ABSTRACT

The paper deals with three articles

which
talks
about
various
organisational issues and various
solutions developed by the
organisations against it. It also gives
a glimpse of certain immediate
changes happening in employer
employee relationships.

ANJO CYRIAC

CHANGING
ORGANISATIONS
ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR- TERM PAPER

ANJO CYRIAC P14231

Article -1 [19 July, 2014, The Economic Times]

Corporates Invest for A Healthy and Happy Workforce for Better
Productivity
Authors: Rica Bhattacharyya and Anumeha Chaturvedi
Introduction
Deutsche Bank recently in tie up with Healthcare vendor Meta group conducted an on-site
health screening of its employees at the Mumbai office. The check-up made surprising results
were the young employees were diagnosed with diabetes and high levels of cholesterol. The
doctors asked them for an immediate change in their lifestyles.
Human resource the real asset
Thus Deutsche bank has also joined the increasing list of corporates who made significant
investments on healthcare and wellness of their employees. Wipro, Vodafone, Mahindra group,
Microsoft India, Goldman Sachs and Godrej are the other major corporates among the long
increasing list. The evolved employers now realised that a physically and mentally healthy
workforce is unavoidable in running a profitable business and thus began to invest in the most
important asset i.e., Human Capital.
The traditional Indian view to concentrate more on illness than on wellness has now been
changed. The better wellness program has helped the individuals and the companies to bring
down the healthcare costs and boosts the employee morale and productivity. A recent Harvard
Business Review study found that successful health care and wellness programs can return
between $2.71 to $6 for every $1 spent and those organisations with highly effective wellness
programs reported lower employee attrition rate of 9% against the average industry rate of
15%. All these reveal that there exists a positive relation between balanced work schedules
productivity and retention. Software giant Microsoft had launched a program called Live well
365 in January which aims at providing health check-ups, counselling services and fitness
programs for the betterment of their employees. Goldman Sachs plans to introduce on-site
physiotherapy services this year in the light of increasing musculoskeletal issues.

The survey reports reveal that 84% of the employees who visited the investment banks fitness
centre in Bangalore said that their fitness level had improved a lot. Many companies had
launched different programs like employee assistance programs on work-life balance which
helped in the personal development of employees.
These companies also got rewards for their initiatives as the survey showed that those
companies who gave employee assistance on work-life has reported low absenteeism and
higher levels of employee productivity. Mobile operator Vodafone has started another program
called as sunshine Wednesdays where the company ensures that all its employees leave their
offices when the sun is still shining on every second and third Wednesdays of every month.

The Application of OB Concepts

Here we can see how various corporates are using the OB concepts in their respective
organisations to improve their economic and social values in society. The greatest realisation
that OB gave to the corporate world is that it taught that human resource is the most important
asset of each and every organisation. Irrespective of the industry or the field of operations
human resource stood first for every organisation. The activities like health and wellness
programs has got multiple advantages.
First of all when such a program is carried out in an organisation the whole workforce get a
huge satisfaction that the management is bothered about them or give respect to them and their
values. They feel that that the organisation cares for them and it also creates a sense of
belongingness to the employee group.
The programs plays an important role in motivating the employees. They feel a sense of
belongingness to the company and it create within them to do their best or perform up to the
maximum of their potential. When the individuals become more healthy and fit it encourages
them to contribute more to the firm which in turn results in higher productivity levels. The
counselling facilities plays a major role in managing the employee stress levels. They equip
the employees to manage in stressful situations which always exist in all professions. As we
can see from the article that the number of companies who are investing in human capital is
increasing is more and more day by day. This shows the relevance and applicability of OB
concepts in todays competitive world. All these programs aims at the various outcomes of OB
like:

Attitudes and stress: These programs (like counselling) leads to favourable changes in attitudes
and stress levels of the employees. It helps them to think in an open manner where they can
accept others views and become more empathetic to others which makes them a good team
player.
Citizenship behaviour: Where the employees behaviour to psychological and social
environment of the workplace will improve.
Group cohesion: the group unity and cooperation will improve which in turn leads to improved
Group cohesion
Group functioning: Positive group cohesion leads to a better group functioning where the
quality and quantity of groups work output rises to a high level.
Productivity: Productivity requires both effectiveness and efficiency. When there is a better
mind and body to work, the effectiveness and efficiency will accompany it. The main aim
behind all these programs is the increase in productivity. The article shows various real life
examples of the drastic changes in productivity of the companies who increased their
investment on human capital.
Survival: Human resource is the most important asset for any firm. Therefore it is important
for any firm to retain its best employees and to attract good prospective employees. For both
the purposes the employer should create a good working environment for which the employee
development programs are unavoidable. If a firm lacks skilled workforce it can affect its
survival in the market. Thus these development programs helps in motivating the existing
employees as well as attracting the future employees to the firm.
The employee development programs can also in making changes in the major job attitudes of
the employees:
Job satisfaction: The above article itself is a clean and crystal clear evidence that these
development programs can improve the job satisfaction levels of employees.
Job involvement: These programs leads to increase the confidence levels of employees and
improves their self-worth, which in turn leads to high job involvement and psychological
empowerment.

