Case Study Organizational Behavior
Abstract Why do individuals behave the way they do and perform well or poorly in the workplace? This question has been the Holy Grail of much research in organizational behavior (McShane? Von Glinow, 2004). A large American city was putting on some seminars for managers, and the main topic of the discussion was motivation. During the seminar a problem came to light that a captain of a police station was dealing with some issues with his police officers.
When his officers first came to the police station were all very young and inexperienced.Although they really enjoyed going out on the streets, helping people and having contact with the public, one thing they really hated was paperwork. The captain needs he needs to motivate his officers to complete paperwork, but he can’t afford any extra financial awards. This case study will analyse the condition of the officers through the MARS model of individual behavior. Additionally, some idea on how to motivate the police officers are also suggested in this case study.
Keywords: Paperwork, MARS model, Motivation, Role perception. Pushing Paper Can Be FunSome people believe that being a police officer is one of the most rewarding jobs worldwide. Under the right condition, being a police officer simply means getting to help people on a daily basis, doing the right thing and providing justice. Most police officers enjoy helping other people when needed. Every police officer at the end of every shift has to write a report for any case that has been involved on the field.
However, almost every police officer hates doing that job and does not realize how important this action is and as a result the job is putt off or done inadequately.These reports are priceless, especially later in court cases. If the details of the reports are shown to be incorrect, then the whole report is suspect. The captain of the police department is trying to convince a group of young police officers who lack the motivation and role perception to do proper paper work for every case they undertake, in order to avoid poor outcomes in court. In this case study , a local police department in a large city is facing a problem with his police officers lack of motivation to complete their paperwork at the end of the day.Police officers enjoy their work a lot but when returned to the police station they avoid doing the paperwork or they do it incorrectly.
The captain of the department wants to motivate them and make them perform their work properly. Many companies try to answer questions on how to benefit from their employments’ behavior in order to create a positive outcome. The goal of most companies is to promote a win-win situation for both company and shareholders. As in any company, the police department has the same goals. The MARS model of individual behavior can help companies in general improve and create a win-win situation.
This model describes four complementary factors that can have a great impact on employee performance. The four factors are; motivation, ability, role perception and situational factors. These four factors are highly correlated , for instance a data analyst is trained and has the skills to run reports (ability), learn how to use the latest tools (motivation), and to understands how will help a company to take the right decision (role perception), but the data analyst has not the necessary access to the files (situational factors).If not all elements of the MARS model are met, the employee behavior and performance will be negatively affected. A good manager must have a clear understanding of the MARS model and able to implement them. Motivation is the internal influences that impact the actions of the employees.
Employers must take advantage of the motivational element of this model. Additionally, employees must have the required skills. The manager of each company should be sure that the staff is qualified and trained properly. Another important function of the factor of capacity is to place employees in positions that would be able to use their talents.The third factor of this model is the role of perception.
Employees must have a clear understanding of their place in the company and how to assist to the overall mission. The fourth and last factor is situational factors where the employees must have all tools, equipment and facilities to perform a successful work. The MARS model shows that these four factors have a combined effect on individual performance, if any factor weakens, employee performance will decrease (McShane? Von Glinow, 2004). For example, nthusiastic salespeople (motivation) who understand their job duties (role perceptions) and have sufficient resources (situational factors) will not perform their jobs as well if they lack sufficient knowledge and sales skill (ability) (McShane-Von Glinow, 2004). There are definitely reasons that led the young and probably not experienced officers to perform poorly in this task. One of the main reasons is that they believe and perceive that their role in the police department is to prevent crime, to arrest criminals and be involved in community service.
Completing paperwork seems totally worthless to them and a waste of time.Another reason could be that due to budget crisis, police officers may not have enough time in writing reports or they may not have enough computers in their department which may cause delay in completing and delivering paperwork. In the case of the police department, the officers lack of motivation. This lack of motivation makes the officers to put off their work or complete it incorrectly. The captain of the police department is aware that his officers lack of motivation, but if we use MARS model in this case, we notice that it’s not only the factor of motivation missing but role perception factors is weak as well and needs to be improved.The lack of both these factors is negatively affecting the performance of the police officers in the police station.
One main reason that officers lack of motivation is because they are aware and that even if they do the paperwork properly they will not get rewarded. It is not a required to task in order to get a promotion or make extra money. Plus, police officers were not rewarded when competition among offices first appeared; as a result they lost their motivation once again. The second factor that is also weak is role perception factor.The main reason that this factor is weak is because officers were not trained properly to learn to complete all the necessary tasks that their role requires. During their training, they were more focused on how to handle tasks on the street, and didn’t care much on writing papers.
Role perception is a very important task for every employee. Employees should have clear role perception and there are three ways to achieve it. First of all each employee must know and understand the given tasks and their duties.Second, they should be able to understand the relative importance of those tasks (Greenberg & Baron, 2008). Third, they ought to understand the preferred behaviours to accomplish those tasks (Greenberg & Baron, 2008). If the officers of the police station had clearer role perception they would feel more familiar with their work.
A great way for employees to improve role perception is to receive job descriptions and on-going coaching. Most police officers perform extremely well out on the field, but the lack of role perception is affecting negatively the task of paperwork.These two factors of MARS model should definitely be improved. The factor of motivation could be improved at local stations. The captain of the police station could start offering some rewards, as for instance a day off per month to the officer with the best paperwork.
Exciting rewards could motivate officers to do paperwork and perform their duties with quality. In addition, the captain of the police could do more research on how other police stations get their staff to perform this task. Furthermore, paperwork must be included in training, as one of the important tasks.In this way officers will have a better idea of the role they perform and they will be prepared for all the necessary tasks to complete their role. References Greenberg, J. , & Baron, R.
A. (2008). Behavior in organizations: Understanding and managing the human side of work (9th ed. ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
McShane? Von Glinow, (2004). Organizational Behavior: MARS Model of Individual Behavior and Results. Retrieved from: http://www. yousigma. com/tools/marsmodelofindividualbehaviorandresults.
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