Human relations issues in the contemporary work environment are usually affected by various problems. These critical issues include global Integration, workplace diversity and inclusion, the impact of technology, and group development, among other issues. Depending on how such issues are addressed or are applied in the workplace environment by the relevant leaders or workers, the issues can either establish a good working environment with increased productivity or vice versa might apply as well. Among various case studies, I decided to select three of them, namely, small group development, workplace diversity and inclusion, and evaluating the impact of digital technology on leadership communication effectiveness. Among these case studies, various themes are crucial among various key work issues, and these include interpersonal relationships, building trust, improved communication, teamwork, and leadership. The outlined issues are known to have a significant impact on any management strategy.
First Case Study: Group Development
The first case study that was selected is concerned with group development as it tried to present a historical overview of the Tuckman model. Group development is crucial in improving productivity and performance. Performing is usually characterized by high levels of the required commitment. Through group development, a performing team is usually led on how it can be stable, organized, and efficient in the way it usually works. It is through group development that consensus to be attained easily through a mutual understanding of motivations and goals. In addition, group development enables both leaders and followers to understand how to deal with conflicts in an effective way when they emerge (Bonebright, 2010).
Based on Tuckman’s model as a guide, group development is crucial since it helps individuals learn how they should work in teams. Teams in any workplace tend to grow, change, and adapt as team members are inclined to learn more about each other and the way their abilities tend to work together. Employers and managers can make good use of all stages of group development to improve communication, teamwork, effectiveness, and efficiency among vital groups in the workplace. The theory offers guidance on the need for group development, where it outlines the importance of teams for the desired organizational success. The main themes developed within this case study are task activity and interpersonal relationships (Bonebright, 2010).
In the new economy, global Integration is a critical issue that helps facilitate connections that lead to innovation, specialization, and economic progress. It is through these connections that economies benefit from the experience and knowledge of others while enabling both the leaders and followers to learn in various ways that can help them replicate and adapt to their own needs. To establish the required connections, it is usually crucial to establish the required interpersonal relationships and design a task activity that will bring different people together to perform a given task. Interpersonal relationships are essential in the organization because they enable the leaders and employees to develop and maintain the required relationships with others, relate well to all people from diverse backgrounds and in various situations, and show courtesy, politeness, and understanding (Mikkola & Nykänen, 2019). It is by so doing that people working in a particular organization work together as a team as they relate to one another in an open, professional, and open manner. Establishing such relationships aids in building healthy relationships within the organization, and this, in turn, helps in motivating the involved people to work as a team towards accomplishing the set goals and thus increasing the productivity of the organization (Bonebright, 2010).
Tasks activity is crucial in improving workplace projects, which involve teamwork since it helps the group members and various teams to understand each other. It is working together as a team toward solving a particular problem so that the employees and employers understand better each other’s interests, strengths, and weaknesses. The understanding of those working in a particular organization to appreciate each other and try to work as a team while accommodating the emerging differences instead of blaming one another (Mikkola & Nykänen, 2019).
Tuckman’s model has presented the four stages of group development. The first stage is known as forming, and this involves testing and dependence where the involved group becomes oriented to a given task, and the ground rules are usually established. The stage aims at testing interpersonal and task behaviors while trying to establish the required relationships with organizational standards, leaders, and the other group members. The second stage is known as storming, and this is known to represent the duration of intergroup conflicts. People from various cultural backgrounds might have some differences, and this might cause the involved group to lack unity, and polarization around some interpersonal issues might arise. The second stage involves the group members developing emotional responses to the given task, primarily when the set goals are associated with self-change and self-understanding. The group members in this stage might express their individuality, and resistance may arise (Cassidy, 2007).
The third stage is known as norming, and this involves the formation of cohesion by the group. It is during this stage that group members accept each other’s views and ideologies, and one can express personal opinions. The team members try to avoid conflicts and strive to work in harmony. The fourth stage is performing, and this involves the involvement of all group members in playing various roles and becoming functional toward solving the presented problem. The involved structure at this stage usually supports the required task performance. The assigned roles at this stage become functional and flexible while group members aim to direct their energy, efforts, and experiences toward the assigned task (Cassidy, 2007).
Second Case Study: Impact of Digital Technology on Leadership Communication
In the second case study, the writer has outlined that in most workplaces, digital communication has become a crucial element that is used daily to help achieve organizational goals, workflow activities, and outcomes, as outlined by Nickitas (2019). Digital communication can help improve productivity, increase performance, and inspire creativity. The involvement of digital communication by leaders can help leaders disseminate the required information quickly and to many people within a short period. Digital technology is known to have a positive impact on leadership communication effectiveness when it can drive and align with the set values, human connectivity, and purpose, as suggested by Kim, (2021). Concerning this, digital technology is less effective when passing specific messages and when the leaders intend to build trust and reduce some misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the intended information (Nickitas, 2019).
In improving efficiency and productivity, building trust is a crucial element that all leaders should strive to have. Digital technology can help pass the intended message without any misinterpretation or misunderstanding. Thus, it is always crucial for leaders to involve the most relevant technology depending on the information they want to pass. Having conference meetings instead of using emails could help the leaders to pass certain information that requires further explanations and thus address the issue of misinterpretation and misunderstanding. Based on the case study, proper use of digital technology and building trust by the leaders could be outlined as the main themes (Nickitas, 2019).
