提高组织中压力的选择

提高组织中压力的选择

Options to improve stress in an organisation

贵公司是一家专业从事大型剪草机等园林养护车辆的大规模生产，从与导演互动的组织，我们发现董事会日益关注的士气低落，高缺勤率和车间的质量差的工作。

 

人格上的另一种方法侧重于“个人的独特性,拒绝假设我们都可以被测量在同一维度”(Huczynski and Buchanan pp. 156). 

 

Your company is an organization that specializes in mass production of large lawnmowers and other garden maintenance vehicles and from interaction with the director, we discovered that the board of directors has become increasing concerned about the low morale, high absenteeism rates and poor quality work on the shop floor.

 

Other information gathered from the factory revealed that jobs are semi-skilled and highly repetitive in nature. Leadership in the shop floor is direct and autocratic, and an atmosphere of low trust prevails.

 

The symptoms highlighted are usually associated to strain or harmful stress, the stress could be associated with personality or organizational factors (Huczynski and Buchanan pp. 154). The main point is that, the stress is the prevailing reason for the symptoms observed.

 

There are different theories about personality; "Meyer Friedman and ray Rosenman (1974) identified two extreme 'behavior syndromes""; Type A and Type B. "Type A thrives on long hours, large amount of work and tight deadlines. These are socially and organizational desirable characteristics, as are competitiveness and a high need for achievement. However, those we are extremely Type A may not be able to relax long enough to stand back from a complex problem to make an effective and comprehensive analysis, and may lack the patience and relaxed style required." (Huczynski and Buchanan pp. 151). Based on the above research by Meyer Friedman and ray Rosenman, we can presume that if the shop floor is populated with Type B personality and leadership is direct and autocratic; performance and motivation might be high but if the shop floor is populated largely by Type A personality; Performance and motivation will be seriously affected negatively and it could lead to high absenteeism and low quality of work.

 

Another approach on personality focuses on the "uniqueness of the individual, rejecting assumption that we can all be measured on the same dimensions" (Huczynski and Buchanan pp. 156). Relating this to the staffs in the shop-floor; they all have unique and personally developed self ("Self-concept: the way we view ourselves; the set of perception that we have about ourselves") (Huczynski and Buchanan pp. 157)

 

Various researches by Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead (1934) and Rogers (1947) all highlighted the development and importance of self in our personality. If the shop-floor have staff with high self-concept, with high need for achievement and tends to prefer task which they have to achieve a standard of excellence rather than simply carry out routine activities or highly repetitive activities.

 

Jobs on the shop floor are semi-skilled and highly repetitive; this is a particular signal of the presence of Frederick Winslow Taylor (1911) studies and use of scientific management approach in designing job. The approach helps breaks down a complex job into simple sets of repetitive steps and train employees to carry out these simple tasks in a strict manner. The disadvantages of this thought process is that Repetitive work can be very boring, individual's contribution to the organization is meaningless and insignificant; monotony leads to apathy, dissatisfaction and carelessness and the employee does not develop skills that might lead to promotion. This process is efficient but does not simulate motivation and performance.

 

"As a consequence, despite the positive gains in productivity associated with engineering approaches to job design, this focus on efficiency tends to produce lower employee satisfaction, higher absenteeism and a range of psychological problems" (see Handy, pp. 175 -6)

 

One major organizational factor induced stress is the prevalent of a dominant psychological contract which signs include the direct and autocratic leadership and also a low trust with the organization. (Handy, pp. 46) This type of contract is Coercive in nature; where employees believe they are been compelled to perform or work under the shadow of fear or punishment. Motivation via fear is not as efficient as motivation via rewards. Also it should be noted that the dominant contract that prevails is dependent on "the manager's assumption about people in general" (Handy, pp. 50). If the manager or supervisor believes that the employees are majorly type B or have a perception about their personality. He or She tends to make leadership decision based on this assumption and perception. This can be false.

 

On organizational factors; the role of the job design cannot be over emphasized. An inappropriate job design, leads to poor co-ordination, inadequate training, inadequate information, rigid procedure, inadequate staffing, excessive workloads, no challenges, little use of skills, no responsibility or participation in decision-making and role ambiguity (Huczynski and Buchanan pp. 152 - 3). Other organizational factors also identified by Huczynski and Buchanan include Poor management style, uncertain future and divided loyalties as other causes of stress at work.

