Workplace Diversity

Introduction: Diversity without unity makes about as much sense as dishing up flour, sugar, water, eggs, shortening and baking powder on a plate and calling it a cake. William Pollard.

Workplace diversity management is broadly defined as the systematic and planned commitment by the organization to recruit, reward and promote a heterogeneous mix of employees. .The workforce diversity emerged mainly to further the availability equal opportunities in the workplace. This equal opportunity philosophy is aimed at ensuring that the organizations make the most out of the differences from a diverse workforce rather than losing talent which might assist the organization to be more efficient and effective. The effectiveness of an organization can be measured in different criteria among them is productivity, profits, growth, turnover, stability and cohesion.

Indias workforce has become increasingly diverse over the last decade. Employees from different generations, gender, states and cultures often work together in the same organization. With such workforce diversity, it becomes important for organizations to put in place policies and practices to build an inclusive and harmonious workplace. An inclusive and harmonious workplace is one that appreciates differences amongst workers and works towards maximizing their potential. Research has shown that well-managed diverse teams outperform

homogeneous teams as they tend to be more creative, and effective at problem solving. However, when diverse teams are not managed well, communication and trust can break down, resulting in lower performance. Organizations which create an inclusive and harmonious environment enhance their reputation with job seekers, allowing them to attract the best workers in the market. We will now discuss the Workplace Diversity, its origin, context, symptoms, causes and consequences.

Origin: Let us consider the case of workplace diversity in previous organization, NTPC. The NTPC had a policy for Promotion of diversity in organization, so that a good and cross cultural work environment can be promoted i.e. people from a particular state were not given posting in their home state, but later due to high level of attrition in company it was decided to switch to Home state policy so that employees could be retained back in the organization. People who join the organizations have the tendency to prefer their native states/city for job location. However this can lead to favoritism and local group formation resulting to imbalances in cultural diversity and workplace equilibrium, unproductive work environment which in turn leads to employee dissatisfaction.

Context: In the Indian context, diversity is generally surface level where people differentiate each other on the basis of ethnicity and regional background. With respect to NTPC, the PSU which has pan India presence in terms of project, they have to recruit the skilled personnel on a large scale. Differentiation is also based on reservations so various cultures and people from diverse background enters into organizations. Keeping in this view, NTPC had introduced the Home state policy where in people from a particular state had a option of joining projects in native place.

Symptoms: Prior to introduction of Home State policy, attrition rates were higher due to regional preferences of the people. For example, a person from North generally does not prefer to work in projects in Southern India due to language and cultural barriers. However due to Home State policy although there was a decline in attrition rates initially but with the passage of time, the adverse effects started resulting in people leaving the organization. Moreover, the discrimination of employees from the outside state by the local mass scale increased significantly. This leads to unhealthy work environment and employee dissatisfaction which further reduces the efficiency of individual, group and on organizational level.

Causes: Discrimination in the form of exclusion like employee from other state may not get preferences in appraisal cycle due to dominance of local ethnic group at the workplace. The cause is exclusion of certain people from job opportunities, social events, discussions or informal mentoring can occur unintentionally. Many engineers in NTPC claim they are assigned to marginal job roles or roles are given light workloads that dont lead to promotion and progress in careers. Disrespectful treatment including behaving in an aggressive manner of local people towards employee of other states, ignoring his/her opinions is some causes of unbalances of workplace diversity.

Consequences: The consequences of problem arising from Workplace diversity in NTPC can be summarized as follows: employee dissatisfaction, lower productivity and disturbed workplace environment. To tackle these problems, NTPC scrapped the Home state policy. Now they only recruit at the fresher level and designed a 1 year comprehensive program to judge the candidates aptitude and ability. Allocation to various projects and hence departments is now made on the basis of the candidates performance only, not on the basis of native places or regional biasing. This lead NTPC to excellence in governing the workplace diversity issue arising due to cultural difference of people working on particular project. This has helped NTPC become the no. one player in power sector and also become one of the best places to work.

