Lessons From Starbucks And Microsoft: Human Behavior And Motivation In Management Essay.

Strategies for Improving Employee Performance at a Renowned Company

1.Choose a specific incident from your life where you have used the four primary management functions of Planning, Organising, Leadership and Controlling. Analyse the incident and describe the main areas where you used each of these 4 management functions.

2.Choose 2 of the management theories covered in lecture 2 “Evolution of Management Thinking”. Briefly describe the theory and identify its strengths and limitations.

1.I have been a general manger in a renowned company that mainly dealt with serving the aboriginal people of the various parts of the world. In serving these people the employees need to have special skills and knowledge embedded with passion and sympathy for the aboriginal people. They needed to know the issues emerging due to social, cultural and political discrimination. However, the company was suffering from high deficiency of skilled labour where the rest of the employees failed to value the importance of their job.

In order to correct this, I needed to plan some strategies first. I set some missions and objectives to work successfully. First, I planned to have knowledge from the reliable sources about all the issues which were bothering the employees. Then I planned to involve the board of directors and inform them every fact so that they can guide me in solving the issues. To control the problem, I felt the problems to provide trainings to the workers so that they can improve their perspectives to serve properly. I also doubted the possibility of external involvement in disturbing the internal ambience of the company.

I arranged a training that involved the entire organization to find out where exactly the problem lied. This training aimed to make the employees realise that how important their job is fir society. The background pf the aboriginal people and what kind of discrimination they face each day from the higher classes as well as what our initiatives to serve them were essential to know.

I felt the importance of increasing the employee morale by organising a seminar that increased the employee retention in the organization.  As the general manger I organised meeting with all the managers from different departments. I collected information from all the departments and found the best possible way to solve this problem. The training procedure catered all necessary education which were vital for working with us.

As a leader I took several sessions with my employees and asked for open discussion with the problems. I made them realise the greatness of social service and ask for their assistance to solve such problems. I took initiate to recruit people with necessary skills. I started to recruit people who were interested in growing with my company rather than having experience only. I reached all the suppliers, partners and other stakeholders so that they assist us to regain our position.

The Importance of X and Y Theory in Motivating Employees

I controlled the recruiting procedure as well as changed various policies to support the employee interests. By increasing the scopes to achieve rewards based on performance I enhanced the motivation of the employees. We try to be more flexible so that the skilled workers do not leave our organization and provides all the benefits which may allure them to retain in the company. We initiated to cultivate the best possible environment for my employees so that they remain loyal to us and feel empowered to be a part of the organizational development.

X Na Y theory particularly focuses on two sets of assumptions about the human behaviour. In these two sets, theory X describes the negative traits of a human behaviours whereas theory Y purely points out to the positive assumptions of the behaviour of the employees of an organization. The manger is expected to motivate their employees therefore devise technologies to motivate them to ease the managerial tasks (Lawter, Kopelman and Prottas 2015). These two alternative assumptions theories guide the mangers to work according to the human behaviour and motivate the employees accordingly.

This set of motivational theory acts as a guide to develop motivational techniques as well as to attune the complete managerial systems around these assumptions of the human behavioural traits. These two assumptions demonstrate the human behaviour realistically and practically which find the employees of an organization corresponding to these kinds of habits. However, according to the critics, these two theories have drawbacks as they disclose two extreme aspects of human nature which variety with time and situation.

The human relations theory of management focus particularly on the quality of relationships nurtured among the subordinate employees and the mangers of an organization. It is the theory that discusses the benefits of human force demonstrating them as assets or capital to the organization on one hand and disclose the human dimension of the employees on the other. Through this theory the mangers assign to maintain good and valued relationships with their direct reports by evaluating the feelings of the employees as a part of the organizational culture. Through this human relation theory, the employees make commitments to achievement in one hand and the managers comment to achieve a high level of worker morale.

The human relations theory records the constantly change characteristics of the organizations and assets the mangers to change their management styles according to the requirement of the solutions. It focuses on the investments in employees where eth worker not just enjoy the high degree of attachment in decision making process but also enhance their morale by empowering them (O’Toole and Meier 2014). The employees are the main stakeholders of the companies therefore, every change in the effect the human relations as well as organizations as a whole. The introduction of the technologies has reduced the number of employees in an organization, so the companies must be concern to take the rest of the employees so that they do not feel insecure to be replaced at any time.  