Organizational commitment: When the employees are highly satisfied with the job, they
themselves identifies with the organization and its goals and wishes to remain as a loyal
employee to the firm.
Employee engagement: When the employees have a high job satisfaction this leads to more
involvement in the job with increased enthusiasm for the work he/she does.
Conclusion
The article deals with one of the mostly discussed topics today. It is going to be a revolution
and we hope in the future more and more companies join the list and serve their employees the
best. As we have seen it has got a very positive effect on the employee productivity and
perceptions about their company.

Article -2 [January 2012, Harvard Business Review]

Creating Sustainable Performance
Authors: Gretchen Spreitzer and Christine Porath
Introduction
The article mainly talks about the importance of making the workforce happy. The research
has found that happy employees produce more than unhappy employees over the long run.
They constantly shows high performance and they are loyal to the firm and doesnt have any
plan to quit. They go above and beyond their call of duty and also attract prospective employees
who are just committed to the job. Moreover, theyre not sprinters, theyre more like marathon
runners who work with a long term perspective.

A happy workforce
In order to make the workforce happy the organization has to make certain arrangements. The
authors were conducting a research and found a better word for a happy workforce called as
thriving. A thriving workforce is where the employees are highly satisfied and productive and
they create the future of the company and their own. They are highly energized but they know
how to avoid burnout.
The research results showed that the thriving employees demonstrated 16% better overall
performance (reports from managers) and 125% less burnout. They were 32% more committed
to the organizations and 46% more satisfied with their jobs. They also missed less work and
made considerably fewer doctor visits, which shows that they are mentally and physically fit.
The researchers had found two important components for thriving i.e., vitality and learning.
Vitality means the sense of being alive, passionate and excited. Employees who experience
vitality spark energy in themselves and others. Companies can build vitality by giving people
the sense that what they do on a daily basis makes a difference. Learning is the second
component of thriving. Learning means the growth that comes from acquiring new knowledge
and skills. A perfect combination of both vitality and learning is mandatory for building a
thriving workforce.

The work of a thriving workforce is rewarding not just because they successfully performs
what they are expected to do today but they know where they and the company are headed.
Thus they are thriving and the energy they create is transmittable.
The important question here is what the organizations are expected to do for building a thriving
workforce. Some employees thrive themselves irrespective of their context or situations. But
those kind of employees are very few. So the organizations has got a major role in developing
a thriving workforce. The research conducted by the authors had established four major
mechanisms that can create suitable situations for developing a thriving workforce.
1. Providing Decision-Making Discretion:Employees will get highly motivated when they are given decision making authority. It
empowers them and gives them a greater sense of control and helps them in learning how things
are done. It improves the knowledge level and skills of the employees.
The researchers had studied about Alaska Airlines which created a culture of empowerment
that has contributed to a major turnover over the past decade. In the early 2000s the company
was facing some issues and the profits were dipping down. The company started to sell off its
flights. Then the senior management launched the 2010 plan, which explicitly invited employee
input into decisions that would improve service and maintaining a reputation for timely
departures. Employees were asked to contribute through innovative ideas and valuable
suggestions that could take the service from good to great.
The employees valuable suggestions were considered and the management brought a new
framework. The managers made a direct contact with the customers and helped those who
missed the flights or were left behind due to some or the other reason. Thus the company
become more customer oriented. The employees were motivated to contribute their maximum
as it was there ideas which were implemented. Thus all this has boosted the reputation of
Alaska, which was finally rated as number one for on-time performance. The airline has also
expanded considerably into new markets, including Hawaii, the Midwest, and the East Coast.
The employees were given freedom to work with their passion. Some of the flight attendants
who like to sing or joke around were allowed to do so during the journey to entertain the
passengers. One employee used to make the pre-flight instructions in rap format. The
passengers loved it and some of the customers told that this was the first time they actually
paid attention to the instructions.

