The Induction* Process: Entry Management in Some Ghanaian Organisations
Supervisor Lauritz Brännström (P. hD.)
Kwesi Agboletey (I.B.V.) Linköpings University.
This research ascertains the nature and characteristics of entry management that four service organisations engage in. Entry management is that set of activities by which a newly employed person is integrated into a task role and an organisations work culture. The individuals interpretation of those sets of activities and their effect on the employees job performance, attitude and job satisfaction as well the emergent group climate the organisations action fosters is ascertained. The integration of a new recruit into a tightly knit work group, carrying out its tasks within an effectively coordinated organisation system, has deep socio-psychological ethos, and the distinctiveness with which each organisation orients its management activities to facilitate the induction process taking into consideration the overt and subtle influences emanating from its human constituent subunits is at the focus of the cases studied. The easing of the worker into his or her job is critical to effective organisational outcome. Induction is process that tones the new workers long term view and commitment in a new job. The present essay attempts to elucidate that process, drawing on sets of applicable concepts of work groups and processes within work groups and integration of new group members. Invariably, there is a conflict of accommodation and subvert rejection set into motion in stable groups as a new group member is employed. The central, powerful individual, who articulates the groups interest and amorphous viewpoint, pushing it into concrete, realisable, identifiable actions, is a critical nexus of interest. Whoever it is those in functional leadership role position who have an added responsibility of tendering appropriate initial information that clarifies any hazy uncertainties any individual employee has with regards to their position within the organisation at large. This research examines within a case study design employees reaction assessed through focused interview the process of formally inducting new employees into their employing organisations. And concludes with a normative model for implementing the induction process.
Introduction and literature review
The paper presents how service organisations facilitate appropriate entrance through entry management processes for new employees. In organisations, entry management is among other things, a means of negotiating preferable organisational states with existing employees and/or work groups to accommodate new employees. It is also a process that enables a dynamic human processes chain with feed forward goal responsive reactive mechanism built in. The formal induction process is occasioned by regular assessments that aim at ascertaining organisations satisfaction with the newly-employed and the newly-employeds satisfaction with the employing organisation.
Work groups in different organisations; have situation ally induced norm patterns that vary. In a way, different work groups, create different psychological dimensions of shared experience among group members or variations along similar psychological dimensions in comparable groups.
The basic assumption is that, an individual is employed, and enters a nebulous work setting where he or she is supposed to realise primary ends of paid employment within specified and structured work environments. But the individual is beset by situational defining constructs by which reality is interpretatively structured and defined within delimited specifications of the work group or organisational department in which the newly-employed is located and from the organisation as a whole.
In highly task (goal) oriented work groups, the initial dislocation of the newly-employed struggle to position the self in a new environment may over time be resolved as the individual is hazed through each working day. The individual employee is an emotionally laden consciously reactive suggestibility, reacting to the work environment unlike a programmed robotic task performer. Interpreting environment, task and evolving situation to establish self defined reality. Likewise the work place is not altogether a placid, neutral, task programmed environment where the individual enters a task role to realise expected ends for the employer. It is a dynamic, environmentally and organisationally responsive, adaptive setting peopled by decision makers, implementers of decision, facilitators and workers.
Groups (collections of employees performing specifically assigned task/s) have been and remain the basic form of shared engagement in organisational task design in many workplaces, therefore the need for a re-evaluation of organisational groups at various levels in response to changes in workforce composition. The implications of relevance to this research is how new employees are made to appreciate their employing organisation and the specifities of their task requirements by formal engaged organisational processes.
Entry management cannot be discussed as only pertinent to new entrants to the organisation but it must take into consideration the existing work groups into which the new employee is inducted. The relevancy of delineating the nature of task structured interaction which typifies a groups task related activities becomes obvious when one considers that what passes for the generic term, work group or team finds an extremely diverse expression in actual organisational settings. Ranging from homogenous and stable; highly educated and lowly educated, to cultural and ethnic criteria for differentiation. The numerical constituent of components likewise varies depending on the organisations designated task requirements.
A work group can be defined as a collection of two or more people who interact with one another and share some interrelated task goals. These two characteristics, interaction and interrelatedness, distinguish a group from just a collection of people (Spector, 1998). A work team is a type of work group, but a team has three specific properties (Baker, 1991):
1. The actions of individuals must be interdependent and coordinated.
2. Each member must have a particular, specified role.
3. There must be common task goals and objectives.
The nature of activities within groups range from independent, individual output modeled within small groups in specific physical locations to totally dependent supportive task mediated interaction within a group, where one persons work output is integrated into anothers, or a variation of these activities at different levels of task performance.
Basically, groups in organisations are conceived as formal or informal. The psychologically defined group with invisible physical boundaries but manifest behavioural presence which McCollom (1990) intones, is a qualified reality in organisations, because no matter how integrated a group evolves to become, certain group participants exercise a willfull choice of degree of participation they will engage in over and beyond formal work requirements.
The implication among other things is that informal groups offer, potentially, the richest source of academic theorising, from such fundamental precepts as defining the boundaries of the psychological group, conditions and variable states that enable its formation right down to its effect on group productivity. The element of subjectivity that is inherent in this concept coupled with McColloms assertion that it is inadequate for management to focus on only rational and task related issues to the detriment of emotional and unconscious questions conditioned by group joining. McColloms assertion introduces a controversy of relevance for the student of organisations. The controversy arises from the simple fact that formally designated groups do not encompass the full group influence on organisational states; and defining the invincible boundaries of the informal group introduces non-formally verifiable influence in mapping the full effect of the group on the organisation.
At the lower, skilled labour end, managements requirements of employees and the basis for work group formation emphasises practical considerations underlined by organisations production and profit focus. In this production oriented organisational setting, the group is a functional entity with specified ends. Coordination of tasks, is the responsibility of a designated leader, whose task coordination activities are intended to engage formal group members in working to realise the groups goals, as well as enabling an acceptable work environment that is conducive for effective group activity. Leaders are people who exert an influence over the behaviour of others without using coercion (Kempner 1980).
1.a 1.b 1.cFigure 1. Nature of formal task coordination and task based interaction within work groups.
Figure 1. Indicates the likely variations in task-based interaction among group members. In figure 1a., the task allocation radiates from a core directive source; each individual is allocated a task which he or she performs virtually independent of any and every other member, the only common referent source being where the task emanates from. Each person has a substantial degree of freedom, the criteria of performance is determined in conjunction with the task giver or the task is allocated with a defined end point, which determines the rate and tempo of task performance. For example, a mail deliveryman is given his route and a batch of mails to sort and deliver. He is virtually on his own and has a fairly self-determined pace, albeit he must deliver all the letters by the end of the working day and accomplish all other related activities relevant to his task role. The only group referent is that all the workers belong to a specific task designated site and have a formal recognition from an organisational viewpoint as belonging to a particular group. (There is an informal awareness and acceptance dimension, both of which are operative and reflect different levels of acknowledgement to be explained in detail later).
In figure B. The output of one person serves as the input for the next person, the input verified as a completed phase by the prior individual is processed to a specified level by individual b and is then verified as a completed input for the next person in the chain. Till a final acceptable product moves out of that groups responsibility as completed product by that work team. Verification procedures are established and standardised and the group leader supervises to ensure acceptable standards in task performance. Whoever is in position as a functional group leader may be an active participant in the chain of activities, but has an added responsibility of coordinating member task performance activity, which responsibility depending on the task reduces as individuals gain increasing expertise on the task. In which case reference can be made in terms of functional role responsibility as against an occupied position.
Figure C. Is the free-ranging, unconstrained, contact environment, where highly efficient or qualified, task capable individuals perform a range of activities with ease of resourcing for information or task relevant engagement with every and any member of the group as and when the task demands. It must need be pointed out that what passes for task capability is task determined and employee realised.
These functional task structured activities formally linking group members determine not only an interaction pattern with relevance to task completion but also becomes a patterned framework for work related internal communications, to a significant degree. But outside the formal work patterned relationship within a group are the association responses that is a response to individual affiliation fulfilment needs, that override formal patterns on the job leading to an informal, individually focused and defined, task irrelevant, association between individual group members (and non group members). In some organisational settings these informal associations have only indirect bearing on actual task performance, but in other instances, especially in loosely structured work groups where task completion is independent of other group members output at some or all stages of whole task processing, the informally established linkages between dyads or sets of the larger group have significant and direct influence on task performance. From the above, it can be concluded that the nature of formal existing framework of linkages between group members is exclusively group task dependent and is very much task relevant; as well is a situational outcome that is basically non task irrelevant. In most instances, entry management focuses on new employee induction into the formal existing framework of linkages. However, organisational studies emphasise time and again that the informal group has the potential to effectively and conclusively determine the outcome patterns of formally instituted arrangements, over and beyond anything conceivable and therefore capable of control from formal set-ups.
Task organisation around a group may reflect an excessive diffusion of role position, which may effectively eliminate any semblance of leadership, leading to a figure 1c pattern of task related interaction structure, where each individual is equally task capable and accessible to any group member for support, direction, confirmation on an idea or adopted work process when and as required. It is a group interaction pattern best appreciated in dynamic, high-intensity, and creative, knowledge based work environments but is liable to break down if cohesive task organisation and performance interruptions cause dissemblance of the smooth interactions across task and individuals boundaries. In the organisations studied in the present research, there is a preference for formal, hierarchical lines of control and responsibility.
Irrespective of the nature of group structure, new entry employees must be ushered in with a not altogether naive assumption that all individuals are equally predisposed to enter the group menagerie as ready and capable production elements.
However, in most organisations, as specified above, there is an intruding non-task relevant behavioural content that affects task behaviour and requires consideration for maximising the effectiveness of work groups. Thus the intermediary human characteristics of behavioural disposition that makes individuals amenable to accommodating each others presence in the public space within organised work need be identified and cultivated just as the opposing distinctive elements that instigate divisive, task adverse, tendencies must be unravelled within the definitional specification of a work groups unique setting, inasmuch as the combined influence of these variables on bottom line organisation production effort is not obviated by ignoring their effect.
In a typical workplace, individuals are employed, put together for the purposes of performing some specified activities with an organisationally desired end productive benefit; they are assigned classification as work group members, without necessarily, exercising selective control of who constitutes other group members. That group members are individually disposed to seek employment for their own benefits is a given, that over time, they manage their individually predisposed characteristics to work with an end, within the specified or evolved organisational structures manifest within the group is developmentally inevitable, that the group assumes a characteristic over and above its individual constituents is indisputable, that the group develops through a fairly complex process involving interactions across diversified spheres of influence, cumulatively affecting the organisation as a whole positively or negatively and that there are emergent variables that occasion each level of group manifestation that are liable to structuration to achieve desired organisational ends, is an important preoccupation for students of organisations.
While the nature of group characteristics of relevance to organisations is dependent on a variety of factors, least of which is not the behavioural disposition of the individual constituents, enhanced by their educational, training and work experience, life experiences and social background of the groups members. The ambience of the organisational environment within which the group is operative and the formative, directive influence of the group upon its constituents, all give cause to the reasoning that it is altogether shallow assumption to conclude that once employees are provided with task specific requirements, the organisation will realise its expectations of its workers. Though this primary assumption underlies any deployment of organised work groups.
