Eric and Kipsy

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Staff was not allowed to give suggestions as to how to make this monotonous job more tolerable, and management did not try to engage staff in ways to increase their job satisfaction.

Informal Leadership. Due to the lack of proper formal leadership, Kipsy emerged as the informal leader of the group. She understood her co-workers’ frustration and tried to help them decrease their stress, seeing as the management at the time wasn’t helping. The employees began going to Kipsy instead of official channels and thus there was no recognition of the formal leadership and they weren’t following the official manager.

Lack of responsibility. The nature of the system was such that it was nearly impossible to find out who made what mistake and when. This would in turn result in the employees not feeling motivated to make as little mistakes as possible because they know there is little to no chance of them being punished for it.

Motivation. This ties into job dissatisfaction. Motivation is the act or process of providing a motive that causes a person to take some action. (Shanks & Buchbinder 2011, p. 24) The job is tedious, monotonous and boring. Due to this, management needs to make sure they motivate their employees to do the job, this is not happening. There are dissatisfied with the nature of the job, and there are no other forms of motivation put in place by management. This also results in the high error rate and absenteeism because the clerks are not motivated to do their best despite the monotonous nature of the job.

While looking at the problem of motivation, there are various theories that can be studied, but three really stand out. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is an important theory that we can really see arising when we look at Kipsy’s experiences in the company. Maslow proposes that there are five tiers on this hierarchy, from bottom to top it goes physiological needs, safety needs, love/belonging, esteem and self-actualization (Maslow 1943) Through reading this case, we can see the Kipsy’s fulfilment of her needs based on this hierarchy is really lacking. It was stated early on that she fears the whole system will be automated which means she’ll be out of a job, this is directly connected to her safety needs. It addition to this, many of her friends were leaving the company; she perceived Eric as not truly respect her or the other girls and there was no room for her to display her creativity and problem solving capabilities. The lack of fulfilment in these areas resulted in a highly unmotivated Kipsy.

Another theory that we can see arising here is goal setting theory. In this theory, it is assumed that goals have an important and huge influence on employee behaviour and performance in their respective companies. (Locke & Latham 2002). Goal setting is the process of improving performance with objectives, deadlines, or quality standards. Goals provide direction and encourage employees to exert the effort it takes to fulfil their duties. It is clear that the employees of this particular company did not have clear cut goals, something that should have been provided by their leader.

Lastly, the acquired needs theory developed by McClelland can really be applied here. This theory is characterized by a need for power, a need for affiliation and a need for achievement (Harrell & Stahl 1981). This theory states that an individual’s specific needs are acquired over time and are shaped by one’s life experiences. In this case, common needs among the girls can be assumed to be affiliation and achievement. The affiliation need was not being met appropriately in the organization due to the fact that conversations were often interrupted by the sporadic nature of the salesmen’s calls, and also because many of the girls were leaving the company which would serve to demotivate those who were left. In addition to this, due to the poor leadership exhibited in this department, the girls did not have true direction and no avenues in which to challenge themselves, receive feedback for their performance and give solutions to problems.

In Kipsy’s case, the need for achievement and power were high. Her nature was one where she easily commanded people to her, and she was looking forward to moving upward in the company so she could be able to show initiative and be able to change things for the better for those underneath her. She wanted to show her worth in the company and was unable to do that; there were no avenues for her to display her true talents though she was promised this. Thus she, along with the rest of the girls were demotivated to do their jobs.

While conducting this analysis, I was able to come up with various alternatives or options to address the situation. The first being, do nothing at all. It is always an option to let things continue as is in the hopes that they will somehow straighten out. Of course, it is not a recommended alternative, but the company could choose to go this direction nonetheless.

Eric could fire Kipsy. This solution would eliminate what Eric believes to be the main problem. To him, she is the reason why the employees aren’t doing as they should and she is who is encouraging them to slack off on the job. Benefits of this would be the removal of the conflict between Kipsy and management and the removal of the informal leader who is sabotaging the company. However, getting rid of Kipsy could prove detrimental to the organization because they are losing an influential person who could have been a great asset. Also, the girls follow Kipsy almost religiously, and firing her could result in a revolt of sorts with an increase in absenteeism, mistakes, and poor communication between staff and management.

Another alternative is for the clerks and salesmen to switch jobs for a period of time. This alternative is based on the assumption that the salesmen work for this particular company and are not employees with another company that works with this one. A benefit of this is that both the clerks and salesmen would be able to develop an appreciation for each other’s job which may help to decrease instances of rudeness. It may also break the monotonous nature of the clerks’ work by giving them a chance of pace. However, this approach only truly works if the salesmen are employed directly by this particular company. It does not take into consideration