Identifying Issues of Ethics and Employee Fear/Uncertainty

Applying Organizational Behavior Theory

Name

Institution

Applying Organizational Behavior Theory

Organizational Problem and Justification

Every organization is faced by their own unique challenges. This depends on the external environment, the management of the company, its organizational culture among other critical factors that shape its operations. Google is an Internet colossus that has been accused of underpaying women and lacking gender diversity. This is a company where I have worked before.

In the past, the management of the company has reiterated its commitment in closing the pay gap. It stated that it had made all the efforts to close the pay gap across all people in the United States. However, according to the US Department of Labor, the internet giant has not been paying women similar to their male counterparts. Also, the US Department of Labor stated that there was compelling evidence of significant discrimination against female workers especially in the common positions at its headquarters (Hodgetts, 2017).

It is found that Google has around 70, 000 employees located in different parts of the world. The report of the US Department of Labor reported 69% of its employees to be male whereas 31% being female (Hodgetts, 2017). This means that there is a significant improvement from the 40% gender gap reported in the previous years. However, only 19% technical roles were assigned to women whereas 81% are occupied by men (Hodgetts, 2017). This shows a great gender gap that needs to be sealed to ensure that the vulnerable populations are accorded prominence during the recruitment process.

Using the organizational behavior theory, discuss how the theory might be applied practically to manage employee behavior to bring about positive, constructive change to the noted problem.

Organizational behavior theory elucidates human behavior laying emphasis on the factors that make people to behavior in a particular manner. It is important to understand that the modern organizational behavior theory is founded on the systems approach. It is also based on behavioral science. Hence, based on this theory, there are different areas that can be looked into to resolve the matter in Google.

To start with is motivation. It is one of the major features of organizational behavior theory. The employees of an organization are motivated by the extent in which they are involved in the actions and mission of the organization. Intrinsic motivation is driven by things that are unseen. Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, is determined by those things that are visible. There is sufficient data to show that the company has not been keen to hire women and encourage them to undertake technical roles. This is probably as a result of the significant salary disparities reported by the US Department of Labor.

Hence, using the aspect of motivation, compensation and benefits are among the primary causes of motivation in an organization. Google will need to harmonize the salaries of all its employees and ensure that those people at the same job groups are paid equally. Secondly, there is a need for a compensation policy that will ensure that remuneration is done equally and people are not discriminated upon based on gender (Carter, 2015). Gender bias undermines the interrelation between the employees and dents the reputation of the company in the eyes of the public.

Another way of addressing the issues at Google is to cause an absolute overhaul of the organizational structure. In other words, it should be understood that one of the engineers of the company was fired because of gender prejudice. He was accused of violating the company’s code by stating that women were unable to undertake technical roles hence there was no need to hire them to perform the same. This is an impression that there is a culture in the organization that does not recognize women as employees who can also take technical roles just as efficiently as men. Restructuring the leadership such that women are given managerial roles in the department saturated with male counterparts will encourage women to apply those positions whenever there is a vacancy (Stanford, 2011).

Possible employee satisfaction issues regarding development and implementation of a change plan to address the noted problem

It is important to understand that change is inevitable but there is always resistance whenever it is proposed in any given setting. To start with, since the technical jobs are currently occupied by men and a small percentage of women, it is certain that men are most likely to resist the intended overhaul because of the fear of losing jobs. Secondly, erasing the traditional culture that skewed women as people who cannot undertake technical roles is extremely difficult. Hence, there will be issues of satisfaction when a lady is promoted to lead a group of men engineers. However, despite the fact that some of these changes are most likely to wreak havoc as far as satisfaction is concerned, such shortcomings ensue any change process. Hence, the remedy to this is training and sensitizing all the employees of the need to strike the gender and pay gap that exists in Google especially in the era of globalization when the aspect of diversity has been accorded great prominence (Stanford, 2011).

References

Aquinas, P. G. (2016). Organizational behavior: concepts realities applications and challenges. New Delhi: Excel Books.

Carter, R. T. (2015). Addressing cultural issues in organizations: beyond the corporate context. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Hodgetts, R. M. (2017). Organizational behavior: theory and practice. New York: Merrill.

Stanford, N. (2011). Organization design: the collaborative approach. London: Routledge.