ON MOTIVATING EMPLOYEES: ARE YOU MOTIVATED ENOUGH?

For many people, a lack of reward? Why do something for nothing? People want something in return and think they deserve something for whatever they do. This is just some of the motivational issues that most of the employees are experiencing in the company where they are currently working.

Motivation is considered as the core of management. Managers play a big role in motivating its subordinates to achieve the goals of the organization. Every person has a different motivating factor. Hence, it should be studied thoroughly on how to motivate the employees before they run away. Motivators do not include only financial compensation but all the factors, implicit and explicit, which affect an employee to care about.

Motivation is needed to awaken the employees’ enthusiasm, commitment and passion. A manager should empower them to perform above expectations.  A good leader will enable its subordinates to perform discretionary effort. Discretionary effort is the extra effort an employee is willing to give above the minimum effort to complete a job.

When the discretionary effort is unlocked in an employee, it would be easy to achieve the goals of an organization or a business. One can find the employees doing their respective jobs joyfully and willingly.  With these, the output will be A+ performance.

What makes me motivated to work?

I am motivated to work because first, I am compensated with my job. Furthermore, I have the benefits that all employees have. Second, I like sharing what I have learned to my students, I know its not an easy job and I actually hate teaching before, but seeing that your students have learned something from you, it is a good motivation for me and somehow, I feel inspired to do my best and work hard for it.

Whenever I see my students that they are applying what they have learned and are doing their best to study, I just can’t help myself to be happy and realized that I am a good teacher at all (hehehe ). Third, I have a good relationship with my co-employees. I became close to them and somehow our friendship is bonded.

Though the organization is facing some problems and it motivates me to quit, there is something inside me that would make me feel sad whenever I think of leaving them (my co-employees) because we are like brothers and sisters and we help each other just to achieve the goal for the student’s sake. Lastly, we have a good working environment.

What makes me dissatisfied with my work?

If there are reasons that motivate me to work, these are the factor that makes me dissatisfied with my job: First, there is a lack of support from the Board of Trustees (BOT) regarding our proposals to improve the facilities inside the school. We also lack support for the faculty’s professional growth and development.

In addition, we also lack financial support whenever there is an inter-school activity for the students’ development. Second, although we are compensated with our job, there are times that our salaries were delayed for a day and that alone make me discouraged.

Admit it or not, our first objective why we work is for us to earn money and we earn money so we can buy our needs and wants. Who would be motivated to work if salaries or wages are delayed for quite a while? Third, we are not recognized for the achievements done for the school even for just simple congratulations and there is a lack of communication between us (the employees) and the BOT’s.

As an employee, being motivated is an important factor for me to work hard in order to achieve the organization’s goals. If you are an expert in your field, you simply cannot give your best if you are not motivated enough. As employees, we are motivated in different ways.

 I myself could not give my best in teaching my students if I am not motivated. I have experienced that and I felt tired and unhappy. During those times, I just give my students short discussions and giving them research just to have an excuse.

Eventually, I realized that it does not bring any good to me and to the students. To avoid all these factors, I find better ways to motivate myself by being positive and by remembering the things that really motivated me before. I do have plans of quitting my job, but thanks to my co-employees, they also motivated me by giving advises and helped me open my mind to all the possibilities.

At this moment, I could not afford to quit because of them and I asked a question to myself, “What will happen to my students if I leave them?” They also motivated me to give my best in teaching and the reason why I am still a teacher.

THE CORE COMPETENCE OF THE CORPORATION

A company or institution needs to be competitive enough to survive in a competitive world. Based on Wikipedia, a core competency is a concept in management theory originally advocated by CK Prahalad, and Gary Hamel, two business book writers. In their view a core competency is a specific factor that a business sees as being central to the way it, or its employees, works. 

It fulfills three key criteria: it is not easy for competitors to imitate, it can be re-used widely for many products and markets and it must contribute to the end consumer’s experienced benefits.

