Organisational Behaviour in Tpn

1. Introduction

Organisational Behaviour deals with how an individual or a group behave in an organisation. The main purpose of this study is to obtain a broader picture of the behaviour of a person or a group of individuals in an organisation. This study helps to set organisational goals and also to build better relationships within an organisation. Different factors can affect the behaviour of the employees. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse a certain situation where I was working.

1.1 Case Study

Third Party Network (TPN) is a project in the health care domain of a multinational insurance company. There were two full time employees in this project; a female employee and I. The project was so sensitive and the service level agreement with the client was that it will ensure that at least one person will be available on any given working day. The female employee was due for maternity leave in the next three months. This has been under the notice of the manager. I discussed about this with the manager well in advance and recommended to cross-train a back-up before the lady will go for maternity leave. The manager seemed to be less worried about this despite occasional reminders. Finally, on the day the lady was due to go, the manager proposed an "innovative" plan of cross-training two against one back-up. I was given this responsibility to ensure that the proposed back-ups are well trained within a short span of time than the usual training. Constant quality check and feedback had to be done; progress report has to be sent on a daily basis; all without any waiver to my production target as otherwise on a normal day. Since the deadlines imposed on the new training and back-up plan was very short, everyone involved in this project was affected in several ways.

The poor planning in this situation had many disadvantages and little positive effects. Of many factors that can be discussed about, I have decided to look in detail on this situation's impact on stress and motivation levels on the people involved.

2. Stress

The most common emotion any employee goes through at work is stress. According to Health and Safety Executive (Nov2007), "Stress is the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure. It isn't a disease. But if stress is intense and goes on for some time, it can lead to mental and physical ill health". Pressure can have either positive or negative impact on a person depending on the situation. The negative response to pressure is stress. Stress has become a part of daily life and is the result of various reasons. Some stresses are transferrable where as some of them motivates to do better. There are both positive and negative effects as the result of stress.

2.1 Causes

There are many reasons for stress. Increasing demands