A critical requirement of the organisation is to orchestrate entry of workers into the organisation so as to ensure the establishment of grounds of mutual respect, tolerance, and accommodation and hopefully engender a sense of commitment to common causes among new group members and old employees. The extent to which an organisation enables workers to interact and talk about task relevant issues as well as individual well-being related issues with the organisations management representative and the considerations of appropriate response the organisation makes will have important ramifications for internal group dynamic outcomes. This organisation-group interface issues depart from the more intense focus on issues related to internal group processes and group dynamic theoretical orientation, yet the fact remains that humans are constantly interpreting reality and their perceptions strongly determine their actions. Indeed, as Schein (1980) points out " . . .there is overwhelming evidence that some of the strongest motivational determinants of human behaviour are situational and role related." As he quaintly points out, "a worker might really produce at a high level for a boss who treats him or her fairly but become a saboteur if the treatment is perceived as unfair." Invariably, the situation defines the reality. "Motives are tied to particular situations, and one cannot assume that the same motives apply to all people at all times in all situations." Entry management thus, assumes a bifocality of ascertaining employee quality from an organisations perspective and organisations adequacy for fulfilling an employees occupational aspirations.
Work groups or teams formed to work exclusively on a task or a set of related activities to achieve defined ends for the organisation, as has been pointed out in numerous researches are psycho-social entities assuming defined character and patterns which are socially and situation ally derived interactions between the group constituents and their unique situational demands interacting across a broad range of intervening variable states.
This paper assumes a fundamental analytical viewpoint of re-appraising the management-group interface; expressively depicted in figure 2, below, deliberating on some psycho-social considerations that can be managed to influence individual integration into an existing group, to bring employees into a facilitated integrated commitment to the organisation.
Figure 2. The employee-management interface, where consensuality leads to social balance for effective implementation along various dimensions.
Granström (1999) has typified work groups into three significant categorisations typifying principal organisation types in which they are found; these are groups within hierarchical organisations, which organisations often tend to be individual focused, rule structured, positional focused and low on collective decision making; groups in matrix organisations, where the individual responsibility tends to shift with changing specifications in allotted tasks; and the truly group centred, team organisation, where groups or work teams assume functional role responsibility to see a task through to its completion. It is to be noted that these are not absolute states of differentiation rather; they are preponderances of defining characteristics along certain definitive qualifications. The two qualifications, which Granström specifies, are group-centeredness or individual centeredness; and problem solution manoeuvrability, i.e. whether there is overemphasis on rules or innovativeness. Effectiveness of group types are task and situational dependent, theyre being no best or worst. Effectiveness being related to the organisations specific internal and external environmental demands; and the organisations flexibility with regards to group management. Irrespective of the type of organisational structure, it is the confidence expressed and entrusted to independent units to carry a task through to completion as in certain types of teams or have a say with regards to the formal task allocation process that determines a groups effectiveness. However task type and the culture of an organisation may also play a fairly strong role. Considering that individuals are usually located within some defined grouping within an organisation, entry management needs to take into consideration the characteristic nature of the group into which an individual is allocated in an organisation.
The notion of the flat, position irrelevant, task functional role responsibility organisation structure, has emerged in recent times as a panacea for all control related issues. Favourably touted as diametrically opposite to inflexible Tayloristic approaches to lower level employee management, it is in reality an academic fantasy and a non-reality in real world organisations, as "Anonymous" a supposedly former Silicon Valley high-executive wrote in Fortune (December 6, 1999. p. 135) "As regards Silicon Valleys culture of flat hierarchies. Its not that they are really flat; leadership and responsibility are very important to the success of start-ups. What it does mean is that the troops grant leadership to certain people, based on how smart they are, how hard they work, and how well they evangelise. In a big corporation, title and power are what matter; start-up leadership, on the other hand, is effective when the guy in charge earns the teams respect, most of all that of the techies who are at the heart of the firm." In essence, instead of overemphasising flat structures the diversity of variations that occasion actual organisational group settings needs making room for more expansive group modelling.
Figure 3. Indicates a likely representation of independent work teams within an organisation.
Situational Influences
The nature of relationship between group members and the groups task performance efficiency, are largely determined by situation ally relevant factors, with second level management and organisation influence where support and material requirement from this higher level affects task performance and workers response state and psychological well-being. Each work group or team finds configurational identity within the organisation. The organisation specifies through its physical layout, task specificities and machinery, and management implementation processes a certain uniqueness upon any work group as an identifiable entity within some interconnected network of varying degrees of integrated, associated, entities. Any such differentiating enabling unique identity in the formal organisation, are designated along task relevant specifications. The degree of nearness within physical space and degree of interdependency in task activities and therefore the extent of influence exerted by other groups on a groups activities and internal states, are very much related to established organisational specifications and varies for different types of organisations and functions being performed by the group in relation to the wider organisation.
The focus on varying dimensions of group activities in whatever organisational structure thus begins by determining the exact boundary/-ries that determine a groups identity; the task specifications of the group, the expected characteristics and qualifications of the groups constituents, the actual composition and the nature of employment of individual constituents (a consideration that assumes enormous importance when one wants to consider the extent to which group members control the type of individual that intrudes or is absorbed into an existing stable group), the degree of member mobility within a group (whether it is a group that consists of long term constituents or rapidly changing members working on short term basis), the allocation of individuals to specific tasks within the broader task designation/s of the group (a group may perform the same set of tasks over a long period with gradual changes within the same type of set of tasks performed or may perform varieties of different set of tasks, depending on the organisation and its task allocation strategies). The degree and ease of mobility within different groups within an organisation will also determine the extent to which the group influences member behaviour (in some cases a branch office group member is employed and retained by that branch office and the individuals range of activities are limited to and within that sub-unit of the larger organisation), the employee training and its duration, the flexibility of role positions that the job enables and individuals ability to make preferential assignment choice or rotation of roles to enable equity or lower boredom etc, the leadership role responsibility within the group, the group leader and their functional responsibilities, the groups acceptance and acknowledgement of a leader, the group leaders role in relationship to realising set tasks and meeting group task needs and psychological support needs that maintains group effectiveness in performing their tasks needs. In groups whose constituents consists of individual members with marked differences such as cultural backgrounds, ethnicity, age differences and religious backgrounds, leadership capabilities and reaction to such differences will invariably determine their efforts to focus the group on task oriented goals and creating a stable non-attritive work environment to facilitate optimum productivity. In any induction process all these group characteristics within the broader organisational framework comes into consideration. These factors essentially determine the situational characteristics of a work group mediated by intervening variables to determine the groups productive capability, efficiency in task performance and overall relevance to the organisation in relation to its effectiveness.
Individuals within groups, depending on the groups proximity to other organisational constituents, tend to adopt a role functional attitude toward their task in the group, based on the way they perceive the organisation (whether exploitative or fair), and the organisations perception of its workers and the sort of authority structures and rule enforcement procedures it employs in managing its workers. This viewpoint can best be understood within the framework of Etzionis (1961) typology of individual-organisation relationships by classifying organisations on the basis of (1) the kind of power or authority they use to elicit compliance and (2) the kind of involvement they elicit from members within the organisation. On the authority dimension, Etzioni has identified three basically different types of organisations that focuses on the internal "climate" of the organisation in terms of whether they use pure coercive power, economic or other material incentives combined with rational-legal authority, or "normative" rewards or incentives. Organisations in this last group generally provide opportunities for their members to contribute to goals, which are intrinsically valued and congruent with individual goals and also display either a charismatic or rational leadership style. Etzioni also provides three types of involvement that these authority dimensions elicit from organisational members. These are 1. Alienative, which means that the person is not psychologically involved but is coerced to remain a member. 2. Calculative, which means that the person is involved to the extent of doing a "fair days work for a fair days pay", and 3. Moral, which means that the person intrinsically values the mission of the organisation and his or her job, and is personally involved and identified with the organisation.
Types of Power-Authority Versus Types of Involvement
COERCIVE UTILITARIAN NORMATIVE
Alienative *
Calculative *
Moral *
Represents the predominant types. Source based on Etzioni (1961)
The table indicates that the organisational types that fall along the diagonal have workable or "fair" psychological contracts with their members, in effect the expectation and provisional requirements between the organisation authority type and member involvement are realised in pure form at these junctures. These "pure" types of organisations are for definitional purposes, in reality organisations are realised as complex mixture of several types, and "pure" types serve descriptive purposes enabling a consideration of type of power-power and type of psychological involvement. As society develops its been observed that, there has been a shift away from pure coercive and normative types of organisations toward various combinations of utilitarian with either normative or coercive. As has been noted, in the development of business and industry, there has been a gradual movement away from a coercive atmosphere in which labour was compelled to follow company dictates because of the scarcity of jobs and an overall low standard of living, to company concern for adequate economic rewards, job security, and many other kinds of employee benefit. The growth of unions and collective bargaining has promoted the utilitarian, rational-legal type of contractual relationship between management and labour (Harbison & Myers, 1959). Schein (1980) observes that as business and industry have become more complex and more dependent on high-quality performance from both managers and workers, a trend has begun toward making the psychological contract more utilitarian-normative. By this is meant that companies are seeking to establish new kinds of relationships with their members. These new relationships to some degree abandon purely utilitarian conceptions in favour of normative ones. Members are increasingly expected to like their work, to become creative in the service of these goals; in exchange, they are given more influence in decision making, thus reducing the authority of management. While these clear-cut designations are illustrative they do not occur as pure states within any organisation, rather levels within the organisation may reflect a disposition towards one authority dimension, and employees at different levels may display different involvement responses. Contract workers in a group may be on the whole calculative, likewise workers in groups at lower positions within the organisation, such as wage earners, while middle level managers may display higher commitment and moral disposition, depending on their age and career orientation goals within the organisation. Of relevance to this paper with a humanistic philosophic bent, is whether the lower level employee and organisational interface could be constructed through verifiable steps to enable employees approximate the organisationally amiable, more moral state.
In an increasingly complex and competitive world it may be essential for organisations to fully involve all their employees in order to maximise productivity and creativity over the long range. An important first stage of enhanced motivation is the entry management procedure the organisations adopts to integrate new employees.
Figure 4. Some variables that determine the defining characteristic of a work group in an organisation. Based on D. Kretch et al., 1962, The Individual in Society, McGraw-Hill, New York. As figure 4, above indicates, the work group, consisting of a number of individuals employed and grouped for the organisations benefit, within the functional realisation of an operative organisation is a functional task unit, uniquely defined by specificities of the organisation, Within the wider open organisational structure, the individual is of relevance to the organisation only if he or she is productive within the specific configured location the organisation allocates that individual as a productive entity, and more often than not this is within an organisational group of some one sort or another. Appointed management staff represents the organisation and its perception is greatly determined by these management personnel. Management personnel are qualified individuals employed to manage along task specified designations on the basis of background qualifications. The actual management-worker interface assumes dualistic nature, the first is a task relevance directive and instructive function which is a mechanical, rational activity of measured proportions, The second aspect of management-worker interface activity is a supportive psychological function, where the manifest psychological issues of motivation and job commitment tend to merge with the basic physical task activity to influence the psychological balance that the worker experiences in his task allocation within a group. While some work groups do find distinctive identity along some shared lines of mutual acceptance either due to physical location or nature of task performed and overall organisational structure. The group mirrors the organisation as an open system, being influenced by issues arising within its unique environments, issues arising from beyond the group in the larger organisation, or developments in the organisations external environment or individual idiosyncrasies, differences and similarities that converge to determine the nature and characteristics of a specific group. The psychological and organisationally relevant analysis of a group thus features in a sense this dualistic nature of management orientation, the first being that the group must fulfil critical productive goals for the sustainable development of the group and increasing organisational effectiveness, the second is that the effective group must find a centre of equilibrium where the group in its evolvement provide a psychologically balanced environment where group members are motivated to be committed to a caring organisation. The nature of group research in organisations is as much about analytical detailing of the existing state of a collection of individuals within defined boundaries as it is about how by eliciting details of the groups intricate dynamism such knowledge can be coupled with an organisations management processes to enable sustained effective group development processes to enable optimum organisational states. This applied perspective of group studies is one of the prime pursuits of the organisational psychologist, since any attempts to improve on group states within the organisation implies full application of extensive knowledge of primary groups and knowledge derived from applied group research in functional settings; the two states of group research find a common ground in studies of groups in organisations.
