Managing Employee Behavior

The Challenges

The conduct of personnel on and off the workplace is referred to as employee behavior. This behavior is influenced by several factors among them logistic culture, management, and the personal motivation of individual employees. Such relations affect the leadership approach towards management of the organization (Ashkanasy, Ayoko, and Jehn 1175) As such, the management encounters a couple of challenges in the process of managing employee behavior. This paper seeks to unravel the challenges managers face in managing employee behavior and their solutions.

Ethics

Employee misconducts often find their way into the market. It is for this reason that most if not all organisations have a code of ethics to guide the behavior of employees at the workplace (Lee and Steers, 79). Managers are entrusted with the responsibility to nurture the company’s ethics in the employees so that they maintain ethical behavior even outside the organisational premises. This way, employees are able to uphold professionalism while preserving the organisation’s reputation. In fact, employees will find it easier to stick to the code since it is incorporated into their lifestyle. The challenge, however, sets in when not all employees are willing to put the company’s interests above their own. It becomes difficult to maintain uniformity across a number of people, especially when the company has a large population of employees.

Diversity

Wisdom has it that in diversity lie a lot of riches. It is the heritage in differences that creates purpose at a diversified workplace. The employees of a company often come from different races, have different cultural backgrounds, and are of different ages and sexual orientations (Albrecht et al. 20). The diversity poses a challenge in that the management has to treat each employee with respect to their differences while maintaining their dignity, that is, without insulting them in any aspect. As such, the organisation is able to tap every employee’s potential thus growing the entity. Alike treatment may paralyse the attitude of some employees making them feel neglected or perhaps taken for granted. This often results in employee resignation sometimes disposing of valuable employees.

Employee Performance

There is no one more frustrated than the manager of a company that is at the mercy of under-performance. Employee performance issues often result from late reporting, relational constraints, indiscipline issues, and sometimes personal problems. The identification of under-performance is the first step towards rectifying underperformance issues. The identification process is however not as easy as it seems as the process requires skillful observation and perhaps sequential system examination (Albrecht et al. 15). Performance problems are often poisonous. This is because such issues result in substandard production, system failures and sometimes compromised quality.as such, it is advisable that scheduled inspections be done to identify the problem as soon as it occurs.

Hiring

Owing to the company’s growth, it is often necessary to expand the task force. Some of the reasons for expanding the team are to maximise the productivity of the organisation, to intensify the research in case of research firms, to increase departmental responsibility through team independence, to introduce new procedures in the company’s techniques. All these are geared towards growing the company’s brand either by ensuring quality or increasing production. As such, the choice of a preferred candidate during the recruitment of additional employees can be crucial (Ogunfowora 530). Hiring the ideal people saves the management the hassle of tackling several other issues including under-performance. Choosing new appointees based on their potential and not links is a good way towards hiring competent employees.

Team Conflicts

Employee collaboration and teamwork are every manager’s dream qualities. A cooperative crew often reassures the quality of an organisation’s goods or services. This is because the team can easily execute the company’s protocol without any upheavals. Employee(s)’ complaints to a manager are often a weigh down since the management is forced to side with one of the disputing employees which may bring bad blood among the crew and in extreme cases leading to the loss of crucial team members. The emergence of such situations may result from production imbalances or sometimes personal issues. It is for this reason that managers are trained to be careful and considerate while handling such conflicts as those between two industrious employees (Maruping et al. 1328). The clarification of team values and ethics is necessary for the smooth operation of the company.

Solutions for these Challenges

Unethical Behavior

Conscience is often a great control tool for a majority of the society. Doing the right thing is often a service to ourselves and to the company as well. Some employees, however, feel like some codes are designed to favor the organisation while doing a disservice to them (Lee and Steers, 88). As such, they prefer serving their personal interest rather than the companies. In such cases, the management is left with the decision to weigh the consequences of the misconduct and the benefits of clinging to such employees. In case the company’s reputation is at stake, the employee’s service remains the only parameter against which their actions are weighed. The manager must be categorical so as to avoid tainting the organisation’s name as well as losing a high-stake employee.

Diversity

Managing a diverse team can be quite a challenge for an inexperienced manager (Albrecht et al. 25). It is necessary to understand the background of each employee, which can be a hectic task for a large company. An experience with people from a wide variety of environments/regions and backgrounds come in handy for the management. However, some managers do not have the privilege of interacting with people from such diverse cultures. As such, it is necessary to organise human resource training for all managers to equip them with vital skills on how to treat their employees. This training gives the managers a deep insight into people’s diversity and polishes their inter-personal skills.

Performance Problems

Employee performance problems are sometimes the hardest to notice since they can be concealed in the day to day operations. Although performance problems have never been light, they do not have to be as heavy. Abiding by strict selection/hiring techniques and terms and stipulating crystal-clear performance expectation will go a great way in curbing employee under-performance (Albrecht et al. 20). Doing sequential system checks is also necessary for identifying performance problems. Embarking on constructive feedback as soon as a problem is identified enables a behavioral change.

Employee Recruitment

Short-listing is often a great way towards obtaining an efficient team. Choosing the right person for an employment opportunity may be a challenge especially when the candidates have the same qualifications or when we are unable to select the best candidate for the spot (Ogunfowora 540). The management is thus expected to choose the right candidate so as to avoid future problems including under-performance and system failures. Another step towards the choice of competent employees is exposing managers to training sessions selection cross-examining, job previews and the utilization of human resource pros.

Team Conflicts

The expectation of any management towards a cohesive team is a great way to manage a crew (Maruping et al. 1331). It is however not possible to evade conflicts since some positive conflict is healthy. The importance to distinguish between duty and personal conflicts cannot be overlooked. Task struggles are fit and often generate productive growth. On the other hand, personal conflicts can be venomous and must be solved as soon as they occur.

Conclusion

Every team manager has several challenges to handle while managing employee behavior. Problems including unethical behavior, diversity in employees, performance problems, choosing the right candidate during hiring, and team conflicts emerge in the process of managing employee behavior (Ashkanasy, Ayoko, and Jehn, 1180). Clarifying the team values and the code of ethics, getting acquainted with the employees’ diversity, sticking to the hiring techniques and settling disputes as soon as they occur are crucial means of handling the challenges.

Works Cited

Albrecht, Simon L., et al. “Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach.” Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance 2.1 (2015): 7-35.

Ashkanasy, Neal M., Oluremi B. Ayoko, and Karen A. Jehn. ”Understanding the physical environment of work and employee behavior: An affective events perspective.” Journal of Organizational Behavior 35.8 (2014): 1169-1184.

Lee, Thomas W., and Richard M. Steers. ”Facilitating effective performance appraisals: The role of employee commitment and organizational climate.” Performance measurement and theory. Routledge, 2017. 75-93.

Ogunfowora, Babatunde. ”The impact of ethical leadership within the recruitment context: The roles of organizational reputation, applicant personality, and value congruence.” The Leadership Quarterly 25.3 (2014): 528-543.

Maruping, Likoebe M., et al. ”Folding under pressure or rising to the occasion? Perceived time pressure and the moderating role of team temporal leadership.” Academy of Management Journal 58.5 (2015): 1313-1333.