A manager is a mentor and coach

The most prominent factor that cause the stress to the Human Capital and human being in general, is the to dwell on the past bad experience. An inability to solve a certain intricate task may haunt an employee and wield strain which further reduces performance. An employee is expected to perform within a given deadline and still unable to complete a first task of the series of tasks needed to be done, may start to undergo stress levels. In most cases, employee fails to inform a manager in time about inability to perform. The main reasons are: (1) he/she wants to prove to a manager that he/she is worthy doing it, (2) his/her appointment to a position was a good decision, (3) he/she wants to earn trust.

However, a manager does not want a proof that employee was a good choice to take a position. A manager wants outcome which will assist a business to achieve its strategic objectives. A manager is prepared to assist an employee to learn and grow.  Coaching and mentoring an employee is the principal function of a good manager. If an employee repudiate this salient request by a manager to coach and mentor him/her, he/she deprives a manager for his/her duty. What else a manager should do when a subordinate refuses manager's assistance.

Dress Code and corporate image

Employee appearance has assume lesser importance because of decreasing face-to-face contact with clients. The advent of technology has brought about internet, e-mail, social network communication with the client. The deals can now be concluded on the click of a button. However, there are still remaining organizations which survive through face-to-face contact communication. Just to mention the few, such as  banks, sales businesses, and other, require appropriate appearance to clients. Now the question that needs to be answered is: what was the purpose of appropriate dress code in the first place? The obvious answer is: to appear presentable in front of the client. A deeper analysis of the answer one could decern the following: (1) corporate image enhancement, (2) trustworthness of company representative, and (3) willingness to win a profitable deal and sustain it.

An organizational representative is constrained by the level of a client to wear in a certain way in order to enhance the image of what he/she represents. An image enhancement may either for real corporate image or image of what a business should be all about. The real corporate image is a status of an organization created by past and present high opinion and its corporate structure and buildings. An enhancement of image may also resulted on trying to portray what a client expects in order to conclude a deal. A dress code is not only revealing what an organization could do with regard to the client expectation, it also says a lot about a representative as well. A client may trust or distrust a whole organization because of a represenative he/she is dealing with. A representative may change a way he/she dresses because he/she wants to win a deal and make profit. If there is no profit involved, it is highly possible for a representative not to drastically change the way he/she dresses.

Employee conduct in the workplace- Who is responsible to manage?

At a glace, Human Resources department is at the receiving end regarding the conduct of an employee at the workplace. There are two points which associate HR with the conduct of an employee in an organization. The processes of recruitment & selection impugn HR in finding a candidate that matches not only job specification but the total organizational aura. The second point that associate HR with a conduct is discipline. HR is seen as the leader in maitaining discipline in an organization. The power to lead discipline originates from ownership of labour policies and procedures.  HR is tasked with a responsibility to read and interprete policies. It is in a better position to apply policies consistetly as a result of sitting in all disciplinary hearings of an organization.

The first point of recruiting & selection of an employee requires a recruitment system that will able to detect traits. Behavioural questions in a questionnaire is just one step in detecting traits of a potential employee. The emphasis should be in aligning a potential employee behaviour with organizational norms and conduct standards. Therefore HR questions should have substance and represent organizational employee attitude.  The questions should lean more on identifying the type of employee against the total organization behavioural norms not limited on how employee responds on job pressures and direct supervision. The respnses in the interview should form a initial step as an employee may answer questions only to please a panel. The next step should be a background check using 360% assissment. An employee should be requested to provide references ranging and including at least peer, internal and external client, supervisor and/or manager.  

The question still stands on who should manage the conduct? The required standards of conduct should be made clear to a potential employee during recruitment& selection process. He/she should decide even before the signing of a contract that conduct integration is important as meeting expected level of performance. If he/she decides to accept an offer of employment then he/she accepts a clearly put standards of conduct. He/she is then required to manage his/her conduct based on predetermined list of conduct standards. The supervisors and managers should not manage performance only, a conduct should as well be part of good supervision. Line management is always working with an employee than with HR. The change in behaviour should be corrected before it becomes a misconduct. Misconduct normally affects integration the future of employee in number of ways. It depreciates relations in a department with management as well as co-workers. Misconduct normally carries a sanction which could lead to dismissal if it is of serious nature. Therefore conduct needs a proactive management rather than reactive management.