Introduction:
Mr Simon is a line manager in a retail organization. He has been serving the organization at the same post for the past 12 years. During this period, he has twice been considered for promotion, and rejected in favour of other candidates due to better formal qualifications, despite having considerably more experience. Recently, he was rejected for promotion for the third time. This has completely wrecked his morale and lost all desire to work for the organization any more. He was overheard discussing with his colleague by his team leader that his career has become completely stagnant in this organization and its time to move on for the sake of his career(Erdem & Ozen, 2014). The team leader, as well as the whole team[l1] , are worried about the potential loss of Mr Simon as he is an integral part of the team. He is highly regarded by the members of the staff as well.
In this essay, we will understand and address the case of Mr Simon in the most effective way possible. The major issues arising here, such as negative perception and hurting the spirit of teamwork, will be addressed(Chong & Wolf, 2010).
Perception:
Perception is defined as the process of experiencing the world surrounding us and all the elements in it via our sensory organs. The unlimited sources of information around us emit unlimited amounts of information that we can interact with, with the help of our sensory organs. These sensory organs supply us with ‘sense’(Homberg, McCarthy, & Tabvuma, 2015).
Featuresof Perception:
Perception is a complex psychological as well as physiological process that mainly possesses the following features:
- It is a process of intellectual form that via which a person chooses and selects the information from its sources, organizes and extracts sense out of it.
- It is a cognitive process that indicates that the actions, thoughts, and emotions of people are directly influenced by their perception of subjects.
- It is a subjective process. It may slightly or greatly vary from person to person(Badubi, 2017).
The process of Perception:
- Inputs of Perception – The first stage where a person comes across various types of data and information around him. The process of perception starts as soon as the person starts interacting with this information. These informational objects can be objects, ideas or people.
- Implementation of Perception – It is the second stage where the selection, organization, and interpretation of stimuli take place. The selection of stimuli is selecting the one particular stimulus to respond to, out of an infinite number of it. The organization of stimuli is the categorization and prioritization of information on the base of perceptual grouping(Hsieh, 2016).
- The output of Perception – After the observation, organization, and processing of stimuli, the final output comes out, it can be in the form of an action such as the formation of an attitude, belief, opinion, etc. about the stimuli(Morteza, Abbas, & Salahshour, 2013).
Perception in the case of Mr. Simon:
The situation of Mr. Simon clearly highlights a change of perception from productive, motivating and positive to the exact opposite. He started out and carried on his job diligently for over a decade. This clearly highlights his positive perception of his job. He clearly felt he deserves a promotion which a rightful expectation for an employee of his quality. But then his promotion was rejected for the first time, on the basis of comparatively lesser formal qualifications. This must-have affected his perception, although not by much but to a limited extent. Then he carries on his job diligently and in the next few years, applies for promotion again(Seejeen, 2020). This time his promotion is rejected as well, based on the same reasoning. Now, this was bound to have hurt his positive perception and demotivated him as well. A hint of negativity also spread among his team members. He still kept himself together and carried on doing his job carefully. Now, for the third time, his promotion has been rejected for the same cause, despite him serving for over 12 years with a clean and commendable record. This has clearly created a perception of negativity, depreciation, and stagnation of his career(Im & J. W., 2013). He is completely demotivated and even discussing his departure from the organization. He won’t be able to carry on his job with the same determination and industry, naturally. His team members, who acknowledge his skills and specialization, are also worried about the same treatment in their careers. This has hurt the morale of all the members of the team. This could lead to a lack of teamwork and ultimately, a loss for the organization. But what is teamwork? How it affects the performance of an organization? Let us find out(Andersen J. A., 2010). [l2]
Motivation and Atitude
Motivation and attitude are two key points that go hand in hand. Motivation comes when there is apprication of work which in return changes the attitude of the person. If the work of an employee is not appreciated his attitude gets affected. In the case an employee who was rejected thrice his attitude changed from positive to negative and after surving the company for 10 years he considered leaving the job which agin reflects negative attitude, demotivation and dissatisfaction(Andersen & Kjeldsen, 2013). [l3]
Types of attitudes:
1) Explicit attitude – These are the attitudes that you are fully aware of and influence your behaviour towards the subjects. You are consciously aware of these factors that directly affect our beliefs. For example, you meet a new person through your friends, and they are wearing a jersey of your favourite football team, you automatically form a likeable opinion about the person since you both support the same team. This attitude is explicit in nature i.e. this formation of a likeable opinion was deliberate (Beier, C., & Kanfer, 2018) . Now relating the same to the case as Mr Simon dedicated his 10 in the company he had fored a likeness towards the company this was reflected from the behavior that we applied three time for the promotion.
2) Implicit attitude – These are the attitudes that you are not consciously aware of but still greatly influence your behaviour towards the subjects. You have no conscious awareness of your actions and behaviour but they still influence your beliefs(Kang, 2014). For example, you are walking down the street on a Saturday night. You see a person wearing a mask advancing towards you. You automatically form a feeling of danger from that person. The person could be wearing the mask to keep the cold out, but you will still unconsciously develop an opinion about that person. This attitude is implicit in nature as this was not a deliberate action, but an unconscious opinion you formed (Coile& Levine, 2011). In the case Mr Simon discussed the issue with other employee and this might have affected perception of that another employee the attitude changed and it might have made him feel that this could happen to him as well.
The theory states about the what employee expect from the organization and what he receives can bring dissatisfaction in the employee. Mr. Simon epected a promotion based on experience which as his expectation but was denied on the base of qualification and here the theory was violated and affected the employess satisfaction(Caillier, Satisfaction With Work-Life Benefits and Organizational Commitment/Job Involvement: Is There a Connection?, 2012).
