How to build motivation in today’s workplace

In this article, How to build motivation in today’s workplace, Gregory M. Lamp resembles employee in the workplace as trapped as they go to their jobs because they don’t feel comfortable at their own jobs. The book shows an analysis was done by Frederick Herzberg that claims that people’s attitude toward their jobs can cause success or failure. Herzberg asked both satisfied and dissatisfied people what they like or dislike about their job. However, the replies of both groups varied totally. Satisfied people gave answers that involve them such as achievement, recognition, and advancement. Dissatisfied people gave answers that blame their job or boss such as supervision, company’s policy, and salary (p 324). Anyway, People tend to stay in their jobs although they don’t like their jobs because they think that there is no opportunity to find a better one. Lamb says that employers and employees should exert more effort to find a better place to improve their morale. However, high salary isn’t the supreme in bringing employees satisfaction; statistics showed that 83% of 500 employees were motivated by the challenge at work, and employees rank salary as the third most important motivating factor. Anyhow, motivating employees by a negative attitude like threats aren’t any good; Joseph Wellesley says that you succeed more when you’re in the success mode than in a survival mode. Experts suggest that people managing in today’s organizations should stick to six different ways to motivate their employees; these ways are called motivators as it said in the book they are the factors that increase satisfaction (p325):

1. Employers can provide continuous opportunities to learn and to grow, even without
promotions.

2. Praise those who perform better: managers don’t have to spend any money or efforts to do that, they can do that as they say “hello” in the morning.

3. Take employees’ own goals into account: that can be done by asking “what is important to you (the employee)?”

4. Make pay and other decision as equitable as possible: employees’ motivation will certainly go down when an unfair decision is taken. Managers must carefully make decision; decision has to be fair and clear showing reasons of doing so to the employees.

5. Negotiate for perks other than pay raises: employees like it when they have authority of making decision or authority over their work and time.

6. Show your value-and be visible: a boss should show his/her values to the employees to encourage working hard to achieve the boss’s or the organization’s goals.

Questions of motivations are most likely to be asked by the interviewers. These questions are designed to find the subjective aspects of job applicants. Examples of questions about motivation are “what motivates you? How do you motivate others? What are the best and the worst aspects of your previous job? What are you interested in this position or this job?

Centralization and Decentralization IT Organizations:

Which One Is Better?


In this article, Is a Centralized or Decentralized IT Organization Better?, Barbara T. Bauer basically says that the issue of whether to centralize or to decentralize IT organization was and still a really confusing issue. So many reasons were causing that confusion in choosing the structure for IT organizations. For example, because of the expense of computing technology and expertise required made centralization the only structure for IT organizations. However, the decrease in the cost of computing technology in the 1980's made employees work on their own and be desperate of working for a local service organizations. That forced companies to decentralize parts of their IT organizations. Anyhow, companies now are confused about which structure is best for IT operations, and which one they should apply. Both centralized and decentralized structures have good and bad aspects.

Centralization occurs when all strategy and planning, application development and maintenance, and operations report directly to a senior executive. A more general definition is found in the book, it says "it's a function of how much decision-making authority is pushed down to the lower levels" (p168). However, centralization appear to be good in a way that it eliminates many important functions such as multiple help desk support groups in which centralized data results in cost-saving. On the other hand, very centralized structure requires a very efficient decision, so if a deficient decision occurs; it will negatively affect the organization as whole.

Decentralization occurs when a decision-making is done by each unit closest to the problem. So decentralization as said in the book is the pushing down of decision-making to the lower levels of an organization. The benefit of decentralized structure is that it produces a more efficient decisions because each business units has a complete knowledge and choice over the allocation of IT recourses to support business priorities. The book also says that many managers believed that decision must be done by those closer to the problem. Anyhow, what appears to be a disadvantage of decentralization is that its really hard to introduce a new technology to all the decision-making authorities.

The book says that managers don't choose a complete centralized or decentralized structure, but they choose the amount of both structures that allow them to achieve the maximum benefit for their organization. Applying both structures in IT organizations is called hybrid or federal IT organization. In this structure, the decision-making of different function is split into the both structures, but the decision made by the business unit functions must rolled up the overall organizations plan.

Shortly, the answer of the question concerning the better structure for IT organizations is not clear. IT managers should choose the structure that support functions that they think would be beneficial for their organization.

Job-Related Stress: How to get over it?

In this article, Job Stress... Are You Being Controlled by it or Is It Controlling You, Bill Malone basically says that stress “is a problem when demands get so great that a person’s normal level of coping no longer is liable to handle the amount of stress” which is similar to that in the book that says stress is “a force or influence a person feels when s/he faces opportunities, constraints, or demands that s/he perceives to be both certain and important”; Malone says when that happens, some phenomena occur such as to hate or going to another meeting or wishing it to be postponed, the increase conflict between you and the co-workers, and losing the zest, creativity, and enthusiasm about your job. However, the book also clarifies some similar symptoms of stress (psychological symptoms) such as boredom, procrastination, and the increased tension that occure because of the job (p247).

Malone has suggested two different approaches to overcome job-related stress. The first one is that employee should claim that as he said “I’m tough as nails”; and that’s done by trying to do whatever is hard, work twice as much, not to let anyone take your task, not to take a break, and blame everything on someone else. This approach convinces one’s self that what you do is neither hard nor stressful. Anyhow, Malone doesn’t recommend that approach although it helps stressed employee to overcome stress. The second approach he suggested contains two parts. The first one is done by the individual to help him/her self overcome the situation. The second one is done the employer to reduce the amount of stress produced by a specific job.

