HR Assignment help on : Workforce Management 

Introduction

Workforce Management has always proved to be an important issue for an organisation simply because it’s the workforce that is responsible for an organisation’s success or failure at the marketplace. Corporate world of this present age has become increasingly competitive and ruthless over the course of last two decades and the pressure of delivering one excellent performance after another has reached an all time high. Organisations fight over capturing the most brilliant talents for ensuring their success in corporate world. Our present case captures the essence of a particular organisational behaviour problem, i.e., management of an erratic and undisciplined employee. The workplace depicted in this place is a hospital known for its excellent patient care and well qualified staff including doctors and nurses. Tanya has recently been promoted to the post of nurse manager in the hospital much to the chagrin of Wendy, her opponent for the same position and the prodigy of the previous nurse manager who was secretly grooming her for succeeding herself once she was retired. Wendy has since become an irresponsible nurse who is creating enough problems for other ones to call for a formal disciplinary action against her. She is consistently harassing Tanya over the alleged ‘stolen leadership role’ and now Tanya is in a mess and worked up about Wendy’s problematic situation in the organisation and what could be the adaptable course of actions against her. This report will discuss the proposed course of action that could be exercised to tackle such a problem as above. The report will further suggest a stress management plan for Wendy, since she is a senior nurse on staff and can’t be treated insensibly. Finally the report will reveal Tanya’s plan for keeping the hospital staff motivated amidst such unfortunate circumstances.

EVLN Model of Job Dissatisfaction

(Source : Vangel 2012)

EVLN Model, as it’s very evident from its name, is an acronym for four possible consequences of job dissatisfaction which are Exit, Voice, Loyalty and Neglect (Luchak 2003). An employee when gets dissatisfied with his current job scenario voices his opinion in aforementioned four possible ways. EVLN model was first introduced by Hirschmen in 1970 and after that, it went through many stages of development carried out more noticeably by Rusbult, Zembrodt and Gunn in 1982 and Farrell in 1983. A description of four possible outcomes of job dissatisfaction is as follows:

1. Exit – This is the most feared consequence of job dissatisfaction. We better know it by the name of ‘employee turnover’. An employee who is currently not enjoying his responsibilities and getting better opportunities elsewhere opts for this option. Some recent evidences suggest that employee exits are also caused by ‘shock events’, such events where conflicts between employee and employer, employee with his peers or subordinates get induced (Farrell 1983). These events not only dissatisfy an employee but also scar him emotionally and then he, having no other option, leaves the organisation.

2. Voice – Voice is an indicative of the efforts employee put in the face of the organisation to get rid of his misery. It depicts a constructive situation where employee doesn’t simply escape from the problem but tries to tackle it with management support (Humphrey 2000). However, it has been seen in some cases that employees rule out against the policies of the organisation and try very hard to change them. Such counterproductive behaviour and arguments show signs of destructive communication (Hagedoom 1999).

3. Loyalty – Loyalty is that stage where an employee does nothing about his precarious job responsibilities and requirements and patiently waits for the right time till the problem works itself out or taken care by higher authorities. They simply suffer the consequences of a wrong job design in silence for the fear of getting kicked out of the organisation and never voice their opinion (Lee & Mitchell 1994).

4. Neglect – Neglect describes that consequence of job dissatisfaction when an employee decides to show no respect for his employer and opts for destructive measures such as absenteeism, reducing their work-hours, not taking care of quality etc. for affecting the productivity and bottom-line of organisation (Naus 2007). Employee Absenteeism is considered one of the most critical issues attached with a workforce but employers never go to the roots of this problem. They often overlook the matter and doesn’t credit job dissatisfaction as one of the major catalyst that kick-start this habit among employees.

So a natural question arises – which is the most opted alternative of EVLN framework? Many eminent scholars have worked out on this subject and the consensus is that job dissatisfaction is caused by several employment factors like wrong job design, lack of management support and the nature of the tasks etc (Luchak 2003). An EVLN alternative is person-specific and varies significantly from person to person. Availability of more lucrative job opportunities also plays a big part in an employee’s decision making process as if they are available, he will quickly make an exit and if they aren’t, he’ll patiently wait for the right time for striking gold (Si, Yi and Li 2008).

Wendy’s Future Plans and Tanya’s Strategy

Coming back to our case and relating it to EVLN framework provides us with an insight about proposed actions of Wendy. Wendy, being a senior nurse in the hospital, is not happy with the recent developments taken place in hospital staff. She has been overlooked by the interview panel for the position of nurse manager and instead awarded it to more experienced and skilled Tanya. Wendy is right now ‘neglecting’ her duties and not behaving properly with her key associates and peers. Creating a disruption in the hospital’s daily operations has become her topmost opportunity and she will continue doing this until and unless she attracts senior management’s attention to her problems. Wendy could even opt for an ‘exit’ option if she gets a better opportunity anywhere else because there is no dearth of opportunities for an experienced professional in market (Judge et al. 2001).