The theory states that the employee inputs his effort and expects a positive response in the form of rewars that brings satisfaction in them. In the case of Mr. Simon’s he was not rewared for his work.
[l4]
Teamwork:
Teamwork can be defined as the collective effort put forth by a group of coordinated members. In the world of business, almost nothing can be achieved without collective efforts of a team, or simply, teamwork. Organizations employ hundreds, thousands, and even millions of employees that work in groups to achieve the goals of the organization. The members of such teams are required to possess some specific skills and qualities to able to work efficiently in a group(Caillier, Does public service motivation mediate the relationship between goal clarity and both organizational commitment and extra-role behaviours? , 2014). Let us understand the importance of teamwork in a more elaborated manner:
Importance of Teamwork:
Targets are achieved faster – This is the primary benefit of teamwork. It is naturally apparent that a group of skilled members will complete a task at a much higher pace than an individual. The responsibilities get delegated and workload gets distributed accordingly to relieve the pressure and improve working accuracy. When the workload gets shared and individual targets highlighted, the overall work gets done in a much quicker manner. This is the reason behind such a serious implementation of teamwork throughout the world of business(Cantarelli, Belardinelli, & Belle, 2015).
Efficiency and effectiveness – No business organization can run successfully without sufficient profits. And pending work is not going to generate profits. It is instrumental to deploy teams specializing in different fields to get as much work done as possible on time. The approaches to the accomplishment of goals can be discussed before and through the process to minimize doubts and delays.
Work is always the priority – For example, John is an accounting assistant in his organization, but he fell prey to serious illness and will be unable to attend office for four weeks. Now the work John was supposed to be doing will be delayed for as long as he is out. This is where teamwork rescues the day. Another member of his team will step up and share his workload to continue the work. This is a crucial aspect for any business organization, letting such incidents hurt the performance of the organization is not an option. Teamwork is the way to go(Chordiya, Sabharwal, & Goodman, 2017).
Professional development of staff – Teamwork leads to sharing and learning of various skills, abilities, and qualities among the members of the group. This works in favour of all by cultivating positive characteristics among the team members, improving the quality of staff for the organization, ultimately leading to better performance and profits.
Development of competitive spirit – A healthy competition is a positive sign for any group as it drives the members to better than one another, ultimately elevating the overall quality of the team.
Development of team spirit – When a group of people works together for some time, sharing their authority and abilities, leads to the formation of a strong bond that is based upon trust and reliance. This results in the formation of team spirit which often leads to long-term retention of staff for the organization.
Self-assessment of members – Teams do not require any specialist eye of supervision as members of the team act as supervisors to one another. This is a total benefit situation for the organization(Chu & Lai, 2011).
Theory of Teamwork:
Teamwork isn’t a modern concept. In fact, it’s not even a medieval concept, it’s been around for centuries. Alexander the great, the Macedonian king who conquered every place he marched to, relied heavily upon the teamwork of his army. A further peak into this will clear up the doubts further–
- Scientific management theory – This theory was put forward by Frederick Winslow Taylor. He was an engineer for a firm called Bethlehem Steel in 1889. He started observing his workers who were tasked with the unloading of iron off rail cars and loading steel. He found out that they were deliberately working under capacity. He approached this observation scientifically and found out that the workers were currently loading 12.5 tonnes of metal in a day, while they were easily capable of loading 47.5 tonnes of metal per day(Fernandez & Moldogaziev, Employee empowerment and job satisfaction in the U.S. federal bureaucracy., 2013). He decided to motivate his workers by motivating them with the help of substantial incentives. He announced increased wages in return for higher metal loading goals. This scheme worked successfully. His research provided these crucial observations-
- Work should be scientifically analyzed to find out the best method to perform it.
- Staff selection should be carefully conducted in order to get the best employees.
- There should be co-operation among the managers and sub-ordinates. This promotes understanding and clearer communication among the employees.
- Management should focus on preparing plans and approaches for the workers to execute them efficiently.
This theory shows us the significance of having hard-working employees in an organization to maximize the outputs with minimum inputs ultimately resulting in greater profits(Fernandez, Resh, Moldogaziev, & Oberfield, 2015).
Teamwork in the case of Mr Simon:
As discussed earlier, the potential departure of Mr Simon from the organization has already caused a strong wave of discomfort among the members of his team. This is certainly going to hurt the individual as well as collective performances of the members, ultimately hurting the performance of the organization. Mr Simon, who is held in high regard by his team members, is seriously considering his future at the organization and even has discussed his intention to leave the firm as he feels his denial of promotion has halted his career progress. Every member of the team is bound to empathize with him, and hypothetically imagine the same scenario for themselves, leading to a strong feeling of insecurity for their future. The morale of the team will be down the hill and you can not expect unhappy employees to perform well. This is going to be a disaster for the organization(Frampton, 2014). [l5]
Solution suggested:
Diligent, loyal and determined employees are a precious commodity to any organization. Mr Simon definitely fits the description of such an employee. His third successive rejection of promotion is forcing him to make the ultimate decision of leaving the organization for his own good. There is no doubt that Mr Simon deserves the promotion to the next level. The organization themselves will greatly benefit by having such a high-quality staff member at a higher post with greater responsibilities. This is will further motivate him to work harder. The doubts among his team members will also be addressed leading to better performances and higher profit for the organization. So, the top management should discuss the issue with Mr Simon, and duly promote him. They should also fix their promotion policy to prevent any future incidents of this nature(George & Pandey, 2017).
Conclusion:
The case of Mr Simon has shown us a common scenario in the corporate world. He served as a trusty workhorse for the organization and expected a promotion as any other employee in his shoes would. But due to a faulty promotion policy,he wasn’t promoted. The theories discussed have helped in highlighting the issues as well as provided the ways to remedy it. One should always remember, a happy employee will always perform better than an unhappy employee.[l6]
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