MOTIVATION

CASE STUDY I joined EMC (Emerald) project at Accenture in January after a successful stint at SVN System Technologies in Mumbai, where I had worked as a trainee. I felt that Accenture offered better career prospects, as it was a big company and we were offered to work on the current technologies that were in demand in the market. I was sure I would excel in my new position at Accenture, just as I had done in my old job at SVN.I joined as Assistant Software Engineer at

Accenture, with a handsome pay hike for becoming a confirmed employee of the company. Accenture also had international operations and there was every chance that I would be sent to USA or the UK on a project. I was quite excited about the new job.I joined ERG eight-member team at Accenture within EMC project. I had met my team leader (Virendra) during the interview sessions, and was looking forward to working under him. My team members seemed warm and friendly, and comfortable with their work. Wanting to know more about my boss, I casually asked Shruti, one of the team members, about Virendra. Shruti said, "Virendra does not interfere with our work. In fact, you could even say that he tries to ignore us as much as he can." I was surprised by the comment but decided that Virendra was probably leaving them alone to do their work without any guidance, in order to allow them to realize their full potential. At SVN, I had worked under Sudhir Reddy and had looked up to him as a guide and mentor. He had always encouraged individual ideas, and let the team discover the flaws, if any, through discussion and experience. I wanted to believe that Virendra too was the non-interfering type. If that was the case, surely his non-interference would only help me to grow. In my first week at work, I was quite excited. The team had been assigned a new project and was facing a few glitches with the new software. I thought about the problem till late in the night and had come up with several possible solutions. I could not wait to discuss them with the team and Virendra. I thought of how Virendra would react when I told him that I had come up with several possible solutions to the problem. I was sure he would be happy with me having put in so much effort into the project, right from day one. I met him and told him about the problems we were having with the software. But before I could even finish, he told me that he was busy with other things, and that he would send an

email with the solution to all the members of the team by the end of the day, and that we could then implement it immediately. I was somewhat taken aback. However, ever the optimist, I thought that he had perhaps already discussed the matter with the team. I thought it would still be nice to bounce ideas off my new team mates and also to see what solutions others might come up with. I told them of all the solutions I had in mind. I waited for the others to come up with their suggestions but not one of them spoke up. I was surprised, and asked them point-blank why they were so disinterested. Sanjay, one of the team members, said, "What is the point in our discussing these things? Virendra is not going to have time to listen to us or discuss anything. He will just give us the solution he thinks is the best, and we will just do what he tells us to do. Why waste everyone's time?" I felt my heart sink. Was this the way things worked over here? However, I refused to lose heart and thought that maybe, I could change things a little. But as the days went by, I realized that Virendra was the complete opposite of my old boss. He had neither the time nor the inclination to groom his subordinates. He did not hold the team down to their deadlines nor did he ever interfere. In fact, he rarely said anything at all! If work did not get finished on time, he would just blame the team, and totally disassociate himself from them. Time and again, I found myself thinking of Sudhir, my old boss, and of how he had been such a positive influence. Virendra, on the other hand, even without actively doing anything, had managed to significantly lower my motivation levels. I gradually began to lose interest in the work - it had become too mechanical for my taste. I didn't really need to think; my boss had all the answers. I was learning nothing new, and felt my career was going nowhere. As I became more and more discouraged, my performance suffered. From being someone with immense promise and potential, I was now in danger of becoming just another mediocre techie.

I still tried keeping myself motivated and tried completing whatever little work that was given to me with the hope that Virendra would recognize my true potential. However when the time of appraisal came I was shocked to know that people with lesser knowledge, creativity and lazy attitude were given a better rating than me.

