BMSK5001 - Developing Workplace Critical Thinking: An Analysis

This essay explores the development of critical thinking in the workplace, emphasizing the importance of values, attitudes, and behaviors in shaping organizational culture and sustainability. It discusses how employee values, influenced by childhood experiences and beliefs, impact their attitudes and behaviors towards new strategies. The role of a sustainability manager is highlighted in implementing strategies that recognize and address both positive and negative values, aligning them with business ethics. Theoretical models such as the theory of reasoned action and self-regulation are examined to understand employee intent and motivation in accepting sustainability initiatives. Examples, like health sessions and religious freedom, illustrate how these concepts apply in practice. The essay also reflects on the author's role as a sustainability manager, detailing responsibilities and the application of management theories like chaos theory and system theory to navigate complex organizational challenges and promote cooperation among employees and customers.

Assignment Title: Developing workplace critical thinking
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Executive Summary:
Values, attitudes, and behaviors are the most important things in any business organization.
These are also very essential in determining the workplace culture. Values are present within
the individuals' right from their childhood. However, these values can be something inherited
or some aspects of the religious teachings as well. It is these values that often determining the
attitude and behavior of the employees. It is the duty of sustainability manager and the other
managing boards to make sure that they are implementing strategies that would recognize the
positive and the negative values, attitude and behaviors among employees and change them
as per the ethics of the business.
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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................4
Behavior, Values, and attitudes.................................................................................................4
Behavior, Values, and attitudes in workplace...........................................................................5
My job role and relevant theoretical models..............................................................................5
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References:...............................................................................................................................11
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Introduction:
This modern day society is an era of overpopulation and limited natural resources. It
is for this reason that all the people must be sensible and responsible enough to live by
sharing the limited natural resources like the fossil fuels. However, the term sustainability
study in an umbrella term that is not only applicable to the resources of nature but also to the
sustainability of the social, economic and cultural aspects (Schaltegger et al. 2015). This is
the responsibility that has to be taken up by the young generation of the modern era. It is they
who will have to pass it on to the future generations. ESD or the education for sustainable
development will help people to change their thinking styles and take a good and responsible
step towards having a sustainable future.
Behavior, Values, and attitudes
Sustainability will be obtained only when people can have a changed and rational
thinking style. It can be properly achieved only when there is a change in the values,
thinking style, behave and attitudes of people. Sustainability is an overall concept that must
be brought in terms of social, environmental, political, and economic and many other such
socio-economic and cultural fronts. One of the good places for starting this sustainability is
the workplace.
A sustainability within a workplace can be successful only when the concept is instilled
within the organizational culture. This can be done by bringing a change in the values,
attitudes, beliefs of the employees.
Attitude is the way one reacts on seeing a person, or a thing or even a new approach. It is
developed over many years. So, starting a sustainability approach will require assessing the
backgrounds and the mindset of the employees. Attitude is often shaped over the experiences
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that they have gained through their lives. Some people might have the wrong and the
irrational attitude towards that what is rational. Values are the senses or some strict principles
that are present within the individuals and how they use the same for judging different things.
Beliefs are something that is instilled in individuals from their childhood. It depends on many
religious and cultural norms as well. They might not be logical enough and might be
inculcated within any individual from some religious preaching or some past experiences that
they suffered through.
It is evident that while implementing some new changes in any workplace is no easy job.
This is because not every employee will accept it in a proper way. There will naturally be,
many differences and conflicts within the approaches of the employees. These differences are
mainly created due to the behavior, values and the attitudes of the employees. All these three
principles are different for different employees and this, in turn, makes different employees
have the varied opinion about the new changes that might be introduced in the organization.
There are also different theories and models that can be used in this aspect (H and
Handelsman 2018).
