Reenergizing Employees After a Downsizing, Essay Example

Blaze, a small newspaper company, has recently experienced a downsizing. Andrea Zuckerman is a representative of the organization that will hold briefings and make announcements about the new changes. Andrea is faced with a complex problem because she needs to reenergize employees despite the downsizing. Furthermore, she needs to consider the fairness of making decisions through different dimensions. These dimensions include: distributive justice, procedural justice, interpersonal justice, and informational justice. She is helping Blaze prepares to enter the third stage of its changes, which is “Blaze 3.0”. Big transformations always require good communication. As a result, she needs to prioritize these decisions. Informational justice should be one of the most important announcements. Informational justice is “perceived fairness of communications from authorities” (Lastname, Year, Page). Informational justice can be improved when organizational leaders use both the rules of justification and truthfulness.

Communication will help prevent the misunderstanding of misinformation. For example, “Andrea needs to explain the decision-making procedures and outcomes in a comprehensive and reasonable manner” (Lastname, Year, Page). Although Andrea worries about making mistakes with her decisions, it’s necessary for her to communicate with employees about the transformation, possible conflicts, and new plans for the organization. In particular, this will let employees to continue trust and have confidence in their company. Moreover, they will consider themselves a very important part of the company, which will inspire them to put more effort into their work. However, this is all based on the trust, which is closely related to the truthfulness rule that states that honest communication is necessary. Telling the truth will impress employees. Likewise, it is hard for a company to develop without having a good reputation. Therefore, Andrea should be honest and informative in explaining the reasons for downsizing. In addition, employees will support the development of company as a consequence of better understanding. Andrea’s actions are related to the ethics of her decisions as well. If Andrea chooses to be more guarded, her decisions will probably not be the most morale. Employees have right to know the truth behind their company’s choices. In this case, they have the right to know the new structure and plans of Blaze.

The company restructuring has created new needs for the company. Thus, many job positions will require a more diverse range of abilities. Although most employees will have the same duties, they will face some new responsibilities. As a result, some employees will be required to do a lot more work than others. Andrea believes that this is a problem with regards to the new grouping of employees in addition to the compensation budget. Downsizing brings extra funds that may help the company recover. Since the new structure of Blaze requires employees to serve an expanded workload, the employees should receive a permanent raise. According to the concept of distributive justice, “employees decide if outcomes are allocated fairly” (Lastname, Year, Page). It is fair for employees to receive income that is proportional to work. In fact, the employees that have more work may deserve bonuses. This reward will allow them to believe that their efforts have caused better outcomes. According to the equity theory, “employees compare their outcomes-to-inputs ratio to the ratio of a comparison other (Lastname, Year, Page). Employees would feel that they are being treated unfairly and be disappointed if they believed that different workloads resulted in different payment. This wouldn’t be good for employee motivation after downsizing.

In addition, Andrea needs to communicate with her employees before making final decisions. This will help Blaze to have a comprehensive understanding of the extra funds. More importantly, this will benefit the reputation the trustworthiness of the company. In particular, Andrea needs to talk about her plan of how she will use extra funds in the new structure. Whether or not the company will receive additional funds from downsizing is a moral issue. Andrea needs to recognize that her decisions are associated with ethical content. Therefore, Andrea must talk about the extra funds during the morning briefing. It is necessary for employees to know about the existing extra funds and be allowed to participate in decision-making process. This is also related to procedural justice. To gain fair and comprehensive decisions, Andrea needs to give employees a chance to express their opinions and to request appeals. For example, employees should be allowed to give recommendations of compensation budget and rewords.

Although the issue of the compensation budget is in process, the problems related to changing structures still need to be solved. The business structure of Blaze is changing from a newspaper business to a web portal business. In addition, employees are no longer needed to focus on world news. Instead, they only need to focus on local events. “Blaze 1.0” and “Blaze 2.0” were attractive to many employees because of the flexible working conditions and traditional newspaper business industry. Thus, “Blaze 3.0” became a challenge due to reasons of uncertainty that clash with the prior business model.

Andrea can use two methods for solving these problems. First, Andrea needs to motivate the employees after the downsizing. This helps because it provides employees with direction and continuous effort. According to McClelland’s acquired needs theory, “the employees will be motivated by their needs for achievement” (Lastname, Year, Page). For example, the desire of solving complex problems with contribute to better performance and motivation. An additional way to motivate employees is by allowing them to different teams and work with unfamiliar people. Since employees can be motivated by the desire of having good relationships with others, Andrea needs to create an opportunity for them to make new relationships. This is also related to the goal setting theory that states that employees can be motivated by difficult but reasonable goals.

According to Herzberg’s two-factor theory, people will have better performance if they are assessed more positively. Therefore, it is very important to improve employee job satisfaction. Andrea can take advantage of this by providing more positive feedback. According to the value-percept theory, it is also helpful to occasionally let employees have what they want. Based on the attractive features of “Blaze 1.0”, employees needs to have a flexible working environment and be provided with creative tasks. Andrea needs to allow the employees to show creativity with their assignments as much as possible. For example, the employees can create many interesting topics or views under the main topic. In addition, based on the dissatisfaction of “Blaze 2.0”, employees want to show personal characteristics in the work rather than subscribing to standardized requirements. Therefore, Andrea needs to use the job characteristics theory that provides them with a chance to show their skills and good performance through meaningful work.

Blaze is in the process of becoming a new normal. Although it has experienced two transitions before, this is still challenging for employees. Many of the changes that are being made will directly impact the works and assessments of every employee. Thus, Andrea needs to give some voice and input to the employees. Setting up new organizational goals and discussing job performance will be helpful in ensuring a successful transition. Employees may quickly learn how to contribute to the company’s development through their job behaviors. According to the interpersonal citizenship behavior, “employees are required to assist other coworkers or members with workload and even to beyond expectations” (Lastname, Year, Page). Therefore, Andrea needs to emphasize the assistance, participation, and attitudes that employees should have in this cooperation. This will also help the organization culture. Andrea needs to encourage “speaking up and offering constructive suggestions for change” (Lastname, Year, Page). These constructive suggestions may help Blaze to make comprehensive plans and decisions, which will help the accomplishment of organizational goals.

Nevertheless, since the issues of the new normal are very complex, Andrea needs to make many decisions in a short period of time. It is hard for Andrea to make decisions by herself and making wrong decisions will seriously impact the performance of employees. Moreover, “Employees who are not committed to their organizations engage in withdrawal behavior” (Lastname, Year, Page). Thus, it is also important to improve job satisfaction and motivate employees. For example, employees would like to stay employed at the company because they like their jobs. In contrast, employees may choose to leave because they are not committed to their company. Some employees may choose to leave because they cannot accept the new goals and values. This could be resolved in Andrea focuses on employee motivation and satisfaction. For example, she can set a rule based on giving fair outcomes for employee efforts. Decisions should also be made based on desirable assessments. Thus, more employees will have high levels of commitment and know how to make contributions to the company through their job performance. These methods will help give a positive impact to the transition and development of Blaze.

References

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Cameron, K. (1993). Strategies for successful organizational downsizing. Ann Arbor: School of Business Administration

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Wang, C.(2010). Managerial decision making and leadership the essential pocket strategy book. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.