literature review about communication in the workplace i'm studying Department of Health and Human Services

Running Head: Public Personnel and Labor Relations – Reflective Synthesis (6)

Public Personnel and Labor Relations

Reflective Synthesis (6)

Muneera Alsalem

Chapter 9: Leadership and Employee Performance

It is critically important to clarify the differences between the administrative and political viewpoints in regards to understanding the impact of leadership on employee performance. It is also important to consider that elected officials and public administrators’ viewpoints differ from the market-based perspectives of managers and executives in the private sector. To clarify the impact of leadership on employee performance, some of the useful concepts to consider include psychological contract, equity theory, and expectancy theory. It is essential to assess how employees’ motivation to perform and ability to perform are concisely impacted by personnel specialists, managers, and elected officials. Four innovations to enhance employee productivity that have proven effective are total quality management (TQM), job enrichment, work-life balance, and teamwork.

Differences between Political and Administrative Viewpoints

The most distinctive approach to clarifying the differences between political and administrative viewpoints is a logical one. For example, politicians’ primary value is responsiveness, while the primary value for administrators is efficiency. The focus of administrators in conducting their duties in government is internal in nature. In contrast, politicians have an external focus in performing their responsibilities in their distinctive roles. Politicians are engaged in activities that can be best called a political game, while administrators are engaged in problem solving activities. The conversations undertaken by politicians address the question, what did you hear?, while conversations undertaken by administrators address the key question, what do you know? In terms of their communication exchanges, administrators are dealing with money, information, and people, while politicians are dealing with symbols and interests. The currency used by administrators is always knowledge while the currency used by politicians is power. All these differences are important to clarify in distinguishing between political and administrative viewpoints because of the impact on the dynamics of their overall job responsibilities. Politicians are constantly dealing with conflict, compromise, change, and looking for short term results, while administrators are dealing with knowledge, continuity, and cooperative arrangements, and looking for long term outcomes.

Psychological Contract

One of the key components in an administrative workplace is the psychological contract established between supervisor-subordinates, and between that work unit and the overall organization. The psychological contract is similar to the legal contract by having these key components of expectations and obligations at the heart of it. An illustration is when elected officials expect the civil servants entrenched in bureaucracies to clarify salient issues for them to address and give legislative attention to them. The distinctions between a psychological contract and a legal contract are also important. The main distinction is that the terms and conditions of a psychological contract are not spelled out and therefore are intangible in content for those establishing such a contract in an administrative setting. This is why the supervisor is responsible to establish and clarify these psychological conditions and terms as clearly and fairly as possible for all subordinates to comprehend and understand in order to build trust and rapport in the workplace. The psychological contracts have to be recognized by administrators as always in place and that they have to be maintained as fairly and clearly as possible for all subordinates of all work units in any given administrative department in order for these employees to be motivated to fulfill their tasks and obligations as expected. By neglecting the existence of the importance of the psychological contract can have profound consequences on the workplace when things go wrong and when productivity dramatically declines.

The Foundation Theories:

Explaining Employee Performance with Equity and Expectancy Theories

The importance and usefulness of equity theory and expectancy theory rest within the context of helping administrators explain employee performance and how this performance can be affected by leadership choices at the top. The best way to understand equity theory is to emphasize this concept of fairness. An administrator can use this theory in the context of how an employee reaches a conclusion on how she or he is being treated fairly or unfairly in the work unit or department. So this theory involves assessing the internal state of the worker’s mind and understanding this worker is undertaking a subjective calculation of inputs and outputs of performance in comparison with other employees, and whether or not he or she is being treated fairly by supervisors in relation to these individual input levels and output levels. This means a hard-working, committed, and very productive employee who feels slighted by seeing a supervisor favor a less productive employee may begin to reduce productivity as a consequence. This is due to that employee feeling he or she is being treated unfairly by the supervisor. The supervisor thus has to recognize this subjective calculation process is on-going in every worker’s mind and therefore has to highlight the importance of equitable treatment and fair treatment of all workers at all times as affecting and influencing employee motivation.