In inducting new employees into any defined work group, the basic question arises of who constitute group members and what are their primary bonding orientations, over and above the formal work designated patterns of interaction and communication. Closely related to this, is the basic issue of how the organisations gatekeepers assist or overlook the formation of basic fundamental perception of an organisation by new group entrants. The new entrants interpretation of the organisations goals and the value of employees to the wider organisation goal.
Hempel (1998) surmises, with interesting insight, that most organisations put too much emphasis on task accomplishment and pay too little attention to the social, emotional and unconscious dimensions of life in organisations.
Entry management responsibilities
Entry management is a form of overt social orientation process, engaged in by an organisations boundary managers or access controllers at all or various levels of formal organisational segmentation, with an aim to impose a certain state of awareness of organisational states amiable to the realisation of a supportive group climate, that overrides individual and informal group prejudice and idiosyncrasies through informative, conditioning management of new employees through directive influence, that induces an expected pattern of behaviour among group members towards new employees and new members appreciation of their employing organisation in a positive light. It equips the new entrant with the basic knowledge framework to be able to function effectively within the organisation.
Crude and psychologically untested forms of entry management have been a apart of organisational practices since car manufacturer Ford, forcibly decreed " accept them or resign" dictate that overrode strong informal group opinion and forced integration in his car assembly plant. Far from forcible management dictates of accept or quit, present day entry management on one hand practically orients an new employee to function effectively within a new organisational setting and subtly inducts that new employee into a group prepared beforehand to absorb the new entrant. The present case studies attempt to elicit the mutual engagement that occasions new employee induction in some service sector organisations.
One of the perennial activities of managers is issuing instructive directives to structure patterns of behaviour within an organisation. The group leader or whoever is engaged in the functional role of leadership has a responsibility for issuing group directed instructions that override any other considerations within a work group. In lower level labouring tasks, the organisations employment needs may override any secondary consideration of preferred work-mate or someone like us or any other unmediated individually significant, albeit organisationally irrelevant considerations. But the formal acceptance of an employee leaves unresolved the consistently complicated group acceptance process ritual elaborated by Moreland and Levine (1982, 1988). However, due to the unique demands of organisations needing to employ workers for task related functions and the functional capability of the individual employed, (this an organisational anomaly; in that while workers should be employed based on their functional capability, sometimes they are not). The existing, group evolution process is only partially accountable for full understanding of the process of formal acceptance to work within a specified group and the informal acceptance by the group of a new member. Thus for example, an employee who may be designated a cultural transvestite for reasons of lack of common grounds of identity between that individual and existing employees, may find formal employment within a group but full acceptance in the informal group and participation in its norms is a separately negotiated reality. The latter informal group acceptance process seems to find more accurate analytic explanation under the group socialisation model of Moreland and Levine, but it does not account for the fact that such individuals may find existence outside the exit level of informal groups within the task designated group and find identity and full realisation elsewhere or than within the informal group, without necessarily implying that, outside being a purely task related functional existence within work groups, a process of grafting and circumventing process is initiated by intricate human association needs that existing group development processes has not fully accounted for.
The functional leader must articulate a need for tolerance, compassion and task focused supportive behaviour to enable the effective functioning of the formal group, as to whether the individual over time finds acceptable accommodation within the informal group is a different but psychologically relevant concern, since in small homogenous formal task designated groups, the formal and informal groups are sometimes the same or differentiated along barely distinguishable lines. That being the case, inability to progress from formal group acceptance to informal group absorption, may mean miserable job experience, which ultimately has organisational consequences. Invariably, any individuals interpretation of the organisation in relation to its workers tends to vary, if one were to cursorily enquires whether they think the organisation provides a good enough environment to work in permanently.
The role of the organisations representative in presenting the new employee with a positive image of the organisation to new group members and providing a basis for establishing a consistent interaction medium for group members to access the organisation with their opinions, demands and needs enable the establishment of trust and confidence between the group members and the organisation. The former process is what referred to as portal or entry management for the new group entrants and the latter is an aspect of consensual management or the so-called open door policies as exists in some organisations.
As to whether this entry management process to enable ease of entry into the group on the one hand and the presentation of a positive, supportive, individually focused organisational image on the other hand, contributes to individual well being within the organisation is far from an absolute conclusion. It can be verified as to its relevancy by a simple and straightforward study to determine whether when that process is appropriately managed it influences individual perception of the organisation after elapsed time and in what direction the influence has been. Entry management processes evolves at a secondary level as an intermediation between the individual, the group and the organisation. And is a purely management supportive activity with psychological consequences for facilitating rounded individual participation within the group. Rounded participation encompasses the enabling of accommodating group climate within existing organisational capabilities where the task and the human need fulfilments are optimised. This enables an intervention approach, and an assessment of its effect on the individual within the work group. To be able to do this one needs to outline the induction process as actually realised in organisations.
Groups existing in workplaces find categorisation along three significant dimensions that have some consequence for the nature of analysis pursued within any organisations environment. In the first place, the work group is an organisational construct, constructed around a task designation, consisting of mobile and changing individual constituents depending on particular organisations circumstances and needs; thus while the mid-level management may remain fairly stable and consistent, thus evolving and developing fairly predictable group norms, lower level employees may be highly mobile, segregated and indifferent to other members beyond task accomplishment purposes, bonding and establishing affiliation fulfilment needs at distinct unit (personal) need levels other than within the formal work group. Thus the level within the organisation at which the group will be studied becomes a contingent consideration. (The present case studies assume an organisational perspective to establish a basis for further studies, as the need should be).
The Study and Its Aim.
The study will ascertain the various organisations entry management activities to induct new employees to their first and foremost their employing organisations and primarily to their work group or the section of the organisation to which they are employed to occupy. Entry management activities involve employees being: 1. Introduced to their employing organisation. 2. The employees reception, interpretation of conveyed messages about their employer. 3. The actual introduction to their task setting, the task and the task requirements.
The Study Questions
The study would simply seek to answer the following questions; I) what sort of activities and information content do organisations employ and provide to introduce new employees to their new organisations. ii.) How do employees receive, interpret and perceive their employers in the light of the information and procedure generated as entry management processes to induct new employees into their new workplaces. iii.) Are employees adequately inducted into their new work roles and work groups?
Hypotheses
It is hypothesised that data detailed and involved entry management would positively influence employee attitudes, organisations climate and employee satisfaction.
Methodology
The Analytic Induction Technique
Johnson P. (1998) provides a description of the analytic induction research methodology, which serves as the blueprint for the conduct of the present study. Usually analytic induction (AI) is defined as involving the intensive examination of a strategically selected number of cases so as to empirically establish the causes of a specific phenomenon. Intrinsic to the approach is the "public" readjustment of definitions, concepts, and hypotheses (Mannig, 1982: 283). According to Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995: 236, when carefully delineated AI seems a plausible reconstruction of the logic of theoretical science.
The term induction refers to the processes by which observers reflect upon their experience of social phenomena and then attempt to formulate explanations that may be used to form an abstract rule, or guiding principle, which can be extrapolated to explain and predict new or similar experiences (Kolb et al., 1979). Hence AI is a set of methodological procedures, which attempt to systematically generate theory grounded in observation of the empirical world. As such it sharply contrasts with deductive procedures in which a conceptual and theoretical structure is constructed prior to observation and then is ostensibly tested through confrontation with the facts of a cognitively accessible empirical world (Wallace, 1971: 16 - 25). The justification for induction in the social sciences usually revolves around two related claims. Firstly, it is argued that in contrast to the speculative and a priori nature of deductively tested theory, explanations of social phenomena which are inductively grounded in systematic empirical research are more likely to fit the data because theory building and data collection are closely interlinked (Wiseman, 1978) and therefore are more plausible and accessible (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Secondly, there is the argument that deductions etic analyses, in which an a priori external frame of reference is imposed upon the behaviour of social phenomena in order to explain them, are inappropriate where the phenomena in question have subjective capabilities. It follows that social science research must entail emic analyses where explanations of human action are generated inductively from an aposteriori understanding of the interpretations deployed (i.e. cultures) by the actors who are being studied.
How cases are chosen depends upon what Glaser and Strauss call theoretical sampling (1967: 184). In this, having developed a theory to explain observations of a particular case of the phenomenon, a researcher can decide on theoretical grounds to choose to examine new cases that will provide good contrasts and comparisons and thereby confront the emergent theory with the patterning of social events under different circumstances.
Bloor presents an approach to analytic induction, which categorises, in terms of similarity and difference, variations in the phenomenon to be explained so that cases in other categories could stand as a control group for those cases in the category being analysed. (Bloor, 1978: 547). Bloors approach may be seen to entail four basic steps and is summarised by Figure 5. Below-
Figure 5. Adaptation of Bloors approach to analytic induction (Gill and Johnson, 1997: 123; adapted from Bloor, 1976; 1978).
Bloors model will be the basis for analytical conduct of the present sets of studies. The studies will ascertain the induction processes in place in the organisations studied, the nature of group management processes, workers appreciation and interpretation of induction processes and employees attitude toward their organisations and their co-workers as a result of the engendered group climate created through existing entry management processes.
The analysis will seek to ascertain specific organisational activities determine, as discerned through comparative analysis of focused interview data, unique orientations within each organisation, work groups and individuals.
Procedure for Conducting the Study
While entry management has not featured extensively in academic journals the few articles and research papers emerging from the United States of America, indicate it is an important area of academic concern.
The study will seek to ascertain the extent to which the organisation follows and effectively implement its induction procedures. The interpretation of those actions from employee perspective and employees appreciation of their employing organisation, which will among other things seek to ascertain the extent to which practices at their workplaces depart from employees expectations of adequacy and appropriate management practices. The study will also focus on employees appreciation of the entry management process. Involving individual and group focused interviews analysed inductively.
The basic study method will be the case study research methodology employing the focused individual and group interview technique for data gathering. In addition recourse will be made to documentary and archival materials of the organisations studied to supplement the interview information.
The case selection can be illustrated diagrammatically as shown below: -
Figure 6. Case selection and analytical categorisation of each case.
Phase 1: gaining access
Initial contact is established through management staff at the Human Resources section.
Phase II: Case specificities and identifying variations
As the term generally implies, processes of analytic induction focus upon the analysis and interpretation of data. Except for induction, analytic induction does not specify how data should be collected. In principle, it can therefore be used to analyse data that derive from any method of collecting data that has been applied in an inductive fashion, such as life histories, participant observation, repertory grids etc.
In the present research the data collection method is the focused interview.
Phase III case features and causal analysis
Although the primary aim of the interviews would be to gather data about variability in orientation and appreciation of the influence of the entry management procedures and consequently construct a taxonomy of categories, a secondary aim will be to elucidate case features so as to facilitate the development of an explanatory framework. This process entails movement down the funnel structure of progressive focusing (Hammersly and Atkinson, 1995: 206) with a shift of concern from description to the development of grounded theory regarding the categories by explicit reference.
From the data elicited it may be possible to compare different processes of entry management procedures and employee response patterns to establish a general pattern of the entry management process.
Focused Interview Guide
Comment on your six months probation, would you say that the activities and on the job learning and training provided?
How do you relate to the other workers, do you think that the induction process facilitated ease of interaction with your work group members?
How will you assess your group/team leaders (branch managers) leadership capability?
How did your assigned work group ensure cooperativeness among its membership?
