Current literature suggests that there are multiple dimensions of
organizational politics or workplace
politics. The first thing that comes in mind is whether human nature is the factor
that affects the organization politics?
What is human nature? Human nature is the identity of a person which
refers to distinguishing characteristics
such as the way of thinking, feeling behaving that human tends to have
naturally. Development of human nature depends on many factors such as cultural
background, religion, caste, society, family environment, friends, schooling,
educational background are some of the factors that are responsible for the creationist.
What is Organizational politics? it refers to a variety of
activities associated with the use of influence tactics to improve personal or
organizational interests. Studies indicate that individuals with political
skills tend to do better in gaining more personal power as well as managing stress and job demands, than their politically
naive counterparts. They also have a greater on organizational outcomes Are the politics dysfunctional or normal phenomena? Dysfunctional politics can
sink an organization, and yet most of the executives do react with distaste to
the idea of being a savvy organizational politician. It appears self-serving and contrary to values and ethics.
However, the reality is that politics is normal and human nature is built on
it. It is another influencing process along with the norms, formal
authority and expertise. Thus, leaders need to understand the forms it can take
and how to use it for the well-being of the organization.
Political
behaviour is likely to be present but may not be explicit and need to be
gleaned from observation. It may be that manager needs to exert a lot of
pressure on a team to get things done as
given by emphasizing not drop-down approach but based on actionable work items
that focus on workflow based on current activity. The current action is constrained by
organizational politics. The organizational intern is the outcome of human
nature. Sometimes, it may be necessary for employees to work behind the scenes
to build coalitions of believers in a new vision to convince others. Whatever
may be the context it is important to understand that the root causes of
political activities are often scarce resources (including time pressures),
social, economic and structural inequalities, and individual personal
motivations. Thus, it is not always that politics are dirty and may be
necessary to save the organization. If the CEO of an organization is underperforming leading to the closure of the organization, the employees may
form a group and become whistleblowers to save the organization. Organization
politics exist in every organization either for functional or for dysfunctional
aspects.
1. The level that political action happens. Political elements might be
considered with the individual player and their political attitudes, and these
may develop into a group-level phenomenon.
2. The political landscape is the extent to which the source of power is
informal or formal. Making use of influence, relationships and norms is soft
power. Whereas hard power is those which
are formal and explicit power drawn upon role authority, expertise, directives,
and reward and control mechanisms. However,
keeping balance in hard & soft power is very important. Soft structure
creates anarchy but if everything is hard it may lead to rigidity.
As the
organization grows the need and the demand increases, the manpower increases
and at the same time there is an increase in the hierarchy. When the personal
influence and informal networks are having a higher role. It looks like the wildflowers as it is
dynamic and grows naturally, and no one works for it. However, if the
wildflowers can grow it can also form a dense mat through which nothing else
can grow. In such kind of organizational form, informal networks likely to
challenge the legitimate power and the long-term interests of the organization. They may thwart legitimate change efforts for
organizational growth. To deal with this wildflowers kind of politics, the manager needs to understand the informal
networks at play. Identify the key brokers, as well as the gaps and fill them by
personal dialogue with the broker. If the
brokers are harming. Effective managers isolate them by developing a
counter-narrative.
If this is not
controlled it becomes hard like rock It may be described as one that is made with individual interactions and formal sources of
authority such as title, role, expertise, or access to resources. It includes
political capital that may be attributed to being a member of different committees.
Because rocks symbolize
stabilizing foundation that keeps an organization steady in times of crisis.
However, the sharp edges of hard power may wreck the organizational vision and
mission. The sharp edges may be created due to the incompetent person occupying higher ranks.
The further stage we can
call it as procedural politics is an amalgamation of formal authority with organizational systems, they are embedded
in the rules, structures, policy
guidelines, and procedures that form the basis of political activities. The
benefits of these rules and procedures are guiding posts against the arbitrary
arts of individual-such as charismatic or
autocratic persons or leaders. Thus, It’s a functional political. The process that uses structures of control
systems, incentives, and sanctions that keep the organization in compliance.
However, rules and procedures can also lead to the company becoming overly
bureaucratic, where rules are used as a political device to become bureaucrat’s
raj.
The last stage is like
forests Organizations have implicit norms, hidden assumptions, and invisible hence
it becomes like the forest it provides cover and safety for employees of an
organization. It is important to
understand the symptoms so that it should not be mistaken for the diverse human
nature.
How does HR play a role in this? Gone are the times of an
educator addressing to a homeroom brimming with understudies and composing
notes on a board. Ordinarily, the colleges' finance, participation, and other
routine HR work were dealt with by HR officials, to a great extent begging to
be proven wrong was the job of an HR official in Institutes and colleges.
She/he uses to deal with routine HR exercises like shortlisting resume, record
keeping, benefits, and other HR-related work. There is no situation for HR
experts in advanced education because of an absence of comprehension of the new
reality. The new the truth is no more understudies will come independent of the
quality contribution by institutes the nature of instructors, conveyance,
examine, financing is advertised based. Best understudies seek the best
foundations and simultaneously, the organizations become extraordinary
establishments.
Hence profession is rising due to the changing needs and
demands of the competitive market. Their work has shifted more from the back
office to organizational transformation, focusing on strategic and business
partnerships. Broadly speaking, most human resources leaders focus on building
a workforce that reflects their institution's strategic vision. The expansion
of the role of HR in higher education signifies the progress of HR in the
corporate world over the last two decades, compared to the earlier role of
administrative function now it is more of a strategic and advisory role based
on human capital management.
Because of the involvement of HR inside the organization has
resulted in the “Best Practices” in higher education, Increasing demand for HR
in higher education has incited the Universities to make themselves ready for
this competitive market and start the innovative ideas and get rid of office
politics The management has started
hiring HR to help their organization to move towards the working style of
corporate and to develop or recruit skill set that will reflect the image of
the university in a much more modern style workplace and showcase the changing
trends in education.
Moreover, many higher educations in India is not-for-profit
hence they must be strong in these areas for their survival in the market and
HR can be very helpful in the supporting engagement, improving performance
levels, and leading transformation efforts. Transformation is the process of
accepting the changes for the betterment of an organization, the organization
who do not opt for the transformation they find it difficult to meet the
demand.
It is important to have
teamwork and diversity in culture, for an organization to succeed. No doubt
handling manpower in the current scenario has become more challenging than
earlier, hiring staff from multi-cultural background for a mix of best skills
and cultural adaptability has become a challenge for human resources, but also
a big reward in terms of the long-term development of the organization.
Diversity in
employees not only creates a healthy work environment but kills the
organization politics to a large extent improves the learning process when many
employees are hired from the same state or through reference employees tends to
form the group and support each other for their survival which later on takes
the shape of survival of fittest and ultimately the organization productivity
suffers, there are less work and more gossip and it becomes like a hard to
break.
The
responsibilities of HR have gone beyond arranging benefits and having a tough
conversation about employee behaviour or performance. You have to show your
employees that you care about them as human beings by concentrating on the good
part of your efforts on facilitating a happily engaging, high performing and
fulfilling Institute / University culture.
“When people go to work, they shouldn’t have to leave their
hearts at home.”
– Betty Bender
Published in the education paper
https://theeducationpaper.com/facts-about-organisational-politics-the-role-of-hr-in-higher-education-dr-nikhat-m-hamza-director-hr-fta-bs-abdur-rahman-crescent-institute-of-science-and-technology/
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