The challenge for the managers is to avoid cutting back on empowerment when people make
mistakes. Instead of reducing the empowerment the managers should use the opportunity to
learn themselves and also help others to learn from their mistakes.
2. Sharing Information:Doing a job without required information is boring and lifeless. People can contribute more
effectively only when they understand how their work can help the organizations mission and
strategy. Each employee should understand the importance of his or her job and contribute
more effectively. For this to happen the important policy to be adopted is sharing information.
Each and every information which can have an impact on the employee productivity should be
shared among the employees. The employees should also be included in taking major
decisions.As in the previous example when Alaska Airlines launched 2010 Plan they made
maximum employee involvement in taking various decisions.
Training classes were designed to help employees share their ideas. Employees were given
chance to present their ideas directly to the CEO and President of the company. All the
important decisions which were implemented were directly passed to the employees. They
were given all details about the companys plans and their roles in accomplishing it. After the
trainings each and every employee was aware about his/her roles and duties in accomplishing
the goals and also how they have to accomplish it.
3. Minimizing Incivility:The incivility from the managers can seriously affect the employee productivity. From the
study it was revealed that employees those who have experienced incivility from their
managers have decreased their efforts at work intentionally. More than a third have deliberately
decreased the quality of their work. Two thirds of the people spent a lot of their time avoiding
the offender. Around two thirds of the people told that there performance had declined.
Incivility prevents the employees from thriving.
Many firms give varied values for civility in their work culture. For e.g. Caiman Consulting, a
management consultancy firm which the researcher had studied gives more importance to
uncivil behaviour. Their background checks in hiring process include a candidates record of
civility. And many employees showed a good approach to their work at Caiman. The employee
turnover rate was also seen very low at Caiman. The employees were more motivated to do
their work.

The company gives more care in eliminating the incivility from its work culture. The HR
manager puts strong interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence among his prime criteria
for candidates.
4. Offering Performance Feedback:Feedback provides opportunities for learning and an essential energy which is critical for a
thriving culture. The timely feedbacks removes the uncertainties from the mind-sets of
employees. It helps them to have more focus on their personal and organizational goals. If the
feedbacks are given more quickly it will be more useful for the employees.
The global law firm OMelveny and Myers uses the 360-degree performance evaluation in
helping the workers thrive. The feedback is open-ended and precise which has encouraged 97%
response rate from employees.
The managing partner of Los Angeles office Ms. Carla has learned from her evaluation report
that people saw her behaviour as not matching with the firms commitment to work life balance.
It was causing stress among her subordinates as they were also forced to remain in office till
she leaves. So she reduced her weekend works and started spending more time with her home
and family.
These four mechanisms that thrives the employee efforts doesnt require large investments.
The only require small efforts from the part of employees and management. Each of these
mechanism provides a different approach necessary for thriving. We cannot select one or
among the mechanism and implement it within the organization because each of the
mechanisms are interrelated. For e.g. how can a person make effective decision if they are
worried about the feedback or how can a manager take a decision if the required information
is not being shared with him. Thus implementing the four mechanisms simultaneously is
important as it helps the employees to contribute their maximum and boosts the companys
performance in a sustainable way.

The Application of OB Concepts

The article basically states the importance of OB in organizations. All the terms used in the
article revolves around the OB concepts. The research revealed that happy employees
contribute more. Those factors which make the employee happy include the psychological
factors like job satisfaction, motivational forces, decision-making process etc.

Down the line the article talks about two important components of thriving which are vitality
and learning.
Vitality means the sense of being alive and passionate. Again this alive or passionate
components will be present only when a person has psychological and emotional balance. And
the second component learning will happen only when a person had a positive approach
towards his/her job or workplace. The positive approach will only be there when there is a
positive relationship towards the job and employer. The four mechanisms for thriving has also
been discussed:
1. Providing Decision- Making Discretion: Here the main aim is to motivate the employees.
When they are given some authority it motivates them to contribute their maximum because
the company is putting some trust on them. And they are expected to prove that they are apt
for the assigned task. As in the example of Alaska Airlines we can see that when the employees
were given a chance to take decisions and they felt that they were given some great value and
it was taken as a challenge by them which finally helped the company to excel. When the
employees are given the freedom to work with their passion it aims at employee engagement
where individuals involvement with, satisfaction with and enthusiasm for the work he/she
does.
2. Sharing information: the OB concept applied here is employee involvement. By giving the
required information on different tasks the company expects more participation from the
employees part. This employee involvement also leads to psychological empowerment
where the employee can measure their competence, perceived autonomy and the
meaningfulness of their job.
3. Minimizing Incivility: It talks about the attitude towards employees by the senior managers.
They should be given respect and consideration. The uncivil behaviour towards employees will
have serious consequences. When uncivil behaviour is eliminated and more support is given to
employees then there is motivation for the employees to put their efforts. For this there need to
be a change in the perception and attitude of the employers about the employees.
4. Offering performance feedback: offering timely feedback leads to creating organizational
commitment from the part of employees. As they feel they are given good consideration from
the part of the management and also their contribution to the organization is given some

important value. And when they are given the correct feedback for their improvement on
correct time they feel more committed to the organization and wishes to remain as its member.
Organizational commitment and job productivity are positively related. Thus a committed
employee will contribute more to the organization.
Conclusion
These four mechanisms play an important role in motivating and making the customers happy.
If the customers are happy, doing their job will not be a burden for them rather they enjoy them.
Thus it can make considerable changes in the overall productivity of the firm. Happy
employees will produce more than unhappy employees in the long run.