Building trust in the leaders is crucial in building teamwork and necessitates collaboration, as guided by Weinstein (2022). Trust is known to give rise to increased speed and improved efficiency, thus reducing some unnecessary costs. Trust is known to empower ethical and principled decision-making. Trust is also known to increase loyalty and the willingness to be associated with and stay within the organization, as pinpointed by Weinstein (2022). Based on the use of digital technology by leaders, establishing an effective digital workplace can enable employees to enjoy increased flexibility in their work environment and work schedules (Nickitas, 2019). Increased use of digital tools by the leaders and employees, like mobile intranet software, can enable all people who are working in the organization to connect from anywhere, having less focus on any emerging geographical obstructions and strict schedules.
Third Case Study: Workplace Diversity and Inclusion
Workplace diversity and inclusion is the third case study selected for this assignment. To answer the outlined question in this study, it is usually crucial to learn how the organizations will treat marginalized groups, individual differences, and wide-ranging expertise and skills due to the current and future labor force that is becoming more ethnically and racially diverse. Global Integration will require the proper establishment of necessitated efforts to protect minority and marginalized groups from workplace discrimination (Pinner, 2018). All leaders should support inclusive practices in hiring, recruitment, development, and retention of diverse people working within the organization.
The main themes established in this case study include inclusive cultures, discrimination, leadership, and unconscious bias. Including all people from different cultures helps address the issues related to discrimination and any form of bias. Leadership is a vital element in any organization that helps guide and direct the involved people towards the required direction in meeting the set goals. Leaders should adopt the appropriate leadership styles that encourage all employees to participate in all processes, share their ideas and opinions, and be more engaged. Diversity is the best forum for leaders to share their best practices and aim to solve any emerging problems while giving solutions to the employees. The leaders do this by developing inclusive workplace cultures (Owa, 2022).
Global Integration requires leaders to find ways how they can integrate various people from different cultural backgrounds in order to make them work as a team toward accomplishing the set goals (Bulger & Hoffman, 2019). It is through this Integration that workers from various backgrounds bring their relevant skills to the presented table. It is so that the leader critically examines a given task or problem at different levels. It helps one understand the desired base from diverse backgrounds and use the relevant technology to bring the desired solution for any given problem. Diversity in the workplace is known to increase employee morale and introduce the relevant desire of various people to be more effective and work in a more efficient way (Owa, 2022). It is through the involvement of this that helps in increasing the business’ productivity. During group development, assigning each individual an equal role is crucial, enhancing equality, which is a crucial element in establishing workplace diversity and inclusion.
Organizational approaches to diversity are inclined to fail to deliver their intended results because understanding the viewpoint of another and cultural norms is vital in creating a workplace that is more effective and inclusive. Concerning this, most organizations need to consider the importance of understanding the raised viewpoints and cultural norms, which could help give rise to equality. In this case, equality is all about ensuring every individual has an equal opportunity and is not discriminated against or treated differently due to any emerging characteristics. Workplace diversity considers the differences between groups of people and people while placing a positive value on the outlined differences. Concerning this, learning of any emerging differences could help the leaders to consider the potential impact of the presented social background of an individual or class on their current access to various opportunities like learning opportunities (Owa, 2022).
Making use of relevant digital technologies could help in establishing the most relevant learning opportunities for all people working in an organization and establish some vital ways they can address any emerging conflicts in the process of group development. Leaders can promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace by asking for feedback from a diverse workforce regularly and creating dedicated diversity task forces with involved team members from various departments (Owa, 2022). It is by so doing that helps leaders ensure there is transparency, buy-in, and ownership from the entire team.
Comparing and Contrasting the Case Studies
The impact of digital technology on leadership communication effectiveness, workplace diversity and inclusion, and group development are the key issues in the new economy. All the outlined issues are related, and they can help in establishing the desired interrelationships between the leaders and the employees when they are made to work as a team to perform any given task activity. While working as a team, most people might be far from one another. Thus, proper Integration of digital technology is crucial in bringing all the relevant people working in a given organization together.
Some people in the workplace might be having some issues that might restrict them from meeting with one another closely. Thus, the leaders try to use digital technology to include all the relevant workers in the system despite any emerging differences that might hinder some people from playing active roles in the organization. In addition, some employees who might be on certain leave, such as maternity leave, can be included in various meetings through the involvement of digital technology and hence using technology to enhance the desired workplace diversity and inclusion of all relevant people within an organization.
Group development might involve the use of digital technology, where leaders can use this technology to monitor the activities of various groups. Nevertheless, some group development might not require the involvement of technology since some people might need more relevant tools to use in accessing technology, and this might give rise to some form of discrimination, as guided by Pinner (2018). Increased numbers of groups within the organization can be monitored easily through the use of digital technology since involving face-to-face monitoring might consume unnecessary time.