MOTIVATION:
Motivation is the force which makes a person raise performance, as a result of individual needs being accomplished; therefore inspiring one to complete the assigned needs, each employee at the work environment has individual needs which varies from person to person. Generally, human motivation is a personal characteristic and depending on the level of motivation of the employees, it determines the efforts that they put into work thereby increasing the standard of the organization in terms of production. At any workplace, the aim of the management is to get things done through the employees, therefore the motivation to the employees is necessary; the issue of motivation in most cases is overlooked at the workplace. In order to understand motivation the parties involved must clearly understand human nature. The managers who maintain high production understand their employees and create an enriched working environment which has the following, the Positive reinforcements, the effective disciplinary and punishment Fair treatment of people, satisfaction of the employees needs, setting the goals which are work related, restructuring of the jobs, the base rewards on the job performances. Motivation has a great effect on the output of any business in relation to both the quantity and quality. Most businesses heavily rely on the efficiency of production by using their staff to make sure that the products that are manufactured in numbers meet demand on the market. If the employees lack the motivation at the work place which is essential to increase their production to meet the demand, then the business can face problems which can lead to the disastrous consequences.

The managers need to identify the factors which can raise the motivation of their employees, and ensure that the work environment that is set up supports it. In most workplace environments this include; change, challenge, being in charge and a variety of the activities that have been integrated for everyday at the workplace. Some of the factors which managers need to look to motivate his employees are as below Opportunity to Learn, Develop and Advance as an Employee Flexible Hours Recognition The Opportunity to Contribute Independence and Autonomy Incentives motivate learning

DEMOTIVATION

Demotivation is contagious; even one demotivated employee who constantly cribs about work or other undesirable factors can quickly work on demotivating others too. Organizations are prone to the dangers of demotivation at all times. However, its important to be aware of it and to recognize and tackle it without delay.

To tackle demotivation effectively, an organization must know the reason behind its lackluster attitude. If a boss or colleague can help motivate such a coworker, it could go a long way to boost the employees morale and motivate him to be optimistic and have a positive attitude. Everyone needs to be motivated or enthused in all aspects of life. Motivation is the key to a happy and productive organization. For an employee to work well, the essence of motivation lies in him putting in his entire effort into his work and, at times even to go beyond doing prescribed tasks. Motivation plays an important role in employee productivity, quality and speed of work. When employees lack motivation, these factors are greatly affected. So, a positive and motivated environment at the workplace is important to keep employees motivated and enthused. Causes of Employee Demotivation in the above discussed case: Lack of Appreciation: An employee feels unappreciated for his efforts. Too much Work: An employee feels overburdened with a disproportionate chunk of work which renders him unable to perform his duties well and punctually. Lack of Clarity in Work: An employee flounders at work due to lack of clarity on his various tasks. Favouritism: These refer to unfair practices that favour one worker over another, especially during the performance cycle. Mistrust: This deals with an employee resorting to micromanaging everything, displaying mistrust in a co-workers capabilities. Miscommunication: Free flow of information is withheld or information is provided only on a need-to-know basis. This can be demotivation as it proves that the boss or organization does not fully trust its employees to share all available information on a project.

What Manager (Virendra) could do in the above case? Give Information Freely: Let people know of your plans and change of plans, if any. Regular weekly meetings can be organized not just to find out what work is done by whom but to give updates of the any higher management decision which may impact the employees. Listen and get involved: Listen to the said and the unsaid. Body language can speak volumes about the atmosphere in an organization, read it and do the needful, if it needs correction. Promote Teamwork: Teamwork is the way to go, pitting one against the other can only be counterproductive. Monthly team outing would help to promote team work. Praise and Encourage: Simple praise and words of encouragement for a task well-done are always welcome. Appreciate and Acknowledge: Appreciation of a task and acknowledgement of efforts put in are wonderful morale boosters. However care should be taken to appreciate the correct individual without any biasing. Show concern and extend help whenever possible: This makes life easier and better both for the employee and the organization. Manager could develop a plan to improve both technical and functional skills of his employees by organizing regular training. During appraisal: It will be great if the managers can take into confidence all this employee in a meet and explain to everyone why better rating was given to an individual employee and how during the next cycle he would be taking care of other employees who are due for appraisals. Also for those employees who have missed out during the current cycle ,may be provided some form of appreciations or compensations (like and Onsite/Onshore opportunity).

