Bureaucracy In The Contemporary World
In the contemporary world, the global business environment has undergone tremendous changes. Its nature is due to a large number of scientific and technological innovations, the expanding global economy and the optimization of management methods. (2016). In such an environment, having a sustainable workforce in an organization is the key to success. Thus, Kessek, Valcour & Lorio (2014) say that sustainable workforce as one whose employees have the positive energy, capabilities, vitality, and resources to meet current and future organizational performance demands while sustaining their economic and mental health on and off the job. However, Weber argues that using bureaucracy to manage workers would be a precise, quick, and unified approach (Caramela, 2018). Therefore, this essay will critically discuss the contribution and barriers of bureaucracy to the construction of sustainable workforce, as well as another management approach for building sustainable workforce.
Bureaucracy is the personnel and administrative structure of an organization. It must follow a specific set of rules and procedures, have clear authority to register, power and responsibility from the top down (Mahfooz, 2019). Consequently, the first contribution of bureaucracy to building a sustainable workforce is to provide more job security for employees. For instance, Starbucks has a rule that people who work 20 hours or more a week can get a wide range of benefits. One of the benefits is that Starbucks provides adoption assistance and health insurance for employees and their families (Kramer, 2018). Because employees know that as long as they abide by the rules and regulations of their posts, they will get stable wages and special benefits so that they can live the life they want.
In addition, the second contribution of bureaucracy to building a sustainable labor force is that every employee has the right to fair competition. In an organization, bureaucracy emphasizes qualifications and technical competence, thus making the organization more democratic. In the early traditional organizations, there was excessive dependence on individuals and nepotism, and this kind of arbitrary and changeable management style was not suitable for the requirements of organizational management. In bureaucracy, however, everyone is subject to a consistent set of rules and policies, so there is no cronyism or other privileged treatment (Reynolds, 2018). In conclusion, in the construction of sustainable labor force, bureaucracy ensures the interests of employees through a series of systems and policies so as to achieve social security.
Although some may argue that bureaucracies make a significant contribution to building a sustainable workforce, in reality, they make the process of building a sustainable workforce fraught with obstacles because it makes raising productivity a difficult task and it is a dehumanizing management approach (Paudel, 2016). Leadership is a very important role in an organization. Because when a leader USES rules and institutions to create uniformity, as he adds more and more regulations, employees are forced to slow down production to meet production standards. Under such conditions, there are two extremes, and the best outcome is that the employees always maintain a high level of production quality. The worst result is that, in many systems, workers' productivity falls too quickly to recover.
