Overview of Elections at Workplace
This report or study focuses on the changes at the workplaces in the future. The major change that has been observed and that will be seen in the near future at the workplaces is the election. The leaders will be elected by the employees of the organization. This report discusses about the process of election that will be conducted and also focus in its implication on different factors. The first factor that has been discussed is the employees. This is because employees are going to be involved in the process (Brower, Lester, Korsgaard and Dineen, 2009). The second factor that has been affected is HR department of the company and the last part of the report focuses on the factor such as leaders themselves. This report throws light on the changes in the organization and the empowerment of the employees in terms of selecting their own leaders. This brings some of the positive and the negative changes and thus also affects the normal functioning of the employees, HR and the leaders.
Elections can be defined as the process that involves the consideration and views of the people to select a representative. These people are those which are affected by the leadership of that representative. This tool is the tool of democracy in the country and may be in the organizations these days. Leaders and managers are the important element of the company that needs to be selected by the procedure that results in intelligent decision (Chou and Chang, 2008). The selection procedure of the leaders or the mangers is very crucial because the leaders and the managers are the personalities of the organization that has an influence on the personalities of the employee of the overall organization. This personality of the characteristics of the leaders and the managers are acquired by the employees because leaders show the oath to the employees and the mangers teach them how to complete their work on time and achieve the objectives. If the leaders or the managers themselves are not organization oriented then it will be very difficult for the employees to be committed with their organization (Ezrow and Frantz, 2011). At the organizations, the workplace election are need to be conducted so that the employees themselves can chose the leaders for them so that there will be no dispute between them. Generally, the organization that follow the normal process of selection of leaders by the board of directors of the company have the chances of more disputes between the employees and the leaders as the leaders are not of the employee’s choice and this may lead to communication gap between them because the leaders who has been selected may have different relationship with different person (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2007). This process also does not have emotional consideration in it. All these features of the normal selection process of the leaders results in innovation in the process and development of elections at the workplace. Workplace elections are the concept that has introduced in the democratic organizations who wants to give some of the power to their employees in order to select their own leaders. This new idea of electing the leaders by the employees helps the firm to remove the biasness from the organization. There are different companies such as Deloitte, whole foods, the guardian newspaper etc. which has introduced this technique of election at the workplace. Even in some of the companies, the new employees are only getting permanent if they are voted with majority by the former employees.
Process of Election at the Workplace
As far as the process of election is considered, it has been analyzed that in the organizations, the employees vote for the representative that has been shortlisted by the higher authorities of the company. The individual with majority of the votes become the leaders or the manager of the company (Ergeneli, Ar? and Metin, 2007). The process starts with the shortlisting of the relevant candidates for the particular post. In most of the companies, the higher authorities of the firm select some of the candidates for voting who are eligible for applying for a particular post. The employees who are related that department than vote for their favorite candidate and justify the reason for the same. The votes of the individuals or the employees are generally kept secret to remove any situation of conflicts between the employees (Kim, Murrmann and Lee, 2009). Most the time, the employees who are in directly in leadership of that person are eligible for voting because they are the one who are ultimately going to be managed by the voted individual.
Electing a leader by the employees is the new process that has been introduced by many companies in the process. This not only affects the leaders or the managers but also affects the employees and the HR team of the company (Ghamkhari and Mohsenian-Rad, 2013). This is because the major elements that are involves in the process are the leaders and the mangers, the employees and the HR team to handle the whole process.
Employees are affected by the process and the change in the process of the organization. This is because any changes in the process that are driven by the people affect the employees of the organization. The first change that has been experienced by the employees for workplace election is that they get an extra power to choose their own leaders. This results in having a sense of belongingness among the people towards the organization. Employees are the most important part of the company but have least of the powers (Harris, Cortvriend and Hyde, 2007). Empowering them with this helps them to have the leader of their choice which somehow makes the environment happy. Involvement of the employees in the organization also brings changes in the intensity of the voluntary responsibility that the employees take for the organization. The employees themselves take initiation for the functions to attain the goals of the company. In order to make the decision of selecting the final leader, it is necessary for the employees to analyze the overall characteristics of the candidate without involving any personal grudges. This is because it helps in selecting the effective leader for the company. Communication is the major part of the company’s functioning (Strom, Sears and Kelly, 2014). This is because internal communication allows the employees to flow the information in the different departments and among the hierarchy. If the entire employee has actively selected the leader for them then there is no issue of communication between them (Lee, 2008). This is because the leader is selected after analyzing the characteristics and the behavior and most of the employees have selected him. This suggests that the person already have great relationship with the employees. Another implication of elections at the workplace on employees is that it provides equal chance to the employees to vote for their leader and also provides equal chance to be in the category of being a leader. Voting has different criteria by different people (Fullan, 2011). The individual who are more emotional votes the individual who is attached to him while other may vote because of the individual’s efficient performance, so voting ultimately results in unbiased results considering all the characteristics and also dies not lead to any conflicts because majority wins the game in lections.