Tanya is a nurse manager now and prior to that, she was a close ally of Wendy. Tanya does not want to bring Wendy’s issues to the attention of hospital management and wants to sort it out herself. She doesn’t want precious organisation’s resources and time spent on such a trivial issue. But in my opinion, I will certainly advocate for a discussion on Tanya’s behalf focused upon Wendy’s erratic behaviour. Such a discussion might prove beneficial for Wendy and doesn’t necessary end stipulating disciplinary actions taken against her as keeping a senior nurse on staff will always ensure smooth operations in the hospital and senior management will never like to leave an experienced employee like Wendy when there is so much competition in the marketplace amongst employers for talented and experienced individuals. In this way, a discussion might improve Wendy’s behaviour as well as propose a new career plan for her that can distract her from the current organisational mishap she had to endure.

Reasons for Tanya’s Stress

Tanya is recently promoted to the ranks of nurse manager from a staff-nurse. The hospital where she works is known for excellent patient care and she wants to keep that reputation intact. Everyday a lot of patients turn up to this hospital in search of outstanding medical care and being a manager now, she owns the responsibility of maintaining the decorum and peace in the hospital. There are always some difficult patients who pose great challenges in front of hospital staff. Simultaneously, there are hoards of nurses and the other staff members for whom only Tanya is responsible. Her work day starts at 6:30 a.m. and around 100 patients drop by everyday at the hospital clinic. Such early starts to the day followed by an intense inspection of the hospital ward are good enough reasons to make any manager feel stressed and exhausted. However the most troublesome source of her stress is her own colleague, Wendy. Wendy was led to believe by the former nurse manager that the position of nurse manager is hers once she is retired from the organisation and was even being nurtured and mentored by her. But a turn of events saw Tanya peep Wendy for the nurse manager position and this led to a fierce feud between Wendy and Tanya. Now Wendy is becoming increasingly difficult to manage and causing a lot of problem for Tanya as well as other hospital staff. Tanya is also facing a moral dilemma knowing the fact that Wendy’s behaviour is not unusual and certainly not surprising especially when she was led to believe that nurse manager position only belonged to her. Even Tanya could have felt hurt if she were at Wendy’s place. But despite all the moral concerns, Wendy’s problematic behaviour is attracting a lot of negative attention from other employees and a need of some disciplinary action is being sensed at every corner of the organisation. Tanya is stressed about Wendy’s situation and in two minds whether she should inform top management about Wendy’s irresponsible behaviour.

 A Stress Management Plan for Tanya

A nurse manager like Tanya is burdened with a lot of opportunities and there are various issues that a nurse manager face in her daily operations like

• The demanding nature of the job and anxiety owing to it
• Lack of knowledge about the job requirements on co-workers’ and subordinates’ behalf
• Detachment from professional life if unable to find the purpose of doing the job
• Inability in balancing out professional and personal life and taking care of the family
• Leadership problems, unable to motivate staff despite their brilliance
• Lack of top management support etc.

There are several strategies which could be incorporated by Tanya to reduce her stress which are as follows:

1. Identify the sources of stress – Tanya has to single out her sources of stress, first thing first. Her hectic duty, a lot of paper and computer work and now this newly created Wendy’s issues are her primary sources of stress and she should concentrate on them.

2. Prioritize the sources of stress – After identifying the stress-sources, she should make a list prioritizing the key sources in order to combat the most difficult one first and later tackling the rest in order of importance (Hendren 2012).

3. Join stress reduction classes – The top management must arrange for stress management classes for nurses with heavy job-burden. They should make sure that these classes are interactive and don’t only focus on stress management strategies (King 1970).

4. Rest and Relaxation – With a job as hectic as Tanya’s, the hospital management must create a space for relaxation for senior nurses as they are the ones who take care of patients but there are very few top management officials who think of nurses’ well being. There should be break rooms in hospital premises and rotational shifts must be introduced in the hospital.

5. Top management involvement – Top management must promise their full support to any of the problems nurses face and always be accessible to junior and middle management staff of the hospital.

6. Rewards and Recognition – An employee always feels demotivated and disheartened when his performance is not recognized despite his brilliant efforts. Hospital’s HR division must devise a performance management program that ensures every exceptional performance must be recognized by rewards whether monetary or non-monetary (Steel and Konig 2006).

7. Communication workshop and co-worker relationships – It has been witnessed in most of the cases that a communication workshop helps in reinvigorating the relationships between various hierarchy levels and restores the faith among co-workers and mentors. So a communication workshop could be very beneficial in reference of our case as Tanya and Wendy were co-workers prior to this organisational hiccup.