The first is the theory of reasoned action. The reasoning sense of the employees is
developed by their action. One of the major forces that act behind their action or their sense
of reasoning is their intent. The intent of the employees matter a lot towards accepting any
new rule that affects the take or the move of an employee’s towards the sustainability
approaches. For an instance, if one of the ways of creating workplace sustainability it is to
hire general employees rather than employing the specialized employees, then it might turn
out to be very good news for all. They might think that this will be a fair competition among
all and all of them will work and learn simultaneously. This is because the attitude of this
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group of employees is positive and they have a good intention. They have the intention of
living and working with each other in peace and harmony. This will also increase the number
of vacancies within an organization. However, the rest of the employees might feel that this is
a very wrong approach and they might not support this sustainability approach. They might
feel that this will bring into the picture, many incompetent employees and there will be a
huge impact on the overall welfare and the productivity of the company. It can be said that in
this case, the intent of the employees is not very positive. They might not see a good intention
behind this.
Ryan and Deci (2017) have stated that the other theory that can be talked about in this
aspect is that of the theory of self-regulation (Vohs and Baumeister 2016). This theory is
evident of the fact that there has to be a motivation for creating any intent or any desire
within the individuals. However the desire has to be present within the employees for
accepting and working as per the sustainability strategy that is implemented within the
organization. O the other hand Wang and Hou (2015) is of the opinion that, motivation is one
of the major things that are to be talked about in this aspect because the desire is often created
due to motivation. Employees will be able to regulate themselves in a different way only after
they have received some impetus or some motivations. It will be helpful in bringing some
changes in the ways in which they regulate themselves.
Behavior, Values, and attitudes in the workplace
One of the sustainability strategies that the workplace might develop is daily health
sessions by the health experts. Some employees might be interested in this as they will have a
good attitude towards exercising and it will keep them healthy. However, the past
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experiences might also influence this decision. There can be some employees who might
have been sick or paralyzed and have grown better with due exercise and physical activities.
So for those employees, this particular strategy will be more of a positive attitude or value.
Some employees might be exercising every day in the morning or in the evening as an
offering to the nature of God. In such cases, this will be a belief for them. So the past
experiences matter a lot in shaping the minds or the movement of the individuals.
So, this might create a desire within them and they might agree to join in those
campaigns. However, if they do not have that desire then they will not think about
accepting or being part of these sustainable strategies. So, the motivations or the self-
regulation have to be instilled within the employees by motivating them to take up the
sustainable strategies.
For an instance imbibing religious freedom is also one of the sustainability that the
sustainable managers are taking nowadays. They might give this freedom to the Muslim
women to come in the office without their burkas or hijabs. Some female employees might
take this as a good intent and might accept it. They might have a good attitude towards
accepting any new changes within the company. On the other hand, some employees may
feel that they cannot come to work without their hijabs as it is a part of their religion. So it is
their belief that has been installed within them right from their childhood through their
religious preaching. In such cases, the sustainability manager must be liberal enough to allow
the Muslim female employees to take this decision as per their choice. Religious freedom will
help in imbibing a good cultural strategy and will also increase the overall productivity of the
organization (Laschinger and Fida 2014)
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My job role and relevant theoretical models
I am working as the sustainability manager in an organization and my role s to look
after the sustainable strategies of the organization. I am aware of the fact that the first thought
that usually comes to the minds of people after hearing this term sustainability manager is
usually that of an employee who is to look after the conservation of the environment through
the various green approaches that can be taken by the company. However it is the fact that
taking green approaches falls under my jurisdiction but I also make sure that I am making
strategies that will look after the social, cultural and the economic well being of the
employees as well.
I have the following roles to satisfy the obligations of being a sustainability manager-
I make the strategies that would help in keeping the organization cleaner and greener.
However, apart from this, I also have to make many strategies for making the communication
easy and comfortable. This will help me in communicating with the employees in a better
manner. I make sure that apart implementing the green strategies, I am being able to pass on
the information and make them available to all the employees both internal and external. I
make a close connection with all of the stakeholders in my organization both within and
without. I make sure that I am keeping a close contact with all the colleagues that I will be
working with. I believe that unless and until I am in a close association a connection with all
my colleagues and even the customers I will not be able to understand their choices or
implement the strategies.
I also keep a regular track of the current practices that are being done by the company. I
know that I will have to keep a constant follow up with all the current green practices that the
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company is following. I also look after the changing trend in their thinking pattern and the
behavior of the stakeholders.
