Personnel controls

Personnel controls build on employees’ natural tendencies to control or motivate

themselves. Personnel controls serve three purposes. First, some personnel
controls help clarify expectations. They help ensure that each employee
understands what the organization wants. Second, some personnel controls help
ensure that each employee is able to do a good job; that they have all the
capabilities (e.g. experience, intelligence) and resources (e.g. information and
time) needed to do the job. Third, some personnel controls increase the likelihood
that each employee will engage in self-monitoring. Self-monitoring is an innate
force that pushes most employees to want to do a good job, to be naturally
committed. Self-monitoring is effective because most people have a conscience
that leads them to do what is right, and they are able to derive positive feelings of
self-respect and satisfaction when they do a good job and see their organization
succeed. Self-monitoring has been discussed in the management literature under a
variety of labels, including intrinsic motivation and loyalty.

Personnel controls can be implemented through (1) selection and placement, (2)
training, and (3) job design and resourcing. In other words, finding the right
people to do a particular job, training them, and giving them both a good work
environment and the necessary resources is likely to increase the probability that
the job will be done properly.

Selection and placement

Organizations devote considerable time and effort to employee selection and

placement. A large literature studies and describes how that should best be
accomplished. Much of this literature describes possible predictors of success,
such as education, experience, past successes, personality, and social skills.

Employee selection often involves reference checks on new employees, which

many organizations have stepped up in response to heightened worries over
workplace security while ensuring fair, inclusive and equitable recruiting
practices.24 But beyond screening new employees to mitigate security issues,
organizations primarily focus on matching job requirements with job applicants’
skills.

Social media also has emerged as a major background-check tool for employers,
where one survey indicates that over two-thirds of them decide against hiring after
finding negative details about the candidates. Meanwhile, though, many
employers surveyed said they are likely to hire a person if they find on social
media that the candidate’s personality is a good fit within the company culture,
has strong communication skills, is creative, and possesses a wide range of
interests, among other presumably desirable traits.

Training

Training is another common way to increase the likelihood that employees do a

good job. Training can provide useful information about what actions or results
are expected and how the assigned tasks can be best performed. Training can also
have positive motivational effects because employees can be given a greater sense
of professionalism, and they are often more interested in performing well in jobs
they understand better.

Many organizations use formal training programs, both through in-company

training and by supporting in-classroom continued education, to improve the skills
of their personnel.Factors such as professional management and decision
autonomy, however, require training to help develop the skills for managers to
perform well.

Much training takes place informally, such as through employee mentoring. Firms
also make growing use of social media for their training and coaching needs.
“Social learning platforms” are redefining the learning experience by providing
employees with a virtual community to interact, engage, share, and learn; and
social media are used to establish a dialogue with colleagues and instructors
before, during, and after training sessions. These approaches expand the
traditional classroom, creating a culture of collaboration and learning across
multiple offices, job families, and teams.

Job design and provision of necessary resources

Another way to help employees act aptly is simply to make sure that the job is
designed to allow motivated and qualified employees a high probability of success.
Some organizations do not give all their employees a chance to succeed. Some
jobs are too complex.Employees also need a particular set of resources available
to them in order to do a good job. Resource needs are highly job-specific, but they
can include such items as information, equipment, supplies, staff support, decision
aids, or freedom from interruption. In larger organizations, particularly, there is a
strong need for transfer of information among organizational entities so as to
maintain the coordination of well-timed, efficient actions and decisions

Cultural controls
Cultural controls are designed to encourage mutual monitoring; a powerful form
of group pres- sure on individuals who deviate from group norms and values. In
some collectivist cultures, such as Japan, incentives to avoid anything that would
disgrace oneself and one’s family are paramount. Similarly, in some countries,
notably those in Southeast Asia, business deals some- times are sealed by verbal
agreement only. In those instances, the dominant social and moral obligations are
stronger than legal contracts. But strong cultural controls produced by mutual-
monitoring processes also exist within single organizations.

Cultures are built on shared traditions, norms, beliefs, values, ideologies, attitudes,
and ways of behaving. The cultural norms are embodied in written and unwritten
rules that govern employees’ behaviors. Organizational cultures remain relatively
fixed over time, even while goals and strategies necessarily adapt to changing
business conditions. To understand an organization’s culture, ask long-time
employees questions like: What are you proud of around here? What do you stand
for? What does it take to get ahead? If a strong organizational culture exists, the
seasoned employees will have consistent answers to these questions even when
the answers are not otherwise codified. When that is the case, strong
organizational cultures can prompt employees to work together and be aligned. It
also implies, however, that despite the benefits of direction and cohesiveness,
strong cultures sometimes can become a source of iner-tia or create blind spots,
which can get in the way of needed change and adaptation in rapidly changing
environments.

Organizational cultures can be shaped in many ways, both in words and by

example, including by way of codes of conduct, group rewards, intra-
organizational transfers, physical and social arrangements, and tone at the top.

