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Individualcase study
AlineDeNeuve Case Study
Inthe case, Aline Deneuve has been appointed the director of training.She is faced with immense challenges due to negative attitudes,conflicting values and negative emotions in the workplace. Thesechallenges are evident when she starts planning a corporate retreatfor the company employees. She selected and interviewed fiveemployees to establish their attitudes and emotions towards theretreat. Aline was surprised to note that the employees wereunwilling to attend the retreat. This paper analyses Aline Deneuvecase and recommends an appropriate strategy to deal with theidentified challenges.
Problemanalysis
Themajority of employees selected by Aline expressed dissatisfaction andnegative attitude towards the retreat. The interview provided theemployees with an opportunity to express their dissatisfaction withthe management of the organization. The first person Alineinterviewed was Heather, an administrative assistant. She did notconsider the retreat program as important since her seniorsdiscriminated against her because she was a foreigner from China. Shefelt that the organization was not doing enough to deal with racialdiscrimination in the workplace. This resulted in a loss ofmotivation and lack of job satisfaction. Consequently, she had beentaking sick off more frequently. In her opinion, the corporateretreat cannot effectively deal with the human relations issues inthe organization. She is more concerned about the weaknesses of herseniors but does not consider her negative attributes such asabsenteeism (Griffin, 2011).
Thesecond employee Aline interviewed was Jack, the marketing manager inthe company, who is also a certified management accountant. Jack doesnot like the retreat program because he is not treated fairly in theorganization. Since he is black, he has also suffered racialdiscrimination. He believes that he should have been promoted to adirector position but Aline was promoted instead. According to Jack,the retreat is a waste of company resources. The funds should be usedto install better security systems in the organization. Additionally,he proposed better orientation and socialization programs to improveemployees’ relations in the organization (Phillips, 2013).
Thethird employee Aline interviewed was June, a customer servicesmanager. June is a very demoralized employee who no longer likes herjob. She does not support the idea of a retreat. She does not likeher job because of the immense pressure of her responsibilities andlack of support from the senior management. She considers the retreatas boring and would prefer spending the time doing something else. According to Jude, the stress associated with her job has negativelyaffected his life and marriage. Although her concerns may be genuine,she may also be unable to balance between work and life resultinginto frustrations. The bad emotions expressed by June towards herwork can have a huge impact on her career as well as her life(Phillips, 2013).
Thefourth employee to be interviewed was Alison, a senior employee inthe employee benefits and services. She was not willing to attend theretreat because some of the retreats promoted office dating. Some ofthe employees, both male, and female, used the retreats asopportunities to hit on each other. Alison felt that before theorganization can organize retreats, it should develop a policy todeter office dating. She has strong religious beliefs and feels thatthe retreat promotes certain behaviors in the workplace, which goesagainst her personal values. In her opinion, the management hascondoned these behaviors since it has not taken any action.
However,the last employee Aline interviewed supported the retreat program.Richard was willing to attend the retreat because it provided himwith an opportunity to interact with other employees, includingsenior management which would promote morale and interpersonalskills.
Thereare several issues that emerged from the conversation between Alineand the five employees. It is clear that majority of the employees inthe organization has lost morale while the management has not doneanything to deal with these challenges. Some of the issues identifiedinclude employees’ attitudes, emotions and values. In order topromote good relations among employees in an organization, creating apolicy framework that promotes values and ethics, and good attitudesamong the employees is essential (Schultz, 2010). Employees’ valuesand ethics play an important role in promoting order and harmony inthe organization. These values ensure that the organization runssmoothly and thus remains profitable (Pinder, 2014). In this casestudy, the employees’ values are expressed in the decision byAlison not to attend the retreat because it promotes behaviors thatare against her personal values. Being a religious person, she feelsthat the organization is condoning irresponsible office dating. Theorganization has not developed and implemented a policy thatdiscourages office dating during corporate retreats. The managementin an organization has the responsibility of creating anorganizational culture that promotes and protects both employees’values and organizational values. An organization that promotesemployees’ values is able to motivate its employees resulting intomore productivity (Tomaževič et al, 2014, Bruk-Lee et al, 2009).
