Fundamental of Management: Workplace Challenges and Solutions

This report critically examines the functions of management in the context of a changing workplace environment, focusing on the impact of contemporary management practices on employees, particularly millennials. It addresses the challenges arising from the evolving workforce, including issues like attrition, work-life balance, and employee satisfaction. The report analyzes the impact of managerial styles, such as authoritarian leadership, and their effects on employee morale and productivity. Furthermore, it provides practical solutions for managers to overcome these challenges, including improving communication, creating a comfortable work environment, and introducing flexibility. The analysis emphasizes the importance of adapting management strategies to meet the needs of the modern workforce and retain potential employees. The report concludes by highlighting the significance of employee satisfaction and retention for organizational success.

Running head: FUNDAMENTAL OF MANAGEMENT
Fundamental of Management
[Critiquing the Functions of Managements in the Changing Environment]
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Executive summary
This paper summarises the impact of managerial nature on the contemporary employees.
Millenials are very keen to work in a comfortable and friendly environment. This assignment
has shown the issues surrounding the different challenges at the contemporary workplace. It
has also depicted the importance of bringing changes to the workplace in order to retain the
potential employees. Moreover, this effectively lets its readers know about the current
workplace challenges and the appropriate solutions to all those.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Contemporary workplace environment......................................................................................3
Impact of contemporary managers.............................................................................................5
Current challenges to the managers...........................................................................................6
Appropriate solution...................................................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The contemporary working environment has seen a dramatic change in relation of
management styles and the working environment. An incrementing number of participation
of Millennials at the workplace has contributed significantly in the change, which has
generated many challenges that needs serious repair from the contemporary managers (Fuller
and Unwin 2014). However, very few mangers have a realisation of the importance, which
such required changes carry with it. Nevertheless, it is very important for the mangers that
they research it thoroughly the importance of bringing the changes in the workplace
environment (Griffin 2013). The main purpose of this assignment is to analyse the
functionalities of the modern mangers in the existing workplace environment. After analysing
the exact functionalities, the assignment would also recommend some solutions to the
contemporary mangers for overcoming the identified challenges and produce a significant
impact on the workplace.
Contemporary workplace environment
There has been a drastic change in the workplace nature. The traditional workplace
was different to the exiting workplace in many respects. The very first difference is in the
participation rate of different generations such as Millennials, Boomers and Baby Boomers.
The current workplace is occupied in high numbers by the Millennials. Additionally, the
future workplace would be dominated by the presence of Millennials (Stein 2013). An
increasing participation of Millennials has also brought increased demands and expectations
from the management. They have numbers of demands, which they expect to be fulfilled by
the mangers. However, on the other hand, managers have their own thought process. They
feel otherwise. They are attached to the business, which is why they think of profitable
things. Most of the demands of Millennials are meaningless to the managers because they do

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not find such demands potentially good for the organisational betterment. They are correct
from their perspectives and from the perspectives of the organisation; however, they are not
good from the perspectives of the Millennials. This is where a never dying conflict of
thoughts takes place in between the management and the employees. Such conflicts are
extremely harmful for both the organisation and the employees (Sonnentag, Unger and Nägel
2013).
The conflicting thoughts produce a challenging environment for both the employees
and the organisation. Employees find this difficult to sustain with such policies whereas
employer suffer of reduce organisational performance for half-heartedly committed
workforce. The outcome is very much evident in the incrementing attrition rates in almost
every small and large size organisation (Goswami and Jha 2012). Furthermore, the rate of
attrition is because of two possible reasons such as a frequent switch over nature of
Millennials and the frustration. Frequent switch over nature is very common with the
Millennials. They persist with such tendency until they reach an approximate age of 34. At
34, they then look to settle with their desired job. They would not experiment any further (Ng
and McGinnis Johnson 2015). Another reason behind the frequent switch over is the
frustration, which Millennials in particular develops into them. They find something very
unfavourable with their mindset, which then keep on prompting their mind to look for a better
option. It takes a long until they decide to move; however, during such long time, they show
their frustration at their work by being half heartedly committed to their roles and
responsibilities. On the other hand, contemporary managers do get hints of frustration in
employees but they are least bothered of bringing any significant change to retain the
employees. The combination of frustration of employees and the negligence of the same by
managers contribute in the incrementing attrition, which is a loss of asset for the organisation
in particular (Shankar and Muneera 2014).

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Impact of contemporary managers
Managers can play a vital role in resolving the rising issue at the workplace. However,
they show least interest for the same. Leadership style in organisation apart from the other
issues matter significantly. It is also practical that if employee’s demands were not fulfilled
they would be least bothered of leadership style. However, it matters because sometimes
employees decide to move just because of the rude leaders. Such leaders become intolerable
to the employees, which is why they gets frustrated and leave the job (Carmeli, Gelbard and
Reiter‐Palmon 2013). For example, the leadership style in China is authoritarian, which is
only concerned with the production. Moreover, such leaders have least concerns for the
employee’s satisfaction. There are instances when some employees have also committed
suicide after getting frustrated with such leadership style (Hui et al. 2014). Such examples do
speak of the values of the leadership style. On contrary to this, the contemporary mangers are
authoritarian in most cases. Authoritative leadership style can improve the production
depending upon the nature of the business; however, quality of works would be highly
missing in such scenarios.
The impact of managers may be largely seen as less effective on employees only with
few exceptions (Yasin Ghadi, Fernando and Caputi 2013). Employees stay in organisation
despite having larger dissatisfaction with it just to serve some purpose such as financial gap
solution. Such employees are in regular hunt of getting their choice of jobs. Once they get it,
they switch over to the new job. Managers are under pressure to perform better in order to
stay competitive. However, they fail to balance the urgency with the required leadership
style. They concentrate on one part of the organisation but they fail to understand the
importance of the other part of it. A leadership should be of transformative style, which can
adjust with the situations (Schalock and Verdugo 2012). Contemporary managers have less
practical plans to counter the challenges at the workplace. They are unpractical on many

