Trust is an essential component in any channel of the communication process within any organization. With trust prevalent in the atmosphere of any organization, subordinates place their confidence in the ability of managers to lead effectively and with integrity. Herein lies the fundamental challenge facing any organization: how do managers build and sustain a widespread climate of trust?

As goes the wisdom of the famous investor Warren Buffet, “It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that , you’ll do things differently“. Trust and reputation are not a given in any organization; they take an incredible amount of dedication and persistence to build. In my opinion, the starting point for any manager looking to bolster the integrity of an organization is to establish rich communication channels – that is, make the means for communication in an organization ceaseless in their ability transfer meaning. This should take the form of face-to-face interactions, avoiding digital communication as much as possible. By sticking to rich communication channels, managers mitigate the possibilities of their meaning being distorted by communication barriers such as filtering, selective perception and silence, while the enhancing their communication by adding nonverbal gestures.

Furthermore, I believe another key to establishing trust within an organization lies within constructing effective and purposeful communication networks; as the meaning of communication can inevitably become distorted as it flows through the various levels of an organization, it is important to design communication channels that allow information to travel fluently from one source to another. In my opinion, all-channel networks are the most suitable for achieving the fluent transfer of information as they are proven not only to be efficient and effective in transfer, but also high in employee satisfaction. It is key however to emphasize that when managers communicate with their employees, they should aim to limit ambiguities and strive for coherence, as they should take an active role in informing subordinates about the state of knowledge within the organization.

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Word Count: 311

Bibliography:

Donahue, B. (2014, November 27). Trust [Image]. Retrieved from http://churchleaders.com/smallgroups/leading-small-group-leaders/150783-bill_donahue_trust_how_to_build_it_up_or_tear_it_down_in_your_group.html

The Role and Importance of Building Trust. (2008, February). Retrieved from PennState: Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology and Education website: http://aese.psu.edu/research/centers/cecd/engagement-toolbox/role-importance-of-building-trust

One of the most ubiquitous threats to the sustainability of any business is short-term management – that is, when incentive programs only provide short-term motivation. This dilemma came to the spotlight during the 2008 financial crisis, when it became evident that managers were making risky bets for short-term profitability, but oblivious to the long-run implications of their decisions. Since then, much emphasis has been placed on reforming the existing corporate incentives of profit-sharing plans, bonuses, and piece-rate pay plans. The task that lies ahead for future managers involves taking a new approach to motivating not only employees, but also managers , and also, realizing the dangers in purely extrinsic incentives.

In my opinion, the root cause of short-term management is a lack of diligence that stems from an absence of ownership; because executives in many cases possess little or no equity in a company, they don’t always feel obligated to postulate the long horizon of their decisions. As Lucien Bebchuk argues in his blog, there was a “partial insulation of executives’ payoffs from effects on long-term shareholder value“. I ultimately agree, and believe an alternative to countering this problem is to make employee stock ownership plans (ESOP) more prevalent in organizational culture. With ESOP’s, employees will actually possess stock equity in their company, thus compelling them to consider the long-term implications of their decisions. If a strong sense of psychological ownership is felt among employees, the organization will benefit from a stronger foundation of commitment.

Another solution I believe would be to focus more attention to improving intrinsic motivation, not only among employees, but also among managers. With only the extrinsic motivation of money, there is a disconnect between managers and the soul of the organization. By applying expectancy theory, one can infer that extrinsic incentives are only considered in the short-run, and are not sustainable – in other words, money can’t motivate you to do something you don’t like forever. Instituting incentive plans that reinforce good behaviour and, recognize and involve employees with the company in more profound ways can inculcate an emotional attachment among employees to the company.

The bottom line is that people constitute organizations; fostering a long-term intrinsic connection to an organization is vital to growth and sustainability.

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Word Count: 331

Sources:

Silverthrone, S. (2012, April 11). The High Risks of Short-Term Management. Retrieved from Harvard Business School website: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/the-high-risks-of-short-term-management

Manitoba Islamic Association. (2016). Financial Sustainability [Photograph]. Retrieved from Photo: http://www.miaonline.org/financial-sustainability/

Percival, M. (2016). Finance Sector [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/f/finance_sector.asp

Blog Cited: http://blogs.worldbank.org/allaboutfinance/executive-pay-and-the-financial-crisis

According to the most recent 100 Best Companies to Work rankings compiled the prestigious Forbes magazine, Alphabet (formerly known as Google) took home the top spot, marking their 7th consecutive time in this spot. Their extraordinary success as a company bears the question: how exactly did Google’s human resource management defy the conventional wisdom of workplace culture to create one of the most profitable and sought after careers in history?

Google is widely known to offer high monetary compensation, flexible schedules and unique perks, however, the answer does not solely lie in tangible incentives. For Google, they were able to coalesce their wide array incentives and allures, thus fostering a flourishing organizational culture. Firstly, by identifying their targeted generational cohort as tech savvy and creative millennials, Google was able to create an organizational structure that most robustly coincided with the characteristics of millennials. For example, as millennials tend to identify as creative, independent and seekers of a healthy work-life balance, not only does Google allow flexible scheduling and free fitness classes, but also the ability for employees to take extended leaves of absence to explore life outside the workplace . In my opinion, Google incorporated the idealist and individualist characteristics of millennials to create a workplace where the corporate culture allows workers make meaningful contributions and feel individually valued as opposed to some nameless employee in some collectivist machine. Judging from the high job productivity and job satisfaction rate, Google’s organizational culture has succeeded in their ability to foster Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) – that is, creating a positive work environment where employees fee welcome and are encouraged to go the extra mile.

What can other organizations learn form Google? Clearly I think the largest take away from analyzing Google’s organizational culture is that conventional incentive structures of just monetary compensation are not sufficient in attracting and effectively retaining the next generation of talented employees. Given the different values and attitudes of the next generation of millennials, they perceive the world in a fundamentally different way. Forward looking, I believe innovation in organizational structures will come from the ability of managers to recognize the varying perceptions of different generational cohorts and design a workplace culture that is clearly aligned with those perceptions.

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Word Count: 345

Bibliography

Fortune. (2016). 100 Best Companies to Work for. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/best-companies/google-alphabet-1/

Great Place to Work. (2016, September 19). Retrieved from http://reviews.greatplacetowork.com/google-inc?utm_source=fortune&utm_medium=list-page&utm_content=reviews-link&utm_campaign=2016-100-best

Ram, S. (2014, July). Google [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://says.com/my/tech/revealed-the-seven-best-perks-you-get-as-a-google-employee

Rapier, G. (2014, October). Millennials in the Workplace [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.inc.com/graham-rapier/millennials-infographic.html