COVID-19: How Does It Impact Organizational Behaviour? - Essay Sample

Introduction

The COVID-19 is a respiratory disease that gets manifested in the form of fever, dry cough, and in severe cases, difficulty in breathing. The condition gets transmitted through the eyes, nose, and mouth, and the infecting agent is the coronavirus (World Health Organization). Organizational behaviour is the study of how people behave while in the work environment. Organizational behaviour studies how individuals relate with each other at work and how their relationship directly impacts work performance, communication, motivation, and organizational performance as a whole (Miner 3). The behaviour of an individual while interacting with groups in an organization influences a person's motivation and satisfaction while delivering services to the organization.

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The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has directly affected business operations worldwide. Some businesses have entirely closed, whereas other companies had had to alter their mode of operations. The change of business operation has directly changed human behaviour at the places of work. The shift in business operation is also altering organizational behaviour. The evolution of organizational behaviour in many firms is motivated by the move to do all business online. The effort aims to stop the spread of the disease.

Problem Diagnosis

With the outbreak of COVID-19, most government has urged all the businesses to conduct their activities online. Other countries with severe cases have fully locked down the states to fight the disease. The lockdown and change of mode of work online (Liang). The lockdown and working online has severely affected the social.

Additionally, with the large number of people dying, there is widespread fear. The fear makes most of the people to stay at home to avoid contracting the disease. And for the people who are still going to work, the is even more. Hence, resulting from protesting to be given protective gears.

The disease has caused significant business to become closed due to the government's directive to enforce lockdown. The countries all over the world shut down their airspaces. The move to shutdown gets necessitated to stop the spread of the disease from one country. The lockdown has made airline companies to loose profit, and some of them are on the verge of collapsing. The grounding of aeroplanes prompted most airlines to cut the salary of their staff by a half. The salary cut has jeopardized the ability of most of the workers of the airline to be unable to cater for themselves.

Lastly, the COVID-19 has made individuals working in different companies to have low esteem with depreciating self-actualization. Most of the employees working in various companies have set aside their self-actualization plans since the companies now are making losses. They were thus resulting in employees taking forced leaves and pay-cuts. And for those who contracted the disease in their line of duty, have been quarantined. Thus the quarantine ultimately leads to low self-esteem.

Analysis of the Problems With Observational Behavior Theories and Concepts

To analyze the organizational behaviour of how employees are performing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs explains the situation further. About Maslow's Hierarchy, human needs are categorized into hierarchical needs starting from the most basic requirement to the needs, which can get classified as a luxury.

Analyzing the employees' needs at this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, an observation of the deprivation of human needs gets observed hence leading to behaviour change. For instance, the physiological needs, ranking the lowest in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, depicts this as the most crucial need (Miner 348). According to Maslow's Hierarchy, the physiological need is the need to fulfil physical requirements like hunger, water, thirst, and many more. With the spread of COVID-19, the physiological need has been severely affected since most companies have cut down on the salaries of their employees. The salary cut has made many people cut down on their budget for physiological needs. In turn, the pay-cut leading to a reduction of expenditure on physiological needs has led to depression.

The Maslow's need for actualization has been severely affected since most people are losing jobs, and for the jobless, the hope of getting a job soon is completely diminished (International Labour Organization). The employees of many companies now are struggling to cater for their families amid pay-cuts, hence making them forego the plans of improving themselves professionally. Accordingly, the COVID-19 has made many people suffer depression and low morale at work.

Additionally, the social need under Maslow's hierarchy of needs has to get severely damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. The employees' social cycle gets stopped because of the lockdown. And by the virtue that most employees get advice to work from home (Wall). Therefore is no friendship that employees have been enjoying at the workplace. Thus, because of the abrupt cut of the employees' need to socialize, the behavioural change observed in many people is depression.

Solutions for the Change of Organizational Behavior Due to Corona Pandemic

As things stand now, the COVID-19 pandemic is not going to go away anytime soon. Therefore as such, the recommendations made to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on organizational behaviour could be immature at the time. However, some of the impacts that can get reduced include using video calls to connect with friends socially. Additionally, employees should buy bare necessities for their family to caution the strained budget.

COVID-19 and Observational Behavior in Team Project Organization

COVID-19 has impacted negatively on the team project organization. In the recent past, all meetings considered to be public gatherings get banned by the government. The ban of physical meet up adversely affects the project in a negative way. The two reasons the effect of the prohibition is huge on projects is because; the team leader needs to meet with the team members from time to time and, it is also vital for teams to meet with sponsors to issued them regular updates.

The Problem COVID-19 Has Created on Teams

With the government imposing a total lockdown, there is also a stop on the activities of the projects (Liang, Lu-Hai). The stoppage of the projects has necessitated because people in a team cannot meet anymore. Additionally, due to significant losses experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic period, the funds for rolling out projects are entirely diminishing. The only plan that can continue at this time is the projects that can get done collaboratively remotely. An excellent example of such projects is the IT projects. Therefore, the project teams get disintegrated due to COVID-19.

Analysis of the Problems Caused by COVID-19 on Team Organizational Behavior

Individual people join teams intending to get security, improve their self-esteem, and for social cohesion and enjoyment reasons (Miner 3 - 5). The need is among the Maslow's hierarchy of demand for socialization. The need gets broken because employees are just in their houses and they are not meeting. The lockdown has led to depression among team members since some of them get energy from teammates.

Solutions to the Effects Caused By COVID-19 on Teams

The only solution to keeping the team abreast of all the activities is setting up video conferences to connect with the rest of the team to exchange ideas.

Works Cited

World Health Organization. "Coronavirus." World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 2020, www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus#tab=tab_1.

Miner, John B. Organizational Behavior: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. Vol. 1. ME Sharpe, 2005.

Liang, Lu-Hai. "How Covid-19 Led to a Nationwide Work-from-Home Experiment." BBC Worklife, BBC, 9 Mar. 2020, www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200309-coronavirus-covid-19-advice-chinas-work-at-home-experiment.

Miner, John B. "The rated importance, scientific validity, and practical usefulness of organizational behaviour theories: A quantitative review." Academy of Management Learning & Education 2.3 (2003): 250-268.

International Labour Organization. "How Will COVID-19 Affect the World of Work?" COVID-19: Impacts: How Will COVID-19 Affect the World of Work? 19 Mar. 2020, www.ilo.org/global/topics/coronavirus/impacts-and-responses/WCMS_739047/lang--en/index.htm.