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vaibhav.iit2002
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ESSAY QUESTION:
"Employees always perform better when given a say in determining the boundaries of their roles within a company."
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.
YOUR RESPONSE:
The issue whether employees always perform better when given a say in determining the boundaries of their roles, is controversial. On one hand, to include employees in defining a boundary of roles doesn't seem logical. On the other hand, it might be claimed that employees perform better when given a chance in role defining process. In final analysis, I suggest that the decision of employees being part of roles-defining process won't produce the desired results.
Though initially it might seem reasonble that if an employee is asked to suggest the boudaries of her role, he would better communicate and will be more satisfied. But this decision can backfire and even worsen the performance of employees. To illustrate, lets assume that the president of a company, which has a number of hiererchies decides to include company's employees in such decisions. There are fair chances that the roles of a product manager and the employees of his team will overlap, and therefore will create a confusion when a critical situation arises and the situation needs quick decisions. Ideally in such scenarios, the manager is supposed to take a decision and his team is supposed to follow the instructions given by the manager. However, in case of overlapping roles, all the team members will end up making their own decisions. Even if they come to a consensus, they'll try to instruct one another to implement the task. Moreover, in case of decision failure, these guys will hold each other responsible for the action taken as all of them were part of the decision making team.
The employees might try to avoid extending their roles to such levels which demand high responsibilty. In such cases, a large group of people will end up having roles of quite a similar types and there won't be anyone or will be just one or two guys that are ready to take responsiblities. Hence the organizational structure will get impacted, leading to a firm that has efficient and capable employees but the firm cannot use them to their best level as they are not ready to take charge.
In addition to the points mentioned above, we should consider the ability of the employees to define their own roles. The employees might lack in such skills. For example, a peon who is not a very educated guy, cannot be asked to define the limits of his roles.
Consequently, in my opinion, including employees in constructing the limits of their roles is not wise decision as it can create havocs in the organization leading the partial or complete business failure. This can even worsen the situation of the firm.
"Employees always perform better when given a say in determining the boundaries of their roles within a company."
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.
YOUR RESPONSE:
The issue whether employees always perform better when given a say in determining the boundaries of their roles, is controversial. On one hand, to include employees in defining a boundary of roles doesn't seem logical. On the other hand, it might be claimed that employees perform better when given a chance in role defining process. In final analysis, I suggest that the decision of employees being part of roles-defining process won't produce the desired results.
Though initially it might seem reasonble that if an employee is asked to suggest the boudaries of her role, he would better communicate and will be more satisfied. But this decision can backfire and even worsen the performance of employees. To illustrate, lets assume that the president of a company, which has a number of hiererchies decides to include company's employees in such decisions. There are fair chances that the roles of a product manager and the employees of his team will overlap, and therefore will create a confusion when a critical situation arises and the situation needs quick decisions. Ideally in such scenarios, the manager is supposed to take a decision and his team is supposed to follow the instructions given by the manager. However, in case of overlapping roles, all the team members will end up making their own decisions. Even if they come to a consensus, they'll try to instruct one another to implement the task. Moreover, in case of decision failure, these guys will hold each other responsible for the action taken as all of them were part of the decision making team.
The employees might try to avoid extending their roles to such levels which demand high responsibilty. In such cases, a large group of people will end up having roles of quite a similar types and there won't be anyone or will be just one or two guys that are ready to take responsiblities. Hence the organizational structure will get impacted, leading to a firm that has efficient and capable employees but the firm cannot use them to their best level as they are not ready to take charge.
In addition to the points mentioned above, we should consider the ability of the employees to define their own roles. The employees might lack in such skills. For example, a peon who is not a very educated guy, cannot be asked to define the limits of his roles.
Consequently, in my opinion, including employees in constructing the limits of their roles is not wise decision as it can create havocs in the organization leading the partial or complete business failure. This can even worsen the situation of the firm.