In Intercity College its Core Competencies may include the following: Quality of education it brings to the students, the facilities it provides for better student learning and the development of highly qualified faculty and staff.

Some businesses focused on producing end products through their various business units. They failed to consider creating their core competence which would lead them to increase their market share.

By combining a set of core competencies in different ways and matching them to market opportunities, a corporation can launch a vast array of businesses.

Without core competencies, a large corporation is just a collection of discrete businesses. Core competencies serve as the glue that bonds the business units together into a coherent portfolio.

With their core competence developed, they could get into making their core products which can be used by other businesses in assembling various end products. Core competencies manifest themselves in core products that serve as a link between the competencies and end products. Core products enable value creation in the end products.

In our school, Intercity College, one of our core competencies is the expertise of teachers in their respective fields. Most of them are having mastered degrees in their fields of specialization. With our school having different programs Technical Vocational Education (TVE), it should have the capable workforce to cater the students the skills and knowledge they need to acquire in their chosen program.

For example, for the TVE, the teachers who handle field of specialization such Baking and Pastries, PC Hardware Servicing are passers of National Competency II of TESDA. A teacher cannot teach a specialization without passing the NCII TESDA Certification to ensure that quality education is afforded to the students.  With this core competence, the school will be able to produce its core products, students who are academically competitive especially those from ESEP program and technically equipped especially from TVE program which is in line with the vision and mission of the school.

With regards to my own self, I also have my own core competencies as an instructor. First, I provide quality learning’s to my students. I share everything I learned to them unlike other instructors who only gives limited learning’s to their students because they are afraid that their students might become more intelligent when compared to them. 

Second, I train my students in a way they find it enjoyable and there has always been an interaction between the students and the teacher to make it more fun. In addition, just like my co-employees I also earned qualifications from TESDA and is on the verge of planning to apply as an Assessor for Computer Hardware Servicing NC II. These qualifications are very important to me since these are the basis of a competent instructor. 

         A core competence is the result of a specific set of skills or production techniques that deliver value to the clientele. Therefore, in order for an institution to survive it should have its own core competencies which not only provides quality education to the students but also able to survive in a competitive environment.

MANAGING ORGANIZATION PROCESS

According to the last groups report, organizing, like planning, must be a carefully worked out and applied process. This process involves determining what work is needed to accomplish the goal, assigning those tasks to individuals, and arranging those individuals in a decision-making framework. The end result of the organizing process is an organization — a whole consisting of unified parts acting in harmony to execute tasks to achieve goals, both effectively and efficiently.

The group presented a flow chart on the five steps of Organizational Process. This involves: Job design, Departmentalization, Delegation, Span of Management and Chain of Command. These five processes results in Formal Organization Structure that is depicted by an organizational chart.

Job Design

In Intercity College, since the school is still young, the Board of Trustees do not usually impose Organizational Objectives. What is important to them is to do our job as what is stated in our job description. Because of this, we as employees, set out own goals in order to reach the objectives.

As for me, I also have my own objectives so I can achieve the goals in my job. First, I identify what are the things needed to be done, prioritize those things and the process goes back to its cycle. But in ICT (Information and Communications Technology) Department where I belong, our own Department Head sets objectives for us to follow. These are: identify the important things and prioritize and implement them accordingly and make it habitual.

Departmentalization

The Department Head of the Information and Communications Technology Department divides the task among his subordinates in order to achieve the goals set. For instance, during the visit of the TESDA representatives in our school in order to inspect if it still meets their standard requirements, our department head set a meeting to us and discussed on the things needed to achieve in order to meet the goal.

She identified what are the documents needed to present to TESDA and the facilities that are to be checked by TESDA representatives. Since, the task is quite big and is not that easy, what she did is she breaks it down to smaller pieces and divides the task to us. She assigned two faculty members for the paper works and assigned the rest for the maintenance and upgrading of the materials needed for the inspection.

Delegation

Since the task were already identified, out department head eventually disseminated the task amongst her subordinates (and that includes me). The two of her faculty members (including me) was designated to create and develop a Contextual Based Learning Material (CBLM).