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things that need a huge attention of the management. Working nature of Millennials looks
incompatible to them. This is why they consider it less to implement the required changes.
They tend to persist with the same management style in most cases, which is outdated in the
views of Millennials. Rate of attrition is a serious attack on the organisation. It is a loss of
asset, which attracts high investments in the form of basic salary, expenses on training &
development program etc. Additionally, this is also challenging to find a suitable alternate of
those who have considered moving to other organisation. Nevertheless, recruiting new
professionals would not yield any benefits as some of them might also have the same
tendency. It is highly advisable to bring the required changes in the management. Change
should be in accordance to the employee’s demands and the feasibility of those demands with
the organisational financial and management capabilities (Millar, Hind and Magala 2012).
Current challenges to the managers
There are many challenges to the contemporary managers, which have been noticed
but not have been implemented. Following are the some challenges that need a quick
repairing of those:
 Attrition: This is perhaps a potential challenge to the mangers. They have not been
able to retain employees. This is because they have not things according to the
demands of employees. Most importantly, they have not come across a common
platform where the managers and the employees can talk on issues. Issues could have
been resolved if there has been a common talk. Communication gap has largely
influenced the decision-making in Millennials. Additionally, Millennials have their
own thought process, which does not relate it with the thought process of the mangers.
The unbalanced state in between the managers and the employees has perhaps
produced such working environment (Singh et al. 2012).

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 Work life balance: This is one of such demands, which drive the Millennials for
switch over to a new job. Apart from the basic salary packages, work life balance is
perhaps the most important thing for the Millennials. They are less connected to hard
works. They rather prefer working less. They have high inclination for technology,
which also drive them for work life balance. They want things in simpler form. They
have concerns for flexible shift times, so that, they could plan their personal thing
accordingly. They want a simultaneous relationship in between their works and the
personal life (Kaur 2017).
 Workplace environment: The workplace environment needs a significant change in
order to reduce the attrition rates. Millennials do not like high work pressure.
However, they have to face such circumstances. On contrary to this, they do not have
any real motivation, which could hold them and encourage them to think twice before
switching over to a new job. Performance based incentives and other rewards are not
actually any real mean of motivation. Workplace environment in fact is the real
motivation that inspires the interests of Millennials. They look for a working
environment where they have flexible job nature with high acknowledgement to
socialism. Socialism in a broader sense means to them the exploration of social
gatherings and the abundant of friendliness. A cooperative management on
challenging situations is another mean of encouragement, which is missing in the
contemporary manager’s role (Ernst Kossek, Kalliath and Kalliath 2012).
 Employee satisfaction: It is very difficult to identify the satisfaction level of an
individual; however, it is relatively easier to identify the satisfaction level of mass
employees. The work nature sometimes does not allow the managers to settle with the
employee’s demands. It is indeed difficult to satisfy the needs of employees in the
highly incrementing competition in the market. Managers are bound to force

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employees to work more than the normal. On the other hand, Millennials have their
tendency to switch over to a new opportunity. Both contrasting characteristics clash to
each other, which therefore produce the unhappiness in some employees.
Consequently, they start searching for a job where they could get a reliable and
friendly work environment (Sageer, Rafat and Agarwal 2012).
Appropriate solution
Retaining all the employees is not feasible; however, it is relatively easier to prepare a
plan to identify the potential employees and then retain them. Following are some hints using
which mangers can take an attempt to retain employees:
 Identification of the potential employees: It is important to identify the potential
employees. Identification would be done based on work related skills, desire for work
etc. Such employees need different look out of the managers. Managers should also
adopt few things, which could satisfy the needs of the identified workforce.
 Communication: An improved communication is required with the identified
employees. Managers should collect necessary feedbacks from such employees.
Moreover, they should also work on to implement the feedbacks to its maximum
possibilities.
 Comfortable environment: Office premises need to be kept clean as this play a very
significant role in attracting the interest towards the organisation. Apart from the
environment, identified employees should also be given options to select their choice
of responsibilities at the workplace. This might bring them into their comfort zone.
Once, they are comfortable with the working environment they would certainly
deliver their best.

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 Flexibility: Flexibility should be introduced at the workplace. Employees should be
given a choice to live their life, as they want it to be. However, they need to deliver
their best in order to get the flexibility option.
Conclusion
Employee satisfaction has been a critical issue for the contemporary managers. They
are challenged to cope with the circumstances. They have not been able to retain the
employees. Incrementing attrition has become a common issue, which is getting influenced
by many factors such as unfavourable working environment, authoritative managers,
unavailability of work life balance etc. On the other hand, managers have no such realisation
that they need to change. The contemporary work environment needs some significant
change without which it would be difficult to reduce the attrition of employees and enhance
the competitiveness. Managers need to consider some changes such as bringing flexibility to
the work environment, improving communication with employees and providing a
comfortable workplace to them. They also need to monitor the impact of such changes. This
would help managers plan accordingly. A sustained business performance can only be
perceived if it has something to offer the Millennials.

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References
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changing work environment: An expert commentary on current scholarship. International
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