Challenges Faced by Contemporary Managers
The contemporary working environment has seen a dramatic change in relation of management styles and the working environment. An incrementing number of participation of Millennials at the workplace has contributed significantly in the change, which has generated many challenges that needs serious repair from the contemporary managers (Fuller and Unwin 2014). However, very few mangers have a realisation of the importance, which such required changes carry with it. Nevertheless, it is very important for the mangers that they research it thoroughly the importance of bringing the changes in the workplace environment (Griffin 2013). The main purpose of this assignment is to analyse the functionalities of the modern mangers in the existing workplace environment. After analysing the exact functionalities, the assignment would also recommend some solutions to the contemporary mangers for overcoming the identified challenges and produce a significant impact on the workplace.
There has been a drastic change in the workplace nature. The traditional workplace was different to the exiting workplace in many respects. The very first difference is in the participation rate of different generations such as Millennials, Boomers and Baby Boomers. The current workplace is occupied in high numbers by the Millennials. Additionally, the future workplace would be dominated by the presence of Millennials (Stein 2013). An increasing participation of Millennials has also brought increased demands and expectations from the management. They have numbers of demands, which they expect to be fulfilled by the mangers. However, on the other hand, managers have their own thought process. They feel otherwise. They are attached to the business, which is why they think of profitable things. Most of the demands of Millennials are meaningless to the managers because they do not find such demands potentially good for the organisational betterment. They are correct from their perspectives and from the perspectives of the organisation; however, they are not good from the perspectives of the Millennials. This is where a never dying conflict of thoughts takes place in between the management and the employees. Such conflicts are extremely harmful for both the organisation and the employees (Sonnentag, Unger and Nägel 2013).
The conflicting thoughts produce a challenging environment for both the employees and the organisation. Employees find this difficult to sustain with such policies whereas employer suffer of reduce organisational performance for half-heartedly committed workforce. The outcome is very much evident in the incrementing attrition rates in almost every small and large size organisation (Goswami and Jha 2012). Furthermore, the rate of attrition is because of two possible reasons such as a frequent switch over nature of Millennials and the frustration. Frequent switch over nature is very common with the Millennials. They persist with such tendency until they reach an approximate age of 34. At 34, they then look to settle with their desired job. They would not experiment any further (Ng and McGinnis Johnson 2015). Another reason behind the frequent switch over is the frustration, which Millennials in particular develops into them. They find something very unfavourable with their mindset, which then keep on prompting their mind to look for a better option. It takes a long until they decide to move; however, during such long time, they show their frustration at their work by being half heartedly committed to their roles and responsibilities. On the other hand, contemporary managers do get hints of frustration in employees but they are least bothered of bringing any significant change to retain the employees. The combination of frustration of employees and the negligence of the same by managers contribute in the incrementing attrition, which is a loss of asset for the organisation in particular (Shankar and Muneera 2014).
Impact of Contemporary Management on Employees
Managers can play a vital role in resolving the rising issue at the workplace. However, they show least interest for the same. Leadership style in organisation apart from the other issues matter significantly. It is also practical that if employee’s demands were not fulfilled they would be least bothered of leadership style. However, it matters because sometimes employees decide to move just because of the rude leaders. Such leaders become intolerable to the employees, which is why they gets frustrated and leave the job (Carmeli, Gelbard and Reiter?Palmon 2013). For example, the leadership style in China is authoritarian, which is only concerned with the production. Moreover, such leaders have least concerns for the employee’s satisfaction. There are instances when some employees have also committed suicide after getting frustrated with such leadership style (Hui et al. 2014). Such examples do speak of the values of the leadership style. On contrary to this, the contemporary mangers are authoritarian in most cases. Authoritative leadership style can improve the production depending upon the nature of the business; however, quality of works would be highly missing in such scenarios.
The impact of managers may be largely seen as less effective on employees only with few exceptions (Yasin Ghadi, Fernando and Caputi 2013). Employees stay in organisation despite having larger dissatisfaction with it just to serve some purpose such as financial gap solution. Such employees are in regular hunt of getting their choice of jobs. Once they get it, they switch over to the new job. Managers are under pressure to perform better in order to stay competitive. However, they fail to balance the urgency with the required leadership style. They concentrate on one part of the organisation but they fail to understand the importance of the other part of it. A leadership should be of transformative style, which can adjust with the situations (Schalock and Verdugo 2012). Contemporary managers have less practical plans to counter the challenges at the workplace. They are unpractical on many things that need a huge attention of the management. Working nature of Millennials looks incompatible to them. This is why they consider it less to implement the required changes. They tend to persist with the same management style in most cases, which is outdated in the views of Millennials. Rate of attrition is a serious attack on the organisation. It is a loss of asset, which attracts high investments in the form of basic salary, expenses on training & development program etc. Additionally, this is also challenging to find a suitable alternate of those who have considered moving to other organisation. Nevertheless, recruiting new professionals would not yield any benefits as some of them might also have the same tendency. It is highly advisable to bring the required changes in the management. Change should be in accordance to the employee’s demands and the feasibility of those demands with the organisational financial and management capabilities (Millar, Hind and Magala 2012).