One person is assigned for the documents in the Computer Programming Department and the other one is to comply documents for the Computer Hardware Servicing Department. This document is one of the most important things that the TESDA representatives will have to check.

The last two of her faculty members were assigned to evaluate the equipment including the computers in the laboratory in order to determine what is needed to be replaced and what additional materials are that needs to be bought.

Span of Management

Upon the division of our tasks, we were authorized by our department head to revise other document that was assigned to us without her permission since she is quite busy accomplishing all other requirements needed. Furthermore, she set deadlines for our tasks to accomplish so we can not be go beyond the time scheduled for the TESDA inspection.

Though it took us weeks to accomplish these tasks, it was easy on out part since it was equally divided among us and the rest of the members were helping each other.

Chain of Command

During the inspection of TESDA, the faculty members were divided into two groups. The first group is for the Computer Programming department and the other group was for the Computer Hardware Servicing department but they work altogether and help each other.

Both groups do not report immediately to the Executive Director for the updates but reports immediately to the ICT department head. The ICT Department Head will be the one to report to the Executive director for the updates of the compliance of TESDA requirements before the scheduled inspection.

The organizational process should be managed proper fully so the company or institution will be in coordination and so that each goal set will easily be accomplished. An institution without proper management of organizational process is like a building without a strong foundation. Once the foundation breaks, everything falls.

To keep a step ahead of changing market conditions, new technologies and human resources issues, organizational innovation and change is needed. However, managing the change is difficult.  It requires a very good transformation leadership. According to John Kotter, some changes fail because of the 8 common errors leaders make in organizational change efforts:

 1) allowing too much complacency 2) failing to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition 3) underestimating the power of vision 4) under communicating the vision 5) permitting obstacles to block the vision, 6) failing to create short term wins, 7) declaring victory too soon and 8) neglecting to anchor changes firmly in the corporate culture.

To manage an organizational change a leader may go through the 8 stage change process by John P. Krotter. This is the 8 state change process:

Defrost a hardened status quo:

1.    Establish a sense of urgency

2.    Create the guiding coalition

3.    Develop a vision and strategy

4.    Communicate the change vision

Introduce new practices:

5.    Empower a broad base of people to take action

6.    Generate short term wins

7.    Consolidate gains and producing even more change

Ground the changes in the culture, and making them stick:

8.    Institutionalize new approaches in the corporate culture

However, most people don't like change because they don't like being changed. When change comes into view, fear and resistance to change follow – often despite its obvious benefits.

People fight against change because they fear to lose something they value, or don't understand the change and its implications, or don't think that the change makes sense, or find it difficult to cope with either the level or pace of the change. Resistance emerges when there is a threat to something the individual value. The threat may be real or it may be just perception.

It may arise from a genuine understanding of the change or from misunderstanding, or even almost total ignorance about it.

THE FIVE COMPETITIVE FORCES THAT SHAPE STRATEGY

Porter’s five forces is a competitive analysis model which helps us understand the nature of competition within the industry.  It helps us determine the competitive forces in the industry.  By using this model, one can shape strategies to get ahead of the competition. These are the five forces of the framework developed by Michael Porter:

1.     The Bargaining Power of your Customers

2.     The Threat of New Entrants into your Industry

3.     The Bargaining Power of Suppliers

4.     Threat of Substitute Products or Services

5.     Rivalry Amongst Existing Firms

In my present job, in our school needs strategies to get ahead of the competition to acquire a large number of enrollees since it is a private school having a population of more than 500 enrollees. And with these, we lack teachers and classroom. Presently, there are around 17 teachers in this school. But still at the start of the school year, 30-70 students will be listed for a section.

As a teacher , we would be glad if there is another school opened nearby so that somehow our student population will be increase which in turn higher the number of students in a classroom from more than 35 to a much smaller number. And by then, a better quality education will be given to the students.

