1. Human Relations and You
Chapter One
Human Relations for Career and Personal Success

2. Nature and Importance of Human Relations
Art of using systematic knowledge about human behavior to improve personal, job, and career effectiveness
Applies systematically to treating people in manner that they feel better about their job

3. Nature and Importance of Human Relations
Organizational Effectiveness
Treat employees with respect
Pay them fairly
Contribute to efficient and creative organization
Tangible benefits, such as high quality customer service
People work harder when
Have greater control over their work environment
Encouraged by peer pressure from teammates

4. Impact of Human Element Improves Business Performance
Even greater advantage
People work smarter
Use their wisdom
Receive training needed to perform better
Eliminate positions focusing primarily on watching and controlling people

5. Studying Human Relations
Acquiring valid information about human behavior
Need to understand how people think and act
Basic knowledge of interpersonal relationships
It is important to understand people and the different roles they play in life.
In addition, it is important to know the types of people that are drawn to a specific career or position within an industry or organization.
What type of job survival skills do you consider important for anyone in any type of position?
Personal problems unfortunately get carried over to the place of employment.
What types of problems might cause difficulties on the job?
Why and what sort of impact may they have?
To what extent should an employer be concerned about this?
What options might an employer have to deal with the situation?
When is it inappropriate for an employer to be involved?

6. Studying Human Relations
Develop skills in dealing with people
Successful people learn how to:
Communicate with others
Work well on teams
Manage stress
Behave confidently
Communication is still the number one issue that employers complain about.
Why do you think good communication remains a problem at work?
What examples can you provide from your work experience of good or bad communication skills concerning management or the workers?
Stress is the major factor in physical, emotional, and spiritual health problems in the U.S.
What are major stressors in the field you plan to enter?
How can you manage those type of stressors?
What stressors do you face as students?
Which techniques could help you manage that stress?
Remember, our society consists of continuous learners so it is important to manage stress or it will manage us – in very powerful ways.
This course focuses often on work teams. How important is this in the field you are planning to enter?
How would you define behaving confidently?
How does it differ from the “all about me” attitude or egoism out of kilter?

7. Studying Human Relations
Cope with job problems
Job survival skills
Deal with difficult people
Overcome overwhelming workloads

8. Studying Human Relations
Cope with personal problems
Self-defeating behavior
Deal with a difficult coworker
Overcome low self-confidence
Work your way out of heavy job stress

9. Studying Human Relations
Capitalizing on Opportunities
Develop your career
Become a leader
Becoming more creative

10. Studying Human Relations
Demonstrating potential for advancement
Skill and knowledge about human relations important for advancement
Upper management typically has good human relations skills in addition to technical skills and job knowledge

11. Mutual Influence of Work and Personal Life
Job satisfaction enhances life satisfaction
Unsatisfying job can damage physical health
Relationships with people on and off the job influence each other
Certain skills contribute to success in both work and personal life
Behavior at work is closely related to behavior at home
Achieve a balance between work and life to be more productive and satisfied
What type of skills are important to both work and personal life?
Which are critical for success?
What type of problems appear is certain skills are lacking?
What is the company’s role in upgrading skills of this nature for employees?

12. Human Relations begins with Self-Understanding
Important starting point: self – understanding
Public self: what a person communicates about him/herself and what others actually perceive about the person
Private self: actual person an individual may be
Alternative self: an understanding of the self, based on what could have been if something in the past had happened differently
How different can the public and private self be?
Is it ever advantageous not to show your private self at work?
What would be the penalty of being congruent with both selves at work?
Can you describe a situation where you would have to use your public self to remain employed or to continue the level of relationships at work?

13. Human Relations begins with Self-Understanding
Feedback is beneficial
Performance Evaluation (formal feedback): Permanent Record
Peer Evaluation
Self-Assessment Quizzes
Performance evaluation is critical to success. What types of formal feedback have your received in your experience? What would you respect in your career field?
Would you feel comfortable participating in a peer evaluation for your teammates? For yourself?

