Job Burn Out!

It is all too often of a response of a company losing money to cut back on employee's instead of increasing sales. Developing new marketing campaigns to increase sales can be another alternative.

Many companies chose to lay-off one-fifth to one-fourth of its staff as an alternative to increasing their marketing efforts to turn a profit. We will have to work with it. I don't remember where I heard this from, but the remaining employee's will need to learn to "Work Smart, Not Hard". Become more efficient with their tasks and learn to prioritize they work that they do have. (Rosenberg McKay, 2006)

The company will need to develop a list of all the tasks that needs to be completed on a daily, weekly and monthly and even yearly basis. Decide what is important and what tasks have become unnecessary. By streamlining people's job functions and defining everyone's new job descriptions we can relive some of the stress that was developed from those remaining taking on more work. This will increase morale though everyone knowing what is expected from them at work.

I would also recommended some marketing strategies to increase the amount of rented units and develop a plan with the current employees to bring back some of the employees that did get laid-off. With increases in profits though increased rentals there should be enough money in the budget to bring back some of the needed employees to get all the work done. Make an action plan and be sure to include all employees. Maybe not all the employee's that were laid-off deserve to have his or her jobs back, get feedback from the current employee's. This should also help increase morale though out the office.

As Managers we can focus on process interventions and management styles to increase employee's morale.

What are the types of process interventions?

How can they aid an Organization Development Consultant to help functional groups to become more effective?

How can these Process Skills aid teams and employees in solving their own problems?

There are many different types of process interventions; basically a process intervention doesn't focus on the task group task but how they go about completing the task. Process interventions can include clarifying and summarizing, synthesizing and generalizing, probing and questioning, listening, reflecting feelings or empathy, providing support/coaching/counseling, modeling, setting the agenda, feeding back observations and structural suggestions.

The Sluggish - Thermostate Management refers to as "a managerial style based on low risk, with formalized procedures and a high degree of structure and control." (Brown and Harvey 2006, pg 37). This model is typical of organizations with a highly centralized structure. Using this type of model we are at a disadvantage, it tends to not take advantage of or reward those based on performance but on seniority. (Brown and Harvey, 2006, pg 38). As we have seen with companies, using this model employees resist change and tend to keep with tradition, or keep doing things as they have done in the past. (Brown and Harvey, 2006, pg 38).

Another model to look at is Satisfying Management; "a style of managing that emphasized a more centralized decision-making structure with problems referred to the top." (Brown and Harvey, 2006, pg 38). The advantage of using this type of model is control is kept at the top. However, Charge in this model is slow.

Reactive Management is just as it sounds; management reacts to situations as they arise. "The reactive approach to change implies waiting until serious problems emerge that can no longer be ignored and then taking drastic corrective measures." (Brown and Harvey, 2006, pg 39).

The last model is the Renewing / transformational management. This model refers to "introducing change to deal with future conditions before these conditions actually occur." This would take into consideration the lack of concern for safety and putting into place environmental and quality controls that is needed in the Tech Division. Using this type of model we could put into place for future training of frontline supervisors before they are promoted. In addition, we can plan for the company's future using this model by not allowing favoritism to judge promotions within.

As a Manager we determine the depth of our desired intervention and to be sure it doesn't provide disruption of the group. For example, a Manager can provide a agenda to keep the group focused on getting the task done in a timely manner. Through probing and questioning, we can help the group "think outside the box" and develop new ways on getting the desired task completed. "Listening is one of the most important process intervention" (Brown and Harvey, 2006, pg 192). And what I feel as the most important, Clarifying and Summarizing, because although you may have a clear idea of what you are requiring of your group, your group may not.

References:

Donald Brown and Don Harvey, 2006, 2001, "An Experimental Approach to Organizational Development Seventh Edition", Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 07458.

Rosenberg McKay, Dawn, 2006, "Job Burn Out", About Career Planning, [Electronic Version] Retrieved on January 31, 2006 from http://careerplanning.about.com/od/workrelated/a/burnout_3.htm