HUMAN RELATIONS: A Background

1. Chapter 1 HUMAN RELATIONS: A Background

2. What is Human Relations? • Human relations is the skill or ability to work effectively through and with other people. • Organizations must monitor and maintain the relationships among its members to succeed. • Human relations includes understanding: • People’s needs, weaknesses, talents and abilities. • How people work together in groups, satisfying both individual needs and group objectives.

3. The Importance of Human Relations Skills • Reasons for studying human relations: • Human rights • The global marketplace • Emphasis on people as human resources • Renewed emphasis on working groups • Increasing diversity in the workplace

4. The Importance of Human Relations Skills • Human relations in different roles: • Manager: Retain employees longer, be more productive, and provide employees with an enjoyable environment. • Entrepreneur: Effectively work with customers, suppliers, and employees, fulfill their needs, and operate the business successfully. • Employee: Enhance career development and overall performance.

5. Current Challenges in Human Relations • Increased competition in the workplace. • Dual-career families. • Single-parent families and divorce. • Two generations of dependents.

6. What is Not Human Relations • Human relations is not: • A study of understanding human behavior in order to manipulate others. • A cure-all or a quick fix for deep and ongoing personal problems. • Ordinary good sense and judgment.

7. Areas of Major Emphasis Figure 1.1: Major Goals And Emphasis Areas Of Human Relations

8. Areas of Major Emphasis • Self-esteem • The feeling of confidence and worth as a person. • The key to top performance and high-quality work.

9. Areas of Major Emphasis • Mutual respect • The positive consideration or regard that two people have for each other. • Required by people at all levels in an organization to perform at their best.

10. Areas of Major Emphasis • Self-awareness and Self-disclosure • Self-awareness is the knowledge of how others perceive you. • Self-disclosure is the process of letting other people know what you think and feel. • Self- disclosure reflects the positive side of human relations.

11. Areas of Major Emphasis • Communication skills • Communication is the process of sending ideas, thoughts, feelings, and having them received in the intended way. • Essential to express ideas and concepts precisely.

12. Areas of Major Emphasis • Motivation • The force that gets people to do their tasks. • A major element in understanding human relations.

13. Areas of Major Emphasis • Group dynamics • Set of interpersonal relationships within a group that determine how group members relate to one another and influence task performance. • At an organizational level, group dynamics help understand, plan, and organize tactics appropriate to groups.

14. A Brief History of Human Relations Figure 1.2: A Human Relations Timeline

15. A Brief History of Human Relations • The early years • Robert Owen – Treating workers better would actually increase productivity and, thus, profits. • Andrew Ure – A detailed study of manufacturers and their management processes. • Max Weber – Came up with the bureaucratic organizations approach, a system that was meant to be impersonal and rational.

16. A Brief History of Human Relations • Human relations as a science • FrederickTaylor ‘s approach of Scientific Management • Managers should carefully select and train workers for specific tasks. • Managers should try to motivate workers to increase productivity.

17. A Brief History of Human Relations • Human relations as a science (cont.) • FrankGilbrethand LillianGilbreth – Pioneers in time and motion study. • Concepts advanced by Mary Parker Follett: • Workers should be involved in decisions affecting them. • Work place must be dynamic. • Managers must maintain positive relationships with workers.

18. A Brief History of Human Relations • The Hawthorne Experiment – Study conducted by Elton Mayo and his colleagues showed that: • Workers performed better when someone was paying attention to them. • The relationships that had formed naturally in the workplace made up the ‘informal organization’.

19. A Brief History of Human Relations • Human Relations and Management • The Great Depression • The Wagner Act (1935) and union rights • Treatment of workers during World War II • Douglas McGregor – Introduced the concepts of Theories X and Y, which influenced thinking in both management and human relations.

20. A Brief History of Human Relations • Human relations, history, and the individual • Eric Berne – The transactional analysis method of understanding interpersonal communication. • Carl Rogers – Findings on the development of personality, group dynamics, and conflict management. • W. Edwards Deming introduced the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM).

21. A Brief History of Human Relations • Total Quality Management (TQM): • An organizational philosophy that quality must be present in the product or service produced and in all support activities related to it. • Concentrates on the process, excluding people and relationships.

22. Strategies for Success • Develop mutual respect • Develop your self-esteem. • Develop your self-awareness. • Develop trust. • Learn to self-disclose. • Cultivate mutual respect.

23. Strategies for Success • Build your communication skills • Learn to communicate honestly. • Learn what effective communication is and how to develop this skill. • Know what you are communicating to others by increasing your self-awareness. • Know what you are communicating to others by your nonverbal signals. • Learn to deal effectively with conflict.

24. Summary • Human relations is the skill or ability to work effectively with other people. • Human relations skills are important for greater awareness of human rights and current fluctuations in international markets among others. • The main areas of human relations are self-esteem, mutual respect, self-awareness and self-disclosure, communication skill, group dynamics, and motivation.