Introduction
People always try to foresee what is waiting for them in the future. Taking into consideration the conditions under which the modern world develops, it becomes rather significant for people to outline and determine the ways in which management of this or that enterprise or public institution will be carried out and which obstacles could be met on the path of its development. Thus, management acquires critical importance for all the spheres of human activities directed at reaching wealth and building high standards of life:
Managing the global enterprise and modern business management have become synonymous. The terms international, multinational, transnational, and global can no longer be relegated to a subject of organizations or to a division within the organization (Adler, p. 3).
Especially, it is important in such vital spheres of human activities as business, education, and, of course, health care services and health care insurance. Drawing from this, the present paper will focus on such aspects of the future development of health care insurance sphere as organizational structure, decision making models, problem solving and communication. These aspects will be preceded by the general overview of the changes that the USA will have experienced by 2020 in respect of demography, economics and social sphere. All these points will be considered from the individual, CEO and senior leadership perspectives exemplified by MetLife (Metropolitan Life Insurance Company from New York), as leadership means much for any kind of change or development. Besides, according to Northouse (2004), “research findings on leadership from all of these areas provide a picture of a process that is…sophisticated and complex” (1) and this paper will try to analyze them.
Context
The context of the issues of health care insurance is much wider than this very sphere only. The process of globalization, liberalization of markets and integration of economies of various countries make it rather difficult for any sphere of social life to develop separately. Thus, according to the forecasts that the different Departments of the US Federal Government makes for 2020, these processes will continue to develop and bring more profit to the newly emerging economies like Chinese and Indian ones. For example, according to Cisco Systems Survey (2006), the “Global GDP will grow at an average annual rate of 3.5% in 2006-20 (similar to the past 25 years).” (Cisco Systems, 7) Drawing form these data, the statement can be made the forecasts for the future 12 years are overall positive for all the spheres of human activity and areas of economy, in which Asian countries will take leading positions and the USA will be the second country in the world according to its GDP growth rates equaling 3% per year but still being on top of the most powerful economies of the world (Cisco Systems, 2006).
Demographics of the changes that the workforce is to have experienced by 2020 are also studied by the US Census Bureau that aimed at defining the fertility and mortality rates in the USA, distinguishing demographic changes in respect of race, sex and age. Thus, according to the US Census Bureau (2008), the population of the United States will is expected to grow from 282, 125 million to 335, 805 million people. Respectively, the proportion of different age groups, sexes and racial groups will also change in the US society accordingly. Special group of the population will be constituted by the people of Hispanic origin which increases in number especially fast. The exact numbers and the full picture of the development till 2020 are presented in the table by US Census Bureau (Table 1):
(US Census Bureau, 2008)
As it is obvious from the above presented data on economics and demography, social sphere will also have experienced considerable changes by 2020. The major factors of change will be the increase of interest in educational sphere due to the growth of population, growth of social services necessity, etc. However, employment rates will also continue to decrease from 1, 4% expected in 2010 to 0, 8% in 2020 (Cisco Systems, 15). Consequently, the need of people in the health care insurance services will grow as far as the population is expected to continue its dramatic increase, and the numbers of small children and aged people are also expected to increase. Consequently, these groups of people who are traditionally most of all interested in health care insurance services will provide this sphere of social life with the wide field for work and development. MetLife as one of the leaders in the area of health care insurance in the United States will also be affected by those changes and its workforce will face a number of considerable modifications in all aspects of the company’s activities (MetLife, 2008).
Organizational Structure
MetLife, as it has already been stated, is one of the leaders on the United States market of services of health care insurance. As a reputable and respectable company, MetLife possesses its own plans for business development for several years in future. One of such plans is titled Business Continuity Plan that outlines the basic initiatives that the company is to take in future to preserve its present customer base and attract as much new customers as possible. Among these initiatives, the formation and development of the properly formulated and established organizational structure is of paramount importance. The present workforce projection for the year 2020 is aimed at forecasting the development of this aspect of company’s activity in future.
On the whole, world trends for 2020 state that organizational structure of companies will change in the coming 12 years. It is connected with needs and demands of all the layers of management and ordinary employees. Thus, the forecast of organizational structure change for MetLife Company up to 2020 is also oriented in this direction. In other words, the company will be in need of considerable modernization of organizational structure. From the point of view of CEO perspective, this will result in the decrease of duties and free schedule of the work of this person. It will be explained by the need to present more freedom and autonomy in decision making to the managers and ordinary employees of the company. Thus, a person working as an insurance agent will be given the authority to carry out his part of work autonomously being controlled by the company’s CEO only in the specified periods of time, for instance once a month of half a year (Daft, 2007).
