Week 2 – Dissatisfied employees, maybe that's the key to Success.

There are many factors that affect an organization in a workplace. We know from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire incident, people learnt to prioritize every employee’s safety and needs before putting profit as its number 1 objective in business. An organization is seen to working people today as not as a machanical structure but more of a social collectivity unit.

                                                       Source: Easysmallbusineeshr.com

Hawthorn’s theory states that people’s feelings in a work place is more of a concern to manage good work performance than just having a high salary.

What I can say about Hawthorn’s theory is that it is highly practiced in our modern world today especially in developed countries. An employee’s needs and feelings are taken to account instead of the olden days whereby profits are what matters most but the irony to that is most companies are more profitable when they have dissatisfied employees (Sher, 2012).

                                                       Source: markgormanwordpress.com

Steve Jobs, Apple’s hot tempered manager, made life at work difficult and a frightful one for everyone. He has helped Apple to the path of success whilst as well insulting his co-workers and reducing them to tears (Moisescot, 2006).

“He’s not warm and funny … He was not the world’s greatest manager. In fact, he could have been one of the world’s worst managers.” – A line from one of his workers. (Pop_Boy99, 2012)

It can be seen that people will have to practice Likert’s first and second system in Apple’s exploitive and benevolent authoritative system (a system that practices limited communication and motivation by fear) to deal with an unsociable frightful boss like Steve Jobs. I would say this results in McGregor's theory X based workplace.

Reference

Moisescot, R 2006, ‘Steve at work’, allaboutSteve.com, viewed 6^th August 2012, < http://allaboutstevejobs.com/persona/steveatwork.php>

Sher, R 2012, ‘Why You Need Dissatisfied Employees’, Forbes, viewed 6^th August 2012, < http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertsher/2012/08/03/why-you-need-dissatisfied-employees/>

Pop_Boy99, 2012, ‘Steve Job as a boss: An employees worst nightmare’, freefeastinfo.com, viewed 6^th August 2012, < http://freefeast.info/general-it-articles/steve-jobs-as-a-boss-an-employees-worst-nightmare/>