For what activities did you daily depend on other workers to fulfil your days task allocations?
If your work group doesnt feel comfortable with a new employee, how did it deal with it?
Are you fully informed about the health advices for employees?
Based on your past experience with this organisation, would you recommend it to another person?
As a permanent employee were you consulted before a new person was employed to join the group?
How many times (how often) were you assessed on your performance and given feedback on your performance during probationary employment period? Are you comfortable with the assessment process and the effect it has (had had) on your (present) future employment possibilities?
Based on your working experience so far how would you assess the induction processes implemented in this organisation?
Have you had any development or motivational talks since you began working? How would you assess their effects on the way you view the organisation?
Have you read the Collective Bargaining Agreement, of what use was this document to you practically?
Would you want to comment on the employee policies of this organisation?
Have all your pre-employment expectations been met by your employer?
Summary Of Interviews Conducted On Entry Management In Some Service Organisations in Ghana
Interviews were conducted at three service organisations, applying the focused interview technique, to fully appreciate the characteristics of the entry management practices in these organisations.
1. GHANA COMMERCIAL BANK
Focused interviews were conducted with the Human Resources and Director of Personnel as well as newly-employeds.
Induction commences with a brief insight about the organisation structure. The new employees are introduced to the welfare scheme and issues related to employees welfare.
In relation to the organisations structure, the composition of the Board of Directors is first discussed, and then the line of reporting is clarified (these are the formal communication lines).
Conditions of service for officers are outlined.
The new employees are taken round the various General Managers, Heads of Departments and various departments and sections of the Bank. During the tour of facilities and various departments, the new employees are then given a brief introduction about the role of each unit under the various departments.
Following this set of activities each employee is attached to a department (the headquarters and the larger banks) or a branch office of the Bank to learn about the rudimentary of banking.
At the branch offices, the new employee presents letters of introduction to the area manager. The branch Manager then introduces the new employee to members of staff of the bank at the location where the employee is attached for training. The bank manager then appoints a mentor for the newly employed; this is at the larger area branches. Where it is a small local bank, the manager then assumes the role of a mentor for the newly employed. Initially the newly employed is thought the dos and donts, and familiarised to their new environment, such as where lunch is eaten, etc.
At the end of the period of introduction placement, the manager of the branch or the mentor is supposed to present an assessment report detailing the conduct and capability of the attaché. The end of that period is about five months for a university graduate without professional accounting or banking qualification. While for those with diploma certification, banking or accounting certificates, it is about a month.
For professional accountants the actual period of probation cum induction is three months, one month of which is spent in attachment at the branch bank office, where the newly employed is introduced to branch operations, internal audit, inspection and accounts.
For graduates, the induction programme consists initially of a two-week residential course, where they are introduced to the fundamentals of banking and basic accounting. At this residential programme representatives from all the banks various departments come to give introductory expositions about their activities within the bank. Core Bank policies and directives are discussed. Informal socialisation with other newly employed is also encouraged.
It is the opinion of Bank employees who have been inducted that banking is an activity that requires an employee to acquire occupational skills on the job. At the actual work place one is introduced to the handling of cheques, the balancing of accounts. Asked if there is a relevance for the two-week residential induction, employees concede that it has some limited relevance, though most of the skill acquisition to enable one work effectively is acquired during the probationary period. This meets the Banks expectations that on the job probationary attachment is the most appropriate means of equipping the newly employed to fit into their task roles.
During the probationary attachment, mentoring in the form of coaching takes the form of a Branch Manager or an Assistant Branch Manager initiating the new employee in a detailed and systematic on the job training to banking practices. The actual skill acquisition process follows a format laid out from the Human Resources Department at the Head Office of the Bank. There is an inbuilt continuous assessment job-training induction process that enables the mentor or the coaches to ensure that the newly employed is learning and acquiring the expected skills.
The outlined programme involves learning all the activities of banking as pertains at that particular branch office. In a typical branch these activities revolve around learning how to operate the central account where cheques are passed. The preparation of cash slips, advances and overdrafts, as well as returns or reports. There are also activities like telegraphic transfers which are regularly carried out, ledgers which involve current and savings accounts; banks also have investment portfolios that consist of fixed portfolios and treasury bills; as well and waste, where all the vouchers go at the end of the day and accounts balanced. While some of these activities are daily occurrences some are seasonal and the newly employed is exposed to them as they are carried out.
During all these activities the Human Resources Division coordinates the newly employed activities at the local branch to ensure through regular assessment reports that the individual is progressing at the required rate of task knowledge acquisition.
At the end of the probationary placement all the newly employed are gathered for another two weeks residential post-probationary programme, where all banking procedures are re-evaluated with the newly employed.
At the end of these two weeks there is a written objective test that covers all the essential knowledge required to function effectively as a commercial banker.
The results from this objective test are added to the probationary reports to determine whether a particular person will qualify to attain the status of a confirmed employee.
Induction is a formal as well as an informal activity. Interviewing newly confirmed workers, they affirm that while formal induction was effective in enabling them to acquire the required skills for task performance. They faced latent hostility as junior managers from older employees from whom they were expected to acquire practical work knowledge. The extent to which older employees were sensitised by management to assist both formally and informally, new employees and appreciate them as important organisational assets, rather than competitors is a critical determinant of the induction process. In the present study, some new employees, especially those with university backgrounds complained of lack of co-operation from some older employees to outright hostility. In other instances their enthusiasms for hard work were dampened by culture of a lack of enthusiastic participation that permeates the office that they were posted to. In the course of time they either had to conform to low productivity behaviour or remain outside the office culture.
The interviewees intone that generally, the nature of banking task activities favoured allotting tasks to individuals on a one-to-one basis. In the events of problems or situations requiring co-operation, all employees close ranks to co-operate and deal with the emergent problem.
It was observed by those interviewed that smaller branches tended to be more focused on task goal realisations and created conducive atmosphere for easy absorption of new employees. Thus, such smaller branches tended to create an organisational social environment that promotes a focused, task oriented and dedicated hardworking bunch exhibiting higher co-cooperativeness than pertains in the more diffused organisational social environment of the larger branches and the head office. In the larger branches there seemed to be a diffusion of responsibilities that leads to a lackadaisical attitude to task execution and lower than expected quality of customer relations. The interview reveals that some managers at the bigger branches adopted a divide and rule tactic that pitted sections against each other, these seriously and negatively affected the value system. On the whole this discouraged hard work from the new employees.
Entry Management at the Ghana Post Ltd
There are two approaches to inducting employees at the Ghana Post Limited, there is an approach outlined for inducting persons employed for managerial positions and those for operations. Generally the induction period ends with the six months probation after which an individual is confirmed for permanent tenure (or in some instances permanent tenure not given). (There is, however, a probationary period of two weeks if one is employed for senior offices, such as Principal officers and positions above. During this probationary period, the first two to three days are spent meeting the various Heads of Departments).
In the first instance a new employee is taken on an introductory tour to meet the various Directors and other officials, starting from the Managing Director and at the same time introduced to the various offices, departments, sections, important locations in the organisation.
The new employee is then taken through the organisational structure to enable the individual to familiarise him/herself with the hierarchy and the lines of communication.
The newly employed is then given a copy of the collective bargaining agreement. This is a document that specifies the conditions of employment, salaries and other entitlements of employees.
A copy of staff rules and regulations is also given to the employee. Where there are conflicts between articles in the staff rules and regulations and the collective bargaining agreement, the collective bargaining agreement takes precedence.
The Job Description for each task role is then individually presented, outlined and discussed to ensure that each person fully understand the details of the functional roles in the office to which they are being employed.
A further two days is allotted for familiarising the newly employed with general operational activities. These are counter activities, mail office procedures.
At the departments coordination continues, the Collective Bargaining Agreement specifies that on the job probation is for a period of six months. During these six months period, the Human Resources coordinates the performance of each newly employed through their respective heads of departments. The aim here is to determine whether the individual is capable of effective contribution within the unique environment that he or she is working and the work social environments they are in. If there are any emergent problems they are identified from the point of view of both the newly employed and the Department Head, and if any changes can be effected within the working environment to remove the area of difficulty, be it in physical structure modifications or purely behavioural perspectives requiring managerial input, they are effected.
At the end of the six months, the Human Resources Department conducts an end of probation interview that centres around determining (based on relevant inputs from the Head of the concerned Department) whether in the period during which the particular individual was working, he or she had proved herself capable of working to promote the departments long term goal realisations or not. And from the employees perspective whether he or she is willing to accept employment in that department having found the working environment, practices and other employees conducive to enabling the individual optimise their productivity potential in the long term.
Over time, the Human Resources department which is responsible for general conduct and monitoring of the induction of newly-employed has noted that, the major problem areas with employee induction, has been with clarity of job description, and disparities between formal job description and actual work place practices. The second problem has been with inadequate office accommodations, among senior and mid-level managerial personnel, some of whom have had to share office accommodation. On the whole these managerial personnel prefer to have their own offices. The Human Resources Department have responded to these concerns by rewriting job descriptions to reflect actual work practices and the organisation is still adding office space, such that in the long run, it is expected that there will be enough office space to accommodate the needs of all employees.
The Human Resources acknowledge that there exists in all work groups a defined culture that new employees have to fit in or work outside of. Of concern to them is that this culture tends to be initially hostile to younger managers who qualify for their positions by academic merit. These young ones may at times get their feathers ruffled by longer serving managers who have gained their positions through long service. But being aware of this, there has been persistent effort to sensitise the old workers of the need to see any worker as an organisational asset who must be cultivated to add value to the organisations effort to increase its profit making and improve organisational states rather than an object of spite. Younger employees have been advised to make an effort to fit without necessarily compromising their drive for high productivity on their work tasks. There is an awareness that younger, new employees have a period of productive spurt and older workers and managers have been advised not to dampen this productive spurt but to sustain it for as long as possible. Since its been noted that this productive spurt is also a period of innovative idea generation and proposition making by these younger workers, the organisation encourages older managers and workers to tap into this pool of creativity for improving organisational states where feasible. Older workers have also been constantly made aware to initiate workers first and foremost into acquiring work skills and allow the informal social norms to grow on the individual. This is to ensure that the newly employed is equipped with the appropriate task knowledge to produce effectively while enabled mental space to decide which aspects of the informal norms to absorb, while enough time is allowed for gentle adjustment to the organisational culture. This differentiation of imposed social adjustment and emphasised individual adaptation to aspects of dominant workplace social norms, effectively articulated by management, implies that the newly-employed are oriented to be task focused and performance oriented. Apparently this seemed to have yielded positive effect, since most of the newer, younger employees, have at the end of their six month probation expressed the desire to work for the long term.
The organisation emphasises that new employees are of added value the organisation and must be appreciated by existing employees as such. To underline this point, all job openings are advertised internally and if there is no internal person (older/existing employee) qualified for the job the job is then publicly advertised. By this process, any newly employed person to a managerial position is internally perceived and accepted as a necessary inclusion to the organisations manpower requirements.
The organisation holds strongly to the view of organising workers as teams of supporting networks, where each grouping of workers or managers must sustain each individual effort practically and emotionally, with the end goal of sustaining and improving the organisations primary profitability end.
In inducting workers it is emphasised to older and newer workers that the work environment is meant to be comfortable and task complimenting and that if the physical provisions do not meet this proviso a call for remodification is appropriate, organisationally welcomed and seriously considered. The awareness is created also that work performance is also a psychological state of being as well as a physical task performance activity, and taking this into consideration, everything possible that enables the establishment of an amiable work environment is fostered, encouraged and enabled not only from the perspective of the employees (both old and newly employed) but of the organisation desiring an expected behaviour from its human constituents. The whole induction effort is to enable newly employed settle into their new environments and create organisational environments that enable optimum output sustained over prolonged periods from new employees.
