...Introduction The word recession strikes fear in employees and can change the tides to how people respond and react at work. Do employees feel positive, work harder and have an upbeat attitude at work when they sense downturn in an organization or impeding layoffs? Or do stress levels increase, tolerance levels lower, and morale deplete causing a ripple throughout departments? Some companies have decided to try alternate methods of organizational strategies during recessionary times to improve employee attitudes so that the sinking ship feeling is fed a dose of engagement before employees sea legs give out. It is important for managers to be on top of employee confidence by using communication to enable employees to feel included in how the recession might affect the company, what efforts will be made within the organization to get through the recession and how this will translate to the employees and whether or not they will have a job. There is nothing worse than a department of workers watching an organization make cost cutting efforts, change plans, and restructure teams without communicating to the employees. In recessionary times leadership, communication and a certain level of values being maintained is exceptionally important in order for an organization to survive and have its employees take the ride without increased stress and lower productivity. Schwartz’s 10 Values When we look at personal values in an organizational culture, Kreitner & Kinicki (2013)...
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...Trying to Improve Employee Attitudes during the Recession Introduction “Creating an effective and productive workplace takes a firm commitment from management even in the best of times” (Ballard, 2012). When the recession hit full force, many companies had to make some difficult decisions. “In a 2009 survey conducted by the American Psychological Association, 68 percent of employed Americans reported that their employers had taken steps such as putting a freeze on hiring or wages, laying off staff, reducing work hours, benefits or pay, requiring unpaid days off or increasing work hours because of the weak economy” (Ballard, 2012). During a period of recession, managers need to understand the relationship between employee well-being and the performance of the company. There are several means managers can use to improve employee performance. Some of these methods include: the utilization of Schwartz’s 10 Values, adapting attitudes and behaviors, increasing employee involvement through incentives, and the utilization of Azjen’s theory of planned behavior to shape the intentions and behaviors of employees. In order to form During a period of recession, managers need to understand the relationship between employee well-being and the performance of the company. There are several means managers can use to improve employee performance. Some of these methods include: the utilization of Schwartz’s 10 Values, adapting attitudes and behaviors, increasing employee involvement through...
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...http://the-business-scholar.blogspot.com/2014/06/improving-employees-attitudes-during.html Improving Employees' Attitudes during Recession The fear of layoff prominent during a recession can have a huge impact on morale throughout an organization. While management is busy considering where to cut costs and how to properly invest during the economic hardship, employees become disengaged due to their concern about what the future holds. Finding inspiration and motivation can be a real challenge when anxious about whether your position will be available tomorrow. It is during these times that management must carefully consider their strategy for keeping employees optimistic and engaged. Planning to survive the recession could have fatal implications if management is too short-sighted. Cutting costs alone will not see the company through the recession without seeing the investment opportunities that exist during these times; the most important of which is the investment in people. Managers at Bain & Company, Home Depot, and Best Buy have taken a variety of steps in the past to build and maintain talent during the recession; utilizing Schwartz’s value theory to keep employees engaged and motivated. According to Schwartz, values “represent broad goals that apply across contexts and time." He proposed that there are ten primary values that guide human behavior: Power, achievement, hedonism, simulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security...
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...One of the main problems during a recession is employee attitudes. Excellent management skills are needed in trying economic times in order to boost employee morale and productivity. One of the methods used include Schwartz’s 10 values that guide a person’s behavior. Another method used is affective, cognitive, and behavioral components that influence behavior by increasing organizational commitment. Increasing employee involvement is also important to management. Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior can be used by managers to increase employee performance during a recession. Schwartz proposed that there are 10 values that guide a person’s behavior. The 10 values that he proposed are as follows: power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security. Many of these values are driving the behavior of managers at Bain & Company, Home Depot, and Best Buy. Frank Blake the Chairman and Chief Executive of Home Depot decided to boost morale by lowering bonus guidelines for hourly employees to set more realistic goals. This exemplifies the values of achievement, power, stimulation, and self-direction. The end result was that the highest percentage of in store employees receiving bonuses in the first half of that year. Steve Ellis is the worldwide managing director of Bain & Company. His behavioral component of his attitude in managing during a recession is one that includes hiring managing consultants in...
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...During the recession, many retail and consumer businesses had to deal with a hit in profit and financial gains. Typically, mass retail giants cut down locations as well as employees, making it difficult for workers to get bonuses or raises, and possibly take losses in corporate offices as well. However, some big retail companies, like Home Depot, Best Buy, and Bain & Company were able to turn some of these downturns into positives and give more to their employees and continue to grow their companies. The behavior and attitude of management can drastically affect a company’s outcome during a recession, so being proactive and seeking out the positive is always the most effective during times of need. According to Shalom Schwartz, who created the theory of personal values in the workplace, there are values managers hold that can influence behavior unknowingly at work (Kreitner and Kinicki, 152). Amongst the ten values, Bain & Company, Home Depot, and Best Buy all hold on to universalism. Universalism, the “understanding, appreciation, tolerance and protection of the welfare of all people and of nature” in the workplace creates a positive work environment for everyone involved (153). Bain & Company’s CEO Steve Ellis took the proactive approach during the recession and added even more employees to his team. “This is an opportunity to grab very talented people,” Ellis stated, when talking about how many former consultants became stranded during the recession (176). He is giving...