However, what will happen if the enrollees will dramatically drop to a very small number. Then, that’s a threat to our school budget subsequently a threat to the teachers who might be transferred to other schools. We will badly need this Porter’s Five Forces Model by then. J

ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION CONCEPTS AND ANALYSIS

As an old adage says “Change is not a process for the impatient.” If an organization goes through transformation, it should be patient enough to tackle the practical application of the concepts involved the organizational transformation. It has to go through the process of transformation geared by a good transformational leadership.

Implementing transformation is not an option but essential to cope with ever-changing environment. The primary reasons why organizations need to undergo change include changes in the conditions of the environment that greatly  affects the performance of the organization and the gaps or discrepancies between the quality of performance exhibited by various organizations that raise the issue of competition and the need to survive amidst this particular struggle .

MegaChange is a new capability-based approach to undergo organizational  transformation. These are the features of MegaChange:

·     Capability Focused: MegaChange is based upon assumptions of human and organizational capabilities  rather than limitations.

·     Transformation: MegaChange is not a mere transition; it is cultural transformation of your organization.

·     Systemwide: MegaChange is not piecemeal, it is system wide.

Concepts, actions, and tools: MegaChange is produced using and integrated set of concepts, actions, and tools, not just tools without concepts.

·    Empowering: MegaChange affects everyone in the organization. It results in a joint optimization of organizational and individual performance, capability and satisfaction.

·    Cultural: MegaChange results in new and changed ways of thinking, acting, and cooperating.

·     Theory for practice: MegaChange is not a theory or practice.

·     Reformation: MegaChange is not about restructuring or reengineering, it is about reformation. It reforms structural concepts, actions, and tools necessary for creating organizations that achieve extraordinary levels of productivity and satisfaction by engaging human capability rather than denying it.

Organizational transformation capability can be defined as ability to sense the need to align resources, culture, process, and technology to achieve new forms of competitiveness. It is firm capacity that contributes competitive advantage in dynamic business competition.

The notion of organizational transformation capability derives from dynamic capability paradigm. Dynamic capability can be defined as the firm's ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competences to address rapidly changing environment.

THE PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE ORGANIZATION

Another group has finally presented the topic about Passive-Aggressive Organization. They presented different traits that a company possesses when it has the identity of being a passive-aggressive organization.

With the experiences I discussed in my previous blogs , that company could be considered as a passive-aggressive organization. Harvard Business Review describes a passive – aggressive organization to have possessed these characteristics: a)Unclear Scope of Authority       b) Agreement Without Cooperation      c) Misleading Goals  d) Ineffective Motivators  e) Unclear Decision Rights.

In this type of organization, lines of authority are unclear, merit is not rewarded, and people have learned to smile, nod, and do just enough to get by.

At the organization where I am currently connected, I can say that they acquire some of the traits that a passive-aggressive organization possesses.

Unclear Scope of Authority

Based on my experience with this type of organization, indeed, there was an unclear scope of authority. Some managers were given authorities to make some decisions which at any time can be interrupted by the President, the owner itself or by any personnel close to the owner. The scope of authorities was not well-defined.  Quality Control Department decides on some standards which are at any time can be altered by anybody from the top management.

And my experience before the BOT (referred as the owners of the organization) appointed an executive director to be in-charge of the whole organization. Therefore, all the activities within the organization will be implemented or rejected based on the executive director’s approval. Their agreement is that the executive director will present the updates of how he handles things at work during their monthly meeting (The executive director and the BOT meeting). Whenever we have activities or problems encountered within the organization, we always refer it to the executive director since he has the authority to make the appropriate action.

 It so happened that there were some activities in the organization that should undergo approval from the executive director were no longer carried out. Instead, the approval of the authority came out from the BOT directly without going through the executive director. We as employees wondered why. This was not the picture we used to see in the big screen. We learned later on that the BOT intervened with the executive director’s duties and responsibilities.

The executive director was quite upset and disappointed with what happened. He thought that the BOT doubted his performance and this was not seen and noticed by the BOT. But since they (the BOT) were the owner of the organization, the executive director just continued to pretend in control.