In this context, I will also talk about some of the management theories that are useful in
my job role. I believe that there has to be a proper association and cooperation among all the
employees and then customers. As I work in the food producing company I have to take into
consideration the changing patterns of needs and demands of the employees. There are
actually man different theories of management that are applicable as per my job role. One
among them is the chaos theory. I feel that this theory is important because there are many
situations and circumstances that arise within the company that is not within the control of
anyone (Sharma et al. 2014).
However, some of the aspects can be controlled like the quality of the product supplied,
the storage facilities, the customer and the after sale services. On the other hand, Ferrell and
Fraedrich (2015) are of the opinion that there are also some aspects that often arise in the
company that cannot be controlled. Often there are many situations that are out of the control
like some financial contingency, the increased demand of customers for a certain product. So,
in such cases the manager has to make new strategies that will help in dealing with the
current complicated situation. The other theory that is applicable to my position is the system
theory. I feel that this is very important because often there is the need for introducing some
very new systems and these systems can be implemented properly only if there are some
cooperation and understanding among the employees. I often have to form proper
collaboration among the employees to make them understand the new approach and the
benefits of the same.
For an instance, being a sustainability manager in a food processing company, we have to
offer them the bills. Many of the other works of the company are also carried on with paper.
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So, I thought of starting this new strategy that would help in reducing the number of papers
that are used in the company.
So, once I realized that the total number of paper works we undertake on a daily basis is
huge. This harms the environment a great deal. Paper is often made from trees and this large
usage of papers leads to the indiscriminate felling of the trees and leads to deforestation. As a
result of this, the amount of greenhouse gas in the environment is increasing day by day.
Apart from this paper that is used in the day to day work of the company for billing purposes
or other writing jobs, a huge amount of paper is also used for packaging the food that the
customers ask for taking to their houses in the form of parcels or even the raw materials that
we have to take from the customers (Rayner and Morgan 2018).
So, I developed a sustainability strategy for reducing the usage of paper by digitalizing
the use of papers. In other words, I said that all the transactions will be done online. The
billing information will be seen to the customers through the Smartphone apps and the other
online modes and not through the papers. This decision was supported by half of the
employees but not the rest. I saw that the ones who supported this decision and the young
employees who are very well versed in the handling of the modern technological devices and
the internet. However, the ones that did not like this strategy were the ones who were bitten
aged and are not very well versed in the art of handling the digital objects. However, I felt
that this is not the right time to impose this strategy because though it will be applied towards
the promotion of environmental sustainability but it will not be a collective decision. I
always feel that the management within any organization has to be a collective decision else
it will be a failure.
So, I made sure that this strategy will be imposed after a certain time when each and
every employee within the organization is well versed in the skill of hailing the digitalized
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paper works. So, I arranged for training sessions and campaign session and I made sure that
all the employees are getting proper training from it.
I saw that this decision was really very well accepted by all the employees working
within my organization. Douglas McGregor’s theory of X and Y has been very influential for
me in my work organization. This theory is very natural and is applicable to almost all the
manager who is working in different management positions and in different organizations as
well. Theory Y believes that the employees are very responsible and they are ambitious
(Gurbuz et al. 2014). So, they do not insult the employees rather try to motivate them at each
and every instance. However, the believers of theory X are of the belief that the employees
are irresponsible and so they take the undue advantage of their power and try to dominate
them. However, I have seen that most of the employees resent the managers who follow the
theory X. They are always in favor of someone who believes in them and gives them time to
learn and to improve. I also developed the strategy of starting then usage of
telecommunication so that there can be a huge reduction in the carbon footprint produced by
the organization. I knew that it was a very new approach and it will surely need some time to
make all the employees get used to it. It might also require them to take part in some of the
other training campaigns and might likely hamper their production.
I saw many of them were worried. However, I encouraged them and said that I know
they are all capable of working very hard and learn the new and the innovative things. I made
it a point to cheer them up constantly. I saw that they were really very happy to see that their
management has a huge belief in them. So, they took this as an opportunity and worked hard
for improving their regular production on one hand and to learn this new sustainable strategy
on the other.
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