Discuss the Major Ways in Which Individual Employee Differences Are Demonstrated at Work
In this ever changing society, many developments have taken place over the years and human beings have evolved into more complex and unique individuals. Being unique, human beings become different from one another and require different things in life. This is eminent in our working society as the workforce has transformed as employees differ from person to person having different demands and viewpoint towards their work.
As every worker or employee is unique and special in their own ways, this poses a challenge to managers in the 21st century as they have to note the differences demonstrated at work by employees. Some apt and major ways employees differ from each other at work are caused by factors like values perception, personality, emotions, attitude and job satisfaction. All these factors contribute to the different needs at work for an employee and a manager has to be aware of these differences to satisfy the employees at work.
Firstly, by recognizing these differences demonstrated at work, the manager can reduce the chances of conflicts occurring. As every employee is unique, they come from different backgrounds having different ethnicity, different religions and different values. The world has globalized, bringing people together from all over the world. Hence, it is unavoidable that employees now have to work with new colleagues who will be different from them. Values and religions are critical factors influencing an individual’s attitude at work. They affect the way people think and interpret things in life as they are the basic convictions people have in life and varies from individual to individual. Due to these fundamental differences, disagreements or even conflicts are bound to happen at work.
Thus, a manager has to be aware of these differences in values, religion and background to manage and prevent disagreements or conflicts at work. Furthermore, he or she has to have the ability to resolve these conflicts if they were to occur. This would not be possible if he or she does not comprehend and understand these differences of workers and employees. One good example would be banks in the world. Taking an illustration into the case in Singapore, banks face stiff competition from one another such as Citibank and United Overseas Bank (UOB). In order to compete in this challenging market, banks would have to stand out from one another. This will never be possible if there are conflicts in ideology in employees. Especially in the case of banks, talents from all over the world gather and conflicts are bound to happen. This explains why managers have to be aware of differences showcased by different employees to adjust the work dynamics in the organisation to integrate all employees to prevent conflicts and disagreements from happening and to resolve the conflicts if they were to happen. This helps the organisation to progress and move forth in this society.
Secondly, by understanding the differences demonstrated