Introduction
Different people work in various fields, which offer different challenges. For instance, social work has different demands from technical, which is more engaging. It is therefore quite agreeable that each category of professionals faces different levels of engagements, depending on their types of work. Consequently, each category requires different management skills to achieve their efficiency, which is vital for sustainability as well as competitive advantage. This paper will explore the reasons for different management methods between technical professionals and other staffs, motivational difference between female professionals, IT managers and staff as well as ways of managing cross-cultural professionals.
Technical professionals are usually meticulous individuals given the fact that their tasks involve use of facts, which are tangible and solid. This makes them alienated as they spend most of their time understanding their field in details as compared to other professionals. It also makes managing them quite challenging, and this therefore calls for a highly conceptualized manager to deal with them. Highly motivated individuals tend to improve in efficiency and this is essential in building technical professionals. It is also vital to note that female and male technical professionals respond differently in such environments, and females tend to be consumed in their tasks and hence the need to motivate them.
Managing Technical Professionals
Although people seem similar, nature of work may affect their response to each other; management of Technical professionals is different from other staffs and is very demanding. This is because these professionals work in a very demanding but isolated area, and given that they have different talents, team work is very essential, and this is only possible when the barriers in their relations is broken. Managers dealing with technical individuals need to understand them and be ready for a two-way communication. This could be difficult in other areas but is very necessary in technical fields, where employees are subjected to more stresses (Creighton, 1990, pp. 63-65).
At these levels, very high skills may not be required from a manager, but he/she must be of higher conceptualization. Relation is very important in determining a manger’s capacity, this is where an organizational culture can be formulated, and followed purposefully by all the relevant stakeholders. Effective communication is thus of essence to a manager. Other needs for effective management may require regular training since technology changes rapidly, this will help the staff to improve their understanding and learn new methods of execution. Feedback is also essential in Technical field; this should be constructive to avoid misunderstanding between the manager and employees. Therefore, as can be seen, special leadership skills are desired to manage technical professionals effectively as compared to other staffs (Creighton, 1990, pp. 63-65).
Motivating Technical Professionals
Every individual requires motivation in his/her duties to complete them efficiently. This is a very difficult and equally important process to follow by the managers. Besides, it is not a surety that motivation would bring success; however, lack of it virtually guarantees failure, which could extend for years if not mitigated. Highly motivated individuals have the capacity to perform better than brighter peers do; this is mainly because they work arduously to overachieve. It has been found throughout decades of research that true motivation is intrinsic and comes from the kind of assignment or work individuals are given, if they enjoy the placement, they will go out of their way to get it done.
In addition, there are extrinsic factors like security, salaries and other benefits like improved working conditions which may be vital, but not as intrinsic, especially in the technical world where recognition is very important in each field. Therefore, it is only understandable that IT professionals will pursue intrinsic factors, which include giving them room to apply their own independent actions. Other staff members will probably enjoy extrinsic factors mentioned above since their work is cumulative and hence IT managers should be able to conceptualize this to give freedom to technical professionals to enjoy their work (Katz, 2005, pp. 1-10).
Female IT professionals have been found to dwindle in numbers of late, and this has been attributed mainly to some organizational cultures. When these cultures are explored creatively, female workers will have the freedom to enjoy their duties. Perception of IT in girls is also a main problem; they need to be appreciated to gain interest since their perception is that IT is boring. With better culture at work, more female professionals will be motivated (George, 2008, pp. 1).
Managing cross-cultural professionals
In this modern era, professionals are pooled from different countries of the world with varying cultures. Managers are therefore challenged to respond effectively to this problem given that most people like to align to their ethnic backgrounds. Promoting effective communication and relation between staffs is very important in bridging this gap, to allow for a unified team. Work ethics, relating to organizational culture should be enforced to bind the team irrespective of their backgrounds. Cross-cultural workshops should also be organized regularly to help gel the team and improve effective communication (Sawyer & Rosenbaum, 2000, pp. 501-504).
Conclusion
People maybe the same, but the nature of their tasks may require different ways of response, this in effect, differentiates the methods, which may be employed to effectively manage and motivate them. For instance as has been mentioned, Technical professionals, require freedom to execute their tasks independently with the motive of earning recognition while, other staff members work collectively since their nature of work cannot effectively distinct what area is done by who. It follows that motivation for technical professionals would lay more on the manager promoting intrinsic factors as well as giving works that they enjoy while, for other staffs much emphasis would be placed on extrinsic factors of motivation.
Reference List
Creighton, W. (1990). Managing Technical Staff, Proceedings of the 18th annual ACM SIGUCCS conference on User services, Cincinnati, Ohio, Pages: 63-65.
George, R. (2008). Women falling out of love with IT. ComputerWeekly. Web.
Katz, R. (2005). Motivating Technical professionals today: to thrive, scientists and engineers need an ambidextrous environment that can support motivational dualism. AllBusiness. Web.
Sawyer, S. & Rosenbaum, H. (2000). Exploring motivational differences between software developers and project managers, the 6th Joint Meeting on European software engineering conference and the ACM SIGSOFT symposium on the foundations of software engineering, Dubrovnik, Croatia, Pages 501-504.