Employee Performance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Employee Performance - Essay Example The situation has not been this way for a long time; until the last century, their existed an autocratic organizational system where the word of the top management was considered the last word. Their existed an environment where no emphasis was paid on the rights on employees and their needs. In order to properly defend the statement, one needs to look into the reasons for these developments that have been mentioned in the statement. Post-modernism is a concept that is deep rooted in history and is one of the fundamental reasons of the development of the recent organizational structures, bureaucratic environments and empowered employees. A discussion regarding how modernism started would first require understanding what existed in the pre-modernist era. The need for post modernism has been rooted deep in the history of mankind. It was first used in 1914 to describe the changing mindsets of people against the society prevailing at that time. Then came in modernism which gave people an escape from the normality and let people question their beliefs and creativity was fostered. However, it gave rise to modernity or bureaucracy. Bureaucracy usually uses rules and guided procedures in order to accomplish their tasks and depend on the predictability of events. They give no space to the unpredictably of life. In management terms, this would mean that there is task continuity prevalent in organization practicing bureaucracy and people would be subjected to strict rules and norms, repeated preprogrammed tasks and would be provided with stable and probable environments where homogeneity exists between the goods and services offered. Post modernism was a reaction to the modernistic ideas. Post-modernism largely is defined by the age in which there was intellectual growth, cultural enhancement, and development of an artistic state without the boundaries and restrictions of the hierarchies( Frederick, 1984). Post modernism stated that there are no clear cut and defined lines to a central successful organizational principle. It negated the aristocratic or the central hierarchy system and paved way for a more people oriented idea to organization development. Development of post-modernism was a result of the changing times and environment as well. It helped in almost all the disciplines of modern era. Post-modernistic ideas helped in the development of architecture, law, culture and literature. It heavily influenced the marketing and management fields of science as well. The management scenario changed completely with the advent of this idea in the society (Tim, 1999). The main focus would be kept over management and marketing practices because of the topic at hand. Post-modernism can be best explained as an era where nothing is certain and nothing is impossible. There are endless possibilities waiting to be grasped and countless situations in which a man can find himself. However, it has its share of criticism as being meaningless when it came to evaluating mathematical structures. Many people also argue that the era we are living right now is the post-postmodern condition. GLOBALIZATION Globalization is another important factor that gave rise to the post-modern conditions of today. Globalization by definition is turning personalized or localized phenomena's into

Microsoft High School Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Microsoft High School - Case Study Example One of the critical challenges that faced the company in the 80s was developing a career track for those who were individual contributors at best and those who were managers or had potential to be managers. This arose due to the fact the company being an IT company, technical people were mostly hired who may or may not be managers. The solution was to allow people to remain technical experts and get the same opportunity to advance in terms of compensation, promotion and recognition as those in the management track. Ladder levels for determining vertical movement were based on an individual's job nature, together with his experience, skill and performance. In addition, growth was also made possible with horizontal transfers from one job to another. New hires were also encouraged to learn from mentoring from those who were company seniors. IT industry's explosive growth, thousands of ... When the company reached its 20,000th employee mark, Bill Gates viewed this as an important challenge facing the company where the values at its inception responsible for its success were at stake. As a response, the HR group started measuring employee attitudes. A finding in the late 1990s was that even if attrition rates or voluntary resignations were half those of industry levels, at the higher positions, resignations were closer to industry rates. With "Organizational Health Index" (OHI), a part of the annual employee survey, the focus was turned on the work environment as a tool for retention and on a more fundamental level, "keeping the entrepreneurial spirit alive" that made Microsoft what it was. Ballmer's two priorities was to accomplish this was first to change Microsoft's vision from "a computer on every desk and in every home running on Microsoft software" to "to empower people to do anything they want, any place they want, and on any device". The second strategy was to e mpower leaders within the company to clear obstacles, make decisions quickly and clearly define goals. Another challenge was how to identify managers and leaders who are capable of developing people. In order to meet this challenge, Microsoft embarked on a series of programs to identify potential leaders and it became the priority of Steve Ballmer, Microsoft president to develop leaders within the company. As a result of these programs, it was found out that the sources of leadership development were primarily from the jobs currently held at 70%, from mentoring at 20% and from training at 10%. With its maturity as a large-scale organization, a top concern emerged in the 1990s to