When asked to interview someone with extensive work experience, I needed to look no further than my parents. My mother, a Saint Mary’s graduate, is a project director for early childhood block grant ECDC/Preschool for all and FIND II/Prevention Initiative in the Illinois school districts. My father, a Notre Dame graduate, has held COO and CFO positions at major companies like Citibank and Harley Davidson. Because their career paths are so different, each had diverse answers to the questions I presented them regarding worker productivity.
Since my mom works in a school practicum, she uses a strong efficiency model to encourage teacher productivity. Using the mentality of ‘you can do it’ and other encouraging slogans, teachers receive that extra boost of confidence and encouragement knowing that their boss, my mom, is fully supporting them. Another contributing factor, according to my mother, is where they work. In a school setting, teachers are in a professional learning facility. Each school is committed to success and failure is not an option. Therefore, knowing the task of teaching and learning is effecting so many children and adults alike, the productivity level must be very high in order to achieve the standards the state and government set at each particular school. Education is highly valued in society and due to the support of the families within the school, the administrators and the community, success (though may not be in tangible numbers) is always the outcome. Success is not measured in dollar amounts rather, the growth of the individuals within the school.
Working in a corporate environment, my dad’s standards for a productive work environment are very different. An example my Dad gave me was during his days at Harley Davidson, he once was on a task to fix a very inefficient calling center in Carson City, Nevada. He knew he had three tasks to get done; improve the technology, process redevelopment, and exert the ‘rally the troops’ mentality amongst his staff. His efforts were very successful for they increased focus on ramping up education around the workplace (teaching the staff how to use the technology and increase the pace at which the worked) as well as recognition though both money and fame within the company. He gave bonus and benefits to those who showed excellence in their job and this was apparent through the increased productivity of the call center. Within a year, the damage that was previously present in the Harley Davidson location in Nevada was quickly restored to a better place because of the increased worker productivity.
In both examples, my parents thought that their efforts were successful. Though my mom’s was more of a human relations approach and my father’s was more of a classical theory approach, each adapted to what was appropriate for their own work environment. Consequently, if they were to use one another’s tactics, the outcome probably would not have been as successful as with the methods they used. Undoubtedly it felt wonderful to be a part of a positive change within each of their careers and they continue to make these small changes within their jobs on a daily basis. In addition to them feeling good about their jobs, the increased worker productivity level raises the quality within their organizations as well. When students are achieving, the teachers are happy. When workers in the call centers receive a raise or promotion, they are happy. These factors, both tangible and not, are a definite reflections of increased productivity in the workplace through hard work and minor adjustments.
In the school setting, my Mom’s job reflects the Human Relations approach to organizational theories. Mary Follet, an advocate on empowering workers by sharing information, has a parallel view to how my mom handles her teachers. Like Follet, my mom emphasizes cooperation to solve problems and organizing teams to accomplish goals. Teachers are encouraged to work with one another to help each other out by sharing ideas, lesson plans, and even physical space within a classroom. Also, every grade level has ‘teams’ which are used to help each department lean on one another when they are struggling with a task. Again, within schools and education, failure is not an option. Each child has the right to a solid education and especially working with disabled children, my mother’s job can be especially challenging. It takes a very special group of teachers to work in these conditions and with some such passion towards furthering these kids education, success can be accomplished by improving human relations (which in part, improves the efficiency and productivity level).
My Dad’s workplace is a great example of the Classical Management organizational theory. The theme of this theory is that scientific rationality leads to improved efficiency and productivity. The organization (in my Dad’s case, Harley Davidson’s call center) is seen as a efficient machine. This was seen true when the call center made some major improvements within technology. With more technologically advanced machines, the productivity level raised immensely. There was a definite hierarchy and division of jobs within the call center ranging from the labor jobs of answering the telephone from my Dad’s position at the top overseeing the productivity level of the company. Top-down communication was definitely present within the organization as well. This business ran like clock work and presented characteristics of the classical management theory.
Even though both my mother and father’s jobs have different styles at which they approached organizational communication theories, the commonality between the two were achieving their goals. This required each to evaluate what communication tools would work best for their work environments and in my opinion, each did a great job of encouraging success within their own careers.
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