Assignment: Employee Behavior and Job Satisfaction
Scenario (fictional): The following four employees have different attitudes towards their jobs and different job satisfaction levels, which impact their behavior on the job at this security products company. You are the human resources (HR) director who is concerned with some employees' behavior at work. Read the following background information on each of the four employees and address all the checklist items.
• Employee I: Marketing product manager: He experiences cognitive dissonance every time his boss tells him he should not worry about the lower end of the market, saying "those people don't have much buying power," when the company's values statement professes caring about the welfare of everyone everywhere. He comes from a blue-collar family and resents his boss's attitude towards low-income groups. He is frequently late to work because he has to take his two preschoolers to daycare. As a result, his boss has given him a recent warning.
• Employee II: Engineer: She is in a highly visible job developing new products that creates a lot of stress, and she works 10- to 11-hour days, sometimes 6 days a week. She is loyal but feels depressed by the constant, incessant workload. She is starting to look at job openings online in her off hours because her current long hours are starting to affect her marriage and she does not get to see her children, ages 6 and 8, very often during the weekdays.
• Employee III: Loading dock manager: This young representative works the 12 a.m. - 7 a.m. shift. He does what is required but complains in the employee break room about the offices and work conditions when he is on break. His attitude is that he can go elsewhere if things do not improve. The other employees tend to agree with him when he complains. Lately, the distribution supervisor has noted employees' reduced effort on the shift.
• Employee IV: Distribution lead: She is the sole Asian employee in the organization and feels isolated, as though she is just a placeholder versus really making a recognized difference in the organization. The company promotes itself as a diverse organization, which she knows is not true. She feels everyone expects her to fail, and few people engage with her regularly, including her boss.
Checklist:
The four employees have different attitudes and levels of job satisfaction.
1. Describe the attitudes and job satisfaction of each of the four employees.
2. Categorize and explain the responses the employees have to dissatisfaction based on the reading.
3. Explain how each employee's above attitudes and job satisfaction impact the organization in terms of profit, employee turnover, and affecting other employees' attitudes.
4. Explain what each of the managers of the four employees can do to change the employees' attitudes for the better (referencing at least two of Mintzberg's managerial roles to explain your response).