Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management - Essay Example

Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management INTRODUCTION Paid employment is a type of employment where the incumbent employees hold direct or indirect contracts of employment (oral or written) which give them basic compensation which is not explicitly reliant upon the revenue of the unit for which they work (Knights & William, 2007). This unit for which they work for can be a government office or unit, a company, a non-profit making institution or even a household. Individuals in paid employment jobs are basically compensated with wages and salaries but they make receive other payments such as commission on sales, bonuses, commissions from piece-rates and in-kind payments such as food and clothing (Morin, 2004). The meaning of work has changed rapidly overtime. Different people attach different meanings to the term work depending on whether it is paid employment or un-paid employment (self-employment). Traditionally, before evolution of machines, people were regarded or were seen as extensions of machines and were seen as expandable (Noon & Blyton, 2006). Those involved in work were closely supervised by their foremen and their output was carefully inspected. Since industrial revolution, the meaning of work has changed due to certain influential factors such as globalization, transformation in organizational structure and culture, and emergence of modern managerial fads. However, globalization and new managerial fads have had their share in adding complexity to the problem of work, they have created an opportunity to modify the mindset of individuals and restore the meaning of work for human beings (Morin, 2004). The recent trends that have emerged out of globalization such as outsourcing and off-shoring have impacted heavily on the modern thinking of the meaning of work. Individuals are no longer treated like machine extensions. With outsourcing and off-shoring, employees have flexible working hours and they are rarely overworked (Noon & Blyton, 2006). With outsourcing, organizations are giving out contracts to outside organizations especially those involved in servicing provision so that the employees can concentrate on their jobs without having to multi-task in doing routine jobs in the office and still working on their specified areas. With off-shoring, organizations are able to conduct business in different parts of the world by utilizing modern information technology and taking advantage of different time zones of the world (Endrus et al, 2007). With the enterprise culture being the most adopted culture in many organizations today where the aim of making profit and achieving great financial performance are the most emphasized goals in an organization. Individuals involved in paid employment in organizations where enterprise culture is highly emphasized always find themselves eager to try the flavour of the day in order to achieve great financial performance for the units they work for (Morin, 2004). Working is vital for all human being and paid employment has various effects on the identity of individuals who are involved in it just like other forms of employment. The following is a discussion of how paid employment affects personal identity of an individual working as a home based tutor. EFFECTS OF PAID EMPLOYMENT ON PERSONAL INDENTITY People seek paid employment for different reasons depending on their situations. One reason may be the need to find a stable source of income to help one cater for his/her own basic needs and other personal necessities. Another reason may be the need to put one’s skills into practice or one’s hobby or talent into productive use. Other include, pressure from family members, peer influence and the fear of starting up own source of employment (self-employment). Depending on individual reasons for seeking paid employment, the effects on personal identity are also different. One effect of paid employment on personal identity is on self-esteem (Morin, 2004, p.7). Paid employment can serve as a boost for personal identity in that it helps improve self-esteem depending on the extent to which the work organization allows. Where the paid employment is being done in a unit associated with class such as reputable company or a reputable government unit, the self-esteem of the individual tends to improve from the mere association with the employment unit. Self-esteem boosting is also associated with meaningful work. Individuals undertaking meaningful paid employment always tend to develop a sense of dignity, worth and identity (Carr & Chan, 2004). Undertaking meaningful work means working in a job which you can easily relate to. When such an individual achieves meaningful results from a meaningful work, then he actually achieves growth and even actualizes his full potential. Through these achievements, the individual gets an opportunity of becoming who he/she wants and is also able to give a contribution to improve his life conditions and those of his community as a whole (Jackson & Parry, 2008). Becoming what one want to be and fulfilling his/her desires through undertaking paid employment contributes greatly in improving individual’s self-esteem. For instance, where the desire of a home-based tutor is to see people gaining knowledge through accessible tuition (home-based tuition), achieving this through seeking paid employment in a household to offer tuition of one or members of the household helps such an individual achieve his/her desire (Morin, 2004, p.9). Personal identity in terms of increased self-esteem can only be achieved in a paid employment when the person undertaking the employment thinks beyond the job context of his/her work (Carr &Chan, 2004). This means thinking beyond the concept that paid employment provides basic survival needs and living conditions. Other functions that can be associated with paid employment that can help achieve high self-esteem are; paid employment as an opportunity for an individual to fit in the world, paid employment as an opportunity for creating new relations, an opportunity to use own talent(s), to learn and grow, and an opportunity to develop ones identity and a sense of belonging. Paid employment affects personal identity in terms of relations. Where paid employment involves interactions with different kinds of people, it has an overall effect on how the individual(s) involved related to others and the whole world. Organizational behaviour is one of the greatest factors in the workplace that has a great influence on relation building and interaction of individuals working in a given unit. Organizational behaviour is a collection of individuals’ behaviours within the perspective of the organization in a workplace setting (Jackson & Parry, 2008). Organizational behaviour has an impact on individual’s personality. Personality helps to define individual’s identity (Ashraf, 2010, pp.6). Personality is a totality of qualities, characteristics skills and competencies of a person which combine with other traits like attitude and grooming. An individual in paid employment portrays specific patterns of behaviour which are dependent on the nature of unit which he/she works for. Where an individual works in a unit where submissiveness and politeness are required in daily routine work, then the same is reflected in the individual even outside the workplace. For example, being a home-based tutor requires that an individual retain a high degree of submissiveness as he/she