The Dynamics of People and Their Position Within the Organization

1-1 Discussion: The Dynamics of People and Their Position Within the Organization

Begin by introducing yourself to the class. What is your experience identifying the dynamism of people in your current workplace or in a place where you have worked in the past? How does each individual contribute to the overarching day-to-day activities in the workplace? To maintain privacy, do not use employees' actual names. 
In responding to your classmates' posts, consider a compare and contrast approach, recommend alternative views, and/or share additional research you have done that supports your classmates' posts. 

Support your initial post and response posts with scholarly sources cited in APA style.

Hello, my name is Michaela McCrae. I am a vehicle Development Engineer with a large automotive supplier working on vehicle testing and calibration. I recently graduated from my undergraduate studies in 2018 with a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering. I currently reside in Michigan with my boyfriend and amazing dog, Zeus.

As a vehicle calibrator I spend most of my time out of the office and at various customer test tracks working on vehicles that will be coming out in the future years. Because of this I am mostly on my own and need to be a self-sufficient employee capable of handling my problems and finding my own solutions. For each vehicle program there are three main calibrators assigned working on Anti-locking Braking Systems (ABS), Traction Control (TC), and Electronic Stability Control (ESC), the rest of the vehicles features are worked on after these. The three of us work heavily together because our subsystems will need to cooperate with each other for best vehicle performance.

When looking into the dynamics of this job and at the four forces that affect the nature of an organization: people, structure, technology and environment, I was able to see how some of the employees excel in this position while some do not. Our normal work environment is more relaxed because we are out of the office on our own instead of a typical in office environment. When we do meet up for our monthly meetings we are more conversational with each other and bounce ideas off one another. Another calibrator may have run into the same issues during their own calibration the past month and we can help each other. If a person needs weekly objectives assigned or step by step processes laid out this job is not for them and this is where I see some people struggle. Our work process is extremely structured when it comes to hierarchy involving different managers, program leaders, senior and junior calibrators. This structure is needed so that the work can be effectively coordinated leading to the greatest work output. I believe Newstrom was right in saying “The great benefit of technology is that it allows people to do more and better work, but it also restricts people in various ways” (Newstrom, 2015, p. 14). Due to our jobs being engineering focused technology is a large part of our roles. We need increased technology to keep producing products that are leading edge and competitive, however, this technology also hurts us and we have to spend a substantial amount of time troubleshooting or dealing with issues. This technology also distracts some employees and decreases productivity on the job and becomes an issue. Our internal environment is ruled by our external environment. We need to be competitive and bold for our customers, but still maintain the high quality needed in our products because lives ultimately depend on them. This can affect working conditions and how people act on the job and their levels of motivation. All these things change the dynamics of our job and how we interact with each other, management, direct reports, and customers. Each person will have their own viewpoint and interpretations about the company and act accordingly. I believe the people who excel the most in this job and in turn help the organization excel are the ones who are self-sufficient and motivated to do great work not only for them, but for the company and customers as well. The employees that feel like they can make a difference are usually more motivated from what I’ve seen, this all comes back to how involved management makes them feel and if they take more of a supportive approach. I really don’t see my manager unless I really need something HR or instrumentation related, but when he does check in he’s always asking what he can do for me instead of demanding things from me. “The manager’s primary role changes from control of employees to active support of their growth and performance” (Newstrom, 2015, p. 21).

Reference:

Newstrom, J. (2015). Organizational behavior: Human behavior at work (14th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

      Hi Michaela, 

Welcome to class!  As you know, the workplace is full of contributions from employees with some being good and some being not so good.  It is ultimately about how those contributions impact you and your team and whether or not you can mold any negative interactions into positive and productive ones. Truly, not every employee will like each other but there must be a level of respect in order for the team to succeed.  Is there anything that you feel that you can contribute to ensuring that the team encompasses that needed level of respect? I look forward to working with you in class this term!  Thanks.  

Thank you, I look forward to working with you as well and in continuing to expand my knowledge with this course. Learning how to apply these methods and theories in real world situations is useful. I feel like I can help the level of respect and communication by sticking to our internal structure and encouraging others to do so as well. Each program has specific calibrators assigned and I’ve noticed that some will ignore the structure and talk to someone who may know more or who can cooperate better leaving the calibrator who is solely responsible out of the loop. If we increase our communication with each other and make sure the message is received clearly, I think this will help productivity. Like the book talked about, when we bypass each other and don’t respect or keep the responsible person in the loop, we have unnecessarily reduced efficiency and the program/company suffers.  

Hi! I'm Tasha and I'm certainly no stranger to online learning. As a mom of 5, I earned my BS in Social Sciences from FSU (Florida State Univ) in 2018. I started that degree back in 2004, though, and because I was only one year from completion, had to finish it--lack of interest in it aside. The best choice for me seemed to pursue a Master's degree in a program that DOES interest me. I graduated last year and then spent the next ~one year figuring out just what it was I wanted to do. In the end, I knew I'd figured it out in Artist Management (Music Manager) but also knew I had no CLUE how to even begin or where or anything else. Diligent researching led to discovering SNHU's MBA in Music Business program. Nail hit on the head!!! :)