The first part of the second approach implies that an employee can help him or herself to get over stress. There are four ways to achieve that. Firstly, an employee should be organized, s/he should get their priorities straight that will tell them where they’re going and help them reach their goals. Secondly, an employee should always remember the average working hours which is 9 hours a day and consider not exceeding that. Thirdly, one should always think that nothing is perfect. Fourthly, Malone calls this step “Drop the superman approach”, and that means that everyone gets into troubles even superman was affected by kryptonite. Finally, an individual must always hold a positive attitude; to be positive about what you do.

The second part of the second approach implies that managers are meant to reduce the level of the stress a job creates and help employees overcome their stress-related problems. Basically, to be able to do that, several steps must be done. Managers should show employee some importance, or how valuable they are in the organization. Also, manager should look at each employee equally, it doesn’t matter the position that an employee has; the same values should be given by mangers to employees. Furthermore, the employer ought to show each employee different need which gives them sort of importance in a specific part of the organization. Finally, managers must communicate with their employee, share problem and opinions, and give clear directions.

The book also suggested some similar ways that managers can do to reduce employees’ level of stress. Firstly, managers should make sure that employees are properly matched to their tasks. Also, managers should define goals for employees to lessen the role ambiguity even if that will make them redesign some jobs. Finally managers are supposed to show employee some involvement of employees in the organization that will give them motivation. However, the book also implies that even if managers are done their job reducing stress, employees will still be stressed; that’s the part employees should help themselves overcome stress because they are more aware of their personal issues (p248).

Sexua l Harassment: How to recognize it . . . What to do about it


In this article, Sexual Harassment: How to recognize it . . . What to do about it, J. E. Tagudin says that sexual harassment has been an unpopular subject to talk about; so many people don’t know actually what generates sexual harassment even though they’ve been through such an experience. Some people usually blame them selves when face sexual harassment, by either claiming that they encouraged it, blaming the fault on them selves, or assuming that they’re being isolated or so sensitive. Tagudin says that these self-blaming thoughts can definitely affect one’s level of performance and therefore will influence the organization as a whole. The book says that sexual harassment might cause absenteeism, low productivity, and turnover. Additionally, it might cause suing by the employees that were exposed to sexual harassment which leads a financial loss in the organization.

According to Tagudin, sexual harassment is defined as a matter of power. The person with power misuses that power. For example, some times an employee is harassed by his or her boss and that employee tolerates that sexual harassment in order to keep his/her job or job benefit which might implies acceptance to the harasser that leads to an increase in sexual harassment. However, sexual harassment can also happen between two people from the same level of an organization and even from the same gender. Anyhow, what makes sexual harassment so coerced is that sexual harassment involves forcing, and threat in non-reciprocal place (the workplace). What also considered bad aspect about sexual harassment is that it assesses someone’s grade or level on the basis of the sexual favors which will influence one’s job performance.

Generally, sexual harassment falls under two categories; verbal and physical harassment. Examples on verbal harassment would be (sexual innuendoes, suggestive sounds, humor about sex, sexual invitations). Physical harassment examples would be (pinching, patting or touching in general, attempt or actual kissing, and coerced sexual intercourse).

Many people get confused about what they should do when they face sexual harassment, but Tagudin supported that in his article by claiming that ignorance will not make it go away because someone might not realize that an action is harassing or offensive. He says that communicating the case with the harasser would be the best solution whether it was by confrontation or writing a letter because the harasser might handle consequences that he/she doesn’t deserve. The book’s solution lies under educating employees on sexual harassment issue, and to use mechanisms available to monitor employees. The book also says that the harasser might be right and no action should be taken against someone until it’s well-investigated, to be fair at solving the situation.

Russia's boom exposes business education vacuum

This article’s Russia's boom exposes business education vacuum main point is the importance of the MBA in the business field nowadays and the changes that Russia went through considering the MBA.The Russian government has established over 100 business schools after the Soviet Union has collapsed to raise the standard of education to the international standards, and that is because the low level of business education in Russia was one of the reasons of the economical breakdown in Russia. Only .00003% has (MBA) degree, where in the United States, and Europe is much higher than that (0.0007% and 0.0002%) and that number is still increasing, so apparently the MBA degree seems to be the way for success in Europe and the US. The students with the MBA tend to gain double the salaries of those who do not have it; so Russian top students started to go get there degree and career abroad. However, that caused lack of either good quality managers or teachers to teach business in Russia, so that is simply the reason of the hold back of the Business education in Russia. What else was the reason for the business hold back in Russia is that people refused to take a year or two off to get the MBA fearing to miss opportunity. However, UFG's Ryan said that the opportunity cost for giving a job temporarily to get a degree is less because organizations became more institutionalized. Anyhow, the shortage of highly educated employee attracted many highly educated employees from abroad who ended up gaining three times higher salaries than those in Russia. Accordingly, Russia spent so much effort and money to establish schools and create opportunities for business students to complete their education and for non-business student to join the business studies. Why do you think the MBA is so important? The answer simply lies under the material the MBA teaches. Unlike other business courses, the MBA is an active business course; it teaches you case studies and real life (life like) problems, which enables business student to be more prepared to the job they're getting soon or the life they're going to experience soon. The MBA lessens the chances of causing mistakes in the job, and even if the employees cause a mistake, they are more likely to fix it than the others are; that why employers prefer graduates with an MBA degree.

Test Post
Test post for the MGN 201 class