Employees in Charge: Tendency to Encourage Independence
The environment of Operation Management (OM) has changed significantly over the past few years. New trends have redesigned the subject matter to the point where OM gained an entirely new meaning, implying not only the control over the corporate processes but also the coordination of the staff’s organizational behavior, management of conflicts, promotion of essential ethical and professional values, etc. (Deloitte University, 2016). Because of the opportunities for a consistent improvement in quality rates that it has to offer, the concept of learning and development in the workplace is the leading trend in the OM department.
Personally, I believe that the enhancement of employees’ independence in the company-related decision-making process is a significant improvement in the contemporary OM design as it helps build loyalty among the staff members. By emphasizing their role in the company and the significance that they hold for the entrepreneurship, managers create prerequisites for a rapid increase in motivation. As a result, employees participate in the training courses actively, acquire new skills, and apply them successfully to the decision-making process. As a former member of the human resource management (HRM) team that was provided with an opportunity to train leadership skills, I appreciate the change immensely.
Digital Revolution in HR: The Inevitable Transformation
With the advance of technological innovations and the increase in the usage of information technology, the HR environment could not have escaped the change in the information management processes. One must admit that the introduction of digital technology has literally reinvented the HR processes, especially the ones related to the supervision processes. For instance, the process of controlling the progress made by the staff members became much easier with the introduction of IT tools.
The changes in the communication strategies, however, can be viewed as both pros and cons. For example, the lack of a direct, face-to-face conversation with the team members and the usage of digital tools as the means of connecting with the employees created prerequisites for failing to get a proper impression of the office worker and, as a result, assign them the tasks that they did not feel comfortable with and, therefore, could not complete. Specifically, a case of giving an introvert employee a number of assignments related to consistent communication with others was one of the crucial mistakes.
The Great Gig in the Global Market
The gig economy is another tendency that has shaped the contemporary global market significantly. The fact that people no longer look for the jobs that they will occupy for a significant time period points to the readiness for the staff members to grow and explore new opportunities. However, it also begs the question whether the newly recruited staff members will be able to understand and accept the company’s culture and values, thus, following the firm’s workplace ethics. More importantly, the idea of investing in employees may lose its reasonability as long as recruits are not going to view their job as something that will last long and leave an impact.
As a former HR manager, I consider the promotion of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), as well as the values and the ethics thereof, as essential. However, it seems that the threat of the gig economy has been blown out of proportions. Until a company leader stops using the corporate values and ethics as the foundations for the decision making, the employees will accept the essential principles even not staying long in the identified workplace environment.
Reference List
Deloitte University. (2016). Global human capital trends 2016.