Essay: Healthy Work Environments

Healthy Work Environments
Introduction
Would you want to stay at a business where the managers do not create a healthy work environment? There are many sources that talk about what makes a healthy and not healthy environment, and there are also sources that talk about the managerial aspect/or manager’s role in creating, eliminating, or managing unhealthy work environments. The paper will be talking about why this topic was selected, a historical overview, issues on this topic, the situational analysis, future implications, recommendations, implementation, and the conclusion.
Topic Selection
First, this topic was selected because of how much it impacts the world today. The world runs on money, and the businesses are what is keeping the economy running. Businesses also give many people jobs, and jobs are what people need to feed their family. Managers are the people in charge of keeping the business running and taking care of the employees and customers in that business. Do all managers do a good job? Not all of them do, and that really affects the workers and the stakeholders in the business.
Second, if the workers and the stakeholders are affected in a bad way, that affects the business as well, and in return, that would affect the economy. That is why people have done studies on what makes a work environment healthy or not healthy, and that is why this is super important to know. It is also important to know how to create a healthy work environment especially if one were to become a manager someday. It is important to learn from the mistakes of other managers before you, and there has been many mistakes that has been made already that will be talked about in this paper. There is so much to the history of creating a healthy work environment.
Historical Overview
Third, there are many authors who talked about a healthy work environment and how to create one, and one of their books really stood out. Shawn Murphy’s writing was phenomenon, and he is an independent consultant with 20 years of experience helping organizations creating workplace optimism. He is the cofounder and CEO or Switch & Shift, and he has so much to say regarding creating an environment to show the worker that they are cared for. He mentioned Studs Terkel who wrote a book called “Working”, and that was after he talked to many different people throughout three years. Many workers that he talked to said that they felt like their jobs caged them, and there were others who were able to show off their skills in their jobs (Cohen, 2004).
Also, during the early 1970’s, that was when management practices and computer were changing America, and business has obviously skyrocketed since then. The economy has grown, but people are more and more unhappy about the work environment. Job satisfaction has gotten worse, and that is why present managers should not abuse their power but to use it for the good of the people (Cohen, 2004). Many people throughout the years have been doing research and studying what makes a healthy work environment. Shawn Murphy gave us his definition of what makes a healthy work environment, and he teaches us what mindset managers should have.
Additionally, according to Shawn Murphy’s writing, a bad manager who is not good at creating a healthy work environment focuses too much on their power, and they are just focused on control and dominance. They do not let the workers’ human side of business to flourish, and they do not care about the workers that are in the business. He mentioned how managers are so focused on creating relationships with the customers and shareholders, but they tend to forget to create relationship with the employees that are working under them. There was a good point that he made, and it is the fact that businesses are always about relationships. He also pointed out that managers cannot keep thinking themselves as a manager, and he said that other words should be used like: coach, mentor, leader, and guide. That would impact workers in a more positive way, and it would solve many issues that are in the workplace (Murphy, 2016).
Impact/Issues
Consequently, many mangers have destructive management, and there are six symptoms that shows a manager that they are failing at leading the workers and creating a healthy work environment. The first symptom is called ‘Blind Impact’. It is where a leader is unaware of their actions, and they do not realize how their actions, attitude, and words impact the people around them. That would mean that she is unable to grow because in order to grow, one must know and understand their actions and how they are able to improve. It completely harms the manager’s relationship with others, and it would be hard to form a connection between them (Murphy, 2016). The second symptom is called ‘Antisocial Leadership’.  A manager would have a problem with encouraging and building up a community of workers that focuses on the same purpose. One example would be a manager who does not trust people, and he may not have super high interpersonal skills. They do not know how to use their voice as a leader, and they do not see how relationships are important among his employees. This type of manager might even take credit for others’ work, and that would make the workers feel used (Murphy, 2016).
Moreover, the third symptom is called ‘Chronic Change Resistance’. That is when a leader is unwilling to make changes that will help her team, and even if they finally are willing to adopt a change, it is not until it is very late. The fourth symptom is called ‘Profit Myopia’. That is when managers believe that the profit is the only part of success, and their focus would be short-termed. The decisions that would be made would make things good for the shareholders for a short-term, and it alienates customers and employees (Murphy, 2016).
By the same token, the fifth symptom is called “Constipate Inspiration’.  This type of manager does not know how to give inspiration, and they do not pay attention to what her employee experiences when they are at work. They do not focus on what personal values do they have themselves, and therefore, they do not know what she stands for. That would mean that they do not have an awareness of what kind of person they are (Murphy, 2016). The final symptom is called ‘Silo Syndrome’. This is where the manager cannot see past his immediate responsibilities. They do not care how the work life affects their employees’ lives, and that would cause the personal life of the workers to suffer deeply. That is one of the caused of employees being disrespected and mistreated, and this symptom is actually very common these days (Murphy, 2016).
Therefore, if the managers do not know how to properly lead their workers, it causes disruptions and distractions to the workplace and to the people at the workplace on working together to create a fulfilling workplace that everyone needs. If a manager does not know how to manage, does not have people skills, is abusive to their workers, etc., it leads to creating an unhealthy work environment that really hurts the people that are in it (Murphy, 2016). Sometimes, if too many workers are unhappy, it can be very costly to companies if they experience a large amount of turnover where many employees decide to leave the company they worked at. It if costly to replace and to train a new employee, and it takes a lot of time as well. Of course, if too many workers end up leaving, it could also lead to the company shutting down if they did not have that many workers in the first place. A company losing money or shutting down would of course affect any internal or external stakeholders of the company. That is why companies do try to make sure that they have a healthy work environment (Kinicki, 2018).
Situational Analysis
Of course, there are two companies that have their own management styles that create different work environments. The first company is called Foxconn, and they are a giant manufacturing subcontractor that is a Taiwan-based firm. It was established in China in the 1970’s, and later on, Silicon Valley and China’s special Economics Zones (SEZs) worked together in the technology business. They had thousands of paid engineers to design the software, and about 300,000 Chinese migrant workers did the assembling. It is occasionally called Foxconn City, and they produce iPhones, iPad camera, Nintendo video game consoles, Amazon ebook readers, Dell laptops, Nokia phones, Sony televisions, etc. They are a very successful company (Perlin, 2013).
However, they do not treat their workers right, and they definitely do not have a healthy work environment. Apple can keep 58.5 percent when an iPhone is sold, most of the rest goes to the material components, 1.8 goes to the manufactures in China, and only a little bit goes to the workers. They are underpaid, and Foxconn tries to keep their labor costs as close to zero as much as possible (Perlin, 2013). Most of the workers are in their late teens and early twenties and because they do not have residence permits, they are not like the locals and may not have access to basic service. The workers do not stay at Foxconn for long, and most of them quit within a year. In just Longhua, 24,000 workers quit every month, and the workers do not feel cared for at all. One of the workers said that the work is tedious, exhausting, and high-pressure, and in 2010, Foxconn had to install suicide nets because 14 workers jumped from dormitories and died. They have raised the wages significantly, but