If a person proves incapable of performing after all within existing organisational capacity to ensure smooth induction has been implemented, the appointment of the newly employed is terminated.
A months notice is give prior to such terminations of appointment or a months salary is paid to the person whose appointment is being terminated, as outlined in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
This is the induction procedure for junior, mid level and senior managers with professional and/or university educational backgrounds.
Induction of Employees at Operations
This the group of employees that are engaged in duties at operations. Operations employees are those workers who are directly involved in the core postal tasks such as counter duties, mail sorting, mail deliveries etc.
The basic requirement for employment in these sectors is an ordinary level pass of the West African Examinations Council or the Senior Secondary School certificate. It is expected that such persons must have a credit in English, a pass in mathematics and passes in five other subjects; this is for the OLevel qualifiers. For the Senior Secondary School certificate holders a pass in three core subjects, that is Mathematics, English and General Science and three electives are required.
Workers are normally employed in batches of 15 to 20. Or as special recruitments. Otherwise, the regional locations make requests for newly employed at the regional locations to be given service training. When a person has passed the interview selection process then actual induction begins. The induction process begins with a general introduction to the organisation, its purpose and goals.
There is a four week residential training at the organisations own training school. Following the time at the training school, the newly employed are then given a copy of their job descriptions and introduced to their specific departments.
During the four weeks residential training, newly employed are taken through Post Office duties, Counter Activities, Mail Service Deliveries.
During Week One, the newly employed are taken through training and lectures on the History of the Post; Functions of the Post; Organisation of the Post; Classes of Postal Packets; Philately; Postal Tariffs (or weighting); Industrial Relations; The Mail System; the week comes to an end with a course on Miscellaneous Postal Packets and Charges (express letter charges, registered letters, insurance cards, air cards, etc.)
In the second Week there are lectures and training on Registered Item/ Precautions; Postal Competition (awareness of competitors); Quality of Service; EMS (Expedited Mail Services that have been in partnership with Ghana Post for the past ten years.); Remittance Services /Postal Orders (Money by the post, Giro banking); Counter Stocks (Postal orders forms; stamps, how to handle and account for them); Examination / Replenishment Stock (daily balancing of stocks); Counter Balance (Daily balancing, difference between available products and those sold.).
Week Three has training and lectures on Counter Balance; Practical training activities are also undertaken at the Post counters (these are two or three days of counter familiarisation exercises.); Postal Financial Procedures (the post counter has a unique accounting system); Qualities of a Good Counter Clerk (grooming); CBA (the collective bargaining agreement); Code of Conduct (rights and expectations of the counter worker); Practical (classroom demonstrations).
In the Fourth and final Week there are training and lectures on Quality Customer Care; Human Relations and Interpersonal Skills; Recap (of all that has been taught); Assessment; Field Trip (To break away from the classroom); Course Evaluation and finally a Closing Ceremony.
The four-week is an intensive month of learning activity (as noted, it used to be eight weeks which was then reduced to six weeks and is currently four weeks).
Following the four-week at the training school, the employees are then posted to their respective stations or locations where they are put on a six-month probation. The Human Resources Department coordinates employees through regular evaluations during this six-month probationary period. These evaluations are to enable Human Resources to assess the capability of the newly employed to fit into the organisation. In addition to regular interviews of Heads of Departments, branch offices and sections. Open and structured questionnaires are administered to assess new employees. These assessment procedures are mainly aimed at assessing the employees as well as the new employees being offered the opportunity of specifying problem areas in their places of employment.
Station managers are asked to assess employees in terms of their relation: -
i.) Supervisors
ii.) Colleagues
iii.) Customers
iv.) Punctuality
v.) Loyalty
During the six months of probation the Human Resources Department coordinates the newly employed activities with their respective Heads to ensure that areas of difficulties are identified from the perspectives of newly-employed, the organisation and older employers for resolution.
At the end of the six months, there is one major evaluation that will determine whether the newly employed who hitherto has been on probation is qualified to be taken into permanent employment. This is the main evaluation made by the Human Resources Department during the six-month period. The coordination activities during the six month period is under the direct control of the section/department of the organisation and its head, and is only coordinated by the Human Resources Department to ensure that the process is detailed enough without being biased in favour of the organisation or the newly employed.
So well is the induction conducted that hardly any major problems emerge during or after induction is completed. The perennial complaint is inadequate salaries, but this is outside induction processes.
Entry Management at Ghana Civil Aviation Authority
Employment is done as the need arises. Individuals are employed to fill various vacancies as well as for replacement purposes.
For larger group intakes, the selected group are taken to a training school, where they are introduced to the structure of the organisation; the organisations activity; they are then taken on an air tour; they are exposed to types of aircrafts and the collective bargaining agreement is discussed.
There is in place a comprehensive orientation programme for all new employees. From the outset, a new employee is made to take a medical examination. The individual is then given a staff history form to complete; this gives details of the persons personal information. A security screening is then conducted on the individual, if the individual had no criminal records; an identity card is then issued permitting that person access to restricted working areas of the organisation. (Should the card be lost, the lose must be immediately reported to the police and the Civil Aviation security department.) All this takes place in the first week.
In the second week the newly employed is taken to meet and be introduced to all the higher management personnel and directors.
After one is introduced round, the newly employed, if he is occupying a management position is passed through a working day at each of the twelve departments that constitute the Civil Aviation. This is to enable the individual have exposure to all that happens throughout the organisation. This is especially relevant for persons employed as directors and high officials. For management personnel this takes about two days, while for supervisors and other workers it takes about half a day. At the end of this passing through exposure, the person then goes to his occupational designation for a probationary period of six months. Among other learning and skill acquisition activities that occur during this six-month probationary period, it is expected that this is enough time for the organisation assess the capability of the employee to make meaningful contribution in their area of employment to the organisation.
The Head of the section to which the employee is attached has a responsibility to provide a working space with the necessary tools for task performance. For staff this means an office with the necessary tools of office including a computer where needed.
During the probationary period coaching is the main method of transferring skills and knowledge to equip the newly employed to gain capability in their new job.
During the period of probation there is constant evaluation of the newly employeds task performance and adjustment to the new organisation social environment. Effort is made to facilitate ease of settling in. And department and section heads are required to make regular enquiries about where problems or difficulties are being faced either on the job or social adjustment, to the new work place. Based on the employees response, efforts are made to ensure that the worker has the adequate social, psychological and material conditional provisions to perform effectively.
While Human Resources coordinates probation with the various department heads, there is no formal outline of specified expected task activities sent from Human Resources to the newly-employed, rather, the particular department is responsible for scheduling task activities for the new-employee. In the case of management staff, directors, applying organisational policy, create room for inducing self-initiatives from such newly employed managers and encourage the introduction of innovative schemes that will enhance existing organisational state.
At the end of the six months, an appraisal is conducted. The appraisal is as objective as possible and the appraisal report is discussed with the newly employed to ascertain its objectivity. A report is then made to the board for approval with regards to the potential capability of the newly employed. This report will determine whether a department heads probationary period assessment and Human Resources appraisal leads to confirmation of permanent employment or termination.
The topical emergent problems occurring during induction, as identified from the focused interviews conducted at the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority centred on latent rivalry between older employees and new, younger management employees. But efforts at sensitising employees to be supportive have minimised any negative effects of this socialisation process.
Cross Cases Analysis
All organisations engage in some form of new employee induction. The induction is the process by which a new person is taken and moulded through a series of introductory and participatory activities in certain organisational activities, such that, that person becomes knowledgeably introduced to the organisation and equipped with the required exposure to work productively.
Figure 7. The breakdown of the componential blocks of sets of actions that constitute the entry management.
The set of activities that constitute induction is varied across various organisations, but in the cases studied they display certain consistencies. One fundamental difference is the distinct difference between inductions as organised for management employees and as carried out for lower level employees. On the other hand is the similarity in the introduction of the new employee to various heads of departments/sections, and the various sections of the organisation. All new employees, irrespective of the organisation fill out forms, indicating their personal histories and important or relevant personal information. The new employees are also given copies of the organisations collective bargaining and informed of their conditions of employment. Following these basic preliminaries, the new employees are then attached to the section of the organisation that is employing them for mentoring or coaching, which essential involves on the job training. In some organisations formal in-house training schools exist, where the new employees are systematically introduced to details of their task performance requirements, and given formal training to enable them perform appropriately and with efficiency in their task allocations.
The induction process and its effective conduct are normally under the management of an organisations human resources or personnel department. The human resources department conducts assessment during the period of probation to ascertain the extent to which the new employee is matching up to organisational expectations. On the other hand the human resources department also attempts to ascertain what aspects of the organisation need be modified to enable a new employee "settle in" comfortably.
The probation period encompasses that time period during which the new employee is receiving training either or both formally and applied after which period, the organisation finally determines to offer the individual permanent employment status. For most organisations this probation period extends over six months, with senior management personnel usually having very brief probationary tenure before being fully confirmed.
A normative model of induction
When individuals enter an new work place, they are in-between a world of certainty about what they know from their worldly experience and palpable state of anticipated discovery of what to expect from their new work. These individuals employees already have some self-defined expectation about what to expect (a narrow self diagnosed and distilled personalised positive perspective or negative prophetic self fulfilling world outlook). Which the organisation then fulfils through its management and implementation strategies, realisation of basic responsibilities for its workers and work groups, by its fundamental processes of integrating workers into their work through some conscious sensitive effort or a lackadaisical assumption that the work is straight forward enough to merit a cursory, haphazardly tour after which the individual is left to define the organisational reality or let the organisation define their reality for them.
The immediate implication of this is that when an organisation has clear and specified work procedures and clearly specified goals and means for realising task objectives, the new worker finds entry into the task setting much easier, while in the case of less clarified or specified work situations, there should be an individual assigned to assist the new worker/s into their task roles and responsibilities. The supportive climate of mutual acceptance and support from small group members is not automatic but is responsive to the directive influence of the group leader. Because like in all social situations the broad all encompassing, good (positive supportive), negative (denigratory rejective) and indifferent (anomic anaemic) group responses are all latent and palpably evoked and actively projected as group response to the new entrant. Thus the group leader has a responsibility to gear the collective sense towards the appropriate, expected and accepted group response to new entrants.
During familiarisation with the workplace environment, the new employee treads gently through the organisation "social mine field" by knowing ones position, learning the rules and knowing ones place in the organisation. This is usually associated with a search inwardly directed at finding someone to be at ease with in the organisation, and in terse organisations environments once that goal or aspiration is fulfilled a closing out of the others, from this "personalised dyad."
The assumed simplicity of the organisational setting from the perspective of a seasoned (and possibly dispirited) employee may be lost on the novice who perceives a complex and multi layered organisational setting differently. The consequences of poor or inefficient presentation of the complex organisation are employees who are unilaterally operational and perform along narrow constrictions of easily acquired skills in the light of immense unexplored possibilities. The individual is only partially utilised, and the organisation denies itself all the potentials derivable from the poorly introduced employee. There is a basic need to eliminate uncertainty for the newly employed and keep the work force focused on their primary task responsibility. Which task responsibility is effectively defined and articulated with regards to wider organisational goals with a distinctly individual focus, by the group leader.