The Human Relations Theory of Management: Building Relationships and Empowering Employees

Starbucks is popular internationally for its unique product and service. Its success largely depends upon its well trained and motivated employees (Starbucks.com, 2018). Starbucks essentially follows the X and Y theory of human behaviours based on which they have designed the employee training and motivation process (Huarng and Ribeiro-Soriano 2014). Starbucks realises the importance of employee motivation which encourage the workers to invest themselves according to their nature. Starbucks presses for customer satisfaction which the employees guarantee. Their happy and motivated staffs are the assets of the company who create more profits as well as reputation among their loyal customers.

The mangers of the company follow the set of theories greatly so that each one of the employees feel attracted to their tasks. The managers are well informed with the skills as well as capabilities that each of their employees possess. According to these behavioural traits the managers of Starbucks, organize, plan targets, motivate, review and measure results of their achievements (Konstantinides et al. 2014). According to the company, employees are the media through whom the mangers get information of the regular demands, trends and expectations if their customers.

For keeping the employees motivated, the authority arranges for free products, partner discounts, competitive salary, voluntary benefits also pension schemes. The company recognise the importance of the employee satisfaction for which they create great work environment in the workplaces by involving interior designs in the offices as well as their every outlet. The company values the efforts the employees by providing them goals and recognising their achievements to increase employee motivation according to their behavioural traits.

Microsoft believes in requiting the staffs in their organisation based on intelligence favouring over experience (Microsoft.com, 2018). The recruitment procedure of Microsoft reflects their philosophy. The recruiters of the company find fresher from the colleges so that they can build a great work force based on great relationship between the organisation and the employees. The recruitment recess does not aim to judge the knowledge but focuses on the problem solving ability as well as psychological strength of the employees. The managers select the most unbiased and indecent employees from all.

The recruitment process aims to choose the best fit employees to cater all the needs of the employees. They create room for their employees with all possible and needed facilities which are sometime exceptional for other companies. The work culture purely focusses on assisting the fresh and inexperienced employees who have just come out of their colleges. Therefore, the mangers care to build a culture with which the employees are familiar with, also make sure that it gives them a sense of social belonging (Li et al. 2014). The management take care of the employees so that they can have proper utilization of their skills to increase their opportunities (Igbaekemen 2014). The company keeps on changing its focus to empower the employees to define changing goals. These are all to increase the employee satisfaction and relation between the manages and the subordinates.

The company believes in strengthening the bond of the employees with the organization for which it offers employees equity. Microsoft offers stock option as the rewards to its employees based on their performances. The employees feel empowered and well connected with their bosses because they are trained by their immediate superiors. Beside these the three factors such as role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload mainly create issues among the employees and the managers take responsibilities to serve their subordinates by eliminating any kind of confusion

References:

Huarng, K.H. and Ribeiro-Soriano, D.E., 2014. Developmental management: Theories, methods, and applications in entrepreneurship, innovation, and sense making. Journal of Business Research, 67(5), pp.657-662.

Igbaekemen, G.O., 2014. Impact of leadership style on organisation performance: A strategic literature review. Public Policy and Administrafion Research, 4(9), pp.126-135.

Konstantinides, S., Torbicki, A., Agnelli, G., Danchin, N., Fitzmaurice, D., Galiè, N., Gibbs, J.S.R., Huisman, M., Humbert, M., Kucher, N. and Lang, I., 2014. 2014 ESC guidelines on the diagnosis and management of acute pulmonary embolism. Kardiologia Polska (Polish Heart Journal), 72(11), pp.997-1053.

Lawter, L., Kopelman, R.E. and Prottas, D.J., 2015. McGregor's theory X/Y and job performance: A multilevel, multi-source analysis. Journal of Managerial Issues, 27(1-4), p.84.

Li, W.D., Fay, D., Frese, M., Harms, P.D. and Gao, X.Y., 2014. Reciprocal relationship between proactive personality and work characteristics: A latent change score approach. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(5), p.948.

Microsoft.com (2018). About Microsoft | Mission and Vision | Microsoft. [online] Microsoft.com. Available at: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/about/default.aspx [Accessed 20 Jan. 2018].

O’Toole Jr, L.J. and Meier, K.J., 2014. Public management, context, and performance: In quest of a more general theory. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 25(1), pp.237-256.

Starbucks.com. 2018. Starbucks Company Profile. Starbucks Coffee Company. Retrieved 20 January 2018, from https://www.starbucks.com/about-us/company-information/starbucks-company-profil