has to use other people’s households to undertake his work. Again, in conducting the tuitions, the tutor needs to be very polite to his/her students since it is very essential when conducting teaching exercises. Due to the nature of the employment unit for this tutor, his/her personal identity is impacted in such a manner that he/she tends to reflect work place behaviour even he is outside the work unit. It can therefore be said that organizational behaviour has a great impact on how an individual behave outside the workplace. There are a number of individuals who identify themselves with the kind of work they do (Silverman, 2009, pp.5). Identifying oneself with the job or the kind of work one does helps to identify ones occupation, accomplishments, and professional status. However, where this is involved in a person undertaking paid employment it can lead to panic about becoming unemployed or emotional anguish when laid off. Paid employment individuals who overly identify with their jobs or professional achievements tend to be influenced by various factors. These factors may include the pay earned in such a job; value attached to the job being performed and presence of significant others in that job. Where a paid employee pays attention to these factors his/her personal identity is affected (Scott, 2010, p.3). Strong identity with certain form of work affects the way an individual identifies him/herself outside the working environment (Scott, 2010, p.4). For example, a home-based tutor who is strongly tied to his/her tutor identity tends to portray tutorship identity even outside the work environment. He may introduce himself in a family function as, “Hi, my name is John, I am a tutor. I teach .....” This can even go far when such a personal talks to people as if he is giving them a lecture or as if they are in a classroom setting even where the situations are very different from classroom setting. There are times when work and identity may result into negative impacts rather than positive impacts in terms of personal identity (Siverman, 2009, pp.6). A certain form of paid employment can be associated with negative thoughts or diminishing thoughts. For instance, a tutor maybe identified in a mocking way by people in the society. Other form of paid employment which can result into negative identification of the job holder include house help jobs, mining jobs, chauffeurs jobs and cooking jobs just to mention a few. Some people go to an extent of being joshed just to defend their jobs. According to Lettre Belle, the identity of an individual can be associated with the form of paid employment done by a person. An individual know to be working for an evil corporation or an evil government unit, can be identified with the bad occurrences in the given unit. Certain emotions have to be displayed by employees while undertaking some given form of work (Broom & Strazdins, 2001, p.3). Emotional work also referred to emotional labour is form of emotional work conducted in a paid work setting. Example of employments which required emotions include flight attendants, nurses, teachers and other related works in service sector. They require high level emotions since they are directly involved with people. On the other hand, some jobs do not require high emotions. Paid emotional work has an effect on personal identity of individuals involved in such forms of work. Such individuals are known to be polite, sympathetic and very friendly. They exhibit such characters both in the work environment and outside the work environment. Emotional work is commonly identified with women in many societies even though this norm is gradually changing in the modern times (Jackson & Parry, 2008). With the current globalization, due to increase in imports and trade liberalization in many countries, many people are seeking paid employment due to lack of productive self-employment (Human Resource Development and Globalization, 2001). Nowadays, people are moving from one nation to another in search of paid employment. This is even happening amongst the students who have to seek part-time paid employment to meet the never ending needs of human beings in the global context. With globalization, personal identity goes with the status or the class associated with the job being performed. Before the industrialization era, all forms of aid employment were associated with pride. People used in production of various items knew where and whom they were going to sell their products to. The work of making, selling and using products provided identity to everyone who was involved in the exchange (Endrus et al., 2007). Nowadays, with globalization many jobs have been commercialized and many people have to encounter problems of pricing themselves for jobs. People involved in making products under paid employment are undermined and their efforts are not recognized. In fact, it is the efforts of the employer which are recognized of which their contribution in making the products is very minimal. In the end, the results of such situations in paid employment are feelings of confusion, alienation and loss of personal identity (Carr & Chan, 2004). Bureaucratically lead organizations also impacts greatly on personal identity of individuals who are on paid employment. Under bureaucracy, individuals follow already laid procedures in their work with minimal or no flexibility in their work. Things have to be in specific manner and adherence to the laid procedures is highly recommended (Human resource Development, Employment and Globalization, 2001). Communication lines and lines of authority are also bureaucratically operated and individuals involved in such kind of employment are often faced with less job satisfaction and low motivation. Due to the nature of such work settings, personal identity of such individuals is affected in such a way that they tend to maintain bureaucracy even in their personal life. CONCLUSION Personal identity is very important as it determines who are individual is. Paid employment has an impact on individual’s identity. Personal identity associated with paid employment is influenced by various factors which surrounds the work unit where the individual is working. Where the individual attached great value to the meaning of his/her paid employment, there is a great enhancement of individual’s self-esteem. Increased self-esteem resulting from meaning associated to paid employment can result to work related identity where the individual holds strong work identity. Strong work identity has both positive and negative impact on personal identity. With globalization having a great impact on how work is undertaken in the modern context. Identity in paid employment is only recognized in jobs which are ranked in high status unlike in the past where everyone involved in a given form of work was positively identified with the job done. Nevertheless, personal identity in paid employment is a matter of REFERENCES Ashraf, T. 2010. Organizational Behaviour. Retrieved November 14, 2010, from http://www.unesco.org/education/aladin/paldin/pdf/course02/unit_14.pdf Broom, D., & Strazdins, L. 2001. Emotional Work, Gender and Health. Journal of Family Issues , 1-8. Carr, M., & Char, M. 2004. Globalization, Social Exclusion and Work. 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How Much is Your Identity Tied to work? Retrieved November 14, 2010, from The Jungle: http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2009/02/12/how-much-is-your-identity-tied-to-work/ Read More