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...2.4 Assignment: Values and Attitudes Fundamental ingredients for achieving job satisfaction and organizational commitment begin with personal and corporate values and attitudes. Out of these values and attitudes come the desire for involvement on the part of employees, and aligning personal and organizational goals. Consideration of the components of attitude, whether affective, cognitive, or behavioral components, can assist managers and leaders when it is part of their responsibility to make things happen, especially in times of personal and organizational stress. Read the OB in Action Case Study in Chapter 6, “Companies Are Trying to Improve Employee Attitudes during the Recession,” on pages 176-177. 1. Based upon the classroom discussion and your reading, write a paper that answers the following questions: a. Which of Schwartz’s ten values are driving the behavior of managers at Bain & Co., Home Depot, and Best Buy? Provide examples to support your conclusions. b. How would you describe the affective, cognitive, and behavioral components of Steve Ellis’s attitude toward managing in a recession? Be specific. c. How are Home Depot and Best Buy trying to increase employee involvement? d. Use Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior (Figure 6-3) to analyze how managers can increase employee performance during a recession. Be sure to explain what managers can do to affect each aspect of the theory. e. Based on what you learned, what advice would...
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...General draft for our case study * What is Recession: Recession is the worst situation which affects everyone from top to a lower person (boss to employee).companies that increases their workforce in the time of slowdown seem to reaping the benefit of more profits.(from article 8).To prove this point I just want to quote an example of Indian companies. Tata Motors, Asian Paints and Hero Honda Motors, which increased their workforce, posted profit growth of over 100% each while Hero Honda Motors' profits grew by 95%. On the contrary, at Gail (India), Tata Steel and Bank Of India, which saw a decline in workforce levels, net profit went down 39% to 59% respectively.( article 8). * I like this example : If your neighbor gets laid off, it's a recession. If you get laid off, it's a depression. ( http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/recession-affecting-business.asp#ixzz3X030E9fF) * Causes of recession: According to me I think this is the most important aspect of our case study.like what are the main causes of recession. 1) According to me the fist cause of recession is imbalances in the international trade markets. 2) May be changes in government policies. 3) Stock market crash. 4) Assest bubble (when the prices of companies, stocks or houses become inflated beyond their sustainable value.) * Problems caused by the recession : I am going to mention all the problems which are caused by Recession.As I discussed above it causes...
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...1 LITERATURE REVIEW ABSTRACT The economic recession that hit the world in 2007 resulted in global downsizing in many prestige organizations and its effects of workers productivity. This literature reviews focuses on affective organizational commitment among survivors of organizational restructuring and downsizing. It focused on middle level managers and employees in supervisory positions because survivors of this group are often called upon to assume expanded roles, functions and responsibilities in a post restructuring and downsizing environment. This paper also explores the impact of recession for those still in employment by looking at a key indicator of employee wellbeing, work pressure staff reductions and company reorganization both increase work pressure, as does current job insecurity. Other job changes, like large pay cuts, increases in responsibility, autonomy and monitoring also increase work pressure. Keywords: Recession, downsizing, layoffs, economic downturns, organizational behavior, commitment, motivation, loss and grief, leaders, employees, stakeholders. 2 INTRODUCTION The great recession of 2007 started on the month of December. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the prestigious private research institute declared it officially. The government of US acknowledged the NBER's declaration, aware of the downfall since August 2007; the White House did not change its course on coping with the financial crisis. This was the third longest...
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...the business the impact they are making in the coming years of this Post-Recession Era. Introduction As the U.S. economy begins to right itself from the financial crisis and associated recession, our thoughts turn to the possibility of new growth and new opportunities for business. The end of the recession may not be the ideal resolution to the struggles of the past few years. Compensating for losses has had a significant impact on organizational behavior. Aon Corporation released the 2011 Talent Survey, which revealed some rather unsettling results for the future of human resource management due in large part to the economic crisis (Eamley, 2011). Some of the topics to be discussed will be employee engagement and retention, recruiting and development and leadership in the coming years. Engaging and Retaining Based upon the Talent Survey’s results, there seems to be a problem in the highly important area of engagement, as a mere 14 percent of the 1,328 employers polled nationwide believe that their leaders are actually effective at meeting profitability targets, 17 percent believe they are adequate in delivering service, and 7 percent believe their leaders are skilled in retaining talent. There is simply not much to be confident about. So how can HR remedy these problems? Aon Hewitt of the Aon Corporation advises leaders to be more creative in the post-recession world. Some of the keys will also include focusing on the most valuable talent...