Implication of Elections
HR department of the company is responsible for bringing nay change in the organization into action. This is because it is the department that focuses on all the processes and the issues related to the people, hiring, staffing, training etc. election in the workplace is the new process that needs to be introduced in the organization and thus HR department of the company have to play their part in the same. The first implication on the HR department of the company die to election at the workplace is related to the planning of the overall procedure to amount this new idea in the company (Lupu and Tuttle, 2009). Several decisions have been made by the HR related to the process to be followed, the people involved in the process, the time and venue of the elections etc. another implications that the HR department needs to be active in circulating the information about the new process to all the employees so that they become aware of the same. Another implication on HR of the company is that they have to make the new policies of recruitment that involves election and also have to make the conditions related to the process. One of the major duties of an HR department is that they have to analyze the overall performance of the employees. The analysis or the records maintained by the HR people are used to select the relevant candidate for the post of leader or the manager (Purcell and Hutchinson, 2007). This is because several criteria have been mentioned on which the voting has been conducted. The results or the sections on these criteria’s need to be circulated to the higher authorities as well as the employees so that they can know about their own performance as well as the performance level of others in the company. Conflict is the major aspect that has been looked after by the HR department of the company (Pynes, 2008). It has been analyzed that if the leaders have been selected by the choice of the employees then it is very easy for the HR department to handle the conflict as there will be very less conflicts and most of the conflicts will be solved at the manger level only. This is because of the understanding between the leaders and the employees.
In case when the new process of election has been installed in the company, it brings some of the changes in the leaders work and the skills required by them (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). This is because now the decision is not in the hands on dome of the higher authority people but is in the hands of the general employees. Leaders and managers have to deal with many things at the same time. The first implication is about maintaining the relationship with the employees. The empowerment of the employees to take the decision results in forcing the leaders to have respect towards the employees because they are the one who will vote for them. Leaders and managers need to be very fair to every employee so that the employee can vote for the leaders. In case of the organization who are democratic in nature and allow their employees to choose their leaders, the leaders have to be authorities as well as responsible (Taticchi and Balachandran, 2008). They have to work to impress their bosses but also have to be responsible towards the employees. Relationship is the very strong point that so being considered by the employees when they vote. Thus, the leaders or the candidate who are shortlisted for the vote have to maintain the emotional relation with the employee so that they can get their vote and can understand their situations at every level. It has been analyzed that the practice of; actions at the workplace results in bringing the stable environment as there is least conflicts between the employees and the managers. This is because the employees themselves have selected their leaders so there will be no issue if generating any conflicts (Varma, Budhwar and DeNisi, 2008). The leaders in the autocratic organization generally do not have the emotional aspect in their relationship but the organization with the concept of election at the workplace considers those factor as one of the major factors because people generally wants to be connected or bossed by the people who are of their kind and who can understand their emotional situation along with the professional issues thus maintaining and emotions connect with the employees by the leaders can be seen the organization who have the culture of allowing their employees with some of the powers.
On Employees
Conclusion:
This study has been conducted to analyze the impact of the change in some of the workplace process such as election for leaders. This is the change that has been seen in many of the organization these days and will be the common process in almost all the organizations. The introduction of the new process in the organization affects the different elements of the organization such as employees, HR department and the mangers and leaders. As far as the employees are concerned, it has been analyzed that the employees have to make their decision and have the power to choose the leader (Meister, Willyerd and Foss, 2010). This empowerment brings motivation among the employees. In case of HR department, the overall department has been affected by the change as they need to make the policies according to the new process introduced. The last but the not the least is the element that is majorly affected by the election at the workplace are the leaders and the mangers. They have to behave differently as they one has to convince the employees to get the votes rather than convincing the seniors. The overall study suggests that election at the workplace is the new future of the organizations.
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