Article 3 [December 11, 2009, The Economic Times]

TCS, Wipro, Infosys go all out to check High Female Staff
Attrition
Authors: Harsimran Singh & Shelley Singh
Introduction
The news talks about a serious issue faced by the IT sector in India. The IT giants from India
like Infosys, Wipro and TCS faces a very high female employee attrition rate. The article also
comments on the various reasons for the high female staff turnover.

It also reveals what all fringe benefits and measures are offered by various firms to reduce the
female employee attrition rate.
The real story
Many of the female employees from IT industry quit their job. The reasons are different. Some
has reported that the problem is not with the firm but with the industry. Some of them has
reported that they need to spend some time with their families and want to live as a mother and
a wife rather that working as a machine. Some of the major reasons were:
1. The hectic work schedule and stress:
The hectic work schedule without any rest was found to be one of the major reasons behind the
heavy attrition rate. Especially the women employees was no able to manage it. The prolonged
working hours and cumbersome targets are leading to heavy tensions and serious health issues.
2. Obstinate working hours:
The obstinate working hours are another problem. Some of the employees told that they have
to stretch themselves to fit into the clients time zone. Even the companies say that they provide
flexible working hours they doesnt really mean it says an employee. She told that she had to
do continuously night shifts for months till the completion of one project.
3. Tighter project deadlines and less staff:
The tighter project deadlines are causing hyper tensions among the employees. They are given
huge tasks to complete within a very limited time period. And on the top of that the staff allotted
for a project may be very less than the required number which again put the employees in
trouble.
4. Workplace issues:
The workplace issues are also seen as a major cause. Many female employees told that the male
employees are not cooperative in the team. When women employees are given special benefits
like flexible working hours, the male employees have also started demanding the same. Some
of the female employees have told that they are given more work by their male bosses. They
are forced to do the harder projects which require more efforts and shorter deadlines. Some of
the employees also complains about the glass ceiling effects in various organisations.
5. Family issues:

Some of the employees told that many of their husbands doesnt allow them to work after
marriage. Many were not allowed to work after their first delivery. Some of them need to
accompany their husband with his transfer. Some want to be with their children who are going
to appear for the public exams.

6. Security issues:
Many of the employees told that they quit their job due to fear for nightshifts. Some of the
giant companies give cab facilities for their employees but most of the small companies doesnt
even provide conveyance facility during the night shifts. And the increasing rate of crimes
against the women are a serious cause.
Many companies are looking up for various methods to retain the female employees. Many
new facilities like day care facilities for infants and lactation centres are also provided at
offices. Many of the female employees are also given offshore projects to motivate them. They
are also given various benefits like relocation to other offices when their husbands get transfer
and facilities to do their projects from home are also provided.

The Application of OB Concepts

We can observe many important OB concepts and issues in the IT industry. Many of the
employees face problems in the work-life balance. They are not able to cope up with the needs
of the profession and the family. The firms should provide more flexibility in their work
schedule. They should be given more training on work-life balance. Giving some counselling
services will also help them to cope up with the family and work. Stress are of two types:
eustress and distress. Eustress basically helps the employees to contribute more and keep stick
to the deadlines. So certain level of stress is required. But when this eustress crosses a certain
limit it is called distress, which can lead to negative effects on productivity and health. So the
counselling process can really help the employees to know more about their inner self and
maintain a good mental health and physical well-being.
The female employees should be given some considerations in work timings. The night shifts
should be reduced and if required then they should be compulsorily given cab facility with
security personnel.

The firms should reduce the tighter project deadlines and they should allot required number of
staff for the projects. Thus they should reduce the employee stress and tensions. The firms
should also include more social and cultural activities for mental relief of employees. This can
motivate the employees and create a sense of belongingness to the organisation. It also
improves the coordination among employees.
The gender biases and glass ceiling practices must also be eliminated from the organisations.
It can improve the employees job commitment. As they think that all are considered equal in
the organisation and contribute more for their individual and organizational growth. The
management should consider the employees emotional and mental state while taking the
decisions. They should also be allowed to put their suggestions. The gender discrimination
should be avoided.
Conclusion
The IT companies need a considerable change in their attitudes and behaviours to employees.
They should have more employee friendly policies. They should re-work on their strategies
and make a new more employee cooperative framework. Then only they can reduce the high
attrition rates and retain their best employees.

REFERENCES
1. economictimes.indiatimes.com News Company
2. https://hbr.org/2012/01/creating-sustainable-performance
3. articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com Collections Attrition
4. www.tcs.com
5. www.wipro.com
6. www.infosys.com
7. www.deutschebank.co.in
8. www.goldmansachs.com
9. www.alaskaair.com