Office Space: Frustrated Employees in the Workplace - Essay Sample

Introduction

The comedy film Office Space, directed by Mike Judge, brings to light adverse organizational practices and the challenges that employees face in the workplace. The main characters in this movie are Milton, Peter, Joanna, Michael Bolton, and Bill Lumbergh. Judge portrayed Peter and a handful of his peers as frustrated employees who disliked their jobs. In this film, office cubicles are like cells, and supervisors are the same as wardens, a situation that triggered a negative relationship between the employees and the managers of Initech. I have noted three main aspects that explain why employees at Initech were unhappy, which also relates to the principles of human resource management (HRM) that I learned in class.

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First, managers rewarded the wrong behaviors, a situation that lowered the morale of hardworking employees. While downsizing, Initech executives decided to retain Peter over other workers despite his negative remarks and casual attitude. The ideas of Fottler (2002) about strategic HRM best explains this phenomenon. Fottler (2002) said managers should adopt human resource (HR) practices and methods that increase the probability that an organization always have a competent workforce. Also, the issue connects with the idea that a company should promote its HRs following "an objective performance appraisal system" (Fottler, 2002, p. 10).

Secondly, Initech offered unreasonable salaries, insufficient incentives, and rewards to its employees. Often, Peter spent his time in the office cubicles, mostly doing nothing. He was even happy to admit during a hypnotherapy session that he worked only15 minutes a week (Judge, 1999). The topic of dealing with detrimental personal conduct and unsatisfactory performance in a book by Maynard (2015) is useful in explaining this situation. In this regard, Maynard (2015) said that companies should implement discipline-focused job performance measures that motivate workers to perform to a satisfactory level. I think Initech managers should have introduced performance incentives to motivate employees.

Lastly, the workplace was boring, employees were given meaningless objectives, and the communications between employees and managers were inefficient. To Initech workers, completing writing TPS (Testing Procedure Specification) reports was their greatest achievement. White et al. (2008) said clear communication allows employees to understand how the organization works and how to be successful in the workplace.

Question: Should organizations implement strict HR policies to discipline workers engaging in an office romance? Consider that some employees work for long hours and cannot get an opportunity to meet other people outside the workplace.

References

Fottler, M. D. (2002). Strategic human resources management. Health Administration Press.

Judge M. (1999). Office Space [Video]. Files.fm. https://files.fm/u/pqv8569s#/view/Office.Space.1999.1080p.BluRay.H264.AAC-RARBG.mp4;play

Maynard, D. (2015). Employment law, employment relations, and healthcare. Health Administration Press.

White, K. R., Clement, D. G., & Stover, K. (2008). Healthcare professionals. Health Administration Press