Induction is an active process that calls for effective inducing of employee participation, for many of the subtle social pressures that can easily create negative impressions on a new employee are generally beyond formal control. By encouraging participation from the group into which the newly employed is being inducted, management does not necessarily lose control of the process, for as Tannenbaum (1962), notes, paradoxically, through participation, management increases its control by giving up some of its authority. Put another way, power sharing on any number of issues, including the induction process in an organisation can be used to reduce resentment in organisations by giving the impression of shared decision making, while still allowing managers to remain in control. The involvement of workers in decisions involving creates a means for interaction between workers and the organisation at a level where implied negotiations between workers and management enable optimum participation.
As clearly exemplified in the cases, Human Resources Managers, who coordinate new employee induction, needs to effectively coordinate employee activities vertically and horizontally, as well as from new employee perspective, if the organisation is to achieve desired employee induction goals. Coordination means not only having a plan for what should happen, but also checking to ensure that things are going according to plan and, where necessary, taking action to bring events back on course.
Managers need to emphasise value of supportive behaviour towards new employees as an individual is being inducted into a work group in new organisational setting (new from the perspective of the entrant). Supportive behaviour is encouraging and morale boosting, and de-emphasises the detractive emergence within existent group of non-supportive behaviour towards new employees in uncertain situation (uncertain from new entrant perspective). New employees are forming new perceptions of their employing organisation. If managers do not take advantage of the presence of new employees, to proactively intervene and emphasise supportive group behaviour towards new entrants, they create the possibility for these unhindered negative group behaviour developing to turn the work place into a malicious social environment where anti-social sentiments are given full play in immature states of playfulness in ostensibly productive work environments, with consequent negative net effects. The concept of Negative affectivity (NA) is the tendency for an individual to experience negative emotions, such as anxiety or depression, across a wide variety of situations. Watson, Pennebaker, and Folger (1986) extended the NA to the workplace, hypothesizing that high NA individuals would respond to their jobs negatively and would be likely to be dissatisfied. A number of studies have found relations between NA and job satisfaction (e.g., Brief, Burke, George, Robinson, & Webster, 1988; Cropanzano, James, & Konovsky, 1993; Judge, 1993; Schaubroeck, Ganster, & Fox, 1992). The concept is evoked here to emphasise that in the event of poor integration of an employee due to poor entry management, an employee can acquire negative affectivity tendencies.
An effective supervisory personnel will effectively eliminate this potential accretive negation of group work environments by effectively emphasising the need for supportive, co-operative behaviour that supports and sustains, creating for every individual a work place where none feels left out. This consideration underlies the professed need for a stepwise entry management process at all levels of personnel intake in an organisation. The assumption is that this requires organisational sensitivity to both emergent issues within the group to which the newly employed is attached and the newly employed disposition within the organisation. The desired end is to defuse latent tension in the organisational climate, to make coming to work a more meaningful and expanded experience and satisfying to people by focusing on key characteristics of sublime social processes and consequences that in being ignored or unnoticed, deprive workers of the positively enhancing work environment enabled by a caring organisation. The ease with which task focused problems are resolved by applying man-machine systems knowledge, I dare to say, will not yield the same response to latent organisational issues that border on social and psychological perception.
The organisation, especially, the profit-oriented organisation, is structured in such a way as to use the limited resources it has at its disposal as efficiently and effectively as possible. It does this by creating what is called a formal organisation. The overall collective purpose or aim is broken down into sub-goals or sub-tasks. These are assigned to different sub-units in the organisation. The tasks may be grouped together and departments thus formed. Job requirements in terms of job descriptions may be written. The subdivision continues to take place until a small group of people are given one such -sub goal and divide it between themselves. When this occurs, there exists the basis for forming the group along functional lines. It is through the division of labour that formal groups are created. An organisation may divide itself into departments responsible for sales, production quality control, finance, personnel, training, and so on. Within each such department one finds further sub-groupings of individuals. It is the organisation itself, which gives impetus for the formation of various smaller functional task groups within itself. This process of identifying the purpose, dividing up tasks and so on, is referred to as the creation of the formal organisation. The groups, which are formed as a result of this process, are therefore known as formal groups. Formal groups are those groups in an organisation, which have been consciously created to accomplish the organisations collective purpose. These formal groups perform formal functions, such as getting work done, generating ideas, liasing, and so on. Whatever type of formal group, they all have certain common characteristics:
They have a formal structure.
They are task oriented.
They tend to be permanent
Their activities contribute directly to the organisations collective purpose.
They are consciously organised by somebody for a reason.
Two different types of formal group in organisations can be identified. They are distinguished by their duration of existence. Examples of permanent formal groups would include a permanent committee (e.g. union-management consultative board), a management team or staff group providing specialist services (e.g. computer unit, training section). There are also likely to be temporary formal groups. For example, a task group which is formally designed to work on a specific project where its interaction and structures are pre-specified to accomplish the task. The formal group functions are the tasks which are assigned to it, and for which it is officially held responsible. In every organisation, an employee finds identifiable representation in a group. Group membership, in normal existence as in organisations, gives the individual new experiences, which in turn may induce new desires. Thus once a group has formed, it may develop accessory goals, i.e. goals which were not there initially. If members are satisfied with their group, they are likely to find some aim to pursue in order to maintain the groups existence after its main objective has been achieved or become outdated.
In any company, there will be numerous formal groups, which interlink with each other, and also many informal groups, which form a network. To distinguish these two different collectives, they are referred to respectively as the formal organisation and the informal organisation. The formal and informal organisations are not totally separate. The composition, structure and operation of the different informal groups, which make up the companys informal organisation, will be determined by the formal arrangements that exist in the company. These provide the context within which social relationships are established and within which social interaction can take place. Such formal constraints can include office layout, work shifts, numbers of staff employed and the type of technology used. It is important to understand that informal groups arise out of a combination of formal factors and human needs. The nature of the formal organisation is based on choices made by senior company managers. Both the formal organisation, and the ensuing informal counterpart that it generates, can be changed when different choices are made. Organisations only meet a small range of the individuals needs. The informal organisation emerges to fulfil those needs neglected or ignored by the formal system. It differs from the formal system by being more casual in terms of its member composition and nature of interaction. To identify different informal groups, one does not look at the workflow or the organisation chart, but needs to note who interacts with whom, and what friendship relation exist between individuals. To summarise, therefore, one can say that formal groups exist to meet organisational objectives and fulfil the individual workers lower level needs, as identified on Maslows hierarchy. The informal group can meet some of their higher level needs.
Norms develop in a group around those subjects and topics in the life of group which are important to its functioning as defined by the group members themselves. Group norms develop around the work itself, about how it should be accomplished, how quickly and in what way; around non-work activities as to what clothes should be worn and the appropriate way to pass non-working time; around communication concerning how individuals should interact with each other, what language they should use; and around attitudes and opinions that should be held by group members regarding work, management policies, and so on. Norms may vary in the degree to which they are accepted by the group, and can vary in the range of permissible deviation. In a workgroup, norms might exist regarding what is a fair days work, how to interact with the foreman, and so on. Issues, which are not central to a groups functioning, will not have norms associated with them. It is certain that a number of norms will develop in any group. However, around which topics these norms emerge, and what behaviour or attitude they specify, will vary from group to group. Similarly, a norm within a single group can change over time. Once an existing group has established a set of norms and accompanying sanctions with which to enforce those norms, it has to communicate its norms to newcomers who join the group. The new group member learns the ropes and is shown how to get things done, how to interact with others and how to achieve a high social status within the group. An important aspect of achieving such status is to adhere to the groups rules or norms. Initial transgressions will be gently pointed out. However, the continued violation of norms by a group member puts at risk the cohesion of the group. When there is disagreement on a matter of importance to the group, the preservation of group effectiveness, harmony and cohesion requires a resolution of the conflict. Hence pressure is exerted on the deviating individual through persuasive communication to conform.
Group norms are so binding that employees would sacrifice the opportunity to make extra money to keep from violating group norms. Clearly norms could prove quite useful as a means of enhancing productivity if they could be appropriately directed. The changing of group norms can be difficult for the management of an organisation, which must structure the changes so that it is in the best interest of the group to adopt them. With respect to realising effective new employee induction, management must focus obviously on the formal and suggestively on the informal group norms. Changing a group norms to realise a desired organisational state requires the organisation-creating basis for the group to adapt it norms in desired organisation direction. There are several ways of doing this, for example, a group incentive systems can be an effective means of getting groups to adopt high production norms. With such a system all members of the group are given rewards, such as monetary bonus. If the group achieves some specified level of performance. Of course, as demonstrated by Coch and French (1948), incentive systems will not always motivate groups to perform well. Sundstrom, De Meuse, and Futrell (1990) suggest that goal setting can be an effective means of getting groups to adopt norm that are consistent with good organisational functioning. This approach differs from individual goal setting in that the entire group has a goal rather than each person. The trick to an effective goal-setting program is to get group members to commit themselves to the goals. Participation by group members in the goal-setting process can be an effective means of accomplishing this commitment. Managers and group members can negotiate the groups goals. Participation has been found to be a powerful technique for achieving commitment by employees within organisations (Coch & French, 1948). Simply put, managers pose the question of "how can we best induct employees?" and work together with organisational groups to achieve the best process. That in its implementation considers organisational interest, group interest and new employee interest, (not necessarily in that order of importance).
Group socialisation is the process of inculcation whereby an individual learns the principal values and symbols of the group in which he participates and how the values are expressed in the norms, which compose the roles that he and others interact. While such pressure towards group cohesion (going along with the other members of the group) may be beneficial in many respects for the group, it also carries costs. If conformity is allowed to dominate, with individuals having little opportunity to present alternative and different views, this can lead to errors of judgement and the taking of unwise actions. Bowey and Connellys (1977) suggest that certain situations are most suitable for group working. These are:
1. When co-operative working is likely to produce a better end result (either in terms of speed, efficiency or quality according to which is most important) than working separately.
2. When the amalgamation of work into joint task or area of responsibility would appear meaningful to those involved.
3. Where the joint task requires a mixture of different skills or specialisation.
4. Where the system requires fairly frequent adjustments in activities and in the co-ordination of activities.
5. Where competition between individuals leads to less effectiveness rather than more.
6. Where stress levels on individuals are too high for effective activity.
As figure 7, below depicts pictographically, the relevance of the concept of group socialisation to entry management processes is clearly evident in the fact that in the process of being inducted to become an organisations employee and a group operative, the individual is formally and concurrently socialised within a wider organisational environment and the specificities of a work groups norm. 1. The newly employed is a unit in a sub-unit group of an organisational subsystem, and is by definition within limited categorical identifiability. 2. Formal induction is generally meant to enable the newly employed to adjust, acquire functional skills and fit into an operational niche for realising specified organisational ends. 3. The formal process is only within limited control of all the influences that will impact the new employee. 4. The effectiveness of formal organisational induction depends very much on the extent to which the organisation can create consensus that positively bridges formal and informal organisation, leading to mutually appreciative organisational outlook, and bringing this to bear in the re-orientation that inevitably occasions the induction process.
Figure 7, is a pictograph that facilitates diagrammatic explanation of some formal and informal organisation considerations that influence the employee induction activity.
Figure 7. Above indicates that there are inherent social factors at the work place that demand and necessitate that the placement of new employees must be negotiated with existing workforce, employing social techniques that prepare the social cognition of existing workforce to adopt a positive tolerance rather than a negative or just bare tolerance of the others whose help are needed to carry out the job. The is an assumption that it doesnt really matter whether previous workers with their own well developed group norms are consulted, since the incoming labour flow will expedite the general task of the organisation and lighten their work load, but as the case studies reveal, there are indications that inadequately informed or haphazardly informed workers harbour a resentment against new employees, and will use every opportunity to bring to the fore the inexperience factor of new employees. Proactive social engagement will characterise induction processes that are sensitised to this awareness. Detailed foreknowledge of the areas of a job that new workers could receive the valued experiential support of old workers to execute, and in the process make these old workers feel valued and respected, as important links in the organisation is a requirement for socially sensitive employee induction. Indeed, as some older employees indicate in the interview, there is no better time for an older employee to feel the worth of his or her organisational value than when he or she is consulted about the need to employ new workers who must be taken into their care. While on the other hand the same workers feel slighted when new workers are infused into their sections by decision made at the managerial level, inasmuch as these decisions might have been in response to workers demand for additional hands.
