OB- THE EMERGING CHALLENGES

1. CHAPTER 2 OB- THE EMERGING CHALLENGES

2. Ob Challenges CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS OF WORKFORCE MANAGING DIVERSITY OB CHALLENGES CHANGED EMPLOYEE EXPECTATIONS ETHICAL BEHAVIOUR GLOBALISATION TECHNOLOGY TRANSFORMATION

3. Managing Diversity • Diversity is dealing with a collective mixture of differences and similarities in a given group. • It includes age, background, function and personality. It also includes lifestyles, sexual orientation, geographic origin, tenure with an organization, management and non- management values, beliefs and opinions. • Managing diversity is a philosophy about how differences among individuals are accepted and respected and how they are made to work in cohesion. • Firms are realizing that utilizing diversity in all aspects of the workforce makes not only a strong moral sense but also business sense. • Diversity has two dimensions : (i) Primary (ii) Secondary and diversity needs to be understood by these two dimensions

4. Primary & Secondary Dimensions of Diversity Geographic Location Cultural Experience Primary Dimensions Education Secondary Dimensions Age Work Experience Sexual Orientation Work Style Gender Income Mental/Physical abilities & characteristics Family Status Ethnic heritage Religion Race Communication Style First Language Org role & level

5. Advantages & Barriers of Accepting Diversity

6. How to Manage Diversity Effectively? • Providing organization members with accurate information on diversity • Uncovering personal biasness and stereotypes. • Assessing personal beliefs, attitudes and values and learning about points of view. • Overturning inaccurate stereotypes and beliefs about different groups. • Developing an atmosphere in which people feel free to share their differentiating perspectives and points of view. • Improving understanding of others who are different from others.

7. Changing Demographics of Workforce • Organizations have been accustomed to using job makes and physical relocation as important means of developing talent. • Men or women, moving up the ranks need the experience of variety of roles in different organizational unit, frequent relocation has therefore been required. • But dual career couples who are actively pursuing careers are the biggest challenge as they don’t accept assignments and are inflexible. • Another change in the workforce demographics relates to the growing number of young employees.

8. Changed Employee Expectations • With the changes in workforce demographics, employee expectations and attitudes have also changed. • Traditional allurements such as job security, attractive remuneration, housing etc do not attract, retain or motivate today’s employees. • Employees today demand empowerment and expect quality of status with management. • Empowerment gives employees more control over their jobs, bring his or her children to the workplace to look around and gain knowledge about work methods. • Today's workers also demand better treatment, challenging assignments and career advancement.

9. Globalization • Growing internationalization of business has its impact on people management. • The management is required to cope up with problems of unfamiliar laws, languages , practices, competitors, attitude, management styles, work ethics and more. • Specifically, internationalization/ globalization of business presents at least four challenges: • Globalization affects an increasing number of managers and professionals. • Globalization puts a premium on certain competencies • Managerial learning is a critical process in globalization • Management of careers in the context of globalization brings about for peculiar difficulties in many companies.

10. Technology • Technology may be understood as anything that workers of an organization use to transform inputs into outputs. • Technology is widely believed offers competitive edge to the firm but the competitive edge comes only when managers achieve a harmonious integration of human and technological resources. • There are two dimensions in technology: (i) Automation and (ii) Information Technology. • Automation: it occurs when a task performed by a worker is mechanized to be performed by a machine. It has an impact on job design: alienation. Due to automation the task becomes much more passive and low productive which results in poor quality and low productivity. • IT: IT has reshaped organizations and their interactions with other entities. These are the days of dotcoms, internets, intranets, e- mails, mobile phones etc.

11. Impact of Technology on Organization • LEANER ORG: • Organizations are becoming leaner first by automation and secondly by information technology. • Downsizing, also called as rightsizing is enabling organizations to use fewer employees to produce greater volumes. • Closely related to downsizing is outsourcing. • Outsourcing is the process of hiring outside firms to perform the non- core activities of business. • WIRED ORG • VIRTUAL OFFICE: • Virtual office is the one in which people work anytime, anywhere and with anyone. The concept involves work being done from where the people are instead of people going to a place of work.

12. Ethical Behavior , Dilemma & Sexual Harassement • Ethics refers to a system of moral principles- a sense of right or wrong, the goodness and the badness of actions, and the motives and consequences of these actions. • Most of the managers face ethical dilemma as the distinction between ethical and unethical behavior is not clear. • For e.g. computerizing monitoring, close- circuit TV viewing and tapping of phones • . • Sexual harassment is another area of ethical dilemma faced by managers. • Sexual harassment is the unwelcome sexual attention, whether verbal of physical, that effects an employees job conditions to create a hostile working environment. • Gender harassment includes crude comments or sexual jokes and behaviors that disparage someone’s gender or convey hostility towards a particular gender. • Unwanted sexual attention involves unwanted touching. • Sexual coercion consists of implicit or explicit demands for sexual favors by threatening negative job related consequences or promising job- related rewards.

13. Whistle Blowing • Whistle blowing in an organization refers to disclosure by former or current employees of any illegal, immoral or illegitimate practices involving its employees. • Employees either make organizational misconduct public or inform it to top management. • Whistle blowing becomes an ethical issue as employees are not expected to speak against their own employers or colleagues etc. • On the other hand there may be situations in which the society’s interests override those of the organization. So an employee may feel it obligatory to blow the whistle.

14. Managing Ethics • In the past, in most of the firms it was assumed that ethics was a matter of individual conscience. But the scenario has changed. Today, many organisations are using managerial techniques that are designed to encourage ethical behaviour. • In a company it has to be the CEO who should take the initiative in ensuring ethical standards in the organisation. • CODE OF ETHICS: • code of ethics describes the value system of an organisation. • These codes vary from book- length formulations to statements in one or two page which expresses a general philosophy for managing conflicts. • The code of ethics describes the general value system of the organisation, defines the organisation’s purpose, and provides the guidelines for the decision making consistent with these principles. • Code of ethics identify the acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in organisation, much as law do for society at large.

15. Managing Ethics • ETHICS COMMITTEES: many companies have ethics committees to advice on the ethical issues. Such a committee can be a high level comprising the board of directors, chaired by CEO of the company. • ETHICS HOT LINE: in some companies, when employees are troubled about some ethical issues and are reluctant to raise it with their immediate supervisor, they can make a call on the company’s ‘ethics hot line”. A member of the ethics committee receives the confidential call and then quickly investigates the matter. Elaborate steps are taken to protect the identity of the caller, so as to encourage other employees to report such matter. This technique is useful as it helps in resolving the matter internally before it reaches to media. • ETHICS TRAINING PROGRAMME: training are provided to the managers and the employees. The company personnel are made familiar with the official company policy on ethical issues, and it is shown how it can be translated into specific everyday decision making.

16. Ethics & Law • Law and Ethics have a common aim- defining proper and improper behaviour. But the two are not quite the same. • Laws are the society’s attempts to formalize. • Ethical concepts are more complex than written rules. Ethics deals with human dilemmas that frequently go beyond the formal language of law and the meanings given to the legal rules. • To clear ethical issues on should consider 3 well known principle : moral idealism, intuitionism and utilitarianism • MORAL IDEALISM: it postulates that certain acts are bad. Pursue those acts which are good and avoid the bad ones. Moral idealism gives definite answer to organizational ethical issues. • INTUITION: it leaves it on individual to sense the moral gravity of the situation. If he or she feels that his or her motives are good and that they do not intend to hurt anyone, he or she is taking an intuitive approach to morally difficult situations. • UTILITARIANISM: it seeks to establish the moral focus not on the act but on the outcomes.