Expectancy theory involves the mental processes that an employee uses to meet a work objective. It compliments equity theory for an administrator in charge of a work unit or department because it clarifies employees’ feelings of job satisfaction directly associated with job performance. The major factors to consider in using expectancy theory analysis consist of first, the extent to which a worker feels or he or she can do the job at an expected level, second, the employee’s assessment of rewards for meeting job expectations, and third, the value the employee places on these rewards for excellent performance. Obviously, an administrator can find expectancy theory usefulness for improving the job satisfaction of employees by noting how this positively impacts job performance. It can assist administrators then to figure out the employees’ value attached to certain rewards, monetary and non-monetary, and how they help motivate employees to work harder and be more productive in the workplace.

Influences on Employees’ Motivation to Perform

One crucial influence on employees’ motivation involves perceived fair treatment and equitable treatment by supervisors. What happens when fairness and equity is perceived by any given employee in a work unit in an administrative setting is that a sense of trust is built up as well as a stronger commitment to do well and perform well to reward that supervisor for being fair and equitable in treatment of that employee. The building of trust and rapport between supervisors and employees constructs a positive work climate that allows employees to thrive in carrying out their individual duties and tasks in productive ways. Knowing that fairness and equity extends to all employees, individual employees feel that they are thus definitely obligated to convey both commitment and productivity in their jobs. This positive work climate can be indirectly impacted by human resources management by having these supervisors appropriately trained to treat employees fairly and equitably in their work units.

Another crucial influence on employees to perform at high levels in the administrative workplace is to emphasize the value and importance of the public service motive. Any and all employees who work in the public sector must have some awareness and association with the public service motive. In other words, they are working in the public sector primarily to serve the public in some manner. Administrative supervisors are obligated to showcase this public service motive in their work units to clarify the overriding rationale for why they are all working in the public sector – to serve the public as effectively and efficiently as possible in the context of their job descriptions. This public service motive can also be stressed by the supervisor as also linked to this concept of social justice. In other words, as public servants, fulfilling their job duties and job obligations, public employees are striving to demonstrate this commitment to social justice.

Another influence on employee motivation is for the supervisor to value the intangibles or spirit of the workplace at all times. This means essentially building a culture of commitment among employees rather than a culture of compliance. This culture of commitment involves living up to this public service motive. The spirit of a workplace is directly associated with creating a positive work environment for everyone. It can be done in a number of ways by the supervisor. Flexible work schedules and flexible work times have been proven to be exceptional ways to elevate the spirit of the workplace to a positive level. These employees being given this opportunity to have flexible schedules and job sharing choices can be encouraged to commit themselves to being productive and rewarding their supervisors as a result.

Influences on Employees’ Ability to Performance

Competitive wage rates with private sector jobs is a crucial influence in impacting employees’ ability to achieve exceptional performances in the public sector. Competitive wage rates, along with attractive compensation packages, are essential for public sector employees to feel that they are highly valued assets and that they will be able to live decently and comfortably from their compensation received. Although many public sector employees harbor a public service motive, and are called to be public servants, they also have to consider the reality of their circumstances in the real world and be able to afford to live decently and comfortably. So competitive wage rates and attractive compensation packages are clearly important influences on employees’ ability to perform at high levels. When perceiving they are competitively earning the same wages and receiving the same compensation as private sector counterparts in comparable jobs, then they are going to be motivated to retain their public sector jobs and perform up to expectations.

Two other important influences on employees’ ability to perform are the employee selection process and the quality of employee training. The employee selection process must be perceived as fair and equitable, and based on professional standards, rather than nepotism or other faulty standards, by newly hired public sector employees. When the employee selection process is perceived as fair and equitable, then new employees are going to be motivated to perform exceptionally well and be committed to their new job positions. Likewise, when the quality of the job training is high, these employees feel that they are highly valued and that they are being prepared to do important duties and fulfill important responsibilities in these new job positions. These processes of job selection and job training can immediately establish trust and rapport between these employees and their supervisors with this understanding of being valued and desired by their new employees.