An issue raised by this normative model is whether one can think in terms of social equity at the workplace, and bring the research and knowledge base of organisational psychology to assist in sculpting out an agreeable environment for engaging functional social fusion in implementation procedures, in an effective induction process in an organisation. Thereby bringing into play relevant aspects of formal and informal group characteristics in enabling more efficient new employee induction.
The directive influence exerted from the leadership functional role as observed in current organisational practices can be perceived in two distinct ways, a forceful directive influence or a placid group directed approach.
A necessary aspect of functional leadership role requirement is constant inquiry and assistance to the newly employed in the work group. This will obviate the need to experiment with clever solutions with possibly disastrous consequences by new group members who are reluctant to display any sign of weakness in the overexposed centre stage of the concentric group activities. Some organisations probate new employees for a period of time with seasoned employees who then take the new employee through learning steps, pointing out through their experiential knowledge potential points of the work process where there is the likelihood of faulting or facing problems. While coaching/mentoring helps to ease the new employee into the work stream, their are certain to be initial difficulties in interpreting work requirements as the individual begins working and the supervisory personnel must be quick to ease the new recruit anxiety by emphasising an inquiring spirit while at the same time de-emphasising reluctance to inquire. It is the case that organisations must also be quick to identify and solicit alternative and inventive insights from new work group members. This is a particularly tricky process, since over worked personnel in supervisory functional roles may be intolerant to over zealous new employees with a potential to disrupt smooth workflow, with untested ideas. However this calls for the management of insightful ideas. New workers are informed to the effect that existing states in the work environment are the best presently attained, but are capable of being improved and thus ideas and suggestions are welcomed for serious considerations.
(b) An individual or easily accessible office should be designated.
(c) More than occasional reference should be made for the contribution of interesting ideas to improve work states and improve production. The need for linking production increment to ideas is to delimit a desire for creating excessively comfortable work environments that have no linkage to improving production effort. While improvements with bias for improving workers physical needs are important, they are best linked to primary organisational interest of improving productivity and increasing profits.
(d) Good ideas that are implemented should be rewarded in proportion to their contribution to the organisations general interest. General interest, because some contributions improve employee conditions while other ideas are directly related to improvements in production. Both extremities are relevant to general organisational states, but have different consequences and immediate effects.
(e) Finally, ideas worthy of implementation should be discussed with the relevant sectors of direct impact.
As social beings humans have an irrepressible drive to connect and collaborate with persons in higher positions, rather than to be dictated to and pushed about, especially in organisations. Thus management must provide a clear cut unambiguous, transparency in its dealing with work groups to facilitate clear decision making and effective implementation of collaborative decisions.
In addition management activity that creates amiable organisational climate through words, letters and action procedures improve the entry management process. (Words involve engaging work groups in verbal interactive processes with organisations representatives that enable an elicitation of employees opinions on organisational processes, which in this case is employee induction. Having open negotiation procedures on at low key, non-combative, informal level. Letters; enable a setting into documentation and assessment format easily accessible, such as on networked computers on the process in motion). In the larger organisation with many groups, there is a definite spread over effect when attention is widened to encapsulate organisational social issues, which require tactical reorientation in management and supervisory processes to enable focus, address and resolution. Since inducing informal induction alongside formal induction is psychologically more involving, its effect are deeply embedded in the individual psyche and consequently such actions foment supportive climate among work groups, while indirectly leading to improved organisational performance. The assumption thus is that the formal induction process is only a partial solution to deeply embedded social issue that require active social engagement processes over and above formal management activities that bring to focus sublime albeit relevant social forces that shape relations and orientations, and by eliciting participation that calls forth on the aspect of the employee that overrides formal rule processes enable improved work climate of supportive rather than divisive tendencies, and in the process improving formal new employee induction into the organisation.
Organisations need to inculcate an awareness that change is ubiquitous, and that sometimes the best ideas emanate from sources of direct operations. New employees tend to appreciate incongruities that usage, the passage of time, and lack of response has made acceptable to existing employees. The implication being that where sustained articulation is made of the fact that in routine operations, opinions that aim to improve the work conditions and production processes should not be seen as threatening or usurpation of anothers authority, management creates an existing becalming organisational climate for ease of communication across the organisation on relevant issues. Given there is a flexible engagement with employees, the context of issues to be discussed are themselves open to mutual agreement between management and workers.
There are many people who dont have that wide margin of a choice in terms of picking the preferred job as picking the best out of the available all of which job offerings may not under the ideal circumstances, be preferred. Thus the task of Human Resources management in these circumstances stretches beyond work facilitation processes to social awareness of the management process that caters to the emotional dispositions for association needs and supportive, appreciative co-employees through processes that the organisation designs to be a functional blend of diversified task focused orientation as well as organisationally consciousness of its human constituents shared commonality that benefits from its members supportive directive influence at all levels, urged on by an active and socially sensitive management.
The process suggested is not meant to take away this essential ameliorating informal social group function but to acknowledge its essential function, widen its scope as a positive influence and loosen the informal group boundaries, boundaries that manifest mind states of who is acknowledged outside the formally delineated structures of functional responsibility on the designated tasks. It is a sensitisation initiative to awaken employees conscience and humane nature, requiring a need to broaden the social scope of interaction for formal organisational benefits. Through emphasising aspects of employee behaviour that are characteristic of the supportive element of the informal group. These types of desired behaviour could be identified with Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB); this is behaviour that goes beyond the formal requirements of the job and is beneficial to the organisation (Schanke, 1991). Spector (1998) intones that Organisational citizenship behaviour is a new area of study. It seems evident that these sorts of behaviours make important contributions to organisational functioning, and there is the need to know how to encourage people to engage in these behaviours at work. Taking a cue from this, it suggested that management should facilitate entry management by encouraging aspects of work group behaviour that reflect OCB. Schankes example include; being punctual, helping others, volunteering for tasks that are not required, making suggestions to improve conditions, not wasting time at work. Organ and Konovsky (1989) divided OCB into two categories: altruism and compliance. Altruism is helping another employee with a problem. It might involve helping a co-worker who has been absent or making suggestions to improve conditions. Compliance is doing what needs to be done and following rules, such as coming to work on time and not wasting time. OCB can be an important aspect of an employees behaviour that contributes to overall organisational effectiveness. Social factors have been suggested as the cause of organisational citizenship behaviour (Schanke, 1991). Job satisfaction and supportive behaviour by the supervisor are two of them. Support for their possible role in OCB has been provided by studies that have found correlations between measures of OCB and both of these variables. T. F. Becker and Billings (1993) found that job satisfaction correlated with OCB in the United States. Farh, Podsakoff, and Organ (1990) found that OCB correlated with job satisfaction and employee perceptions of supervisor behaviour in Taiwan.
Entry management processes may bring to the fore latent organisational problems, whether defined from the perspective of management as relevant for workers well being or emerging from within the work group of concern. These topical issues of mutual concern will be best resolved at the negotiation phase, as relevant or irrelevant and appropriate mediatory responses activated as the need arises. In other words, workers may very well be saying thanks we can handle that without managements interference. However where management feels that normative issues, like excessive play, diffraction along ethnic differences, hazing etc needs attention, they would have to 1. Bring up the issue as an organisational problem. 2. Obtain the groups viewpoint. 3. Source for the ideal solution by presenting views emanating from all sides, 4. Establish a basis for evaluation and determinacy of accepted states of normalcy 5. Implementing the outcome as part of an organisations entry management activities.
Whatever shortcomings occasion new employee induction, it is incontrovertible that compensation processes activated as stabilisation processes to enhance social interaction compensate and enable improved social interaction, leading to efficient employee induction. While the human relations approach emphasised the social need requirements of workers in meeting organisational needs, the social balance negotiation process, leaves the group to determine what its core self defined needs are in order to meet the organisations expectation, as presented by management representative.
Based on the foregoing discussions, a normative model of the entry management process is diagrammatically presented in figure 8, below. The model does not depend on the formation of any special group or require any special designated process other than applying a set of process steps that culminates in effective induction into work group.
Figure 8. The normative model of the Entry Management Process.
The model is designed as a management tool
A consultation technique, and
A research approach
As a management tool suggests a re-orientation in management processes, emphasising the socio-normative dimensions of formal and informal groups perspective as a practical source of integrative activity set, designed to facilitate mutual consent on supportive behaviour at the group level during the induction of new employee. Employee participation is a critical element of the model, in that consultation and engaged participation at the work group level between management and employees, enables effective induction procedures where decisions and actual task performance approximate expected organisational specifications through either changed group norms, where the need exists to invocation of subtle highly valued informal group supportive behaviour that reflects positively on the organisation.
As a consultation model for lower level employees, the model enables the establishment of preferred states from all constituent perspective. All those engaged in productive activities within the organisation appreciate sustained organisational effort to access their input in achieving organisations goals in relation to diverse issues (which in this case is facilitating effective induction for the new employee). By seeking to establish the extent to which each party of the socially productive interaction, perceive the meeting of their desires, it is possible to determine a state of social balance best conducive to maximum output, and if there are significant departures from this states of desired balance at points of interaction between parties engaged in formal interaction with a productive assessable goals, to elicit the factors that are accountable for these shift from balanced states of effective collaboration and seek for solutions that aim to establish the balance. The focusing on work group enables quick and decisive group focused solution derivable engagement, in fluid, dynamic and intense organisation situations.
As a research model, the social balance model, provides a systematic guidance for establishing the formal boundaries of an organisational entity, the identifiable groupings of formally composed constituents, their task specifications, their decision making responsibilities and basis of establishing states of productive execution, and the contact of zones of interactions between organisational constituents; these formal points of interactions are decision implementation and decision making zones of seeking the establishment of desired organisational states. The collective considerations of the total inputs to be considered is not per necessity one sided (as pertains in most organisation - employee interfaces.) But emergent from all parties formally engaged, drawing on essential task relevant considerations and important non task considerations, for the establishment of mutually encompassing preferred states for achieving desired end states. This does not by any means eliminate the fact that on many occasions, the organisation decisions making is top-down in many organisational instances. By implementing all parties consideration, expectations and desires, as decision making input activity, whatever shortcomings may occasion worker placement, it is incontrovertible that compensation processes activated as stabilisation response to enhance social interaction certainly compensate and enable improved social interaction, leading to efficient employee induction. The researcher is enabled to comprehensively detail the participation parties, their organisational considerations for determining implementing process decisions, work group relevancies and the attained state of balance.
A state of balance is an acceptance by all parties engaged in a mutual organisational decision-making process that decision making and implementation process is all satisfying enough, to guarantee effective states for optimum organisational productivity, within the uniquely defined situation prevailing in that particular organisation. A state of balance is not by any means an end process but a necessary state that mediates the outcome of end states of measured effectiveness on any organisational variable state, which in this case is entry management. Balanced negotiations among other things imply that workers or work groups are recognised as not only task executors but also regular decision makers together with organisations representatives in establishing mutually approved basis or grounds for effective task designation and realisation. It does not imply that workers assume management role responsibilities, but management or organisation viewpoints on task and organisational relevant dispositions are presented to the work group and their reactive readjustment of, or acceptance of, those management designations, is what establishes the state of balance or imbalance among mutually engaged organisational constituents.
