1.4 - Managing People Flashcards
(12 cards)
Describe a matrix structure
Employees working in teams report to multiple leaders in both functional (e.g. HR, finance, marketing) and specialist product/ project departments of the business.
Distinguish between management and leadership
- Managers impliment the leaders vision
Vision vs. Execution / Influence vs. Control
- Leadership focuses on creating a vision, setting direction, and inspiring and motivating others to follow.
- Management focuses on executing plans, controling & organising resources and ensuring tasks/ objectives are met on time.
Long-term vs. Short-term
- Leadership focuses on the long-term vision and strategy
- Management focuses on short-term goals and targets
Creativity vs. Efficiency
- Leadership encourages creativity and innovation
- Management focuses more on efficiency and productivity
People vs. Processes
- Leadership focuses on people, their needs, and their motivation
- Management focuses on processes, structures and systems
Describe Elton Mayo’s Human Relations Theory
Elton Mayo – Human Relations Theory
* Mayonnaise that binds people together
* Found teamwork and social factors, (e.g. feeling valued, included, empowered, building relationships) were key motivator and more important than environmental factors (e.g. temperature, light intensity) in causing motivation.
* Emphasis on non-financial motivation.
* Believed effective internal communication would help identify employee needs more effectively – feel empowered – increase productivity.
* His research helped to develop the first HR departments and leisure facilities.
Evaluation
* Hertzberg – social factors like building relationships are hygiene factors which don’t directly motivate.
Describe Taylors Scientific Management Theory
Taylors Scientific Management Theory
* Devised to combat “soldiering”
● Believed financial reward is the key motivator. Set targets and reward employees accordingly.
● Piece rate (paying per unit of output).
● Sees employees as a cost?
● Focused on increasing productivity and efficiency
● Promoted division of labour- specialisation (Adam Smith) – increase productivity
● Autocratic, similar to “McGregor theory X” management style – close control and supervision. Employees must be obedient, not have initiative. FYI – theory X wasn’t devised by Taylor, but his management approach mirrors it.
● Identify quick workers – identify their method – train other employees – reward accordingly with financial motivation like bonuses
Evaluation
● Can be criticised for encouraging poor working conditions/ sweatshop conditions
● Increased output per employee (productivity) may result in redundancies as less employees needed to do the same job – may decrease existing employees’ motivation – feel they lack job security.
● Business process reengineering (BPR) is still used by businesses today and is inspired of Taylors work. It involves the radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in productivity, quality, and employee and customer satisfaction.
Describe Herzbergs Two factor theory
Herzberg’s Two Factor theory
Hygiene factors
* place emphasis on non-financial motivation, but Motivators place emphasis on non-financial motivation
* Hygiene Factors – Don’t directly motivate employees, but reduce motivation if absent.
* Pay, working environment, relationships with employees
Motivators
* directly motivate employees
* Promotions, self improvement (training), Job Design
* job enlargement – more tasks of same difficulty
* job enrichment – more challenging tasks
* Job rotation - different role
* Empowerment – decision making power (link to delegation, leadership styles), greater responsibility & autonomy, may involve employees being delegated tasks
Evaluation
* Lacks supporting research or empirical evidence
* Taylor argues pay is a key motivator
Describe Maslow’s Hieararchy of Needs
Five levels of the hierarchy
* Self actulisation
* Self esteem
* Love and belonging
* Safety needs
* Physiological needs
One can only obtain needs further up in the hierarchy if all needs below have first been fulfilled
Distinguish between dismissal and redundency
Dismissal occurs as a consequence of an misconduct by the employee, while redundancy arises as a legal matter when the employer no longer requires a specific type of work to be performed - may rationalise workfource.
Give 3 types of organisational structures and the key terms regarding organisational structure
Tall:
* long chain of command - slow communication
* many layers of management - promotion opportunities
* Narrow span of control - closer supervision - (Motivation - Taylor, McGregor Theory X)
Flat
Matrix
- Delegation
- Delayering
- Chain of command
- Hierarchy
- Span of control
- Centralised - most decisions are taken by senior managers and then passed down the organisational
- hierarchy
- decentralised - delegate authority down the
- chain of command
Evaluate matrix organisational strucutres
Advantages
* Can help to break down traditional department barriers, improving communication and teamwork across the entire organisation - motivation, productivity (Mayo, Maslow), faccilitates Herzberg job enrichment/ rotation
* Supports sharing of ideas and recources accross departments - increase efficiency
* Supports sharing of ideas across departments - drive innovation - Porter Diffirentiation
Disadvantages
* Members of project teams may have divided loyalties as they report to two line managers - no clear line of accountability. Equally, this scenario can put project team members under a heavy pressure of work. May neglect neglect their functional responsibilities
* Difficult to co-ordinate - productivity
* It requires business to retain/recruit more experienced managers since there are multiple chains of command to manage, along with new department heads, project managers, and other specific roles that the business needs - increasing labour costs, which are often high percentage of total costs
Describe Hard and soft approach to HR management
Hard
* Autocratic, McGregor theory X, tall leadership structure
Soft
* Staff as asset, McGregor theory Y, democratic, laisse-faire leadership
Describe democratic & paternalistic leadership
Democratic leadership
* Consultative or persuasive - evaluating opinions of subordinates before making a descision.
* emphasizes collaboration, participation, and empowerment of employees in descision making
Paternalistic leadership
* The leader acts as a “father figure” towards employees, making decisions on their behalf and providing a high level of support and guidance
* Employees expected to be obedient
* Favours centralised descision making
Give flexible working stratergies examples
Zero-hours contracts, part time, home working, outsourcing, multiskilling, tempory workers