Consequently, from the point of view of the senior leadership, i. e. management staff of the company MetLife, such a change in the organizational structure of the company will result in the shift of duties and working functions. Management will not be concerned with the organization of all contacts and working activities of the company but only control the work of employees as a medium stage before transferring the information obtained from this control to the CEO of MetLife. Already today, MetLife is concerned with the coming changes and develops the strategies to make them not very sharp and difficult changing the structure of the company gradually: “MetLife has a documented corporate policy requiring each Business Unit to develop a business continuity plan” (MetLife, 2008)
Finally, from the point of view of the employees of MetLife, this organizational change will have necessarily happened by 2020 due to the necessity to attract workers and make their jobs more involving to increase the productivity of the company. For example, according to the Cisco Systems Survey (2006), over a half of the respondent (the exact figure is 64%) consider modification of organizational structure to be the most relevant direction in which all companies will develop to reinforce their performance results in the coming decade (35). Thus, organizational structure of MetLife will be modified with special emphasis put on the autonomous work of the company’s units in order to increase the efficiency of company’s work.
Decision Making Models
Respectively, the issue of decision making in MetLife will also be modified as far as it is closely connected with the issues of organizational structure. Moreover, the demands of the market of the health care insurance services will make the majority of companies, especially those who plan to preserve influence in the sphere, to pay closer attention to the issues of decision making models in their companies. Recent studies of such scholars as Adler (2007), Daft (2007), Northouse (2004) and many others demonstrate that employees are no longer satisfied with the limited range of rights they have and functions they fulfill at work. Thus, the demand of the future, and the projection for 2020 proves that, is the autonomy of workers in their actions and decisions. In this aspect, close connection of this issue with organizational structure of the company can be observed. If MetLife plans to keep to the requirements of the markets in 2020 it will have to make its organizational structure “flatter and less hierarchical” (Cisco Systems, p. 75).
Considering this aspect of workforce projection for 2020 from the CEO point of view, the above mentioned change will also make their work easy. In other words, management of the company will become an easier task due to the principle of division of functions and responsibility. The CEO of MetLife will have to concentrate on control over the performance of all the branches of the company without directly interfering into the work of any particular department whether it is accident health care insurance, health insurance for protection against illnesses, or any other case. At the same time, managerial staff of MetLife will be relieved from the necessity to control the performance of the whole company and decide all organizational issues as decision making and responsibility will be spread over all the employees of the company: “Greater employee participation in decision-making, through mechanisms such as decision markets, will become more prevalent” (Cisco Systems, p. 83).
Consequently, ordinary employees will get more rights and opportunities to influence the decision-making models in the company under consideration. Employees will be able to decide tasks and questions of minor importance leaving the global ones for decision by managerial staff and especially CEO. However, MetLife will experience the serious change in its decision making models, and from the point of view of ordinary employees, this will result in their greater possibilities to feel their significance for the company and to take part in the process of decision making and business activity planning (Daft, 2007).
Problem Solving
Problem solving is another rather significant aspect of the performance of every company. This aspect, if properly developed and organized in the company, allows making the process of solving the issues company faces easier and faster. Participation of as much experienced and qualified people as possible in this process provides for the improvements in company’s performance, and together with proper decision making and organizational structure, makes it possible for the company to be aware of abilities of all its employees. Consequently, joint method of problem-solving, i. e. involving numerous specialists to it, is seen as the one that will increase in internal and external affairs of any organization. This fact is explained by the social process in which both customers and suppliers participate more in the development of an idea of a good or a service and in its development. Moreover, multifunctional and international groups of people work together more frequently nowadays and are expected to have increased their collaboration by 2020. In all this, effective problem solving is of crucial importance (MetLife, 2008).