14. Johari Window Solicit Feedback Give Feedback Known to self
Unknown to self
Known to others
Open Area (known to self and others)
Blind Area (blind to self, seen by others)
Unknown to others
Hidden Area (open to self, hidden from others
Unknown Area (unknown to self and others)
Give
Feedback

15. Human Relations begins with Self - Understanding
Two self – evaluation traps:
Become more self – aware and make comparisons to some arbitrary standard of behavior
Overestimate competence
Antidote is to search for honest and objective feedback to supplement self - evaluation
How do you determine whether the standard is appropriate?
Give an example of someone who made unrealistic comparisons? How did the situation resolve itself?
Overestimating competence can cause many problems for the whole team and the company in general. Based on your experience, explain how this could happen at work, and the impact it had.
Do you think that people provide honest feedback, or do they nurse grudges? Do they sugar-coat their responses to your questions regarding feedback?
Do you accept compliments graciously? Many people, especially women, find it uncomfortable to hear compliments, often disregarding positive, accurate support.

16. Human Relations Movement
Concentrated effort by some managers and advisors to
Become more sensitive to need of employees
Treat them in a more humanistic manner

17. Human Relations Movement
Scientific Management Theory
Application of scientific methods to increase individual workers’ productivity
Frederick Taylor
Father of scientific management
Scientific analysis and experiments to increase worker output
Taylor’s work was groundbreaking at the time. Can you remember any type of abuse of workers in history? What is the connection to the birth of the union movement in the U.S.?

18. Human Relations Movement
Goal to remove human variability
Each worker essentially an interchangeable part
Model was a machine
Studied fatigue and safety
Work breaks and shorter workday resulting in increased productivity
Reward higher productivity with higher salary
What concepts are evidenced today?

19. Human Relations Movement
Hawthorne Studies in
Investigated problems with employee productivity
Hawthorne Effect:
Workers enjoyed being center of attention
Workers reacted positively because management cared about them
Why do you think the workers reacted so positively? How would you or your colleagues react to being studies as in the Hawthorne situation? Would they be suspicious, supportive, work differently so as to appear more productive, etc.? Why? How could these problems be avoided?

20. Human Relations Movement
Research by Mayo and Roethlisberger
Economic incentives are less important than generally believed in influencing workers to achieve high level of output
Leadership practices and work group pressures profoundly influence employee satisfaction and performance
Any factor influencing employee behavior is embedded in social system
Does it surprise you that money only is an incentive to a certain point? When would it cease to be the main incentive?
There are many types of leadership styles that we will discuss in this course. In what way has a leader influenced your satisfaction at work? Or an instructor in a classroom?
How does peer pressure affect you on the job or in team projects in college? Do you have suggestions for setting up teams for success?

21. Human Relations Movement
Major implication of Hawthorne studies
Old concept of an economic person motivated primarily by money had to be replaced
What social needs are important in general? What are more individualized, possibly different in various careers? Do genders respond differently or similarly?

22. Human Relations Movement
Major implication of Hawthorne studies
Replacement concept is a social person
Motivated by social needs
Desiring rewarding on-the-job relationships
More responsive to pressures from coworkers than to control by the boss
What social needs are important in general? What are more individualized, possibly different in various careers? Do genders respond differently or similarly?

23. Human Relations Movement
Threat of Unionization
Union growth in 1930s
Used Human Relations techniques to satisfy workers
Dissatisfied workers much more likely to join unions in hope of improving working conditions
Growth today in public sector and decline in manufacturing due to loss of jobs
We know that our businesses have changed greatly over the years specifically due to the changes in technology. Why would unions be more prevalent in the public sector? Is anyone in class a member of a union? If so, tell us of your experience.