Agreement without Cooperation

 With unclear scope of authority, subsequently, it led to agreement without cooperation. People tend to become passive of some implementations of the management.  Being confused of the different standards implemented, Quality Control Department where I belong became indecisive on some matters which later made the Quality Control Inspectors became passive of the some new quality standards created.

This is because when a quality standard was imposed, at any time, such standard is altered by a “somebody” in the management.

With these, the first two characteristics of a passive-aggressive organization are evident.

Misleading Goals

I have gone through the employment of these misleading goals on the same company.  At one time, Quality Control Inspectors were tasked to inspect a certain number of products in a day to cope up with the delivery target. Consequently, some inspectors were not concentrating on the quality but on the quantity of products they can inspect. As a result, there were a lot of customer complaints on the products.

Ineffective Motivators

On my blog, “Organizing for Empowerment”, I have stated my experience on that passive-aggressive organization. A passive- aggressive organization is poor at judging and rewarding individuals according to their business value to the organization. Many of my colleagues who were promoted were not given raise on their salaries, which includes me.  While some people in the senior positions who were doing less were given an ample raise. 

They spent a lot on meetings neglecting to include those high performers who have valuable insights but with no authority. Soon these employees’ healthy impulses to learn, to achieve and share which are not encouraged led them to develop gradually adaptive conduct. And when they became burnout, they soon ran away.

Every 24 months, the representatives from TESDA will conduct an inspection from every vocational school if it still meets the requirements they set in opening the courses they offered. This is not an easy task for us since the preparation for the inspection needs ample time. The representatives’ decision will be based on how we comply to the requirements and standards they set. If it is not complied, then the programs or courses that the school is offering will be closed. During those days, we were new to the responsibilities given to us since the company had just undergone a re-organization (hiring new employees, replacing several old employees who resigned).

We became very busy and had to stay late in the school and come early in the morning preparing all the necessary documents required by TESDA including the CBLM (learning material), canvassing for new equipment and replacing those equipment that has been damaged or lost. We were very pressured since the decision will be based on how we respond to TESDA’s standards. After a month of preparation, the TESDA representatives came and started the inspection. Since we did our best and were able to meet the requirements and standards set by them, the courses offered remains open.

It was tiring yet a very challenging experience for us but we got discouraged when the BOT disapproved our overtime fees and did not even recognized how much effort we put into just to comply all those requirements. They did not even talk nor congratulate us for the job well done.

Since the organization posses all these traits, I can say that it belongs to a Passive-aggressive organization but it doesn’t mean that those are the only qualities that the organization possesses. The organization also possesses some of the traits of being a resilient organization and those traits were the reason that the organization had bloomed and grown. With regards to myself as an instructor, I admit that I am 50% passive-aggressive and 50% resilient.

Why? I am passive-aggressive because there are times that I compare myself to other instructors and thought that I am not good enough as an instructor. Resilient because I was able to handle things well and realized that I need not to compare myself with others because each of us has its own way of teaching students. In addition, I am able to motivate my students to study harder (and I do hope that motivation is enough..Hehehe...)

Unclear Decision Rights  

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Every Eighth month of the year, we usually celebrate the school’s foundation day. Two months before the event, the faculty and administrative officers were having their meeting to discuss the line up of activities, preparations and possible expenses for the event. The faculty and the administrative officers were divided into groups and were assigned to their respective duties for the foundation day preparations.

The decision made from the meeting was approved by the executive director and the BOT. Everything went well few months before the said event. Unfortunately, just three weeks before the foundation day, the BOT suddenly changed their decision and canceled some of the activities that was originally lined up explaining that it would be costly if all those activities will be implemented for the upcoming event. It was a disappointment on our part, since we have to revise and cancel some of the activities that were originally planned.

Since the job descriptions were not clear on this same company where I worked before, it followed that there were unclear decision rights. When a failure or complaint exists, everybody is taking blame on somebody.