Question

To fully address this case assignment, please read and analyze each assigned case. Your response for each case should be numbered and provide the following:

1.      Summarize the key OB issues in the case relative to this week's material (at least 2 key issues MUST be identified). Be sure to speak in OB language, using appropriate terminology to identify the concepts and issues you identify.

2.      Clearly link the key issues in the case back to relevant and specific course material covered. Be specific by identifying specific instances and scenarios in the case which demonstrate the OB issues and concepts identified. Explain how they are reflective of those specific OB issues.

3.      Make at least one recommendation(s) of how each of the key issues you identified should be handled at the organizational level of the case's main character. Justify the merit of each of your recommendations and be sure to include your rationale for why you expect them to be effective in addressing the issues.

4.      Propose at least one executive or corporate level intervention for any one of your key issues to recommend how upper management can also play a part in addressing that issue. This response should be different from any of the recommendations offered in #3. Be sure to clearly identify which OB issue your organization level/executive level intervention is meant to address and how the intervention would be of benefit.

Case 1 - Equity in Academia

When the last student left Melinda Wilkerson’s office at 5:30 p.m., the young English Professor just sat, too exhausted to move. Her desk was piled high with student papers, journals, and recommendation forms. "There goes my weekend," she thought to herself, knowing that just reading and commenting on the thirty journals would take up all of Saturday. She liked reading the journals, getting a glimpse of how her students were reacting to the novels and poems she had them read, watching them grow and change. But recently, as she picked up another journal from the bottomless pile or greeted another student with a smile, she often wondered whether it was all worth it.

Wilkerson had had such a moment about an hour earlier, when Ron Agua, whose office was across the hall, had waved to her as he walked past her door. "I’m off to the Rat," he announced. "Come join us if you ever get free." For a moment Wilkerson had stared blankly at the student before her, pondering the scene at the Rathskeller, the university’s most popular restaurant and meeting place. Agua would be there with four or five of the department’s senior members, including Alice Bordy, the department chair. All would be glad to have her join them . . . if only she didn’t have so much work.

At the start of her first year as an assistant professor, Wilkerson had accepted her overwhelming workload as part of the territory. Her paycheck was smaller and her hours longer than she had expected, but Agua and the other two new faculty members seemed to be suffering under the same burdens.

But now, in her second semester, Wilkerson was beginning to feel that things weren’t right. The stream of students knocking on her door persisted, but she noticed that Agua was spending less time talking and more time at his word processor than he had during the first semester. When asked, Agua told her he had reduced his course load because of his extra work on the department’s hiring and library committees. He seemed surprised when Wilkerson admitted that she didn’t know there was such a thing as a course reduction.

As the semester progressed, Wilkerson realized there was a lot she didn’t know about the way the department functioned. Agua would disappear once a week or so to give talks to groups around the state and then would turn those talks into papers for scholarly journals—something Wilkerson couldn’t dream of having time to do. She and Agua were still good friends, but she began to see differences in their approaches. "I cut down my office hours this semester," he told her one day. "With all those students around all the time, I just never had a chance to get my work done."

Wilkerson had pondered that statement for a few weeks. She thought that dealing with students was "getting work done." But when salaries for the following year were announced, she realized what Agua meant. He would be making almost $1,000 more than she; the human resources committee viewed his committee work as a valuable asset to the department, his talks around the state had already earned him notoriety, and his three upcoming publications clearly put him ahead of the other first-year professors.

Wilkerson was confused. Agua hadn’t done anything sneaky or immoral—in fact, everything he did was admirable, things she would have liked to do. His trips to the Rat gave him the inside scoop on what to do and whom to talk to, but she couldn’t blame him for that either. She could have done exactly the same thing. They worked equally hard, she thought. Yet Agua already was the highly paid star, whereas she was just another overworked instructor.

As she began piling all the books, papers, and journals into her bag, Wilkerson thought about what she could do. She could quit and go somewhere else where she might be more appreciated, but jobs were hard to find and she suspected that the same thing might happen there. She could charge sex discrimination and demand to be paid as much as Agua, but that would be unfair to him and she didn’t really feel discriminated against for being a woman. The university simply didn’t value what she did with her time as highly as it valued what Agua did with his.

