Management Essay Sample on Influencing Performance

How could your organization better enhance individual motivation and performance beyond what it is currently doing? Justify your reasoning.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Motivation is an essential aspect of employees' job satisfaction and productivity. Because of this, organizations should continuously find ways of ensuring employee motivation is kept high at all times. I suggest that the organization should strive to understand the cross-cultural values of its employees. This is because, in the current culturally diverse workplaces, cross-cultural values affect employee motivation. For instance, some employees may be motivated through enhanced individualism while others may derive their motivation from collectivism. Highly individualistic individualist people like being in control of their lives and having personal freedom while collectivists like working in groups (McShane & Von Glinow, 2016). By knowing whether an employee is an individualist or a collectivist, a manager or a supervisor is in a better position of enhancing employee motivation by assigning tasks to the employees individually or as a group.

I believe that the performance in the organization can be enhanced through improved role clarity. When employees clearly know their roles in the organization, and what is expected of them, they are in a better position of accomplishing the set objectives and goals. I believe that my current organization should go ahead and ensure that every employee has an updated and accessible job description that details their roles and responsibilities. Additionally, I believe that performance can be further improved if individuals are provided with weekly and daily targets rather than setting long-term goals. Through role clarity, the employees are capable of understanding the priority of the tasks assigned to them as well as the performance expectations (McShane & Von Glinow, 2016).I also believe that improved performance can be achieved by equipping the workers with the industry's latest knowledge and skills. Consequently, the managers should ensure that the workers undergo regular coaching and training to upgrade their knowledge and skills and, thus, become competitive and more efficient in completing assigned tasks. Empirical studies have proven that coaching is an effective means of improving employee performance. Based on leadermember exchange theory, Pousa and Mathieu (2014) explained that coaching enhances employee performance beyond their experience and tenure. Similarly, Asfaw, Argaw, and Bayissa (2015) established that training and development are positively associated with employee effectiveness and performance. Consequently, there is a need to give employees the necessary training and development to close gaps in skills.

Describe one method effective leaders can use to improve individual and/or group performance in your organization. Include the role of theory in your discussion.

Employee performance in an organization can be improved by motivating employees. One of the ways of enhancing employee motivation is by setting clear and realistic goals and offering timely feedback to employees based on their performance. Setting unambiguous measurable goals have been associated with enhanced employee productivity and increased self-confidence. The first step incorporating goals as a way of improving employee performance and, subsequently, his or her performance is to identify the need for the goals. The targeted goals may be behavioral or performance-based. One of the examples of goals may be the need to learn a new computer program with the aim of improving the employees' efficiency in the workplace.

When setting goals that need to be attained by the employees, effective leaders must meet with each of the employees to discuss the need for goal-setting. Once the need for goal-setting has been agreed upon, the leader and the follower should then develop an action plan to meet the stated goals. The action plan should be based on the SMART model. Also, an effective leader must ensure that the employee should have all that is needed (time and equipment) to achieve the goals. Additionally, the leader should regularly meet with the employee to assess the progress towards meeting the target goals. During this process, support and encouragement should be provided by the provided by the leader to ensure that the employee does not give up mid-way.

At the end of the specified time set to meet the goals, the leader and the employee should meet to review if the goals were met. The setting goals as a way of enhancing employee performance are based on goal-setting theory. According to McShane and Von Glinow (2016), effective goals should be SMARTER (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-framed, and reviewed).

Describe an experience in which you felt empowered to use your decision-making skills or to express your creativity in your work environment.

According to McShane and Von Glinow (2016), decision making is the process of choosing among alternatives with the aim of moving toward some desired state of affairs. One of the desired types of decision making is rational decision making; the process of choosing the best alternative. In my current working place, there was a time that my team was tasked with selecting a supplier of our office supplies. As a team leader, I was to be the final decision maker. Among the various choices available, I decided to go with the supplier with the best rating regarding the speed of delivery of the items and who had an outstanding experience in the same work.

References

Asfaw, A. M., Argaw, M. D., & Bayissa, L. (2015). The impact of training and development on employee performance and effectiveness: a case study of district five administration office, bole sub-city, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies, 03(04), 188-202. https://doi.org/10.4236/jhrss.2015.34025

Pousa, C., & Mathieu, A. (2014). The influence of coaching on employee performance: results from two international quantitative studies. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 27(3), 75-92. https://doi.org/10.1002/piq.21175