Panel Discussion on Employee Counselling, Cohesiveness and Decision-making in an Organisation

On 26^th February 2016, a panel discussion was organised by the students of Organizational Behaviour from I MA Applied Sociology on the topic “Employee Counselling, Cohesiveness and Decision-making in an Organization” under the guidance of Dr. Sheila Mathew, Professor, Department of Sociology, which was moderated by Ashween Lama, and Vishica Gwendolen. 

The class was divided into three groups. Each panel was assigned topics namely, ‘Employee Counselling’, ‘Designing Motivational Strategies’ and ‘Cohesiveness and Decision-making techniques’. The first group started by defining employee counselling and gradually moved to discussing the need for employee counselling. Along with discussing the need for employee counselling, they also discussed the types and steps involved in it and the current status of employee counselling in the organizations based in India.

The second set of panelists continued with discussions on motivation strategies for knowledge workers and different rewards to motivate employees. They focused on discussing motivating job design and the way of using the rewards in order to keep employees motivated. Also the job characteristic model and employee involvement were the part of discussion.

The third group of panelists discussed the concept of group cohesiveness and its importance in an organization. They talked about the different approaches to decision-making and problem solving. The panelists also discussed some case studies of problem-solving and decision making. The group further elaborated on how effective supervision helps in achieving desired goals and the different approaches to the process of planning as a whole.

In conclusion, the panelists observed Employee counselling as an important aspect to increase and sustain employee motivation, reduce absenteeism and increase performance in an organization. Also, how effective decision making techniques are essential in the problem solving in an organization.

Anushka Sharma

MA Applied Sociology

Seminar on Job Satisfaction

On 15^th February 2016, paper presentations were organized by the students of 1st M.A Applied Sociology, under the guidance of Dr. Sheila Matthew, Professor of Department of Sociology. The topic given to the class was ‘Concept of Job Satisfaction -Influence of Personality and Attitude’. The class was divided into three groups. In total, there were 19 papers presented over a week’s time.

The first group presented their papers on the definition and concept of Job Satisfaction along with the theories of Job Satisfaction. The presenters spoke about theories such as- Affect Theory, Dispositional Theory, and Equity theory to understand employee motivation. They also looked at Discrepancy Theory, Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory and Job Characteristic Theory of employee motivation.

The next set of presenters i.e. the second group spoke about the Influence of Personality on Job Satisfaction, where they focused on the relationship between job performance and job satisfaction; how people’s personalities influence organizational commitment and the major personality attributes which influence Organizational Behaviour. Members of the group also spoke about how motivation and personality go hand in hand and the role of values to build personality in order to promote job satisfaction.

The third set of presenters i.e. group three presented on the Influence of Attitude on Job Satisfaction. The presenters covered areas such as what constitutes attitude, its types. The major job attitudes were also spoken about along with its relationship with behaviour, the positive and negative attitudes of job satisfaction, how to measure and influence employee attitudes and how to minimize the gaps between attitudes and job satisfaction along with evaluating the effectiveness of practice.

These presentations have exposed us to how today’s competitive organizational environment thrive and survive on their human resources- which are formed by values, attitudes, perceptions and behaviours. These resources influence employee’s performance. This is where self-motivation and job satisfaction are key factors in realizing individual and organizational goals.

Nibedita Dutta
MA Applied Sociology