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...meet to receive bonuses. This was met with an unimaginable response when a higher amount of achievement by the staff than ever before was generated, here we see Security at play since there is a reciprocity (“You take care of me, I take care of you”). Home Depot appeals to the values tradition and security. Even though they downsized the number of employees, they made a huge effort to help the current employees. At Best Buy we see self- direction at work as the employees are part of the solution as they searched for ways together to cut cost. This act by the company shows appreciation for the contributions of the employees. This helps with employee morale, the employees feels apart of the team when the can contribute. The use of affective, cognitive, and behavioral components of his attitude toward managing in a recession by CEO Steve Ellis. As for affective behavior; Ellis seems to feel positive about the prospects in consulting and its growth possibility in emerging markets and corporate turnarounds. When you look at cognitive behavior I would say he believes he can continue to grow his...
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...hardware. CACI was founded by Herb Kerr and Harry Markowitz in 1962. Today, even in a period of economic uncertainty, CACI’s fiscal performance remains outstanding. In 2010 CACI announced record revenues of $3.15 billion and now fields a force of 14,100 employees across more than 123 offices around the world. In the contracting job environment, contractors are not expected to work for more than one to three years for the same company. Why is it? Unlike an employee who works for one employer, contractors typically work tackling particular jobs or projects that require special expertise and then seem to move on. I work as a senior intelligence analyst, independent contractor, for CACI for the past two and one-half years. The project I am assigned to as one of the Teams Lead has a total of 103 contractors working on it. CACI holds the primary contract with 88 hired contractors and other sub-contracting companies adding an additional 15 contractors to the projected. During my time with CACI the project has experienced at a 60% contractor turnover. Problems Statement What factors are causing a high rate of contractor’s turnover in the...
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...------------------------------------------------- The impact of the global recession within business The following is a report on how the Global Recession has impacted on Customer Relations Management and how more and more businesses worldwide have begun to adopt CRM systems in a bid to improve their business in the current economic climate ------------------------------------------------- The impact of the global recession within business The following is a report on how the Global Recession has impacted on Customer Relations Management and how more and more businesses worldwide have begun to adopt CRM systems in a bid to improve their business in the current economic climate Report by: Elaine McGrath Student K00121928 Limerick Institute of Technology Report by: Elaine McGrath Student K00121928 Limerick Institute of Technology Business Report The Impact of the Global Recession on CRM within business Elaine McGrath K00121928 (CRM) Customer relationship management is a business strategy for managing organisations interactions with their customers, their clients and their future sales prospects .It uses technology to organise and automate their business processes such as sales and marketing activities, customer service and technical support. According to a Goldman Sachs Study CRM is considered the second most important initiative after security for business. The overall goals of CRM are to seek out, find and win new clients and to implement strategies to...
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...it has also become far more difficult. With the globalization, organizations have embraced more workforce diversity, inviting people into an e.g. American organization, from all over the world, plus more companies merge with foreign countries in e.g. Asia. This puts even more emphasis on how important it is to understand the behaviors within an organization, because each person will have a different background, culture and biographical characteristics. Because of the globalization, a crisis in one country, will quickly influence other countries. As we saw with the economic crisis in 2008 – the worst recession since the Wall Street crash in ’29 – a crisis in the US very quickly spread to the rest of the world. This crisis put a huge strain on both big and small businesses all over the world; challenging managers to still keep focused and engaged. Because with the recession, the reality presents two discrete leadership challenges: Keeping a company on track while the global economy is falling apart and keeping it functional until the economy recovers (Robison). The book “Managing people in a downturn” written by the psychologist Adrian Furnham, is a collection of 74 essays, diatribes and thought pieces. He addresses the issues that every manager faces at...
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...happen does in fact surprise me. I assumed that Americans were the most aggressive. I believe this chapter has opened my eyes to other cultures and the way they do business. I liked the notion of Chinese business people don’t deliberate very long before they move ahead on a project. Here in the west we seem to analyze things too much. We study and research ideas and proposals so long that if we just moved ahead with an idea we would get much more accomplished. Another myth that has been shattered is Chinas ability to get things done. This is obvious with their GDP growing at 10% annually. Something must be working with the way they do business, because growth like that is unheard of. In my opinion the Chinese have an entrepreneurial attitude. They don’t like wasting time. They expel confidence and make every minute count with actions instead of research. I am...
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...Change Management GE’s Two Decade Transformation: Jack Welch’s Leadership Answer 1 In April 1981, when Jack Welch became the CEO of GE, US was in recession. There were high interest rates. Strong dollar resulted in country’s highest unemployment rates. In this rapid changing and uncertain environment it was extremely difficult task for him to handle a conglomerate as big as GE and ensure that general confidence among the investors is not lost. His predecessor, Reg Jones, had set the bar extremely high at the company leaving a legacy for Welch to compete with as the new CEO. Also, acquiring new businesses and ensuring that each business unit under the GE umbrella was one of the best in its field was another challenge. Welch was extremely effective in taking over the GE reins. He challenged each to be ”better than the best” and planned radical changes across the company. Under his guidance, the company expanded dramatically from 1981 to 2001. * He instilled in everyone a culture of innovation and learning, and incorporated measures related to new product development, technological leadership, and rates of improvement. * He set the standard for each of business to become #1 or #2 or get out of business. * Welch categorized business in 3 circles as core, high technology and services and sold off 200 businesses which all together contributed for 25% of sales. * Even budgeting process got radically changed and evaluation started against external competition rather...
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