SP$24\_$MGT$230\mathrm{.}70$

Discussion Assignment $6$

Discussion Assignment $6$

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Due Apr $21$

$12\mathrm{.}5$ points

$19$ Replies, $19$ Unread

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Discussion Topic: Discussion Assignment $6$Discussion Assignment $6$

The Jobless Employed

The Vox article $$How Some People Get Away with Doing Nothing at Work$$ describes an organizational phenomenon that the author, Emily Stewart, calls $$the jobless employed.$$

Having unproductive employees should be a serious problem for an organization in a capitalist free market economy, where competitive advantage usually depends in part on maximum efficiency, yet businesses everywhere seem to have the problem of people on the payroll with not enough to do$.$

Moreover, the problem is more than a lack of motivation on the part of those doing nothing at work $$ other issues are obviously involved. One of Stewart$$s conclusions is that managers are to blame for the problem, but that seems to be an incomplete analysis of the $$jobless employed$$ situation.

After reading the article, discuss it with your classmates, attempting to define some of the management issues involved. How would you, as a manager, deal with underutilized people on the job? What sort of changes in management practice could prevent $($or at least diminish$)$ the problem of $$doing nothing at work$?$ Or are such situations perhaps an unavoidable sort of $$friction$$ within the functioning of a business entity?

You should be able to clearly identify at least four areas of management best practices that we've covered so far in the course that relate to the problem of the "jobless employed."

Useless jobs and getting away with doing nothing at work $-$ Vox.pdf