A particular organisational state of task conduct and output oriented drive in resource utilisation and desired achievement, may have related relevance to different organisational constituents at different organisational levels. To assume that what is of relevance to a passionate committed organisation owner is of equal relevance to a dispassionate non-committed shop floor employee, more than under spells the need to bridge the differences of outlook on same organisational states. To bring together differing perspectives at a common interface for the establishment of a common forum through negotiation for the realisation of mutually agreed states for balanced productive effort, by eliminating conflicts of interest and providing for desired states for all parties engaged in realising effectively and sustainably the totality of that organisational effort.
Cooperation rather than express orders for task execution is advocated, in situations where management oversights lead to accumulation of irresolvable issues, the issuing of dictates tends to further polarise employees, giving rise to negative organisation perception by work groups. However where work groups are presented with relevant information on organisations positions as regards the group and proactive management effort engage work groups to call for critical adjustments, the earlier effort at induction stage of mutually engaging the employee as an owner-participant in the organisation will be validated through task relevant decision making activities. Considering that most floor shop employees are generally over sensitised to their positions as mere labourers any management effort that brings them closer to the core relevant decision making activities affecting their work group not only presents organisational reality from a desirably different perspective that actually brings the workers closer to the organisational context rather than being at the fringes of a life time activity of such deep involvement. Management employees also generally less isolated and dislocated if organisation induction procedures enable ease integration into existing management networks in the organisation.
In a way not only are dual channel communications channels important, but the deliberate creation of awareness that the organisation shares a common perspective with its workers is a strategic orientation that mitigates lower level employees self perception within their employing organisations. It is a socio-cognitive idealised perception, reinforced by organisational practices, in that the actual physical location of the group and its task activity is often not radically changed but there is an afforded social expansivity of groups self perception within the reconstructed organisational social framework of deeper involvement in organisational affairs.
The purpose of the above mentioned activity is to establish social balance interpreted as a state of mutual acceptance in respect of group task responsibilities and goals, provisions and the implementation process that draws into significant participative consideration of pre-implementation the decision agreed upon as encompassing that collective activity of the work group.
The model advocates a progressive, constantly, revised derivation of event related and situatioanal determined established frame reference determined within some lager framework of organisationally relevant management decision making knowledge state.
Of applicatory relevance is a focus on an effectiveness context of work group activities within the organisation, and group satisfaction with organisational states to enable optimum realisation in the specific designations of contextual organisational realisables. The delineation of the constituents variables emergent of the core elements that characterise the balancing effort in its detailed ness is a situation ally mediated evolving reality, that is defined by the peculiarities of the organisational circumstances. However the participants invariably are a work group, its supervisor and management representative. Who negotiate at a common confluence in the stream of organisation activities and interact to establish a common perspective from opposing perspectives of lower level employees and management to establish a common organisational viewpoint within which effective induction is enabled. This is illustrated in figure 9, below: -
Figure 9. Creating balanced states for effective induction
The social emphasis is constructed from a strictly organisational perspective of several individuals engaged in purposive, production, task activities, realised within a social medium of participating individuals. The degree and the nature of task related interaction determined along several fronts, predominantly determined by the nature of technology employed, the homogeneity of group constituency and required interchange of information mediated by the specific requirements of the task.
Over and above this social configuration is the relevant external social configuration intruding to determine organisational climate states of non-task specific interaction among its broad constituents. In organisations with large labour force of multi-ethnic backgrounds, this calls for special consideration of re-orientation towards an all embracing organisational focus that overrides the externally generated differences that are organisationally irrelevant but socially consequentially of the organisation is maintain desired states.
Conclusively, strong phenomenological bent is here promoted, as against a mechanistic disposition in the conception of the organisation and management approaches implemented therein. The implication being that whatever management decision makers derive in terms of a work groups activities must be allowed to win the consent of the work group, rather than being pushed by command for implementation.
What passes at any time for a groups perception and serves, as a basis for a groups action orientation potential is a subjectively derived contingent perspective that by its nature is malleable to manipulable change to suit desired organisational states. By creating conditions that bring the organisation closer to these work groups, it is assumed that the management might be in position to make adjustments that favour its constituencies in the appropriate direction as specified within a larger constraining framework of realities.
As figure 5, below indicates induction of new employees can be seen as two stream activity with formal designations and informal instigations, both activity sets generally leading to a more effective induction than if only formal activity sets are engaged and implemented.
Figure 10. Employee induction as a dual stream activity set.
Figure 10, indicates that under normative assumptions of designating the most effective approach to entry management effort need be directed at generating an established pattern of procedure in terms of two parallel streams of induction integration at formal and informal levels, such that when the pattern was completed a well integrated individual is left on his or her own to be an independent self determinant employee working within existing organisational framework. There is in those circumstances very little need for interpretation rather a pattern of consistency is diagnosed in a stream of dynamic action stream of work life. The observed pattern congeals significantly and indicates significant states of verifiable states, which forms the basis for the induction process steps as discerned and interpreted.
The suggestion for social sensitivity in realising the implementation of formal employee induction and integration processes will not by any means change preferred patterns of association and informal group preferences, but such a disposition will enable significant attitudinal changes of employees towards their organisation and the organisations perception of floor workers. It is the case that where these process has been effectively managed the organisational climate is emotionally and socially less tense and amiable, where this is ignored the climate is one of tense suspicion, and clear and marked groupings of barely tolerating groups. However the point of departure of this article from affirmative action programs, and labour management strategies, is the conspicuous recognition of not only placement, formal rule recognition but also the need to accept the social consequences with definite organisation effect of unnegotiating the entry process of outsourced batches of workers with existing pool of employees. It is a departure that is reflective of deep psychological ethos of group behaviour and psychological concepts emerging from the study of the intricacies of organisations, and must be recognised as such.
Conclusion
In conclusion, new employee induction is normally perceived as a formally designated management activity, but as most human resources departments now realise, there is the informal social induction that one way or the other must necessarily be managed if new employees are not to be subtly discouraged by existing organisational norms on the hand that discourage optimal individual productivity, while on the other hand short sighted resentment of new employee by existing employees may undermine organisational employment objectives and must be proactively managed for preferred organisation states. Normally an organisations entry management activity focuses around three foci, the labour source, the existing employees within the organisation and the set of activities by which an employee is formally introduced and absorbed into existing work groups. Within the organisation work groups are involved in a dual process of productive activities and socio-political activities. While organisations on the whole focus on productive activities the consequences of socio-political activities emerging from within informal work group activities tend to influence the productive activities. Effective outcome states can be best approximated where the organisation minimises the individuals perceptions of the organisation as conceived from within the group and the organisations desired representation of itself to its labour force. While the organisation may pragmatically consent that employees are only relevant only so long as they are productive, the inverse reaction where workers only interpret their position within the organisation as disposable cogs in a wheel has socio-emotional consequences that lead to a sustained siege mentality among the workforce. Such low commitment disposition, where it exists can foster deep-seated resentment against an organisation by its employees, leading to counter-productive activities or generating self-consenting excuses for counter productive activities. To enable equanimity between the organisation and its employees the management process must create as part of its entry management activities a socially supportive work climate where new employees are inducted by existing work groups; such an induction process will only have organisational benefit if it enables the work group to absorb the new employee into a positive representation of the organisation and its activities. To enable existing work groups to develop a positive organisational orientation, the daily task management activity must be an integrative decision making activity that encourages workers to contribute organisational enhancing ideas through the fostering of a creative group climate. At the same time enabling employees to come forward with their task related problems for consideration and solution generation all within the work group where feasible. These sets of activities as much as possible proceed in tandem with the normal daily task activities. Normal task activities are normally considered as segments of activities in a stream of continuous activity. It is all the more meaningful when those segments of activities are evaluated for their goal approximation, and the analytical conclusions serve as part input for the next segment of activities. This is illustrated below: -
Figure
Appendix-
Appendix 1.
Qualitative research methods have gained ascendancy in recent times. "The last few years had seen as explosion of interest in qualitative methods, particularly within organisational psychology. A number of commentators have proffered explanations for this phenomenon. Henwood and Nicholson (1995) suggest that, although the methodological repertoire of psychology has generally included qualitative methods, these have tended to be seen as appropriate for the pilot phase of a project or as an adjunct to other research designs. Yet as stand-alone techniques there are clear areas of contribution, which are now being recognised. Henwood and Pidgeon (1995: 116) argue that there are two particular issues within psychology that enhanced use of qualitative paradigm, as they call it, can address. Firstly, they suggest that an overemphasis on theory testing, as is typically the case within traditional approaches to psychology, can produce a worrying under emphasis on the systematic generation of new theory. Such generation of new theory, traditionally grounded in data, is a key principle of qualitative research. The use of qualitative methods can therefore counteract the perceived current imbalance between theory testing and theory generation. Secondly, they suggest that qualitative approaches, with their emphasis on exploring the research participants own situated experiences, offset the critique of much psychological research that the richness and significance of individual experience is neglected in favour of overarching of individual experience is neglected in favour of overarching reductionist explanations." (Simon G. & Cassell, 1998). The theory generating capabilities these research method offers remains its strong point. Within qualitative research there is usually applied a range of data collection techniques such as interviewing, observation, surveys etc. Bryman (1988) makes a distinction between epistemological and technical justifications for using qualitative methods. In the first case, qualitative methods may be used because they are regarded as more in tune with the researchers paradigmatic commitments, and in the second, they are regarded as more useful for the problem at hand. In qualitative research, of course, the distinction between data collection and data analysis may not be clear-cut. In practice, for example, as a series of interviews progresses, the researcher will often be creating, testing and modifying analytic categories as an iterative process, such data analysis may be considered an organic whole that begins in the data-gathering stage and does not end until the writing is complete (Potter, 1996). Without the tools for incisive and insightful data analysis and interpretation, the amount of data generated through the use of qualitative methods can seem overwhelming and the analysis process itself confused and confusing. Insightful analysis is really at the heart of successful qualitative investigations. As Wolcott suggests: the real mystique of qualitative inquiry lies in the process of using data rather than in the process of gathering data (1990). He continues With experience, most researchers becomes less compulsive about collecting data and more proficient at using the data they collect, but the problem of transforming unruly experience into an authoritative, written account never totally disappears. Silverman (1993) outlines his discomfort with a large proportion of the qualitative research to be found in leading academic journals. He lists a number of related tendencies, which give rise to this concern, for example, the use of data extracts which support the researchers argument, without any proof that contrary evidence has been reviewed (1993). A key question here is the criteria against which the findings of qualitative research are evaluated. The traditional criteria on which research is evaluated stem from a positivist paradigm where tests of the reliability and validity of the data are seen as integral to the rigorous conduct of research. Some qualitative researchers seek to apply these criteria to their own work using a variety of techniques, such as inter-rater reliability (King, 1994). However, assessing the output from qualitative techniques on the criteria generated to assess quantitative techniques creates problems for other qualitative researchers. Given that most qualitative researchers do wish to justify their interpretations of their data in some way, it is indeed; a positive development that some authors have generated lists of alternative criteria suited to assessing the rigour of qualitative research. The best known of these are Guba and Lincolns (1989) authenticity criteria. These authenticity criteria are explicitly formulated to reflect the concerns of alternative paradigms.
1. Resonance (the extent to which the research process reflects the underlying paradigm);
2. Rhetoric (the strength of the presenting argument);
3. Empowerment (the extent to which the findings enable readers to take action);
4. Applicability (the extent to which readers can apply the findings to their own contexts).
Appendix 2.
Normative Models try to explain how decisions would be made if decision makers behaved rationally, whereas descriptive models try to explain how decisions are actually made.
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