The Office, Season 1, Episode 3: Health Care

Theory 1: Organizational Reward Systems

The main objectives of reward programs are to keep employees coming to work and to motivate employees to achieve high levels of performance. When Michael Scott is forced by upper management to cut employee benefits, he immediately shirks the responsibility knowing that no matter how small the cut, employees will be disgruntled.

Determinants of whether or not individuals are satisfied with their rewards:

• It’s a function of how much is received and how much the individual feels should be received. The employees are obviously dissatisfied because they feel they deserver more health care benefits than they currently receive, yet even that is being cut.

• Comparisons with what happens to others. Some people start making up diseases probably believing that if some are getting medical pay for what they have, then everyone should be receiving the same level of compensation regardless of whether or not they have an illness.

• How satisfied employees are with intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. There’s little opportunity of extrinsic reward satisfaction seeing as there isn’t much opportunity for promotions in position or pay within the office. As for intrinsic rewards, most employees are unhappy with their jobs and keep them because of their need for a set salary.

• People differ in the rewards they desire and the relative importance different rewards have for them. Older employees such as Stan take the health care quiz much more seriously because they really need the financial help, while Pam and Jim take it as a joke because it isn’t an immediate concern for them.

• Some extrinsic rewards are satisfying because they lead to other rewards. Employees in the office don’t receive either, making it very hard for them to be satisfied with their jobs.

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Theory 1: Socializing A Culturally Diverse Workforce

The Office has a largely diverse group of employees that differ culturally and physically, which constitutes the spectrum of human differences.

Diversity is based on age, ethnicity, gender, physical attributes, race, and sexual/affectional orientation. Because of the various differences that exist between people, a socialization process must be undertaken in the workplace to ensure that the leader is familiar with the various ethnicities and cultures that exist around them.

An attempt to socialize Dunder Mifflen can be seen in The Office as management brings in an organization to teach an insensitive Michael Scott about diversity.

Diversity training:

Process vs. content: Diversity training focuses on the process that’s undertaken rather than the content. In The Office, Michael brings together his employees in order to discuss why some acts may be seen as offensive while others are not.

Emotional vs. conceptual training: The informal, unstructured dialogue that’s encouraged through the use of process training techniques encourages people to learn about how to deal with others with respect to their feelings.

Continue reading "Organizational Behavior in "The Office: S01E02"" »

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