skills and knowledge with each other freely without feeling they are sharing it with a competitor. This is with reference to the fact that some employees in the company may have the latest skill on the operation of the new technology hence teaching the other people who are also employees in the company. b. Process i. Knowledge management must be decentralized for it to be maintainable. This means that people must be appointed to deal with every portion of knowledge. This is because if the maintenance of the knowledge management is centralized it will have much impact like it will be if decentralized. This process not only promotes the strategy but also the process of sustainability. ii. Involvement of middle management. To ensure the projects involving the management of knowledge, there is a great need for involving the middle management. This is because the middle management is the best catalyst since it can directly connect to the lowest level of employers as well as the highest rank of management. They are very able to get to the operation managers who are very responsible of the maintenance of the knowledge management projects in the Company. c. Technology i. Promotion of knowledge dissemination. This whereby all the IT tools besides their other jobs, should focus on initiatives concerning sharing of knowledge. This is in terms of dissemination of the knowledge (Gottschalk, 2005). The technologies can also be in a way that they connect the employees together to get to share knowledge. This can be in terms of using a technology that required more than one employee to operate so that all of which must be having different skills so as to ensure they share the knowledge with each other. ii. Flexibility of the IT infrastructure. This is whereby all the new technology that is being introduced must be able to match with the infrastructure that is in existence. This will make it easy for the operator of the technology to easily adapt to them without much extra training. Implementation This is the most important part for every organization as far as projects are concerned. This is because without it all is useless. It is a process that represents taking action as per the strategies that are set aside. The following are the steps to be taken to get to the point of knowledge management (William, 2008). All the strategies can not be implemented at once simply because there could be an interruption in the activities of the companies. To avoid any slow down and inconveniences to the customers, there is a need for the company to implement the strategies in phases. Short term(0-3 months) Medium term(3-6 months) Long term (6-12 months) Setting up a committee for the purpose of knowledge management Alignment of the value adding and knowledge processes with all of the strategic objectives Prioritization and Learning of the objectives and motivation To come up with a strategy that transforms knowledge management into the context of business Analysis of the gap Reinforcement and building of enablers Updating the IT Continuous monitoring to ensure the strategies is working Sustainability of the strategies implemented Implementation alone is not enough. This is because even though a project has been developed and implemented it does not mean that it will meet the expectations to which it was created for. This is where the issue of sustainability comes. Sustainability means the process of maintain the project to ensure it will be effective for as long as possible. It involves a number of things Training. The employees of the Company will be trained on a number of things. They will be trained on how to handle the new technologies and the ways in which the technologies are to improve the issue of knowledge management (Andrew, 2007). They will also be trained on the importance of Training the employees especially the management level is to enable them to easily create a link with the lower lever employees so as to be able to share knowledge with them. This will ensure that even the subordinate staff will have a chance to share their opinions especially during the production of films which is very important. Some of theses subordinate employees are very helpful because they are able to mingle with the consumers and get information that is very helpful in trying to cater for the needs of the customers. Evaluation and monitoring is another very important way of sustaining the projects. This is whereby the committee members will be required to carry out an evaluation after every three months to check the effectiveness of the strategies that have been implemented in every department in the company (Andrew, 2007). This will enable the Company to come up with a better ways to cover up the gaps that may emerge during the implementation process as well as come up with ways of improving the strategies. Performance indicators The following are the suggested indicators of evaluating the success of the strategies in the any Company. Recording the defects messages or reports coming in the company Time reduction in terms of handling the corrective reports that used to come from the consumers before the strategy was put up The amount of all the new innovative technologies and designs that the project applies within the year The feedback coming from the employees as well as the consumers of the products of the Company all over the world. Conclusion It is very event that in today’s economic status, any business that has to greatly thrive must have a good plan of knowledge management. Some companies though being a big in nature off operation has a few defaults in its operation management plan which means that regular review and updating of the plan is very important. Also a very good and well implemented strategy of knowledge management is very important in improvement of not only the production of the company but also creating a better relationship among the employees based of trust and also it enables will enable companies to achieve its mission. However, the issue of implementation in terms of phases, following up the indicators and also ensuring the sustainability will be very essential as far as the success of the project is concerned. Reference Andrew, G. 2007. Operations Management. London: SAGE Gottschalk, P. 2005. Strategic knowledge management technology. Chicago: Idea Group Publishing Robert, J. & Graham, C. 2008. Service operations management: improving service. New York: Financial Times/Prentice Hall Scott, T. 2009. Essentials of Operations Management .New York: Sage William J.S. 2008. Operations Management. Canada: McGraw-Hill Irwin. Read More