Strategies to Overcome Challenges
There are many challenges to the contemporary managers, which have been noticed but not have been implemented. Following are the some challenges that need a quick repairing of those:
- Attrition: This is perhaps a potential challenge to the mangers. They have not been able to retain employees. This is because they have not things according to the demands of employees. Most importantly, they have not come across a common platform where the managers and the employees can talk on issues. Issues could have been resolved if there has been a common talk. Communication gap has largely influenced the decision-making in Millennials. Additionally, Millennials have their own thought process, which does not relate it with the thought process of the mangers. The unbalanced state in between the managers and the employees has perhaps produced such working environment (Singh et al. 2012).
- Work life balance: This is one of such demands, which drive the Millennials for switch over to a new job. Apart from the basic salary packages, work life balance is perhaps the most important thing for the Millennials. They are less connected to hard works. They rather prefer working less. They have high inclination for technology, which also drive them for work life balance. They want things in simpler form. They have concerns for flexible shift times, so that, they could plan their personal thing accordingly. They want a simultaneous relationship in between their works and the personal life (Kaur 2017).
- Workplace environment: The workplace environment needs a significant change in order to reduce the attrition rates. Millennials do not like high work pressure. However, they have to face such circumstances. On contrary to this, they do not have any real motivation, which could hold them and encourage them to think twice before switching over to a new job. Performance based incentives and other rewards are not actually any real mean of motivation. Workplace environment in fact is the real motivation that inspires the interests of Millennials. They look for a working environment where they have flexible job nature with high acknowledgement to socialism. Socialism in a broader sense means to them the exploration of social gatherings and the abundant of friendliness. A cooperative management on challenging situations is another mean of encouragement, which is missing in the contemporary manager’s role (Ernst Kossek, Kalliath and Kalliath 2012).
- Employee satisfaction: It is very difficult to identify the satisfaction level of an individual; however, it is relatively easier to identify the satisfaction level of mass employees. The work nature sometimes does not allow the managers to settle with the employee’s demands. It is indeed difficult to satisfy the needs of employees in the highly incrementing competition in the market. Managers are bound to force employees to work more than the normal. On the other hand, Millennials have their tendency to switch over to a new opportunity. Both contrasting characteristics clash to each other, which therefore produce the unhappiness in some employees. Consequently, they start searching for a job where they could get a reliable and friendly work environment (Sageer, Rafat and Agarwal 2012).
Retaining all the employees is not feasible; however, it is relatively easier to prepare a plan to identify the potential employees and then retain them. Following are some hints using which mangers can take an attempt to retain employees:
- Identification of the potential employees: It is important to identify the potential employees. Identification would be done based on work related skills, desire for work etc. Such employees need different look out of the managers. Managers should also adopt few things, which could satisfy the needs of the identified workforce.
- Communication: An improved communication is required with the identified employees. Managers should collect necessary feedbacks from such employees. Moreover, they should also work on to implement the feedbacks to its maximum possibilities.
- Comfortable environment: Officepremises need to be kept clean as this play a very significant role in attracting the interest towards the organisation. Apart from the environment, identified employees should also be given options to select their choice of responsibilities at the workplace. This might bring them into their comfort zone. Once, they are comfortable with the working environment they would certainly deliver their best.
- Flexibility:Flexibility should be introduced at the workplace. Employees should be given a choice to live their life, as they want it to be. However, they need to deliver their best in order to get the flexibility option.
Conclusion
Employee satisfaction has been a critical issue for the contemporary managers. They are challenged to cope with the circumstances. They have not been able to retain the employees. Incrementing attrition has become a common issue, which is getting influenced by many factors such as unfavourable working environment, authoritative managers, unavailability of work life balance etc. On the other hand, managers have no such realisation that they need to change. The contemporary work environment needs some significant change without which it would be difficult to reduce the attrition of employees and enhance the competitiveness. Managers need to consider some changes such as bringing flexibility to the work environment, improving communication with employees and providing a comfortable workplace to them. They also need to monitor the impact of such changes. This would help managers plan accordingly. A sustained business performance can only be perceived if it has something to offer the Millennials.
References
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