Team Work
Task Structuring process: The initial process of any project/assignment is to identify the tasks involved in achieving the goal/target effectively. These tasks are generally huge and have to be broken down into subtasks within the team, which is the major advantage of team work. Team work opens the platform for breaking down these tasks into many sub tasks; this process is called as Task Structuring process. When tasks are distributed among team members it is important that these distributed tasks (sub-tasks) are effectively merged. Below is the process flow in our task structuring process.

Team efficacy was the key while starting the task structuring process. Vision was to perform all the tasks efficiently, but we clearly understood that we have to work in a very organised and planned manner. Our main plan was to break down the task but before assigning tasks our first step was to appoint leaders, who would monitor whether the required tasks are completed by the team members, this process was the key in our Task Structuring process as this helped us in organising and monitoring the whole teams activities and make sure these tasks are performed effectively. We also understood that our initial task was not to use independent efforts but can be only achieved through interactions and discussions. The Process of task structuring: Task identification: To achieve a task its important that we first understand the requirements of the task before working on the tasks, to make sure that there is clarity in what is required from us. In our first meeting we had initially appointed two leaders who took the responsibility to brief the task, to understand the tasks, to clear all the doubts each and every team member had. Distribution of tasks: After understanding the tasks, we had a brain storming session were we discussed on the various OB related issues and also decided to do further research on these topics in the corporate environment. The team leader had also distributed the tasks among the team members which required every team member to bring his findings regarding the various issues that was discussed. He also gave the task to certain members of the team to focus on the team activities, how the team is getting formed, the team working style, the drawbacks in the team. Cases Discussed: 1. Diversity: i) NTPC had a policy for Promotion of diversity in organization, So that a good and cross cultural work environment can be promoted (i.e.) people from a particular state were not given posting

in their home state, But later due to high level of attrition in company it was decided to switch to Home state policy so that employees could be retained back in the organization. ii) But the home state policy led to group ism unproductive work environment and favoritism which led to employee dissatisfaction. iii) Globalization has made many to have employees of different nationality. iv) Interaction with employees from around the world is a challenge considering the language and cultural differences. v) Recently ITC tried to acquire a British company but its bid was rejected on the basis that it will not be able to manage the employees of the company. In India there is a lot of Cultural diversity. In our BLP batch also we have lot of diversity, in colleges we had quota system or seats reserved for students from different states which help people understand diversity and adjust to people from different backgrounds.

2. Teamwork: i) Teamwork in projects. As projects are multidisciplinary and involve different people with different management and technical Skills Sets. ii) Communication between employees is very important among employees as it is a prerequisite for good project management.

3. Motivation and De motivation:

i) Normally During appraisal time people get motivated or demotivated depending on the appraisal or increments in salary they get. ii) Good/bad job profile or good/bad job profile can be reasons for people getting motivated or demotivated iii) Appraisals should be done on annual basis but incentives or appreciation of good work should be done on monthly basis E.g. Star performer of the month, etc.

iv) Mutual consensus should be taken among the group on who should be given good appraisal on incentives. v) Regular one to one meeting with employees should be organized so that their problems could be heard and tried to be resolved. Sometimes people not performing well are given rewards or appreciation for their work so that they can be motivated to perform even better but these things can be taken negatively by people who are performing exceptionally well as they may feel that their hard work is not given due recognition. hard work

4. Leadership Qualities: i) Group leaders should not be biased towards members performing well, but they should take initiatives and help less performing employees to excel in the job. ii) They should treat all employees equally.

5. Perception: i) Stereotyping. ii) If a particular person belongs to a particular region or culture or nationality we normally develop a mindset about him or her which may be totally wrong.

6. Gender Biasing: i) Normally women are not considered good for tough job or work conditions, they are considered good for jobs involving soft skills. ii) Men are considered more responsible and hard working then ladies. 7. Attitude: 8. Emotional Quotient: i) Suppressed emotions during decision making.

Documentation: The research findings and these issues were discussed and two issues (motivation & diversity) were mutually accepted by the team as the most critical issues to be addressed in an organization. These tasks were discussed among all the members of the team and after consent from all the team members we distributed the documentation work to all the members of the team.

