Introduction
JP Morgan Chase is a financial services firm with operations across 60 countries in the world. With a wide portfolio of services ranging from investment banking to small business and commercial banking, JP Morgan needs a diverse workforce that can provide world class service to its globally diverse customers.
Main body
Being a service oriented business JP Morgan needs employees that are talented and have both the technical and the soft skills that are needed for providing quality, consistent service, which is its competitive edge given the cut throat competition among financial service providing companies. Diversity of the work force plays an important role in this where employees from all walks of life are needed to cater to the unique cultural differences in global consumers. While diversity is an advantage in multinational corporations such as JP Morgan, it also calls for added management responsibility. According to William B. Harrison, Jr. Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at JP Morgan Chase:
JPMorgan Chase has seen first-hand the benefits gained with a corporate culture that’s actively inclusive, where colleagues are recognized based on their talent and skills, and where diversity is used as a competitive advantage to benefit from the broadest possible pool of employee talent, experiences and perspectives.
In order to have a reliable and efficient work force JP Morgan’s work environment needs to be an encouraging and friendly atmosphere that inculcates a sense of empowerment among employees along with a set sense of focus and direction to help employees channel their energies into providing constantly improved and innovative services. To build such an environment, JP Morgan should have a set of guiding principles and values that give rise to a strong sense of business ethics among employees. For this managers should be focused on how best to adapt their organization to change and improvement along with using management techniques that help employees achieve their material, security, social affiliation and self actualization needs along with meeting organizational objectives. In fact, one of the principles of workplace environment and diversity at Chase is:
Our goal is to provide an inclusive work environment founded on a meritocracy in which everyone has the opportunity to succeed. (JPMorgan Chase , 2009)
Moreover, Chase has implemented this regime to an extent where it has gained recognition from the American Psychological Association in 2003 when it received the award for being a “Psychologically Healthy Workplace”.
The fact that decision making power is given to people at all levels of the hierarchy in accordance with the needs of each job also helps in making a happy working environment.
In order to gauge how effectively JP Morgan Chase uses power principles and how it employs decisions and actions in managing business ethics, organizational change and in decision making criteria, we need to evaluate its critique management.
Before proceeding onto describing critique management at Chase it is imperative that a discussion be carried out to see what power principles are and how they affect workplace environment at the company. According to John Harricharan, the twelve power principles to garner maximum management success are: The power of beliefs; the power of self-esteem and self-worth; the power of the mastermind and synergy; the power of inspiration; the power of the present; the power of choice; the power of gratitude and giving thanks; the power of change; the power of giving and receiving; the power of action and inaction; the power of silence, solitude and meditation and the power of association and influence. (Harricharan, 2009)
These power principles, though about individual success are in fact applicable to organizational managers as they describe how an employee each in his/her own capacity can contribute towards a strong culture of good business ethics and organizational change. In the case of JP Morgan, business ethics are the focal point of the human resource management strategies of the company where the responsibility for creating an organization that is both diverse and yet non-discriminatory in its approach towards its team members, lies at the top. It is in fact the top management team that strategizes how the company is going to approach its employees and how it is going to inculcate in them a sense of meritocracy that is void of any bias with regards to ethnicity, gender or sexual preferences. So strong is this sense of ethical behavior at Chase that the company has formulated a no-discriminatory policy that outlines the goal of the company to be an inclusive organization where all employees are held in esteem and are valued, and are empowered.
In addition to this, the company has a diversity leadership team of senior managers from both line and staff departments who are held accountable to legislate and execute diversity measures in their particular jurisdiction. Moreover in compliance with Maslow’s theory, the company aims to fulfill employees’ social needs and implement the power principle of association and influence by initiating Employee Networking Groups (ENG) that are open to all employees for membership. These ENGs have more than 100 chapters worldwide and fulfill the aim of the company wherein they provide support to employees in terms of offering mentoring and encouraging development, strengthening the firm’s culture and are platform that the company utilizes to expedite organizational change. (HiAll BBS, 2009)
In evaluating and suggesting ways of improving critique management at JP Morgan Chase one should understand that even though the top management is involved in managing the work force effectively and in providing a sustainable environment that encourages empowerment, ethical behavior and openness to improvement and organizational change, views of employees lower in the hierarchy should also be considered. This is an important aspect of managing the company as people who are actually faced with a job each day can better determine their needs and how to improve the business processes in their particular area. Without this a company might fail to recognize the basic needs of its employees and in turn might not be able to meet their recognition and material desires, leading to dissatisfaction and a feeling of disassociation with organizational values and initiatives in the least.
Moreover in encouraging ethical behavior the company has a rigid code of ethics that clearly states that among the actions that the company will take against offenders might also include dismissal depending on the nature of the offence. Moreover, in order to satisfy its external stakeholders who include consumers, government, shareholders, social workers among many others who are affected by the company’s business conduct, several policies have been put in place to minimize harm to society and to benefit the community at large. Being an important part of good business ethics, environment friendly policies and social benefit initiatives such as adoption of orphans have been implemented by the company.
Conclusion
Therefore, in critique management on JP Morgan Chase, one can conclude that while the company is proactively supporting organizational change and ethical behavior, it needs to be more than just a financial company; it has to be a model citizen, a model business and a model employer in order to keep all internal and external customers content.
References
Harricharan, J. (2009). John Harricharan’s 12 Power Principles. Web.
HiAll BBS. (2009). Diversity – JP Morgan. Web.
JP Morgan Chase & Co. (2009). Principles. Web.