Organizational Behavior | Unit Code HC1052 | Trimester T2 2020
Building a diverse and inclusive workforce that allows it to leverage the potential of its diverse employees to enhance the company’s performance
If the leader of the company has asked me for advice on building a diverse and inclusive workforce that will allow to leverage the diverse employee’s potential for enhancing the performance of company, I would advice to implement the concept of diversity in the workplace and its diversity management. Because the act of managing and building a diverse team or workforce is the concept of diversity management. Moreover, diversity management is also a deliberate effort that the managers and leaders an organization make so I would advice this to the leaders of the company in order to have diverse workforce and diverse talent for supporting inclusive workplace for protecting and valuing our each and every employee equally. This would consequently enable to enhance the performance of company and boost the revenue. Because the studies have found out that the companies having diversity management are able to yield more revenues than the companies that do not incorporate the principle of diversity management (Dennissen et al., 2020).
In order to enhance the performance of the company by incorporating the principle of diversity management, I would also advice the leaders of the company to have a dedicated strategy regarding ensuring that their team is always improving and growing via diversity and the efforts of inclusion. For instance, every business in the real world is able to devote time, people power and resources for building a diverse and inclusive environment for work. But every company might not have the necessary resources and posses limited resources for even a thing like the diversity that is very important in today’s business environment. therefore, I would also advice the leaders of the company to take the team and managers on the board for understating their responsibilities and roles for the plan of diversity management and inclusive workplace. Thus, this would enable the leaders to divide the tasks for having diversity and also help in the effective and efficient implementation of the diversity strategy. Moreover, the leaders must also establish clear rules for zero tolerance, non-discrimination, and policies regarding harassment so that the diverse employees would feel comfortable and safe working in your company (Köllen, 2019).
Either expectancy theory is too complex for direct use in organizational settings or not
The expectancy theory is all about telling that the people who have confidence in their ability for performing any specific task is due to their motivation for the consequences expectations from their actions. The expectancy theory is a theory of motivation in the field of organizational behavior. This theory also states that if a person is more convinced that the efforts, he put in will result in such a performance that would be rewarded then it is more likely that the person will put more and more efforts in this work. If more desired reward is offered by the employer for the employee that is given as an exchange for his desirable performance, then it is likely that the employee will be motivated more for taking necessary actions in order to get the reward (Baumann and Bonner, 2017).
As far as the implementation of expectancy theory in organizational setting is considered complex, I think that this theory is not that much complex. Because the leaders in the organization can use this theory by putting the necessary efforts to motivate their employees and consequently achieve the objectives of the organization. However, there can be difficulty in recognizing that which reward motivates which employees despite this theory not being too complex to implement in organizational setting. Hence, any company can achieve the improvement in their performances via the selection of the rewards that best suit the preferences of their employees and the rewards that would work in the best way to support employee’s motivation. For instance, lets assume a company in the practice that pays cash bonuses for rewarding the exemplary customer services or the research breakthroughs. Moreover, if the employees easily understand the reward basis and are capable enough for the achievement of the desired consequences then the employees are more likely that they will be motivated for exhibiting the expected behavior of the employees by the organization (Griffin et al., 2020). If the company put some more efforts for the provision of the training for boosting the confidence of employees in the ability for accomplishing the desired results then it is likely that the employees will then be motivated for completing their duties that were assigned. Hence, expectancy theory is not too complex for the direct use in the organizational setting, just a little more effort is required that would reward even more.
Different types of teams that exist in organizations and the factors responsible for building successful teams in contemporary organizations
There are various types of teams in an organization and some of them are permanent whereas other teams can be temporary. Some of the teams that exist in organizations are defined and described as below:
- Department teams: the individuals in department team are related to their focus or specialty in which they have mastered and every member work for the achievement of the goals that are outlined in the mission statement of that company in which they are working. They are also permanent teams. For instance, teams of developers in the tech start up or the sales team in marketing agency.
- Problem-solving teams: these are temporary teams and focus on specific problem or issue solving. For instance, task force teams for creating solutions for tackling financial crisis.
- Virtual teams: they follow digital communication instead of the personal one. So, the managers use easy communication tools digitally for establishing such teams.
- Cross-functional teams: they are developed by the collaboration of permanent team members with other departments for tackling certain company events like launch of new product. So, internal department’s communication is crucial in such teams to achieve goals of projects.
- Self-managed teams: they are empowered teams and have power for making decisions. Each member of the team posses skill set for making informed decisions and deliver their work and this accompanies ownership towards employees regarding project (Dumitru and Schoop, 2016).
The factors responsible for building successful teams in contemporary organizations are
- Organizational culture to support your employees
- Interpersonal communication relationship and dynamics for clear roles and purposes
- Employee empowerment for motivating them to make their own and informed decisions
- Effective communication to equally communicate the team goals and aims
- Diverse team members in a team also helps in developing innovative and successful ideas
- Establish leadership with all the team members
- Encouragement of trust and cooperation in the employees
- Establish clear team goals and team values
- Encourage brainstorming and listening (Widmann and Mulder, 2018).
Basic assumptions of contingency theories of leadership and three key contingency theories.
The leadership contingency theory states that the leader’s effectiveness is determined by how your leadership style well matches by the situation. The basic assumptions of contingency theory are that the leaders posses one of the two styles of leadership including people oriented or task oriented, leadership is function of follower, leader and situation, the person style’s effectiveness in specific situation relies on how the job is well defined and how much the leader has authority and relationship between leader and follower (Kulkarni, 2017).
The three key contingency theories are path goal theory, situational theory and multiple linkage model.
- Path goal theory focuses on how the behavior of a leader can help its followers for achieving the goals of the groups or teams. Hence, the four main behavior types identified by this theory are supportive, directive, participative and achievement oriented. It also states that the type of behavior of the leader relies on the task’s nature.
- Situational theory is characterized by the four styles of leadership and these styles of leadership should be used in specific situations that also further depends on the subordinate’s maturity level. For instance, if there is lack of responsibility and knowledge in follower then the leaders need to adapt the directive style of leadership in this situation. This theory also suggest that the effective leader behavior also depend on situational variables including role clarity, effort of subordinate, organization of work, task skills, cooperation and cohesiveness, support services and resources and external coordination.
- Multiple linkage models state that the neutralizers and substitutes in the theory of leadership substitute also have an impact on the behavior effectiveness of the leader. But this model is not that much easily testable as other models or theories of leadership (Bratton, 2020)
Difference between organization development and organization change with examples
Organizational development is a particular approach for the change that involves the careful and a planned change holistically. It also involves a slow change instead of a fast change. The organizational development also attempts for making the change as much painless as possible and it is mostly a continuous and ongoing effort for the improvement of the organization. Hence, organizational development is a systematic approach that involves the development of any organization that involves people in the organization. The organizational development at the same time is also connected with the individual employee’s personal development as it focuses on the organization as the complex systems network (Kartiken, 2020). For instance, the organization development examples are leadership development, strategic planning, coaching, professional development and work life balance as well.