Group Norms: Group norms are standards that largely govern behavior within a group. Norms are mostly explicitly transmitted to the team members, but its not necessary that all the norms are explicitly transmitted it can at times be implicit. Its often believed that the team leaders should convey the norms and others have to just follow it, but this is not a very effective method of shaping group norms. Group norms have to be shaped in such a way to develop the team efficiency and ensure smooth functioning of the team. Norms have a strong influence on groupbased behavior and are difficult to change. So it should be framed in a manner that does not require any alterations in the near future as this would cause lots of confusions among the team members. The main need for Norms is to organize the team in an efficient way, to ensure equal participation from all the team members, to ensure there is co-operation, to ensure the sub tasks are performed on a timely manner. In the initial stages, we were so disorganized, only few members had attended the meeting, not attending the meeting on time, members of the team were just disrupting each others ideas and letting him/her complete his views and thoughts. We did not notice any norms being followed and realized that norms has to be shaped manually and most of them are not created automatically. Appointing the leader did not make things better as the team was still organized, but we knew that time would make things better and by the end of the first meeting few norms were framed and the team members were requested to follow them strictly so that the task can be completed effectively. Timely completion of distributed tasks: This norm was created to ensure that the team members completed the distributed tasks on timely manner. This is important as the whole task structuring process would not be effective.

Listening & avoiding Disruption: It is important that every team member listens to each others views and pays attention so that all will be motivated to share his/her views and thoughts. Avoiding disruptive behavior while any member is sharing his views was requested. Apart from these created norms few of the norms were automatically developed, (such as helping each other on tasks, understanding and following what was said to them by the leader, to freely express views and ideas. May be these were created automatically because of previous experience, the norms followed in the previous jobs. Team Development Stages: Teams go through various stages of development which include Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing (A framework by Bruce W. Tuckman). Team effectiveness relies mainly on the team development process, and also to understand the team behavior. The four stages are a reflection of the teams behavioral patterns. Forming: The main process of Forming is to understand clearly the tasks and also to understand the team behavior. This understanding is not only about the team but also each team member as an individual. The first day of the meeting was involved in understanding each other; there were lots of conversations, sharing ideas and thoughts. By the end of forming stage the team members had understood the mission, the meeting schedule was discussed and also the expected completion date, and also the norms. Storming: Storming is characterized by competition and conflict within the team as members learn to bend and mold their feelings, ideas, attitudes, and beliefs to suit the team organization. Lots of discussion and conflicts happened during the initial meetings and also in subsequent meetings; the main target was to have a controlled discussion and also to make sure that these discussions do not back fire. In the storming stage there were issues relating to assigning tasks and responsibilities. Listening and understanding each persons views and behaviors are more essential to avoid conflicts during these stages.

Norming: In this stage the team started understanding each other better, the team started acknowledging each person efforts and this boosted the teams energy level, this in turn resulted in high level of creativity, knowledge sharing. Performing: As mentioned earlier the team believes in Team Efficacy, now there is a sense of achievement, and accomplishment. There is support for experimentation in solving problems, and an emphasis on achievement.

Roles Performed:
The composition of a team includes that relates to how team should be staffed. A team comprises a group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. Teams are especially appropriate for conducting tasks that are high in complexity and have many interdependent subtasks. Teams have different needs and people should be selected for a team to guarantee that there is diversity and the different roles are filled. A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team. Teams normally have members with complementary skills and generate synergy through a coordinated effort which allows each member to maximize his/her strengths and minimize his/her weaknesses. Team members need to learn how to help one another, help other team members realize their true potential, and create an environment that allows everyone to go beyond their limitations. Robbins identified nine potential team roles and stated that managers need to understand an individuals strength, then select team members with those strengths in mind and finally allocate work assignments to fit the members preferences. Everyone on the team has many different responsibilities and tasks; its not just the daily grind of doing the same things over and over again. Group Leaders initiate the process by starting the topic and injecting fresh ideas wherever required .They also tried to maintained the decorum and see to it that we didnt divert from our

topic. Team Members performed variety of roles but the major roles don by them are given below.