24. Human Relations Movement
Philosophy of Industrial Humanism
Elton Mayo
Cautioned managers that emotional factors more important contributors to productivity than physical and logical factors
Argued that work should lead to personal satisfaction for employees
In the U.S., one of the first questions asked of a new acquaintance is, What do you do? Why is that so important in our society? What does that say about our needs being met in our careers? What is the message for employers then?

25. Human Relations Movement
Philosophy of Industrial Humanism
Mary Picket Follett
Key to increased productivity was to motivate employees, rather than simply ordering better job performance
Keys to both productivity and democracy
Cooperation
Spirit of unity
Coordination of effort

26. Human Relations Movement
Theory X and Theory Y of Douglas McGregor
Challenged managers’ assumptions of the nature of people
Managers need to size up work group members to understand their attitudes toward work

27. Human Relations Movement
Theory X Assumptions
Average person dislikes work and avoids it if possible
Most people must be coerced, controlled, directed, or threatened with punishment for them to put forth enough effort to achieve company goals
Average employee prefers to be directed, wishes to shirk responsibility, has relatively little ambition, and highly values job security
Good method to remember McGregor’s theory is to visualize the Theory X as an large X drawn on a worker roster indicating that they negative in their attitudes and motivation.

28. Human Relations Movement
Theory Y Assumptions
Expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play or rest
External control and the threat of punishment are not the only means for bringing about effort toward reaching company objectives
Employees will exercise self-direction and self-control in the service of objectives to which they attach high valence
Commitment to objectives is related to the rewards associated with their achievement
Good method to remember McGregor’s theory is to visualize the Theory X as an large Y drawn on a worker roster indicating that they positive in their commitment, attitudes and motivation.

29. Human Relations Movement
Theory Y Assumptions
Average person learns, under proper conditions, not only to accept but also to seek responsibility
Many employees have the capacity to exercise a high degree of imagination, ingenuity, and creativity in solution of organizational problems
Under the present conditions of industrial life, intellectual potentialities of the average person are only partially utilized

30. Major Factors Influencing Job Performance and Behavior
Recognize factors or forces that influence job performance and behavior
Related to the employee
Mental and physical ability
Knowledge
Motivation
We live in a knowledge society with amazing opportunities for growth, development, and career changes. Many employers even pay for educational training including degree earning courses. What does this mean for your career path?

31. Major Factors Influencing Job Performance and Behavior
Recognize factors or forces that influence job performance and behavior
Related to the manager
Leadership and communication style
Feedback
We live in a knowledge society with amazing opportunities for growth, development, and career changes. Many employers even pay for educational training including degree earning courses. What does this mean for your career path?

32. Challenges in Workplace
Emphasis on Teamwork and Collaboration
High Expectations for Personal Productivity
Workplace Diversity and Globalization

33. Challenges in Workplace
Emphasis on Employee Creativity and Innovativeness
Virtual Work Teams and Telecommuting
Increased Emphasis on Skill Acquisition and Less on Upward Mobility

34. Major Factors Influencing Job Performance and Behavior
Recognize factors or forces that influence job performance and behavior
Related to the job
Equipment
Challenges
Training
Each company has its own culture and a new employee needs to learn it very quickly to succeed. Have you ever been employed where you question the ethics of the company, or specifically workers? How do they inform workers about their ethics? Are they enforced? Can you provide an examples?

35. Major Factors Influencing Job Performance and Behavior
Recognize factors or forces that influence job performance and behavior
Related to the organization
Culture including ethics
Work group influences
Human resource policies
Each company has its own culture and a new employee needs to learn it very quickly to succeed. Have you ever been employed where you question the ethics of the company, or specifically workers? How do they inform workers about their ethics? Are they enforced? Can you provide an examples?

36. MAJOR WORKPLACE CHALLENGES OF TODAY
Emphasis on Teamwork and Collaboration
Increased Emphasis on Skill Acquisition
High Expectations for Personal Productivity
Part of Virtual Workplace and Telecommuting
Handle Workplace Diversity and Globalization