Thus, MetLife will be interested in the development of effective problem solving techniques to improve its internal atmosphere and establish more contacts and business ties with international and foreign companies. Moreover, the importance of the problem solving skills is expected to increase to 31% taking the third place among the most important skills that a company needs to develop in order to perform effectively. Also, over 90% of CEOs, according to the surveys carried out by the US Census Bureau (2008) and Cisco Systems (2006), claim that they expect huge increase in the efficiency of problem solving skills over the coming decade which will bring the growth of rates of collaboration within companies, i. e. between the different layers of company’s hierarchy. Taking into consideration, that scholars expect the decrease of hierarchical division in companies, the improvement in the problem solving models will result in the better understanding and cooperation between the employees of the company and between the company and its customers. Thus, MetLife will carry out the substantial reorganizing of its policies in respect of problem solving because nowadays this aspect of its performance is controlled mainly by the CEO and senior managerial staff. Drawing from this, CEO perspective of the issue will consist in easy control of the company’s operation, while managers and ordinary employees will share the burden of responsibility with the CEO. Thus, all the three perspectives, namely CEO, senior management and employee perspectives, of this issue will be considered by the changes in problem solving models that are expected to happen by 2020 (Cisco Systems, 2006).
Communications
Special importance is attributed to the sphere of communications in the conditions under which the modern world develops. The necessity to communicate with people from different cities and countries and to reply to their requests as fart as possible, make modern informational technologies and communications means of crucial for the sphere of the health care insurance as well. Modern world set the tasks of fats access to information and reply to any requests of customers. That is why companies working in health care insurance are nowadays greatly dependant on the internet and other electronic means of communication like Skype, etc.:
Online communications can be used to analyse applications for insurance, assign a premium, calculate reserve requirements, and even judge claims, with satellites taking high-resolution photos of insured properties (Cisco Systems, p. 46).
Thus, MetLife is expected to concentrate on this issue in its policies for future not less than on the three previously discussed points. Information exchange and access to the means of communication are of crucial importance in the sphere of activity they operate in. Consequently, MetLife has no alternative as to prepare the ground for the considerable changes in this aspect of their activities that are expected to take place by 2020 (Daft, 2007). Nowadays, MetLife has a modern and constantly updated web site giving its visitor access to all the information about the company and inviting them to become customers online or personally. However, this is not enough and 2020 will bring some other improvements in the use of communications by MetLife. First of all, the updating of equipment and preparation of the employees to work with it will be the major steps that the company will have to take. Also, educational programs for employees and opportunities to communicate and exchange experience with domestic and foreign companies, partners and customers will be implemented by 2020 (Adler, 2007).
From, the point of view of the CEO, such changes will be connected with initial difficulties which, however, will be overcome by skills and abilities to work with the modern means of communications. The senior management perspective can also benefit from these innovations that are expected to come, as their control over the performance of the branches of MetLife they are responsible for will be made easier. The efficiency of the company’s performance will also be increased by easier access to the company’s services for the larger numbers of customers from all the areas of the world. The ordinary employees of MetLife will benefit from these changes as well by having access to company’s information and ability to work distantly, thus increasing the efficiency of company’s performance (Daft, 2007).
Conclusions
To conclude, it is necessary to restate that the modern world is developing rather quickly and changes that can happen by 2020 may impress the most experienced people. These changes are important for all spheres of human activity, as keeping to the latest standards assures success of this or that organization, especially if the sphere of health care insurance is taken into consideration. As far as “definitions of success now transcend national boundaries” (Adler, 3), the workforce projection made for MetLife company is rather important for the company’s future development. It is obvious that by 2020 serious changes will happen in economy, social sphere and demography of the USA, and MetLife will experience them in the form of reorganization of such areas of its activity as organizational culture, decision making, problem solving and communications. Thus, MetLife will by 2020 experience shift in organizational culture expressed in less hierarchical structure of the company and more responsibility given to ordinary employees. At the same time, those employees will be included in the number of people eligible of decision making and problem solution in the company. Finally, communications will acquire even more important role than they have nowadays influencing greatly the efficiency of MetLife performance.
References
- Adler, N. & Gundersen, A. (2007). International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior (5th Ed.). Canada: South Western (Thompson Learning).
- American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. (5th ed.). Washington, DC: APA.
- Cisco Systems. (2006). Economic Intelligence Unit: Foresight 2020. The economist.
- Daft, R. (2007). Organizational Theory and Design (9thEd). Thomason South-Western.
- Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. (2008). It’s at times like these that MetLife sets itself apart.
- Northouse, P.G. (2004). Leadership: Theory and practice. (3d ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
- US Census Bureau. (2008). Interim Projections of the U.S. Population by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: Summary Methodology and Assumptions.