Team Members
Ritesh Das Ritika Adhikari

Roles
Creator Promoter

Rohit Gupta Rushabh Shah Sagar Benere Sabyasachi Das Sanoop S Sandeep Laxman Ramtekkar Sandeep Narayanan

Assessor Organizer Producer Controller Maintainer Adviser Linker

Conflict Surfacing and Resolution: Conflict on a team isnt necessarily bad. Relationship conflict is almost always dysfunctional. But task conflicts stimulate discussion, promote crucial assessment of problems and options, and can lead to better team decisions. The only way out of conflict is through it: it is inevitable, and often desirable in a diverse system. Conflict is a normal, and even healthy, part of relationships. After all, two people cant be expected to agree on everything at all times. Since relationship conflicts are inevitable, learning to deal with them in a healthy way is crucial. When conflict is mismanaged, it can harm the relationship. But when handled in a respectful and positive way, conflict provides an opportunity for growth, ultimately strengthening the bond between two people. By learning the skills you need for successful conflict resolution, you can keep your personal and professional relationships strong and growing While conflict can lead to greater organizational creativity, it often makes people feel uncomfortable or anxious. People may try to manage their discomfort with conflict in different ways, such as: avoiding the feelings and the issues or people that seem to stir them up; confronting it head on; or trying to get rid of the people that are perceived to be causing the conflict. It is important for organizations to be able to work with difference and with the conflicts that it generates. However, when conflict occurs consistently between specific individuals or groups within an organization it is usually a symptom of a larger organizational issue. Getting rid of a problematic employee or group may work temporarily, but often results in conflict surfacing in another part of the system. People often think of conflict as fighting . Its important to realize

that fighting is only one way of dealing with conflict. A more useful definition of conflict is the condition in which peoples concerns appear to be incompatible. A concern is anything people care about. In an organization, peoples concerns might centre around such things as deciding how to allocate resources, determining what facts bear on an issue, and supporting different strategies. Conflict can be defined as a serious disagreement over needs or goals. For the purpose of this paper, team conflict. Can be defined as serious disagreements over needs or goals among team members. Conflict behaviors, or symptoms of conflict, include: Not completing work on-time or to quality goals Gossip Not returning phone calls or e-mails Passive/aggressive behaviour Not responding to requests for information Hostility Hoarding information that should be shared Complaining Finger pointing Verbal abuse Not attending required meetings Filing grievances or lawsuits Absenteeism

 Physical violence When people find themselves in conflict, their behavior can be described in terms of where it lies along two independent dimensionsassertiveness and cooperativeness. Assertiveness is the degree to which you try to satisfy your own concerns, and cooperativeness is the degree to which you try to satisfy the other persons concerns. The figure below shows the main choices you have in a conflictthe conflict-handling modes. Competing is assertive and uncooperative. You try to satisfy your own concerns at the others expenseto win. Accommodating is unassertive and cooperativethe opposite of competing. You sacrifice your own concerns to satisfy the other persons. Compromising is partially assertive and partially cooperative. You look for an acceptable settlement that only partially satisfies both your own and the other persons concerns. Avoiding is unassertive and uncooperative. You try to sidestep or postpone the conflict, satisfying neither persons concerns. Collaborating is assertive and cooperative. You try to problem-solve to find a solution that completely satisfies both your concerns and the others.

This deceptively simple framework helps people think more clearly about the choices they have in a conflict. Many are surprised to realize that collaborating is possible in conflict that they dont have to compete to get their needs met, and that they can be cooperative without being soft. The collaborative process, in fact, can be quite passionate at times, with peo ple expressing their views strongly so as to be heard and taken seriously. But what differentiates collaborating from other conflict-handling modes is that people are listening to others views, not just focusing on their own, and are trying to incorporate them into sound decisions.

