Assemble a Patchwork Text (Accounting and Information System) Essay

Assemble a Patchwork Text (Accounting and Information System) - Essay Example The dynamic nature of the modern markets means that organisations and their operating principles will always be on the change. Unless the modern working individual can change just as fast or faster, there is little relevance of his work to the organisation anymore. These personal changes have their wider impact on the organisational culture as well since people working in one organisation are deeply interlinked. These issues gain greater momentum when put under the light of dealing with a large number of staff members with varying socio economic and ethnic backgrounds. The multicultural environment in the modern workplace necessitates the individual to be accommodating, tolerant and ready for change as required. When viewed closely, these issues relating to change in the modern workplace all point to the same direction – the individual. As organisations change in one way or the other, the individual employed in these situations has to mould himself or herself accordingly. This indicates that the individual working for these establishments has to be quick and responsive to change by being accustomed to changes in leadership styles, management of change and their impact on others around them. These needs and requirements of change in the modern workplace mean that the individual has to be equipped with knowledge of psychodynamics to change. However, since psychodynamics is not a part of essential learning and training in most organisations, a large number of employees find it hard to change. It is only recently that psychodynamics has been employed in organisations to explain change on an individual level. This paper will employ the psychodynamic concepts elucidated by Vries (2004) in order to explain organisational change and its relevance to personal change. The facets of personal change and organisational change experienced by the author in an organisational work environment will be explored in detail in different sections. The first section will concen trate on the primary issue that caused a personal change in an organisational environment to occur. Both the core issues and their deeper context will be explored with reference to the organisation. The second section will focus on the causes that caused recognition of change and its corresponding management. The third section will expound how the author dealt with such changes and ensured its sustainability. The fourth section will deal with how this change affected the greater organisational culture and particularly the people around the author. Focal Event A focal event in terms of personal change can represent a decisive event that forces a person to change. It must also be mentioned that the focal event does not precipitate without past events that are gradually moving a person to a change. The focal event that is being referred to in this paper has been likened to the â€Å"last straw on the camel’s back† (Vries & Balazs, 1999). Therefore, the focal event can be treated as a minor or major event that triggers a person to pursue change that had been developing over a period of time for any number of factors. My focal event was when I was transferred from an existing unit to a new unit that was just being set up. The management had asked me if I intended to shift to the new unit. I was appraised that the setting up of a new unit would allow me to experience many things for the first time

The effectiveness of pay for performance plan Essay

The effectiveness of pay for performance plan - Essay Example Not every employee is the same; therefore their preferences and motivating factors are as varied as their individual personalities. Utilizing, combining, and integrating the right compensation strategy in the corporate structure plays a critical role in maintaining employee motivation, retaining talent, and attracting high-performing candidates to the company. Although pay for performance compensation plans have always played an integral role in the compensation package of many companies there are a number of shortcomings related to the merit pay system. Traditional compensation models ignore the key emotional influencers that reveal an individual’s key motivating factors. According to a recent paper called â€Å"The Psychological Costs of Pay-for-Performance†, by Ian Larkin, Lamar Pierce of Harvard and Francesca Gino of Washington University, this working paper identify the psychological costs of how social comparison, employee overconfidence, and loss aversion are pri me determinants of the success and viability of individual performance-based compensation systems (Tighe, 2011). â€Å"Social comparison is the tendency of individuals to compare their pay vs. effort ratio with their peers and their expectations of their compensation to be â€Å"fair† based on these preconceived notions. As a result of this comparisons pay plan effectiveness or perceived fairness is often compromised. Individuals commonly judge the extent of other people’s work contribution based on what they can see and not on actual results. Consequently coworkers are often unfairly judged since the value or true extent of their work is performed off premises or behind closed doors such as with salespeople or executives. Although in the case of major CEO’s or star athletes for instance pay becomes a social measuring stick to which they compare against their peers, so pay becomes more closely tied to social factors and not necessarily economics. Employee overc onfidence is where individuals have the tendency to overestimate their own abilities and skill set therefore they are prone to accepting tasks above their capabilities. According to Larkin; â€Å"Psychologists and decision research scholars have long noted that people tend to be overconfident about their own abilities and too optimistic about their future."; "Recent research has shown that overconfidence is not as much an individual personality trait as it is a bias that affects most people"(Tighe, 2011). The authors elaborate that in general people tend to be overconfident in their ability to complete tasks that they tend to perform frequently. On the other hand individuals tend to underestimate their ability to complete tasks which they are not familiar with or seem too complex. Since pay-for-performance systems are based on the ability of individuals to pick and choose positions that they feel best matches their skill set, the misalignment between the individual’s percept ion of themselves and their true skill set can cause them to undertake projects or tasks that are beyond their capabilities (Tighe, 2011). Instead of pay-for-performance becoming a catalyst for increased organizational achievement and individual performance an employee’s overconfidence can cause them to underperform under pressure, increase general dissatisfaction, and can also bring about a