ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Improving Organizational Performance



Improving Organizational Performance

Introduction

Organizational behavior can be defined as the behavior of the employees or individuals within the organization; the organization is being comprised of human workforce so to study their behavior is very important in order to make them motivated and satisfied with their jobs for purpose of applying that knowledge towards improvising the effectiveness of the organization and performance of the organization. Different approaches are used by different organizations to increase the productivity and human resource development. Their approaches might be different but their goal is same, to increase the productivity in most efficient manners and increase the morale of employees. Ginsters and Nampak Plastic bottles are the perfect example to understand two different approaches to improve human resource development and to increase productivity efficiently and effectively. This paper demonstrates the discussion about the adopted approach by Ginsters and Nampak individually that will make it easy to compare and contrast between the both strategies.

Discussion

The primary focus of any organization is to increase productivity. The key to successful organization is by attaining high performance. High performance can be achieved by any organization is through its employees. Organization focuses on enhancing work performance by adapting high performance work practices. Organization practices this approach by aligning organization's objectives with the workforce. These objectives can be achieved by organization by involving employees and motivating them. Another area where an organization can focus on is investing in people and skills development in the company.

Motivation Theories

Maslow's need hierarchy theory lays the groundwork for subsequent work conducted on the topic of employee motivation. Some researchers challenge his theory, however, as overly simplistic. Benson and Dundis describes some criticisms. First, some individuals do not seek to fulfil higher levels of needs, but stop at some point in the hierarchy. Second, individuals may also seek to fulfil multiple levels of needs at the same time. Third, the five levels do not adequately describe all individual needs. Although these criticisms may be valid, many believe in the general concepts of Maslow's work. Subsequent research on the topic of motivation consistently references Maslow's research (Benson and Dundis, 2003, pp. 315).

Herzberg followed Maslow in further developing understanding of employee motivation. He conducted studies in the 1950's and 1960's on the topic of motivation and job satisfaction. His findings reveal sources of job satisfaction that result in high motivation as well as sources of job dissatisfaction that have no effect on motivation. His work suggests that organizations should focus specific attention on sources of job satisfaction to increase motivation, thereby increasing organizational performance. A lesser focus should be on sources that result in job dissatisfaction, as these do not affect motivation.

Herzberg's original research included interviews with 200 engineers and accountants. The studies asked employees to identify job events that led to both extreme job satisfaction and extreme job dissatisfaction. The responses revealed five main factors that led to extreme job satisfaction. These were achievement, recognition, work content, responsibility, and ...