Conflict Resolution Step 1 The first step is for individuals to try to resolve the conflict with each other. We might need to perform some coaching first. Or, we may need to listen to each side independently. This will help each individual to sort out their thoughts and feelings before the one-on-one. Being able to resolve conflict with each other helps individuals to learn how to confront each other, clearly state the issue, listen to each other, and work together to find a mutually acceptable solution. The benefit is that individuals learn a highly critical skill for now and the future, and become more valuable team members. Step 2 If the two individuals are not successful with a one-on-one meeting, we may need to intercede. If we have not already met with each person, we would do that first. Then we would bring the two people together with clear goals and an expected outcome. There should be rules or guidelines as to how the meeting will be conducted and how they are expected to behave. This latter step about behaviour may not be required in all instances, but we all know that sometimes we have to be very explicit about what will and will not be tolerated. Effective and ineffective (particularly social loafing) behaviors by team members Every member of the team contributed their share for completing this study. The phenomenon of social loafing was practiced by some of the team members. Apart from that various team members came up with some very effective behavior such as showing proactive behavior in pre-preparation for the meetings held, effective presentation of ideas to the team which lead to the increased efficiency and productivity while working. Social loafing describes the phenomenon that occurs when individuals exert less effort when working as a group than when working independently. Research indicates that there is some degree of social loafing within every group, whether high-functioning or dysfunctional.

Many theories explain why social loafing occurs., below are several explanations of social loafing causes: Equitable contribution: Team members believe that others are not putting forth as much effort as themselves. Since they feel that the others in the group are slacking, they lessen their efforts too. This causes a downward cycle that ends at the point where only the minimum amount of work is performed. Sub maximal goal setting: Team members may perceive that with a well-defined goal and with several people working towards it, they can work less for it. The task then becomes optimizing rather than maximizing. Lessened contingency between input and outcome: Team members may feel they can hide in the crowd and avoid the consequences of not contributing. Or, a team member may feel lost in the crowd and unable to gain recognition for their contributions. This description is characteristic of people driven by their uniqueness and individuality. In a group, they lose this individuality and the recognition that comes with their contributions. Therefore, these group members lose motivation to offer their full ability since it will not be acknowledged. Additionally, large group sizes can cause individuals to feel lost in the crowd. With so many individuals contributing, some may feel that their efforts are not needed or will not be recognized. Lack of evaluation: Loafing begins or is strengthened in the absence of an individual evaluation structure imposed by the environment. This occurs because working in the group environment results in less self-awareness. For example, a member of a sales team will loaf when sales of the group are measured rather than individual sales efforts.

Unequal distribution of compensation: In the workplace, compensation comes in monetary forms and promotions and in academics it is in the form of grades or positive feedback. If an individual believes compensation has not been allotted equally amongst group members, he will withdraw his individual efforts.

Non-cohesive group: A group functions effectively when members have bonded and created high-quality relationships. If the group is not cohesive, members are more prone to social loafing since they are not concerned about letting down their teammates The dedicated behavior which all the team members exhibited brought out the best from everybody and there was a sense of leadership present in every member of the team. There were a lot of creative ideas raised by different team members during the course of the activity. The team members focus on their key goals and objectives and pace themselves accordingly. When a team member falls behind in a certain area, everyone pitches in to get back on schedule. Each of the team members discuss decisions that impact the team and they generally reach decision by consensus. They let each other know what is happening that might affect the teams work. They inform the team members when they will miss a meeting or be late, and they keep other members informed about their progress or lack of progress. Learning can be transferred to your job at the ICICI bank The exercise we were involved for the last 15 days was really a great learning for each of the team members. Each team members participated in team projects in a number of activities after which everyone discovered that cooperative activities fostered a deeper understanding of material and led to an increased ability to apply new knowledge to real-life situations in the ICICI Bank. One reason why teamwork increases learning is that members of the team take turns teaching and sharing their knowledge with one another. Information is reinforced through discussion and role playing. In this activity different members were looking at the same problem and were trying to find different solutions. A team can review ideas and put together a final solution which incorporates the best individual ideas. Apart from this other benefits which can be transferred to ICICI Bank which were learned from this activities are: Exposure to different points of view Communication Skills in putting your thoughts in front of the team Critical Thinking and Evaluation Skills Conflict Resolution Skills