Organizing for Productivity

An administrative workplace can also be appropriately organized to enhance productivity among employees. Total quality management (TQM), for example, focuses on improving quality through four key factors: a customer focus, data driven decisions, participative decision-making, and continuous improvement. Employees are going to positively respond to these factors in a public administrative workplace as much as in a private sector workplace. By having TQM implemented, supervisors can be assured that their employees are motivated to respond positively and effectively to these key factors and improve their productivity in turn. Job enrichment is also an effective approach to organizing the administrative work unit and workplace for higher productivity. Job enrichment involves designing jobs so the performance itself is rewarding to the workers. These kinds of enriched jobs meant incorporating variety to them, emphasizing that the work is significant, and emphasizing autonomy and feedback loops to enhance the value of the worker in relation to performing the job. Work/Life Balance approaches are also important for organizing the workplace for productivity. These approaches consider the personal needs of employees. This means implementing the use of flextime, job sharing, telecommuting, child care assistance, and subsidized transportation. Teamwork is another important way to organize productivity in the administrative workplace. Teamwork involves concepts like boundary expanding, bridge building, and collaborative management.

Chapter 10: Training, Education, and Staff Development

Public organizations are no different than private organizations in the need to invest time and money in developing employees. One of the key approaches today is viewing employees as assets and therefore training must be viewed as vital to fulfill the public agency’s mission and goals. It is important then to distinguish between training, education, and staff development as part of the development function. It is also important to consider the roles of the human resources development specialist in this process. It is also crucial to clarify the importance of the training needs assessment, design, and evaluation processes.

Training as Part of Strategic Planning

By integrating training as part of the strategic planning process, the development focus of a public organization broadens to include individuals, groups, and the organization as a whole. The other advantages of integrating training as part of strategy planning include clarifying budget options in the human resource development area, providing a framework to see if development activity has generated cost-effective outcomes, and providing additional resources and mechanisms to clarify and advance agency goals.

Objectives of the Development Function:

Training, Education, and Staff Development

The main distinction between the three categories of development activities – training, education, and staff development – is definitely the component of time. For example, training provides learning for current responsibilities and tasks. This learning focuses on skills building, but also involves increasing self-awareness. Education is more future-oriented. This involves skill building, but also emphasizes generalized learning to different situations. For example, a supervisor may be asked to pursue a master’s degree to qualify for a higher managerial position. Staff development is also future oriented. This is the process of preparing employees for changes that are not clearly known or specifically anticipated. It is primarily focused on building attitudes and knowledge consistent with the organization’s changing requirements. Another distinction between training, education, and staff development concerns the differences in competencies for first line supervisors, managers, and administration executives.

Organizational Approaches to Development

The process of organizational development (OD) was first developed in the 1960s with a focus on the emotional side of interpersonal work relationships and action research. This process of action research is based on gathering data about practical problems and feeding data back to employee participation. OD is participant focused rather than trainer oriented. One method of OD is team building. This process begins with a consultant being called in to diagnose and correct a problem in relationships and processes within a department or between departments.

Another organizational approach to development is diversity training. This involves accommodating people from different cultures and different ethnic groups. This kind of training involves a number of important components. It involves skilled instructors sensitive to multicultural awareness issues. It also involves experiential learning like role playing, exercises, discussions, and group experiences. It involves flexibility for tailoring to specific work group circumstances. It also involves evaluative instruments to assess effectiveness and follow up programs that can assure success.

An additional approach to development is continuous learning. This approach requires that an organization instruct its employees in three strategic areas: new skills, new technologies, and new knowledge. The premise of this approach is that the more employees know about their equipment and work processes, the better they will be prepared to discover problems and think of ideas for solutions. One of the key elements of the continuous learning approach is that it requires developing attitudes of a learner, which include curiosity, creativity, open-mindedness, and a wiliness to take risks.

Developing New Employees

New employee orientation is often overlooked but actually a critical important area for training new employees. New employee orientation does serve a number of invaluable purposes. It reduces start-up costs by providing new employees the essential information in an efficient manner. It also relieves supervisors and co-workers of basic orientation tasks, reduces anxiety, reduces employee turnover, and develops realistic job expectations. Training for basic skill development is a key area for developing new employees. This focuses on developing the basic skills of reading, writing, and computing. Today, most work environments require the basic computing skills, including word processing and database management. By having new employees trained in these basic skill areas, important contributions can be immediately made such employees. It is also important for new employees to engage in on the job training (OJIT) to carefully instruct them to exactly what their job responsibilities are and what job tasks are expected to be fulfilled on a regular basis.

