HR assignment essay on: Essay on bureaucracy

Introduction:

Purpose of this essay is to present the key concept of bureaucracy and its applicability within the organizations. In this regard, its negative impact on employees’ motivation has also been discussed. First, it is required to provide the outline of bureaucracy and its role in the organizations. It refers to a group of officials those who are not elected specifically by the organization and implement their own rules, laws, regulations, ideas and other functions. Organizations using bureaucracy within the premises usually form a few layers of management, through which decisions are passed and concluded by authority. The concept of bureaucracy in the organizations gives birth to a threat of individual freedoms (Mises, 2012).Bureaucratic structures:

The structure and main characteristics of bureaucracy have been illustrated by Max Weber. He basically discussed about fact, significance and impact on employees’ motivation in an organization. The characteristics are as follows:

• Centralized structure: In this, only one senior person holds the authority to make the decisions and direct the company. Other department heads and concern employees are not involved in decision-making process. Bureaucratic organizations often follow centralized structure and only owner is concerned for making laws, rules and regulations for company.
• Formal hierarchical structure: Certain layers of management are decided by the owner. Each layer has the power to control the level below and same is controlled and managed by the level higher than them. In other words, it can be said that central planning done by the organization and centralized decision making are based on formal hierarchical structure (Busting bureaucratic, 2011).
• Management by rules: One of the main characteristics of bureaucratic structure is that management is processed with rules. Those rules are made at higher level of the organization and are executed by lower level.
• Organization based on functional specialty: Bureaucratic structure also demonstrates that works are done by specialists and rest people are allotted work based on their type of work and skills they do have.
• Division of labor: It is the allotment of employee’s work according to their specialization. Therefore, each task is performed by a separate person and on the other hand it breaks down the work into simple tasks.
• Up-focused or in-focused mission: If the organization seeks to serve the stockholders, the board of directors and agencies empowering it, then they keep their mission up-focused. Alternatively, if the organization aims to serve and benefit itself, then it makes its mission in-focused (Lambert el, 2007).

Impact on bureaucracy on employees’ motivation:Bureaucracy within an organization makes an impact on employee’s motivation and thus discourages creativity and innovation. Moreover, front line managers are supervised by the level above and in this case they may receive less satisfaction from their end which will result in increasing turnover rate of employees. Apart from this, employees may find themselves bounded by rigid controls and in hands of their seniors and supervisors which may again makes them feel less concerned in the organization. Therefore, employees in bureaucratic organizations may feel less competent and able to adapt to ever-changing marketplace, industry legal conditions (Volti, 2007).

Furthermore, centralized structure of bureaucratic organizations makes a negative impact on employees’ motivation. Owner does not involve the employees in decision making and any other important activity related to organization which makes them feel less noticed and valuable within the premises. On the other hand, as the authority is in owner’s hand only, he or she may require more time to accomplish the decision-making process and other related tasks which will result in slow operations of business but provides accurate results. Similarly, division of labor brings the boredom to the employees, as they get bored by performing same task daily and do not get any growth opportunity such as job enlargement and job rotation. The skill and knowledge level of employees stuck with their daily experiencing work and makes them less competent for gaining competitive advantages and their own personal growth (Lewin, 2012).Subsequently, employees are not recognized by their level of performance and achievements they achieve in such organization. It becomes the main reason, they do not prefer to work in bureaucratic organizations or leave it early. Employees wish to get rewards, non-monitory and monitory recognition but are less motivated if they are not provided with all these. Bureaucratic organizations do not offer such direct, short term and suitable rewards system to their employees. Likewise, they are directed by the seniors at every level whereas they want to be self-directed and will result in higher productivity. The organizations’ sole aim of earning profit also affects employees’ motivation and makes them unhappy and unsatisfied with their jobs (Triple Helix innovation, 2012).

Application of examples:

To support the characteristics of bureaucracy, China’s automobile industry which uses division of labor has been taken for an example. It was noticed during the analysis that division of labor based on vertical division may imbalance overall production capacity and affect the stages of manufacturing process. In this context, it was found that it diminishes the level of capability due to experience of an employee in only one field as he/she does not provided with an opportunity to work for other departments.

The other face of this research also illustrated the impact of ownership and control on employee as an individual or a group. Management control over the production process made the employees feel confident and self-start and therefore resulted in better production level and higher sales volume all over the world. Furthermore, several layers have been formed in Chinese automobile industry which has dissatisfied the employees in terms of reporting to multiple levels of managers separately. This makes the wastage of time and lowers their level of confidence and capability in turn (Marukawa, 1995).

Application of theory:

Additionally, Maslow’s motivation theory can be presented and explored in support of discussion put across in this paper. Maslow presented a hierarchical structure of five needs of people in a descending order. Therefore, Fifth level of need is self actualization which states that every individual has a need for his/her self-fulfillment. In this regard, a person wishes to realize his/her own full potential and wants to become the best as per his/her capability. It can be aligned with the motivation and behavior of the employees as want to be a self-starter, enthusiastic, creative, innovative, and dedicated and want to love challenges and multiple tasks. But people in bureaucratic organizations are directed by the owner and are not provided to enjoy multiple tasks (Call of the wild, 2012)Fourth level of need is self-esteem which is the need for self-respect and acceptance. It states that every person has a desire to be recognized by others and in this sense; he/she wants to be felt strong, important, valued and respected by others. But, bureaucracy doesn’t provide them with the opportunity to display their talents and skills so that they could be grateful for attention and recognition. Next need presented by Maslow is social need and need for communication, love, response and relationship. This need relates to the discussion where they are not involved in decision-making processes and other activities. It makes an impact on the employees’ motivation as they do not become able to communicate with others properly (Green, 2000).

Moreover, second level of individual’s need is safety, security and protection need. Employees’ always think of their personal, family and job security and protection so that they could secure their future. Bureaucratic organizations tend to avoid providing the employees with such protection and security which may harm their motivation level throughout their work and result in less interest and confidence at work place. First level of hierarchical need is the need for hunger and thirst which is basic and psychological need of a person. It can be linked with the motivation of employees because they need to eat, sleep and take care of their health proper in order to sustain and work better within the organization. This will result in higher level of self-confidence and make them free of any pain and provide good results (Earthlink, n.d).

Conclusion:

This paper has discussed about bureaucracy concept in the entire discussion. It can be concluded that non-elected official persons make rules, laws and ideas to be followed by lower level of management within the organization. Afterward, some major characteristics of bureaucracy have been described such as division of labor, formal hierarchical structure, and management by rules, etc. Then, impact of these characteristics on employee’s motivation has been taken into consideration defining the consequences. For support, a Chinese automobile industry’s example has been presented from motivation point of view. Finally, Maslow’s motivation theory has supported the overall discussion and related it with motivational aspects and human needs of employees in an organization.

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