Workplace diversity is known to increase the morale of an organization and create effectiveness. High levels of workforce diversity and inclusion are usually associated with increased productivity, workforce well-being, better performance, talent recruitment, job retention, and innovation. The creation of sustainable and transformational change can be attained by combining the business case for workforce diversity and inclusion with relevant policies and supportive organizational values, and this could help in building the required trust among involved people.
Four main principles for achieving a transformational and sustainable change applicable globally and to almost all workforce groups can be applied. The four principles include ensuring that diversity and inclusion are considered to be the priority and central part of the established culture and strategy; there must be the required diversity in the organization’s top management; managers, senior leaders, and other staff should be accountable as role models in addressing issues that discourage equality; and the actions should apply in all processes that are running the organization including recruitment, promotion, retention, and development of all the involved staff. Establishing workforce diversity and inclusion makes employees feel valued, treated fairly, respected, and empowered via business practices (Hasan, 2022). The transformational approach to inclusion and diversity helps in making significant contributions to the desired business performance, and the employees, in this case, tend to feel empowered through inclusive leadership and inclusive organizational culture.
Inclusion is an element in group development. It is through including all the involved people that, makes them feel part of the group. It is through inclusion that people feel valued for who they are and feel free to bring their diverse skills and experiences since they have a strong sense of belonging with other team members (Hasan, 2022). It is through inclusion that employees have equal employment and promotion opportunities, perceive they have equal rights, and work towards eliminating some discriminative practices. Inclusion makes leaders address issues related to economic Integration, workers’ well-being, discrimination, gender equality, equal rights, vulnerable groups, workers’ rights, and minority groups. Inclusion can help all people to be involved in a given task activity without any form of discrimination (Mani et al., 2023).
Proper utilization of technology can bring together various populations in different geographical positions. In addition, inclusion can help involve all the required individuals in carrying out the assigned task through group development, especially in the first stage.
Working with individuals from various backgrounds exposes the individual to cultures, customs, and practices that one may have never encountered. The willingness to know the leaders, followers, and colleagues on a personal level could help in creating a sense of the desired goodwill in the workplace. In the long run, this can be translated to better professional collaboration. The use of technology is known to integrate people, and group development helps in bringing people from various diversities together. In relation to this, the involvement of proper utilization of digital technology, aiming to develop the involved groups as leaders try to establish workplace diversity and inclusion can help bring rise to global Integration, the main issue in the new economy (Bulger & Hoffman, 2019). The increased use of digital technology by leaders could help in promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace since technology is known to bring people together while based on group development, it can help people from various backgrounds to work together towards establishing a diverse workforce and in that, there is the inclusion of people having differences (Mani et al., 2023).
Technology is known to influence diversity in leadership when it helps eliminate bias by concentrating on objective factors like qualifications and skills instead of subjective factors like gender, age, or race. By so doing, this can help in creating an inclusive and more diverse workforce. Digital technology use by the leaders has facilitated participation in innovative global value chains, enhanced value chains’ resilience, and fostered new drivers of desired growth for the new economy. Embracing digital technology advancements by the leaders makes their organizations compel their businesses to go global since they require bigger markets to accommodate and attain the desired economies of scale.
It is the involvement of digital technology use by the leaders that enables them to reduce unnecessary communication and transportation costs across various regions and countries while facilitating the global sourcing of the required materials and other crucial inputs. The rising use of digital technology by leaders could help in making relevant communication to increased numbers of partners and employees across the entire globe with great ease. In establishing a diverse workforce, it is crucial to put efforts that will protect marginalized groups, and this can require proper use of digital technology to reach such groups.
Conclusion
There is an excellent impact of various economic issues in the work environments. Addressing and using such issues as workplace diversity, impact of technology, and global Integration can help increase the productivity of an organization. Adopting relevant management strategies can help motivate the employees and, in turn, help to improve the desired performance of an organization. Concerning this, leaders should aim at establishing the relevant workplace diversity and inclusion, utilize the relevant technologies, and encourage the employees to work as a team towards meeting the set objectives through group development. It is through adopting such strategies that can help in improving the performance of various organizations in the current moment and the future.
References
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Bulger, C. A., & Hoffman, M. E. (2019). Segmentation/Integration of work and Nonwork domains: Global considerations. The Cambridge Handbook of the Global Work–Family Interface, pp. 701–719. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108235556.038
Cassidy, K. (2007). Tuckman revisited: Proposing a new model of group development for practitioners. Journal of Experiential Education, 29(3), 413–417. https://doi.org/10.1177/105382590702900318
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Nickitas, D. M. (2019). First-face communication: Is digital technology impacting leadership communication effectiveness? Nursing Economics, 37(2), 65-66.
Owa, O. A. (2022). Mainstreaming diversity, equity, and inclusion as future workplace ethics. Mainstreaming Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as Future Workplace Ethics, pp. 28–48. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-3657-8.ch002
Pinner, R. S. (2018). History of augmented communication: Technology and disability. Augmented Communication, 21-27. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02080-4_2
Weinstein, J. (2022). Building trust: A challenge for school leaders and teachers. Encyclopedia of Teacher Education, 101-106. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8679-5_483
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