Putting on her coat, Wilkerson spotted a piece of paper that had dropped out of one of the journals. She picked it up and saw it was a note from Wendy Martin, one of her freshman students. "Professor Wilkerson," it read, "I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to talk to me last week. I really needed to talk to someone experienced about it, and all my other professors are men, and I just couldn’t have talked to them. You helped me a whole lot."

Sighing, Wilkerson folded the note, put it in her bag, and closed her office door. Suddenly the pile of journals and the $1,000 didn’t seem so important.

Answer 1

1. The key OB issues relevant to the case:

• Pay Equity: Melinda Wilkerson was being paid less for the amount of work that she was handling. On the other hand, Ron Agua, her peer was getting $1000 more
• Work recognition: Melinda Wilkerson was pouring in extra hours for her work. Though the students appreciated her guidance, the college management did nothing to recognize her efforts

2. The key issues in the case with specific instances and scenarios to exhibit the OB relation:

• Melinda Wilkerson was giving her best for the students. She used to work overtime, even on weekends, her desk was always piled with students papers. She used to like reading the students work and analyzing their journey in the course. She was toiling hard so that all her students excel in the subject. But when it came to pay equity based on her performance, she was not compensated adequately. She felt that she was underpaid and her work hours were quite long. Her peer, Ron Agua had reduced his workload substantially but was being paid quite high. Melinda felt disappointed with the difference in pay equity
• Work recognition: Even though Melinda was striving her best, so as to make the performance of the English department successful, but the college management did not recognize her efforts effectively. She did not specifically require a monetary compensation, a simple appreciation of her efforts could have been motivating for her.

3. Recommendation for solving the issues:

• To solve the pay equity issue, the university must develop a compensation system which works on the principle of being internally equitable. To develop a compensation system, which is internally equitable, the company must opt for a performance based compensation system. The performance based pay is based on the foundation concept of linking the compensation directly to the performance exhibited by the employees. The management conducts performance appraisals to evaluate the performance of the employees and rate them. The variable pay or bonus paid to the employee can be also linked to the rating acquired by the employee in the performance appraisal. This serves as a driving factor for the employees to work hard and get good compensation and benefits package. Keeping this in mind, the employee tries to perform his best, be proactive and tries to facilitate the work of his team.
• To solve the work recognition issue, the university needs to develop a comprehensive rewards and recognition system:
  • Annual Bonus: Based on company’s as well as employee’s performance, employee’s efforts can be recognized and rewarded in form of annual bonus. This gives zeal to all employees to exceed their performance and earn bonus.
  • Peer to Peer Recognition: This is an effective recognition program which helps in maintaining good camaraderie and team synergy. The peers and employees can recognize each other’s efforts through this recognition program.

4. It can also be seen that the motivation level of Melinda is dwindling. She seems contemplating her decision of staying with the university. In such a scenario, there are high chances that she will get demotivated and her performance will deteriorate.

. Motivation is basically the instinct which drives the employee’s efforts and compels him or her to perform well in the company. By giving the employee challenging goals, the company tries to maintain his interest in his work, the employee feels valued and engaged and hence, is motivated to perform well. This is one of the most effective ways through which the companies try to retain the employees and reduce voluntary turnovers.

The personality tests can be used to analyze the personality of the employees and to identify the motivating factors for their specific personality type. This motivating factor can be used to influence the performance of the employee in the company. If the employee is motivated to do his job and ready to work beyond his assigned duties for the benefits of the company, then the employee can be considered to be engaged and motivated at the workplace. When an employee has no motivating factors to work and seems dissatisfied with his job, he can be considered disengaged at the workplace. He seems disinterested in his job and thus hamper his performance. The overall teamwork will also be hampered and degraded due to this.

So, we can infer that motivation is the one of the major key influencers in an organization, which helps in deciding the course of individual’s performance at the workplace. Motivational theories work with an objective of recognizing the individual triggers that will have the potential to enhance the performance of individual employees.

To identify the motivating factors, which affect the job performance level of the employees, the university and its HR and do the following:

• Conduct and thoroughly analyze employee satisfaction survey
• Conduct the Big Five Personality Test and Myers Briggs personality test. This will help in identifying the personality of each employee. This test would divide the employees under 5 broad personalities 16 sub-personalities, each of which have characteristic motivation factor
• Take feedbacks from the employees of what is going well in company and which policies need improvement