Causes Of Indiscipline
Various socio-economic and cultural factors play a role in creating indiscipline in an organisation. We wonder if you realise the fact that often indiscipline may arise because of poor management on your part. Insensitive and thoughtless words and deeds from a manager are potent reasons for subordinates to resort to acts of indiscipline. Defective communication by the superiors and ineffective leadership.
Causes Of Indiscipline:
The reasons could range anything from poor wages to, poor management and the communication gaps between the union and management.
The common causes of indiscipline are as follows:
1. Unfair Management Practices:
Management sometimes indulges in unfair practices like:
Wage discrimination
Non-compliance with promotional policies and transfer policies
Discrimination in allotment of work
Defective handling of grievances
Payment of low wages
Delay in payment of wages
Creating low quality work life etc.
These unfair management practices gradually result in indiscipline.
2. Absence of Effective Leadership:
Absence of effective leadership results in poor management in the areas of direction, guidance, instructions etc. This in turn, results in indiscipline. I am sure you remember the importance of leadership as studied in the last semester. If you do (which I suppose you do), you can relate the importance of effective leadership with handling indiscipline.
3. Communication Barriers:
Communication barriers and absence of humane approach on the part of superiors result in frustration and indiscipline among the workers. The management should clearly formulate the policies regarding discipline. These policies should be communicated and the policies should be consistently followed in the organisations. The management should also be empathetic towards the employees.
4. Varying Disciplinary Measures:
Consistent disciplinary actions must be there in the organisation to provide equal justice to all concerned. At different times and for everyone, the same standard of disciplinary measures should be taken otherwise it may give rise to growing indiscipline in the industry in future i.e., the judicious function on the past of management must be free form may bias, privilege or favouritism.
5. Defective Supervision:
Supervisor is the immediate boss of the workers and many disciplinary problems have their in faulty supervision. The attitude and behavior of the supervisor may create many problems. As the maintenance of the discipline is the discipline is the core f supervisory responsibilities, indiscipline may spring from the want of the right type of supervision.
6. Inadequate attention to personnel Problems:
Delay in solving personnel problems develops frustration among individual workers. The management should be proactive so that there is no discontent among the workers. It should adopt a parental attitude towards its employees.
However it should be noted that no relationship can continue for long if it is one sided. What I am implying here is that the workers should also live up to their commitments. They should be reasonable in their demands.
7. Victimisation:
Victimisation of subordinate also results in indiscipline. The management should not exploit the workers. It is also in the long-term interest of the management to take care of its internal customers
8. Absence of Code of Conduct:
This creates confusion and also provides chance for discrimination while taking disciplinary action. We will be discussing Code of Discipline in details etc.
A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the responsibilities of or proper practices for an individual, party or organization. Related concepts include ethical codes and honor codes.
8. Divide and Rule Policy:
Many mangers in the business obtain secret information about other employees through their trusted assistants. The spying on employees is only productive of a vicious atmosphere and of undesirable in the organization. Henry Fayol has rightly pointed out that dividing enemy forces to weaken them is clever, but dividing one's own team is grave sin against the business. No amount of management skill is necessary for dividing personnel, but integrating personnel into a team is the challenging task of sound management.
9. Deferring settlement of Employee Grievances:
The employee grievances cannot be put off by deferring or neglecting their solutions. The grievances should properly be inquired into and settled by the managers in a reasonable period. Neglect of grievances often results in reduced performance, low morale and indiscipline among the employees. Strikes and work stoppages stem in many cases form the utter neglect of employee grievances.
10. Mis-judgment in Promotion and Placements:
Mis-judgment in personnel matters like promotion and placements contribute to the growth of indiscipline in an enterprise. Cases of mis-judgment are carefully noted, widely circulated, and hotly debated by the employees. Expecting discipline from misruled people is not possible. Sometimes, undesired persons are placed on the jobs which makes the employees discontented, then giving rise to the problem of indiscipline.
Facts [+]
Rudeness in the workplace can cost an organization time, effort and talent, according to a survey conducted by the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. More than 90% said they had experienced incivility at work. Of these, 50% say they lost work time worrying about the incident, 50% contemplated changing jobs to avoid a recurrence, and 25% cut back their efforts on the job.
The use of condescending tones is one of the biggest pet peeves [A pet peeve (or pet hate) is a minor annoyance that an individual identifies as particularly annoying to him or her, to a greater degree than others may find it.] at work, according to recent survey of 2,318 employees by workforce solutions company Randstad USA. Other workplace pet peeves include: public reprimands, micromanaging, loud talkers, cell phones ringing, speakerphones, personal conversations, and the use of PDAs during meetings.
