Understanding Behavior, Human Relations, and Performance

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Understanding Behavior, Human Relations, and
Performance

• Chapter 1

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Learning Objectives

• Explain why human relations skills are important.
• Discuss the goal of human relations.
• Describe the relationship between performance at
  the individual
• and group levels and organizational performance.
• Describe the relationship among behavior, human
• relations, and organizational performance.

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Learning Objectives

• Identify your personal low and high human
  relations ability/skill levels.
• Identify five personal human relations goals for
  the course.
• Explain nine guidelines for effective human
  relations.
• Briefly describe the history of the study of
  human relations.
• State some of the trends and challenges in the
  field of human relations.

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Why Human Relation Skills Are Important

• People are the organizations most valuable
  resource.
• Single biggest reason for career success and
  failure.
• Time spent in resolving employee clashes.
• Important factor in global competition.
• Affects productivity.
• Managers work with people.
• Relates to everyday interactions with people,
  regardless of the position held.

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The Goal of Human Relations

• Is to create a win-win situation by satisfying
• employee needs while achieving organizational
• objectives.
• Human relations interactions among people.
• Win-win situation when the organization
• and the employees get what they want.
• Total person approach realizes that the
• organization employs the whole person, not
• just his or her job skills.

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The Goal of Human Relations

• Organization A group of people working to
• achieve an objective.
• Organizational behavior The collective
• behavior of the organizations individuals and
• groups.
• Performance the extent to which expectations or
• objectives have been met.
• Systems affect all people in the organization
  are
• affected by at least one other person, and each
• person affects the whole group/organization.

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Levels of Behavior
Example level 3 Org. behavior
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Relationship Among Individual, Group, and
Organizational Performance
Organization
Organization
Individual
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Human Relation GuidelinesDeveloping Human
Relations Skills

• Be optimistic.
• Be positive. (dont complain nor criticize)
• Be genuinely interested in people.
• Smile and develop a sense of humor.
• Call people by name. (preferred name vs. hey you)
• Listen to people.
• Help others.
• Think before you act. (think about consequences)
• Create win-win situations.
• (what you want vs. what others want)

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Human RelationsPast, Present, and Future (I)

• Frederick Taylor the Father of Scientific
  Management
• late 1800s and early 1900s
• focused on production, not people
• assumed workers acted rationally and were
  motivated only by money
• Robert Owen the real father of personnel
  administration
• 1800
• understood the need to improve the work
  environment
• instituted reforms in his workers employment
  conditions

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Human RelationsPast, Present, and Future (II)

• Elton Mayo and the Hawthorne studies
• mid-1920s to the early 1930s
• the father of human relations
• conducted research at Western Electric Hawthorne
  Plant near Chicago, which resulted in several
  unexpected discoveries, including
• The Hawthorne effect refers to an increase in
  performance due to special attention given to
  employees, rather than tangible changes in the
  work.

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Human RelationsPast, Present, and Future (II)

• Employees have many needs beyond those satisfied
  by money.
• Internal work groups have powerful influence.
• Supervisor-employee human relations affects the
  quality and quantity of employee output.
• Many employee needs are satisfied off the job.
• Employee relations affect employee performance.

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Human RelationsPast, Present, and Future (III)

• 1930s and 1940s
• Unions forced management to recognize employee
  needs and research continued.
• 1960s
• Theory X developed by Douglas Macgregor (covered
  in chapter 3), while Eric Berne introduced
  Transactional Analysis (covered in chapter 8).

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Human RelationsPast, Present, and Future (III)

• 1970s
• Human relations began to be called organizational
  behavior. Americans began to look to their
  competition for ways to increase performance.
• 1980s
• William Ouichi developed Theory Z
• Theory Z integrates common business practices in
  the United States and Japan into one
  middle-ground framework appropriate for use in
  the United States.

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Human Relations Past, Present, and Future (IV)

• 1980s
• Peters and Waterman researched the
  characteristics of successful organizations
• They have a bias for action.
• They are close to the customer.
• They use autonomy and entrepreneurship.
• They attain high productivity through people.
• They are hands-on and value-driven.
• They stick to the knitting and do not diversify
  greatly.
• They use a simple organizational form with a lean
  staff.
• They have simultaneous loose-tight properties.

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Human Relations Past, Present, and Future (IV)

• 1990s
• Worker involvement dominates human resource
  issues.
• Peter Lawler predicts
• Greater levels of participation at the lowest
  levels of the organization.
• More input into management decisions by employee.

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Trends and Challenges

• The Changing Work Force Diversity
• Minorities
• Aging
• Gender and work-family issues

• External Environmental Forces
• Globalization
• Productivity, quality, and teams
• Innovation and speed

• Technology
• Internet revolution and e-business
• The virtual office

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Understanding Behavior, Human Relations, and
Performance

• Comments, Questions?