Negativeattitudes and emotions among the employees are also very evident inthe case. Some of the employees such as Jude expressed negativeattitudes and emotions towards the retreat program as well as theirjobs. She was very emotional about how the job has negativelyaffected her life. Other employees such as Heather and jack expressednegative attitudes toward the retreat and the management of theorganization. Emotions and attitudes in workplaces have a huge impacton productivity and relations between workers. Positive emotionsenhance achievement, job satisfaction and promote positive socialcontext in a workplace (Anand et al, 2007). Negative emotions andattitudes are associated with stress, hostility, defiance and poorperformance (Ben-Zur & Yagil, 2005). Negative emotions andattitudes in the case are perpetrated by the lack of managementsupport, alleged racial discrimination and inadequate sensitivity tocultural diversity in the workforce.
Optionsanalysis
Alinehas two options,
1.Cancel the retreat and resolve the outstanding issues or
2.Proceed with the retreat.
Inthe first option, Aline and the management will be able to resolveall the issues related to racial discrimination in promotions as wellas work related stressors highlighted by June. Additionally, themanagement will have a chance to deal with the moral issues relatedto office dating. Although some employees may be comfortable withoffice dating, it is against the values of some of the employees.This decision will be unpopular and therefore a disappointment to theworkers such as Richard who were eagerly waiting for the retreat. Thesecond option is to proceed with the retreat program. This will be asource of motivation to individuals who see nothing wrong with it.However, it will disappoint the majority of workers who haveexpressed concerns and negative attitudes towards retreat program. Itwill result in more serious impacts on their morale.
Recommendationand Implementation
Thefirst option is recommended. This is because it will have morepositive impacts on the organization in the long run. There is nodoubt that there are many issues that have a direct impact on themorale in the organization. The majority of the employees feel thatthe organization does not care about their welfare. This has resultedin perceived racial discrimination, especially in promotions.However, Aline management style may not be able to resolve some ofthe issues expressed by the workers. Implementing an option that willwork requires a manager who is able to socialize and have friendlyrelations with the subordinate. This will enable the employees tofreely express their views and concerns without fear of retribution(Wright et al, 2007). The implementation of the option would requirethe inputs of all the employees in the organization to ensure thatall the issues have been resolved.
Conclusion
Corporateretreats promote good relationships and attitudes among employees.However, in this case, Aline is faced with a huge challenge since themajority of the employees believe that the retreat is not necessaryand are unwilling to attend the retreat. It is essential to resolvethe outstanding issues affecting the morale before proceeding withthe retreat.
References
Anand,N., Ginka Toegel, & Martin Kilduff. (2007). Emotion Helpers: TheRole of High Positive Affectivity and High Self-Monitoring Managers.PersonnelPsychology,60(2), 337-365.
Ben-Zur,H. & Yagil, D. (2005). The relationship between empowerment,aggressive behaviours of customers, coping, and burnout. EuropeanJournal of Work and Organizational Psychology,14(1) 81-99.
Bruk-Lee,V. Khoury, H. A. Nixon, A. E. Goh, A. & Spector, P. E. (2009)."Replicating and extending past personality/job satisfactionmeta-analyses". HumanPerformance22 (2): 156–189.
Elfenbein,H.A. & Ambady, N. (2002). Predicting workplace outcomes from theability to eavesdrop on feelings. Journalof Applied Psychology,87 (5) 963-971.
Griffin,R. (2011). OrganizationalBehavior.Cengage Learning, ISBN 0538478136.
Phillips,J. (2013). OrganizationalBehavior: Tools for Success.Cengage Learning, ISBN 1285632842
Pinder,C. (2014). Workmotivation in organizational behavior.New York: Psychology Press, Taylor and Francis.
Schultz,P. (2010). Psychologyand work today: an introduction to industrial and organizationalpsychology(10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall
Tomaževič,N. Seljak, J. & Aristovnik, A. (2014). "Factors InfluencingEmployee Satisfaction in the Police Service: The Case of Slovenia".PersonnelReview43 (2): 209–227.
Wright,T. A. Cropanzano, R. & Bonett, D. G. (2007). "Themoderating role of employee positive well being on the relationbetween job satisfaction and job performance". Journalof Occupational Health Psychology 12(2): 93–104.