Developing Current Employees

Public organizations, like private organizations, must constantly be engaged in developing current employees. One of the overlooked categories is the need to constantly train and develop part-time and temporary employees to new skills, new competencies, and new requirements for their job positions. Two important skills that administrators tend to neglect but are very necessary involve coaching and counseling. The coaching skill is important because employees can be effectively informed and guided to perform at a higher level of competency through having suggestions for improvement provided and to reframe the organization’s basic goals and objectives in respect to that employee’s job position and job duties. Coaching is an excellent skill for administrators to always use and they are required to use it because of the employees being in need of advice, guidance, and information at times. Another important skill in developing current employees is counseling. Administrators tend to overlook this skill set because of the fact that they are so busy trying to lead and fulfill their own responsibilities in supervising a work unit or department. However, employee problems and employee-employee conflicts are detrimental to the productivity of the administrative unit or department, so administrators must be prepared and poised to apply this skill of counseling. Another newly emerging way to train current employees with new knowledge and new skills is interactive online training programs and self-paced training programs. These are both getting rave reviews from the public and private sectors because of permitting employees to embark on their own independent learning pursuits on their own time and at their own pace. In addition, professional associations can perform effective roles in training current employees. These professional associations can provide up-to-date information and challenge employees to learn new skills and knowledge to keep abreast with the changing environment and changing demands of their profession.

Three Roles for the Human Resource Development Specialist

The three roles for the Human Resource Development Specialist that can vastly improve the human relationships and the productivity of the workers consist acting as the Learning Specialist, the Manager of Human Resource Development, and the Consultant. In a public organization, the Human Resource Development Specialist can concentrate on these specific roles and comprehend the importance of the positive impact each can have on the employee motivation, employee morale, and the overall workplace climate. In the role of Learning Specialist, employees can turn to the Human Resource Development Specialist with questions about the learning process of a new framework of knowledge or a new skill set. This makes it more comfortable, easier, and effective for the employee to learn. By having a specialist with full awareness of what is necessary to learn, and the best way to learn, an employee can therefore benefit immensely and making the learning process much easier. In the role of the Manager of Human Resource Development, the Human Resource Development Specialist is viewed by the employees as the go-to expert in this area and can be relied on to have the specialized knowledge and answers to questions that are raised in the development process that may be ongoing in any given public organization. In the role of Consultant, the Human Resource Development Specialist can calm the fears, reduce the anxieties, and proceed to advance the progress of employees through having interpersonal communication exchanges on a regular basis and behaving in this role at all times during the development process.

Training Needs Assessment, Design, and Evaluation

The training needs assessment process is important for the HRD specialist to shape the appropriate training program. The first type of training assessment process is called general treatment need. For instance, the HRD specialist may note that because a set of employees are going to be having frequent contact with the public that they require training in communications. The second type of training needs assessment is based on observable performance discrepancies. This can be done through observations and interviews. The third type of training needs assessment is related to future human resources. After this assessment process is concluded, the training design begins to take shape. In most situations, the HRD specialist is aware that the training design depends on the target of change. However, there are five phases that take place for shaping a training program and designing it. These five phases for any given training design intervention include problem perception, diagnosis, unfreezing, movement, and refreezing. This training intervention also has to be effectively evaluated to decipher if it is working right. This evaluation process takes place at both individual level and organizational level. The five factors that are key in the evaluation process include reaction, learning, behavior, results, and cost effectiveness.

Different Perspectives from Alternate Personnel Systems

As a permanent bureaucracy, members of the civil service are going to obviously value the development function more than political executives. The other important factor is that political executives are in their jobs for a short term run and they are aware that they do not have to put a priority of any developmental change function for the group or organization. These political executives just want to get things done in the brief time they occupy their leadership position. The development function meets with a mixed reaction in the collective bargaining personnel subsystem. It is evident that within the scope of these alternate personnel systems that the development function is perceived positively or negatively depending on what impact it may have on the personnel system or subsystem from those occupying jobs within that system or subsystem.

Reference

D.E, Nalbandian, J., and Llorens, J. (2010). Public Personnel Management: Contexts and Strategies (6th Edition). New York: Longman/Pearson