8. Training and counselling sessions – If an employee is troubled with a particular problem, counselling is the first solution an employer thinks of to cure this problem. In some critical cases, help of an OD practitioner is also sought to train the workforce. Such programs and intervention could prove vital for hospital operations (Hackman and Oldham 1976). The stress management plan is given in the appendices of the report on page no. 20.

Four Drive Theory of Employee Motivation

The four drive model of employee motivation was first proposed by Lawrence and Nitin Noharia in their book ‘Drive’ in 2002. This model discusses four key drivers of employee motivation viz. Drive to acquire and achieve, Drive to belong and bond, Drive to challenge and comprehend and Drive to Define and Defend. We will discuss all these drives one by one in detail here:

1. Drive to Acquire and Achieve – This is the most important drive an employee associates himself with at workplace. The external reward system of an organisation which includes elements like incentives, bonus and performance pay is directly linked with this drive. An organisation must formulate policies that differentiate between good and poor performance. Policies should be so transparent that an employee could recognize his reward opportunities and his increased performance must be recognized with rewards (Lantern 2012).

2. Drive to Belong and Bond – This drive focuses on camaraderie and relationships employees share with their peers, supervisors, subordinates and top management. A sense of belongingness develops when employees work in close associations and thus generates motivation for work. If an organisation creates a culture that encourages bonding, camaraderie and friendships, employees will find the organisation atmosphere more positive and assistive to work. This can be done by arranging social gatherings, community work or team building exercises (Noharia, Groysberg & Lee 2008).

3. Drive to Challenge and Comprehend – The drive to comprehend argues the significance of an employee in the organisation in terms of his duties and contribution. Human beings are always curious by nature and want to explore more and more of everything. An organisation must take care of varieties, learning opportunities and personal development while working on various job designs so employees don’t feel bored at their current profiles. A sense of career development must be induced in their job profiles.

4. Drive to Define and Defend – This is the only motivational drive that is reactive and gets activated when an employee’s identity is being threatened by the external forces such as company’s merger or acquisition with or by another company, new changes in the organisation, budget problems etc. An employee is often very passionate about what he has done for the organisation and when someone challenges its existence and validity, he comes to guard to defend it. This drive is indicative of organisational loyalty and a company should create a culture that enhances positive changes and reduces inter-divisions turf-wars (Lantern Group 2012).

Equity Theory of Motivation

Equity theory of motivation was developed in year 1963 by John Stacy Adams who was a famous behavioural psychologist. This theory is based on four key propositions:

a) An employee tries to maximise his outputs.

b) Groups can generate maximum profits by working cohesively and treating everyone equitably. An equitable system will reward those employees who adhere with the equity norms and punish those who treat their group members inequitably (Carell and Dittrich 1978).

c) When individuals become part of an inequitable group setting, they become distressed because in such a setting, profit distribution also becomes inequitable: some gets ‘too-much’, some ‘too-little’. The persons who get too-much sometimes feel ashamed while who are at loss get angry and feel humiliated (Huseman, Hatfield & Miles 1987).

d) The persons who think that there is inequity in relationships try to eliminate it and do everything to restore the equity in them because greater the inequity, greater will be distress level, subsequently encouraging the employee to erase it completely.

Adams postulates that an employee always wants a fair return on the efforts he has invested in company’s operations and tries to assess the equity between his contribution and the company’s treatment of them (rewards and recognition). Adams has devised two categories for his equity theory (Adams 1965):

Inputs – These are characterized by employees’ efforts and contribution such as time, skills, adaptability to change, hard work, commitment, loyalty, respect for supervisors as well as rules and regulations, personal sacrifices, determination, tolerance etc.

Outcomes – These are characterized by employer’s perception of employees’ efforts and include elements such as salary, job security, insurance, recognition, promotion, reputation etc.

Application of Equity Theory and Four Drive Theory on Tanya’s Case

An employee always weighs organisational outcomes against his invested time and efforts in its operations and if the ratio shows signs of inequity between the two, he starts feeling dissociated and estranged. Wendy’s case is exactly the same. She gave it all to hospital but she was denied the position she so desperately wanted. Tanya, being the beneficiary, is nurse manager now and has the responsibility to keep the rest of staff motivated as well as maintain a friendly relationship with Wendy. Tanya should work in close alliance with Wendy and designate her with some key responsibilities so that she feels herself important and as far as the rest of staff is concerned, Tanya has already recruited some well-educated and motivated nurses in her team who demands less supervision, formulate strategies and can be groomed as possible successors of Tanya. In this way, Tanya can establish a close relationship with Wendy and keep her staff motivated at the same time.

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