Employee mistrust and resource allocation in organizational settings

Organizational Behavior

The author of this report has been asked to take a past or present organizational experience and analyze it using a number of defined steps. These steps include a justification of the problem, the use of organizational behavior theory to analyze the problem, the types of culture that are in play, how employee motivation factors into the situation and employee satisfaction issues that should be considered. The issue hand would be a general distrust that exists between the employees and the employer. While employees may perceive things correctly when there is a lack of information, so much of perception is not real but the reactions tendered as a result of these perceptions are absolutely tangible and palpable.

Analysis

As noted above, the problem is that employees have an active mistrust for the employer. They feel that the employer is just about making profits and milking the employees and their efforts as much as is possible without having to pay extra for it. However, the managers and executives of the firm are behaving under the auspices of keeping costs down and efficiency at its peak. There is, however, a disconnect in that there are some rather high demands being made of some people within the company and the company is not extending the proper amount of resources, assistance and overtime to handle what needs to be done. In short, there is the perception that there is not enough staff (or at least overtime) in play to get the job done at a level that is acceptable to management. Some employees have voiced concerns and asked for more overtime or headcount to deal with the problem but management has mostly pushed back and asserted that the job can and should be done better so as to keep payroll costs where they are while at the same time getting things done (BKS, 2016).

Both sides and their perceived problems are justified and real. The employees do not deserve to be punished if what they are being asked to do is not consistent with the amount of people they have on hand and/or the time they are being given to do the job. At the same time, the employees must understand that they should avoid any appearance, real or not, that employees are dragging their feet and asking for something that is not really needed. Just to use a general example, many union outfits encounter artificial slowdowns because employees at these outfits will be peeved about something and they will intentionally do their work slower as a form of protest. However, the employees are not allowed to do this as this is not allowable union behavior and the employer may very well have a valid reason to be concerned (BKS, 2016).

The best way to bring about constructive and complete change is to have an open dialog with the employees. First off, the employer should be directly connected to what they are trying to control. They should assess how the work is being done, who is doing what and what perhaps could be done better. The employer should assert emphatically that they will gladly offer more headcount or overtime if it is needed but that the job needs to be done in the requested way. If that is happening and the work is still overwhelming, then the employer will do what they need to do and will not hold people accountable in a bad way because they are indeed being asked to do more than they could or should be doing. After all, employees that are being rushed or stressed are more prone to quit, are more prone to make mistakes and are more prone to acting out against the employer in any number of ways (Quast, 2012).

One very effective way to sweeten the pot is to offer incentives high levels of performance. Those that meet their required quotas should not be hassled but those that perform at a higher level without sacrificing quality should be paid more. While experience matters, performance really matters more. While there was a time where employees were usually very loyal to their employer for a very long time, those days are mostly gone now and employees of any tenure that do a very good job in terms of output and quality thereof should be paid better than someone who does the bare minimum. Tenure should not be irrelevant to those with long amounts of service but a premium should be placed on those that are efficient and perform well. This is a proper balance between honoring loyalty and honoring performance. The incentive pay will motivate employees to make more output. However, those employees should be monitored well because some people will try to game the system. If and when that is detected, it must be corrected immediately. People that refuse to comply need to be punished or fired depending on the severity of the violation and how many times they have been caught (Imbermann, 2016).