Codes of conduct

Most organizations above minimal size attempt to shape their organizational

culture through what are known, variously, as codes of conduct, codes of ethics,
organizational credos, or state- ments of mission, vision, or management
philosophy. These formal, written documents provide broad, general statements of
organizational values, commitments to stakeholders, and the ways in which
management would like the organization to function. The codes are designed to
help employees understand what behaviors are expected even in the absence of a
specific rule; that is, they are to some extent principle-based rather than merely
rule-based. They may include important messages about dedication to quality or
customer satisfaction, fair treatment of employees and customers, employee safety,
innovation, risk taking, adherence to ethical principles, open communications and
willingness to change. To be effective, the messages included in these statements
should be reinforced through both formal training sessions and informal
discussions or mentoring meetings among employees and their superiors.

A recent study from the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE) estimated that four-
fifths of FTSE 100 companies had an explicit code of conduct or equivalent in
2010, increasing from only an estimated one-third in 1993.35 But codes of
conduct can vary considerably in form across firms. There are an increasing
number of defensive, compliance-oriented, or legitimizing reasons to establish or
review a code, but a more meaningful motive proactively and regularly communi-
cates the organization’s distinctive culture and shared sense of purpose. The latter
may involve developing the code to properly calibrate the organization’s rules-
based policies with a more values-based approach to drive ethical decision-
making. As such, other than to comply with legal requirements, effective codes
aim to shape a shared company culture and to protect or improve the
organization’s reputation. The most commonly cited values embedded in the
codes are integrity, teamwork, respect, innovation, and client focus. In addition to
general policy statements, which almost all codes of conduct necessarily elaborate,
some codes provide guidance on specific issues, such as regarding confidential
information, accuracy of reporting (fraud), protection of corporate property, and
dealing with gifts and entertainment. If such guidance is included, then the
detailed behavioral prescriptions provide a form of action accountability control
because employees who violate the prescriptions can be reprimanded. Many
companies use e-learning modules to implement their code and have an ethics
hotline and whistle-blower mechanisms to report violations and misconduct

All told, even though two-thirds of FTSE 350 respondents stated that ethics plays
a part in their company’s recruitment process, and over four-fifths stated that
conformity to the company’s code of ethics is included in contracts of
employment,38 the weakness remains that three- fifths also believe that, when
push comes to shove, the code of conduct is not taken seriously

Overall, the latter survey suggests that the most commonly cited factors that
contribute to misconduct in the workplace were not only cynicism toward the
organization’s code of conduct, but also pressure to meet targets; fear of job loss
if targets are not met; systems that rewarded results over means; lack of
understanding of standards that apply to the job; lack of resources to get the job
done without cutting corners, and a belief that policies or procedures are easy to
bypass or override. The sum of these issues underlines the importance of the types
of controls we have discussed throughout this chapter.

Group rewards
Providing rewards or incentives based on collective achievement also encourages
cultural con- trol. Such incentive plans based on collective achievement can come
in many forms. Common examples are bonus, profit-sharing, or gain-sharing
plans that provide compensation based on overall company or entity (rather than
individual) performance in terms of accounting returns, profits, or cost reductions.
Encouraging broad employee ownership of company stock, with effective
corporate communications to keep employees informed and enthusiastic,
encourages all employees to think like owners.

Group rewards are discussed here as a type of cultural control rather than as a
results control (as we do in Chapter 9) because they are quite different in character
from rewards given for individual performance. With group rewards, the link
between individual efforts and the results being rewarded is weak, or at least
weakened. Thus, motivation to achieve the rewards is not among the primary
forces affected by group rewards; instead, communication of expectations and
mutual monitoring are. That is not to suggest that group rewards cannot have
positive effects on motiva- tion, even if only indirectly. Group rewards can
encourage teamwork, on-the-job training of new employees (when assigned to
teams that include experienced colleagues), and the creation of peer pressure on
individual employees to exert themselves for the good of the group.

Other approaches to shape organizational culture

As mentioned earlier, other common approaches to shape organizational culture

include intraorganizational transfers, physical and social arrangements, and tone
at the top.

Intra-organizational transfers or employee rotation help transmit culture by

improving the socialization of employees throughout the organization, giving
them a better appreciation of the problems faced by different parts of the
organization, and inhibiting the formation of incompatible goals and perspectives.

Physical arrangements (such as office plans, architecture, and interior decor) and
social arrangements (such as dress codes, institutionalized habits, behaviors, and
vocabulary), can also help shape organizational culture. Some organizations, such
as technology firms in Silicon Valley, have created informal cultures, with open
office arrangements and casual dress codes that deliver messages about the
importance of innovation and employee equality

Finally, management can shape culture by setting the proper tone at the top. Their
statements should be consistent with the type of culture they are trying to create,
and, importantly, their actions and behaviors should be consistent with their
statements. Managers serve as rolemodels and, as the various surveys quoted
earlier in this chapter suggest, are a determining factor in creating a culture of
integrity in their organizations. Management cannot say one thing and do another.
That said, management sometimes sets the wrong tone by not responding
appropriately to matters brought to their attention, such as ethics concerns or
reports of misconduct.47 All too common, whistle-blowers (employees who draw
attention to suspected malpractice) are ignored, and so forth. Several studies,
indeed, paint a rather gloomy picture of tone at the top.