 

可选项——Options available

 

There are two main ways of reducing stress: problem-focused and emotion-focused. (Huczynski and Buchanan, pp. 154). Problem focused strategies deal with the stressors:

 

Improve selection, training mechanism and staff counseling programmes:

The organization selection should be reviewed in line with management objective of increasing motivation and performance. Techniques and methodologies that will identify personality types should be employed and also training and personal re-engineering strategies that will can change Type A to Type B personality should be employed (Friedman and Rosenman, 1974). This approach is easier said than done. Re-engineering of personality is not an easy fit. The cooperation of the personality involved is extremely important and this cannot be guaranteed. Reviewing of selection process will also come at a cost, since specialized selection methodologies that identify personality will be employed. Counseling programmes should be developed to identify and help staff cope better with stressor away from the office and in the office; therefore a full-time counselor can be engaged for easy accessibility to the staffs.

 

Improved organizational communications:

Two way communications between management and staff have to be improved. Where employees are bought up to speed on the objectives, vision and targets of the organization; and also informed about their general performances and its effects on the organization as a whole. A "Staff of the Week" award system is an example of this type of communication and feedback. Management also have to be careful in rewarding the approach and productive behavior; therefore management must put in place a steady and personal interaction between it and staff, where staff feel relaxed and high trust prevails.

 

Job redesign and enrichment strategies:

A complete redesign of the jobs on the shop floor using psychological school of thought will increase motivation, job satisfaction and performance (Frank and Lillian Gilbreth 1920). Different variants like Job rotation, Job enrichment and use of job characteristic modeling for design of job are methodology that can be employed.

 

Job rotation is when an employee is given a broad range of deliverables but the deliverables are joggled or shuffled over a period i.e. employees can be moved around different sections of the shop floor periodically. This helps to reduce boredom, increase interaction and promote togetherness across the shop floor. It will have direct effect on quality but does little to raise low intrinsic motivation and lingering absenteeism. Researches by Frederick Herzberg concluded that it is illogical to expect high level of motivation among employees whose jobs are designed according to the "rules of simplification, enlargement or rotation" (OB Lesson 3 page 7)..#p#分页标题#e#

 

Job enrichment is methodology whereby motivating factors are included in the building blocks of the job content. Spices of some level of autonomy, decision making, planning and evaluation duties normally performed by the managers or supervisors. This is an empowerment tool; it builds a lot of self confidence and increase sense of ownership.

 

Job characteristic modeling; the model is based on tracing "psychological states experienced by individuals and link them to characteristics of the job itself". Jobs with a high Motivating Potential Score (MPS) is said to be enriched (OB Lesson 3 page 7). The organization can endeavor to redesign jobs in such a manner that the Motivating Potential Score (MPS) is high. To increase score; variables that have considerable effects should be primary focus. These include AUTONOMY and FEEDBACK. It is important to note that individuals who put a low value on personal growth and development will not be motivated as the model suggests (Huczynski and Buchanan pp. 261). The model can be implemented using the following five (5) concepts

 

Combining tasks - tasks can be de-simplified and combined to form a much large work package or task.

 

Forming natural work units -creation of sub-units or teams that have ownership and builds the complete gardening equipments instead of fragments of the gardening equipments

 

Establishing client relationships - Some form of direct relationships between shop floor staffs and the users of the equipments been built should be established. This improves feedback, variety and improves their autonomy. They develop a personal connection to the quality of their work and product.

 

Vertical loading (see Herzberg)- employees should be delegated with some tasks previously reserved for management and allowing employees to use their discretion in some tasks.

 

Opening feedback channels - shop-floor staffs should be aware of the performance of the company but financials and strategies; opportunities for feedback from employees should be encourage.

 

Using MPS model we can redesign the shop floor jobs and reduce the likelihood of absence and turnover is reduced. (OB Lesson 3 page 8).

 

团队合作系统的开发——Development of team working systems

 

Unit and teams working systems can be created and given autonomy to perform and be rated as one unit. This ultimately develops interaction, sense of belonging, reduce absenteeism and also improve quality of work.

 

其他可选项——Other options available

 

Other options that are primarily focused on enriching the mind, body and soul of employees; they include a drive to consciously raise the self-esteem and awareness of their staff, either the creation of a recreational section in the premise or encourage them to be active members of health clubs.

 

The management can also introduce time management training, in order to help employees develop skills to manage their time between work and family for example and also help improve their social life.